The Horror Library - The Best in Horror Fiction

The Old Jailer
By Chris Perridas

(1)

A loose board groaned on the stairs.

\"Hello?\" Spence asked.

Another creak echoed through the upstairs archive room.

He turned toward the open stairwell door. \"I said, Hello!\"

A silhouette of a woman emerged from the shadowed stairway. \"You don\'t have to shout, Chad.\"

\"Darla! Must you creep about?\"

\"Well excuse me, but I thought you might want some help up here. Besides, I\'m the librarian; I\'m supposed to be here; you\'re the snoop. What is it you\'re looking for now?\"

\"Same thing.\" Spence said.

\"What? You\'re obsessed. Look, you know every story I know; you\'ve prodded every nook and cranny diary from that era; read every crumbled-up newspaper; and –what – this is the third time through that mildewed set of boxes? It\'s simple. His parishioners loved him; he got shot in the back; it was tragic, but it happened more than a hundred years ago. Let it rest; there isn\'t anything more.\"

Spence pointed at her. \"You weren\'t in that graveyard Thanksgiving weekend. I thought the divining rods would jump right out of my hands, like someone plugged them into a wall outlet. His ghost is out there – maybe more than just him. And how do you explain all those orbs in the photographs I took?\"

She threw her hands up. \"No wonder you drove your ex crazy.\"

\"Hey, I\'ve been honest with you. The dead, they need me. I\'m their advocate. Time goes by; no one cares about them anymore, but I\'ve got to make people care. It\'s my calling, my gift – my burden since I was a kid.\"

She answered, \"It doesn\'t hurt that you make a few dollars off your books does it? I guess the dead are okay with that?\"

\"You know the community college won\'t have a teaching job for me until summer. I need that $8000 advance to live on.\" He paused. \"This isn\'t like you, Darla. Why are you attacking me? Unless there is something you\'re holding back, something you know about Edwards and aren\'t telling me.\"

Darla\'s face reddened, but before Spence could push her for an answer, she held out her hand, palm up.

\"I\'ve told you all I can tell you. Now, next time you want to prowl through the library records, make an appointment. I want my key back - now.\"

Spence fished through his pocket and yanked out the key. He tossed it into her outstretched hand and squeezed his burly frame down the narrow stairway, each step a hammer blow on the wooden stairwell steps. He never even saw her tears.

(2)

The few blocks walk to the cemetery cooled him off.

He passed behind the two hundred year \'Old Jail\', now a Bed and Breakfast. A lady dressed in red emerged from the front door, no doubt ready for the Old Fashioned Christmas In the Town- Square and a little antique shopping. Spence waved to the stranger, already feeling more like a native than an outsider, and he zipped down the alley to the ancient lot behind the jail.

By the time he got there, he was out of breath. The stress of his breakup, the move from the city to small town had packed on to his already ample frame an extra twenty pounds. He leaned on the stone pillar at the entryway to the graveyard for a rest. Beyond those pillars, through the iron gate lay a hush of the ages, hundreds asleep and unremembered.

Breath caught, Spence pushed open the iron-gate with a rusty squeal.

\"Hello, guys and gals. It\'s Chad Spence.\"

His usual spiel produced only a rustle through the leaves: a squirrel nudging the ground for a hidden acorn. It took a brief look at Spence and returned to its root for nuts.

He tried again, as if he had just walked up to an old general store porch to shoot the breeze with some old-timers. \"Amazing weather, huh? It\'s Winter Solstice and sixty-five degrees. Guess that blue sky and warm sun makes your old bones feel good.\"

The gravestones did not reply.

Spence walked over to a familiar spot, knelt before the decayed marble tombstone and brushed aside the tangle of wind blown leaves.

He read aloud as his finger traced the faint inscription: SEEKER OF LAMBS. He paused, pulled up his bifocals and put his nose to the line below: REV. JS. EDWARDS, 1840-1889.

\"C\'mon, Pastor Edwards, tell me what happened out on that road that day? I need your story. You see, I kind of like your great-great grandniece, and if I can get this book advance; get that job I told you about; patch things up between us; well, maybe something might spark between us.\"

Only silence came from the grave.

\"Well, if you\'re not talking today, I\'ll just etch some of the other markers for my web site. Maybe you\'ll loosen up later; it sure would make for a nice Christmas present for your new pal, Chad.\"

As Spence walked across the graveyard, he stooped every now and then to read the inscriptions, many of them he\'d already memorized. His heartache pined for each one. He took in the scene for a moment. Sure the town council kept the graveyard neat. It looked quiet on the surface, but something stirred below. He could feel it. There was unresolved trouble older than the rotted pine boxes beneath the sod.

