Kyle got a bite and stood up awkwardly, favoring his injured leg. He waited for a few more nibbles and yanked back on the rod. Hooking the fish, he started to reel it in.
Mike asked, “What are we gonna tell the cops?”
Kyle pulled the hook out of the mouth of the eight-inch walleye and threw the fish into an old, red and white cooler.
Mike turned down the radio. “What are we gonna tell the cops?”
“I don’t know. We know we didn’t kill him.”
That statement was like a sobering slap of lightning for Mike. “Gary’s dead?”
Kyle shook his head. “Are you fuckin’ serious, man? Why did you think the cops were looking for us?”
“I thought it was about vandalizin’ the gravestones.”
Kyle grabbed another worm from the white cup. “They might be worried about that, but prolly more worried about the murder. What did you think, that beast was just tickling Gary?”
“I don’t know. I can’t remember shit from last night.”
Kyle replied, “It’s ‘cause of that weed. That stuff’s turning your brain to mush, man.”
“It’s the only thing that takes the pain away.”
Kyle raised an eyebrow. “What pain?”
“Nothing. Forget about it.” Mike reeled in and cast out again in a different spot. “So what should we say?”
“I don’t know. We were at that party for a while before they said Gary’s body was found on Thurston Street, all tore up like the rest of George’s victims.”
“So you do believe that shit, too?”
Kyle started getting frantic. “I told you I don’t know what to think right now. Here’s what we say.” He set his pole down. “We say we went into Houlihan’s Circle as a dare and...and Gary just disappeared. We say that we thought he was only messin’ around, tryin’ to scare us and shit. So we just left and we ain’t know what happened to him.”
Mike nodded in agreement. “Smart.”
Kyle picked up his fishing rod. “Yeah. It ain’t like we done nothin’ anyway but we shouldn’t mention that we seen that thing. Just say he disappeared and we left after callin’ for him for a while.”
“OK. We went into the Circle and Gary ran off or something. That’s easy. Do you think he’s going to come after us?”
Kyle lowered his brow and looked at Mike with unsure eyes. “Do I think Gary is going to come after us?”
“Nah, I’m sayin’ do you think George is going to come after us for being on his territory?”
Kyle peered out over the calm waters shimmering from the shining sun rays. “I ain’t scared of nobody, whether they’re alive or dead, so it don’t matter to me.”
“Ooohhh, you hear that? Oh yeah, home run.” Mike turned up the volume on the radio as the announcer was going crazy describing the action.
He turned to Kyle and held out a closed fist that his friend pounded. Mike lied, “Yeah, I ain’t scared of none a that shit neither.”
Kyle smirked, and asked, “So how was that big girl from last night?”
Mike cocked his head to the side and pursed his lips. “Don’t remember nothin’ from that neither. But I do remember picking up some cash from her purse and a credit card. We need to drive a few towns over and find a convenience store that we can use this sucker at.”
“Aw yeah, I’m hungry as hell right now. Wouldn’t mind a big gulp either.”
Mike suggested, “We might as well leave all our shit here and just come back. We don’t even got to put it in your truck. Ain’t nobody comin’ down here. It don’t look like she’s gonna rain today so the radio should be alright under the tarp.”
They scaled the steep hill and jumped into Kyle’s 1984 Ford F150 replete with dents and random rust stains all over the body. The motor took a few seconds to catch, and Kyle pressed the gas as the engine hummed.
Kyle cut off a small compact car to get on the highway onramp. They drove to Halimax and found a store with a clerk they had never seen before. Kyle parked down the street, and they walked past the front several times to inspect the joint. Satisfied, the two ragged-looking young men entered the store.
Mike grabbed a fistful of Slim Jims and set them on the counter next to the register.
He looked at the forty-something balding man behind the counter. “We’re gonna get a bunch of stuff so I’m just going to leave this here.”
The overweight man scrunched the contours of his face as he inspected Mike and finally nodded his head in silence. Mike and Kyle went on a shopping spree, scooping up anything their hands could touch.
The entire four-foot by two-foot counter was filled with potato chips, candy, energy drinks, dried meat snacks, chewing tobacco and other miscellaneous items that had caught either man’s eye. Mike planned on getting a pile of scratch off lottery tickets too.
The clerk waded through the huge pile on the counter, not scanning anything.
“How ya’ll plan on payin’?” he asked.
Mike’s shaky hand reached into his pocket and plucked out the blue credit card. He held it up, and the clerk snatched it from his hand. He studied the card, then both young men, and repeated the process several times.
“We got us a problem here,” said the clerk with a blank name tag. Mike’s knees threatened to give out as the man continued. “So which one a ya is Lauren?”
Mike stuttered as he talked. “Oh, no, it, uh, it’s my friend who said that we could use her card. This stuff is actually for her. We just...we we’re sent to get it.”
The man squinted his eyes and looked at the card again. “Lemme jus’ call this in and make sure she isn’t reported stolen.” The clerk turned around and picked up the corded phone receiver.
Mike turned to Kyle. “Run.”