Frustrated that Edwards\' ghost refused to appear, he walked over to the far corner – pauper\'s row. The cheap stones had lost most of their shape. Maybe he could coax a few letters off the worn markers. They would make good copy for the book.

He pulled out paper, kneeled into the damp ground and rubbed charcoal back and forth over the paper, pulling letters from a headstone. Each, finished in its turn, was placed gingerly into the satchel.

Leaves shuffled in the distance, but no squirrel made that rustle. Excitement tightened his throat to a hoarse whisper, \"Edwards! Is that you? I\'m here, I\'m here for your story.\"

The figure moved from around a tree.

Spence, stunned, said, \"Darla?\"

\"Yes, who were you expecting? Chad, what\'s the matter? You look like you\'ve seen a ghost.\"

\"What\'re you doing here?\" He demanded.

\"Come to forgive your sorry behind.\"

He said, \"Forgive? Me?\"

\"Sure, I forgive you.\" She said, purposely twisting his words.

\"That\'s not what I said! I mean, I\'m not sorry, uh, I, um, well I am sorry, I guess.\"

\"Good that\'s settled. Around here you might get riled, but since it\'s just a one-horse town you can\'t be mad too long; you\'d run out of people to talk to. Anyway, you\'ve been out here for ages. I thought I\'d check on you.\"

He noticed the paper bag in her hand, steam rising out of it.

\"What\'s that?\" he pointed.

\"Its chili, can\'t you smell it? I figured you\'d be hungry.\"

Darla opened the paper sack. He breathed in the deep, spicy aroma. The chili smell made his stomach growl, but her light perfume caused a different hunger. \"Easy,\" he said to himself.

Spence took the container and spooned the chili. It was hard to tell whether it was the spice - the heat of the chili - or the sight of Darla, but by the third spoonful he began to sweat.

Darla said, \"By the way, the weather report says it\'s going to turn nasty - fast. You\'d best be hurrying.\"

A bit of chili dripped on his beard.

\"Oh, great, I figured my luck would run out. I hoped the magic of Winter Solstice, would make Edwards show up.\"

\"Honey, remember, we\'re in modern times. I think what you want is just too farfetched.\"

She reached in to the bag pulled out a napkin and daubed his beard drip. It seemed so natural to him; he wanted to kiss her for it.

He\'d tried a hundred ways to avoid a commitment since his bitter divorce eighteen months ago. It still hurt. His ex had moved on, though, to a decent sort of fellow now was it his turn?

\"Is something wrong?\" Darla asked.

\"Everything\'s fine.\" He lied. \"Just thinking too hard. This is great, I love Mama Nelson\'s four-alarm chili.\" He almost blurted out, \"But not as much as I love you.\"

\"Look, I know you need to get done with your tracings. Hurry though. It might be in the sixties now, but there\'s freezing rain coming in and they say the temperature will hit 28 tonight. We may even get an ice storm. Besides, Mr. Spence,\" she poked his chest, \"You hang around here, all alone in a cemetery, some ghost-haint might catch you and carry you away. And if that happened, who would pick me up when I closed the library at five and take me over to the Bardstown Buffet for supper?\"

They both laughed. Spence said, \"I\'ll pick you up, Darla Edwards, don\'t you worry.\"

\"OK, I\'ll see you at five, Hon,\" she said.

They both felt the wall come down at that moment. She reached for the empty Styrofoam chili container and brushed his hand, let it stay there an extra second. It felt good to him; it felt right.

He leaned in for a kiss on her cheek. She didn\'t resist.

(3)

Satchel and gear packed, he paced in front of the old preacher\'s grave. \"James Caldwell Edwards.\" Spence spoke, but nothing; no reply came, just a few robins scrounging for worms in the soft dirt.

\"Young Baptist seminarian. Sided with the North rather than be one of those who split at the outbreak of the War Between the States. Never had a taste for, so when war came, you left school to serve as a chaplain.

\"Throughout the conflict, you experienced many horrors, lots of bullets, but managed to survive. Fresh from the war, you joined up with Dwight L. Moody\'s revival phenomenon for a few years. From there, angered over the news of Custer\'s murder in \'76, you went West and spent several years in a futile attempt to convert Indians – or even harder – the stonehearted troops.

\"Old, faithful, Kentucky native, you finally returned home to become the ninth minister of the Bardstown Baptist Church. Within a couple of years of your arrival, you\'d built the congregation to overflow crowds using the then modern, Moody techniques you\'d learned.

\"You know, I read your obituary. The 1889 newspaper just about crumbled in my hands, but it told of your death - by the hand of a madman.

\"I imagine one day you\'d went soul winning out in the countryside on horseback. Somewhere along the roadside, you were shot in the back - murdered. It shocked the entire community. The sheriff picked up a notorious derelict drunkard holed up in a rundown rural shack. The man sobered up and became more ornery as the trial came closer, confessed and was hung in the public square. Poor, Edwards, I wish you\'d tell me your story.\"

Clouds suddenly flew across the sky blotting the sun. Sleet fell, tapping the dead leaves with a sparkle-beat.

\"Damn your dirty eyes, Chad Spence, I\'ve heard \'nuff of your blitherings.\"

\"Who said that?\"

\"Who y\'think, y\'skunk. Think you\'re hot manure on a fresh field, spouting off all that so-called history.\"

\"Edwards?\"

\"Pht! If\'n I still had a mouth I\'d walk over there and spit on that damned Edward\'s grave. You give a listen to this, boy. Hear what did happen.\"

The ghostly voice continued, \"The prosecutor was that famous Jack Rowan, tight with old Edwards\' clan and that scoundrel Jack had his eye on politics, wanted to make a name, and did it, too. He badgered that old coot y\'was a talking about, until he took the bait, hook and sinker.

\"At the hanging, that codger cursed God to his face. As his epithet rose to heaven\'s ear, a great storm grew to horrific intensity thundering old God\'s rebuke. Lightning flashes illuminated the dangling, jerking man as gawkers ran for cover, the damned city folk!

\"Then his body was dragged out back of the jail, after the storm passed, and thrown in the ground in this here pauper\'s section. By law, the murdered was due a stone - not an alabaster colored marble like that blasted Edwards, but rough-hewn granite. Yee-haw! Granite persevered, while the gleaming marble stones of the aristocrats turned black under the twentieth century\'s acid rain.

\"Hey, Ol\' Jack Rowan, y\'lying there dead over there, how\'d that bullet feel? Yeah, the one that missed ol\' TR on San Juan Hill, but peppered your brains out? We all end up here sooner or later!\"

\"Great, God! Who are you, some haint-ghost?\" Spence asked.

\"Damn your eyes, Spence, and clear out the cobwebs. I be Jacob Carter. Haul your arse over here to my grave.\"

Spence recalled that Darla quoted the family historians. They had called the murderer, \"the Jack the Ripper of Central Kentucky\" after the notorious, contemporaneous London murderer. This same man had been convicted of not only of Edward\'s murder, but accused of several others.

In a blink of an eye, the breeze chilled colder, the day grew darker and the rain spattered harder.

He stood looking at Carter\'s grave. There he saw: Jacob Carter, Died 1889.

The ghost continued, don\'t cast your gaze on me. Y\'see that empty space \'tween markers? \'Fore I\'m done with you, I\'ll have y\'spitting on Edward\'s grave for me. C\'mon, girlie, it\'s your time. This story-teller likes to spin yarns, give him your\'n. I ain\'t nothing but Hellbait, but y\'don\'t deserve your happenstance.\"

The fog, thicker than pea soup rolled into the graveyard. From within that dank vapor he saw a form standing in the shape of a woman, a gray lady.

\"This is not funny.\" His voice quivered.

\"Chad Spence, I need your help.\" The gray lady said. \"You are a kind man; you want to keep the memory of the dead.\"

\"Who are you?\"

I am the one with no marker. Search for the name Eliza Withers, but you shall not find it. A crazed man killed me in 1889. He killed many others, but as he raped me and slit my throat, I prayed to God that I would at least be the last. The townspeople hushed up what he did. They blamed me for loose morals. They give criminals a marker, but no one bought one for me.\"

\"Ma\'am, I think you\'re confused. Come with me, we need to get out of this drizzle and fog. I\'ll get you some help.\"

Spence walked over to the woman. He took the woman\'s hand. The spongy thing felt like a limp dishrag covered in dirt, cold as the grave. Then he saw her face, more the look of skull than flesh, and he saw the obscene filth that crawled around in those eye sockets. He tried, but could not scream. She held him fast by his hand; refused to release him.