The two guys booked out of the store, ran down the street to the truck and jumped in. Mike started tapping his foot on the ground uncontrollably as the truck didn’t start on the first few attempts. A nervous glaze of sweat built up on his back as the truck finally fired up.
An icy tidal wave of relief washed over Mike’s sizzling epidermis as Kyle peeled out. They jumped on the highway to get back to Prince’s Mountain. Once back in their home town, Mike started to feel safe again.
Mike said, “I guess we’re gonna have to catch some fish to get any supper tonight. I got a little cash but I’m gonna spend it on drinks and weed, not food.”
“Them Slim Jims woulda been nice. If you wanna eat tonight, you better catch something. I’m not giving you all my action.”
Mike chuckled. “Hell, you woulda starved by now if I didn’t feed you with all the fish I done caught over the past month. You’d be dead right now.”
Kyle retorted, “The hell I would, skinny boy. Wonder what’s going on in that Bucco game.” Kyle started to adjust the radio dial until something caught his attention. Flashing blue and red lights appeared behind them as a squad car raced up to the back bumper of the truck.
Mike said, “Alright, let’s keep our stories straight, and I hope they don’t know about that credit card or the graveyard. That clerk couldn’t have known us.”
Kyle’s turned his reddened face to Mike. “Don’t get nervous. You’ve talked to the cops before. Don’t blow it for me. We went into the woods and got separated from Gary. That’s it.”
An officer got out of the passenger’s side and walked up to Kyle’s window.
Chapter 5
Emily
EMILY TOOK ANOTHER swig of the energy drink and looked at the ringing phone. Her finger hovered over the device before reluctantly hitting the Accept button.
“Hello.”
A scratchy, hoarse voice came through the line. “It’s me. I’ll be at your house in a few minutes so we can talk about the directions.”
She panicked. “Wait. Who is this?”
“Tucker McSeamus. I’ll explain everything when I get there. And don’t worry, I’ll bring the advance we talked about. See you soon.”
She didn’t get a chance to even
say goodbye before the mysterious person hung up the phone. Her tense hand dented the can as she set the phone down. Out of options, she began pacing in the front room of her house.
Drained of energy, Emily went over to her green couch and lay down on her back, still clutching her drink in one hand. She closed her dark, bedroom eyes and tried to remember that night at the tarot card reader’s house. What could she remember?
The tarot card reader had seen that she was having financial trouble immediately.
He had said he could help Emily with her situation.
He had said that he would show her the money in his basement.
He had given her that green drink and held his finger under the bottom of the cup until she’d finished it.
Her head had been getting extremely hazy as they went down the steps.
She had seen wild images like when she used to eat magic mushrooms.
What the hell was in that green liquid?
The dimly lit basement had smelled like rotten meat.
She had covered her mouth with the sleeve of her shirt to avoid throwing up.
There had been that rumble, more like a growl.
It had kept building and building until that thing sprang into the room.
It had knocked the only lamp in the room to the floor as it thrashed around.
The man had told her repeatedly not to worry about the beast.
The man had produced that duffle bag full of money...at least it had looked like real money.
The room had been dark, but it looked like the face from the movies.
That bloody face.
The hair.
The sounds.
The smells.
They had all matched up with the reports from the past.
It had to be George.
Right?
No. George wasn’t real. Emily wouldn’t let her warped, sleepless mind believe it. She couldn’t remember making a deal for the money. What had she agreed to? She couldn’t put together why a murderous beast would have been in the basement of a tarot card reader. It just didn’t make sense.
As she sat up, Emily spilled some of her drink on the cushions. She had forgotten about the energy drink in her hand. Sitting up, she opened her eyes and gulped down the rest of the can, but still couldn’t remember what kind of deal she had made.
The screeching sound of stressing car brakes captured her attention.
Emily raced to the front of the house and peeled back the curtain. A white utility van that looked like something a painter would drive sat in front of her house. She watched it for several minutes, until the driver got out.
The driver, a bald man with thick black eyebrows and a maze of fat wrinkles on his pudgy face, walked toward the back of his van. He wore a brown robe that resembled the outfit of a monk, and was barefoot. As he reached the back of the van, he appeared to be talking into the vehicle, but the door was still closed.
The older man, sweat covering his glistening head, turned away from the van and headed toward Emily’s front door. As he passed the mailbox at the end of the driveway, the van started to rock back and forth. Loud pounding sounds from inside the vehicle matched outward dents that started appearing on the body of the van.
To Emily, it seemed like a wild beast was raging to escape its cage. As the sounds and denting continued, the man scurried back to the van’s rear. He slapped the back door and shouted into the vehicle again until his face reddened, then he straightened out his robe and walked toward the house again.
Emily’s heartbeat increased with every step he took until he stood at her door. She didn’t want to answer it. She didn’t remember giving him her address. Had he drugged her with that green drink? That was the only idea that made sense to her.
Her mind raced as...
KNOCK. KNOCK. KNOCK.
She stood only feet away from the mysterious man, separated from him by about two-inches of wood, debating whether to answer the door or run and hide in her room.