\"Yes, Chad Spence, I am a phantom. Don\'t leave me. I\'d given up hope, unable even to haunt anymore – no energy. No one remembered, no one cared, until today. You care.\"

\"This is a nightmare – No.\"

\"Listen. My time is short.\" The grotesque mouth spoke, \"I was a teacher. Just after school started the term; I went on a picnic; I passed a run down shack. You see, I\'d only been in town a short while; I heard someone say that the brook was a wonderful place for a picnic, to read poetry by its babbling sounds and the town was so quiet, so gentle, I never thought... A new acquaintance was to meet me there, but instead…\" At that recollection the phantom wailed a banshee moan in Spence\'s ears. \"… The fiend. I never expected it.\"

The ghost paused, and then said, \"Later, the town found my body, arrested a man, and hung him. The fiend that killed me lies in this cemetery. Help me, Chad Spence. It was bad enough to be cut down as a young woman with not even a chance to have children, but to not be remembered is too much. I have prayed for my spirit to be released from these earthly bonds of sorrow, now God has granted me one last chance, you are my last hope.\"

In an instant, the vision was gone. The freezing rain poured in earnest, the water rolled off Spence\'s jacket as if they were her tears.

\"Spit on a grave? I\'ll piss on yours Cater, you damned heathen murderer-rapist.\" Spence began to jump and stomp on Carter\'s grave. He slipped on the leaves and fell, the fall knocking him senseless.

(4)

\"Chad!\" The voice came through the mists. \"Chad, oh dear Jesus help me find him! Chad, where are you?\"

This time, it was Darla. Groggy, he heard.

\"Over here.\" He called toward the bright light that pierced the fog, a beam of her flashlight.

\"Chad, are you OK. That fog rolled in so fast it worried me. I never dreamed it would be so thick here; it\'s more like smoke. It even stinks.\"

He stood, joints sore, but Spence reached out for her, hugged her.

\"You\'re soaked.\" She said. \"C\'mon, we need to get you home before you catch pneumonia. The car is right over here; I parked in front of the entrance, the motor is running. The weatherman says the worst has not hit us yet.\"

Spence slumped into her car, the heater blowing full to warm him. Darla drove with caution, the headlights reflecting back more than shining forward in the dense weather. . She pulled in front of the small upstairs apartment over a garage, only a few blocks away from the graveyard.

\"Thank you,\" he said.

\"You\'re very welcome.\" Darla said. \"Are you going to be alright?\"

He nodded, yes. \"I guess I\'ll take a \"rain check\" on dinner, huh?\" He reached over and lay a gentle hand on hers.

\"If you\'re feeling good enough to tell terrible jokes, I guess I\'ll let you go in by yourself. Get some rest, but tomorrow – I\'m holding you to that date, Mister Spence.\"

A hot shower barely warmed him so he sipped a jigger of Maker\'s Mark whiskey. Spence crawled under the covers and promptly passed out. Sleep came, but not rest.

(5)

The tapping on the windowpane woke him up. The clock glowered with red numbers: 3 AM.

Spence grabbed his spectacles. At the ice-covered window was a black shape. He threw the covers off and went to it. A black bird, wings covered in white ice looked in. As Spence stood in only a pair of pajama shorts, he looked at it as it fell over and tumbled to the ground, dead.

\"Damn your dirty eyes, Spence, you care more for that bird than y\'do me and y\'ain\'t never met neither of us \'til today.\"

Spence spun around to see a rotted cadaver swaying near his bed. Its grave clothes hung in shreds. It took in the plump, half-naked body of Spence. Spence moved his mouth, but no words came.

\"Ha! Cat got your tongue, boy? Hell, a rat got mine! Ain\'t neither one of us dressed for greeting, is we?\"

That made Spence flare. \"I\'ve had about enough of this haint stuff. Get out of here, whatever you are.\"

\"Calm down, boy. I ain\'t as good a looker as that school marm, nor your sweetie liba\'ryun, but ye ain\'t pretending to be no stranger to spooks. Y\'might be fooling some folks, but we ain\'t got no secrets, ye and the dead. I be here for a reason, to clear my name. It ain\'t a good name, nor rep\'tation, but it be mine and I got a right to defend it. Y\'got the wrong idea, stoked up on old newspaper lies, Edwards\' clan\'s lies. I ain\'t blaming that lib\'aryun, though, she only tells what was told to her by her lying folks. Now y\'sit down, Spence, and let me tell what I knows.\"

Spence, incredulous, supernaturally mesmerized, complied.