Chapter 6
Prince’s Mountain
SENTINEL PRESS
Circle in the Square
Dan O’Neill
April 13, 1934
Today marks the unfortunate six-month anniversary of what has become known as George Houlihan’s Massacre or the more truncated George Murders. The police aren’t any closer to solving the case right now. They are in the same place as when the first reports started arriving at the Prince’s Mountain Police Station.
Thirteen bodies had been found in a perfect circle, with all the flesh torn from their arms and legs. The gruesome corpses were laid out in the very center of the two-square-mile plot of land known as Houlihan’s Square. All thirteen victims had suffered the same vicious outcome, and there were no survivors or witnesses.
Officer Fred Minson, a veteran with fourteen years of experience on the Prince Mountain Police Department, said the case was unlike anything he’d ever seen. I asked him three months ago if he believed this had anything to do with the legend of George Houlihan.
His response: “I really don’t want to believe any of that. But the more I dig into past reports, there does seem to be a pattern to these murders. Either someone has been committing all of them for almost two hundred years or this is some sick family ritual that’s been passed down over generations. I don’t have any proof yet, but I plan to find out.”
As of this day, Officer Minson has yet to bring in a single suspect. However, he did refer me to the coroner’s report. The official cause of death was severe blood loss, but the report also said that there appeared to be knife or claw marks on the bones, indicating that someone had cut the flesh away.
After further evaluation on the examination table, it had been determined that the marks had been caused by a razor-sharp set of strong teeth.
This isn’t the first time the locals have uttered the name George. The first murder attributed to the beast known as George Houlihan happened back in 1821.
Over the years, strikingly similar murders occurred at random intervals. However, the mass murder of thirteen innocent campers still has the surrounding citizens shaken.
I talked to Prince’s Mountain resident Jerry Trembell, a thirty-six-year-old grocery store clerk. He plans to move north when his lease runs out next month.
He told me, “I just can’t stay ‘round here no more. I don’t do for that spooky stuff, but people keep sayin’ they seen that hairy guy with blood all over him. I don’t need that to be my blood, I can tell you that. They got stores I can work in up north.”
This column is tragically short because the answers are still eluding the investigators, amateur and professional alike. As the monthly pages fall from the calendar, the likelihood of bringing the murderer to justice is shrinking into nonexistence.
The police are faced with two horrible possibilities.
Is an immortal murderous creature stalking the woods of Houlihan’s Square and the surrounding areas?
Or is it a series of copycat murders, perhaps passed down through the generations?
Unfortunately for this small town, it has to be one of them.
Chapter 7
Mike
MIKE WALKED INTO THE bar and turned right back around. He made it back outside before the door could shut.
“Don’t try and run, you bitch-ass motherfucker,” screamed a woman from inside the bar.
Mike knew he was going to run into this girl again so he decided to go back in and take his medicine.
He pushed the slow-moving glass door, and the girl came running over.
She swung her purse and smacked him in the shoulder. Mike held up his hands in defense while she continued her leathery assault.
“You piece of shit. You stole my credit card? What kind of loser are you?”
“Whatever, you fat bitch. Get your ass outta here before I have you rolled,” Mike bluffed, irritated.
The pale girl with short brown hair scanned the room. “Shit, there’s nobody here that can roll me. In fa
ct, I’d probably beat your ass, you little bitch.”
Mike was far from a little bitch. He tried to remain calm but this wild woman was dancing on the fault line. He wouldn’t stand to be embarrassed in his favorite bar even if he had stolen her money and credit card earlier that morning.
The woman continued berating him. “You suck in bed, and you have a tiny dick. Plus, I’ll be surprised if I didn’t catch anything sleeping in that nasty bed, too, you scumbag.”
An idea for escape struck Mike. He would tell everyone he had cancer. He’d scream it out. People would start falling over each other to tell him how sorry they were. If he let that little secret out, this girl would apologize, and he would probably never have to buy a drink in this town again. Sympathetic beers for the rest of his days.
But Mike held onto a shred of pride and didn’t take the easy way out. He just stood there by the door of his favorite bar and let the girl he had sex with the night before give him the business. Before long, she finally ran out of breath and energy, swung the brown strap of her leather purse over her shoulder, shoved Mike aside and stormed out.
Mike’s friends, Billy and Scott, were sitting at their usual table in the back corner and laughing their asses off. The open room had a long, straight bar against the wall on the right-hand side, and tables with chairs haphazardly scattered around. A beat-up black and red dart board hung in the right corner, near the end of the bar, and Mike and his crew always sat in the left corner at the only round table in the place.
His friends were still laughing at him as he approached. Mike kicked out an old wooden chair and sat down. “Shut the hell up. It don’t matter ‘cause I got her to buy me drinks all last night and I got some cash outta her. Joke’s on her, and she’s just lucky they wouldn’t let me use the credit card or she’d be a broke-ass bitch on top of it all.”
Mike’s breathing was finally returning to normal after the unexpected embarrassment. He grabbed a white plastic Miller Lite cup from a stack in the middle of the table and poured himself a beer from the pitcher next to the cups.
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