\"See, I got raised on a farm near Danville and the next thing I knows along comes a war. It seemed more exciting than shoveling horse manure for my hard-nosed Pappy, so off I went. It turns out I enjoyed shooting Yankees more than I did squirrel hunting and once ye get the taste of killing, it stays with ye. Still, as much as I enjoyed killing, I liked whiskey better. After the war, I fig\'red that those two vices should keep me apart from the decent folks of the world. I just made up my rules for living as I went along, stealing when I couldn\'t find work, but got most of my grub from fishing and hunting.\"

\"You were just an all around swell fellow, weren\'t you,\" Spence baited.

\"Take care, boy, I be supernatural and just as liable to eat ye as spit at ye. Y\'best listen. Anyway, there be one more thing the damned town folk in Bardstown didn\'t know about me. I don\'t like women, if y\'understand my meaning.\"

\"You\'re a gay ghost?\"

\"Hell, we didn\'t talk about them things back then.\"

\"Then what you\'re saying is that you didn\'t rape and kill that girl, Miss Withers?\"

\"Damn your dirty eyes, Spence! Listen!\"

\"Miss \'Liza, she knows, but she\'s confused. The sheriff, he knew too, the coward. He figured he\'d pony up to the State Senator to be, young Jack Rowan, and get rid of me at the same time. It was a trumped up case, Edwards\'s clan covering up the real murdering bastard. \'Course the real murderer was already dead anyways, \'cause I shot the vermin myself as he was hitching his britches up. I heard the pitiful Miss \'Liza scream, came running, but was too late for her. Like I says, I take care of things my own way, always did, still do, like right now. Y\'need to set this straight, and if\'n y\'get a little money out of your book deal, y\'buy that school marm a grave marker, y\'hear?\"

\"I don\'t believe you anymore than that jury did, you filthy ghost.\" Spence jumped to his feet. \"She told me you did it.\"

\"Eyah, I wish\'d that coroner had left my wooden choppers in my mouth, \'cause I\'d chomp ye like ye were breakfast. The fog got in your ears, boy. She never said it was me, she said the murdering thing was lying in the graveyard. Wake up, get past that Miss Darla, and sees the truth. Damn your dirty eyes, Spence, it was that Preacher that done it.\"

\"Edwards? It doesn\'t make sense.\"

\"He\'d already raped one girl when he was in seminary. The war covered his escape. He roamed all over the Southland raping girls during the war. Then he took up with that holier than thou Moody to get into those poor Chicago homes to get him more victims. Those 1870 police didn\'t care about immigrant girls, until the bodies stacked up and old Rockefeller thought it would taint the town.

\"Then Edwards, the polecat, he hightailed it out west when the heat got turned up. The troops rounded up Injuns, killed their men folk, and left those squaws out in the open for him to get at like a fox in a hen house. The Injun Bureau caught wind of something suspicious so he come back home for his people\'s protection, the yellow coward. He held out for a long, long time, but pretty Miss \'Liza, she was too much of a temptation. He sweet-talked her with some Walt Whitman poem\'try and got her to agree to go out to the creek.\"

\"I still don\'t believe you, you\'re a despicable liar, Jacob Carter.\"

With that, the ghost shook with a rage and came at Spence. Spence was ready, grabbed a Louisville Slugger bat and swung just before those bony claws took a stranglehold. The rotted head of the specter spattered across the wallpaper. The headless thing stopped, but still spoke.

\"Now y\'went and done it. Damn your dirty eyes, Spence, y\'re as hardheaded as my \'bacco chewing Granny. Now I gotta do a conjuring while I put my self back together, but y\'re about to take a little time trip, Mister Historian.\"

(6)

Horse drawn carriages rolled down the packed-clay August streets leaving manure traces in their trail. Here and there, merchants threw buckets of wastewater into the clay-packed streets. At the Talbot Inn, three men stood waiting at the coachstop. One examined his pocket watch, the other wiped sweat from his eyes. \"Coach is late again.\"

\"Isaiah, don\'t be like that, the morning coach from Louisville runs late sometimes.\"

\"In good weather in August? It\'s that lazy driver.\"

At that moment, a well dressed man walked to them. Each greeted him with, \"Good day, Reverend.\"

\"Brother Isaiah, Brother Matthew, good day. I know my ears are weak from hay fever, but if I heard correctly, I say deacons should not be idled tongue, nor use improper language on street corners.\"

Each cleared their throat, embarrassed.

Spence found himself standing on the same corner at that moment.

\"Good afternoon, sir,\" Edwards said, \"I don\'t believe I have met your acquaintance? Or have I? I am James C. Edwards, pastor of the Baptist Church two blocks east of here.\"

Chad looked and found that he was also dressed in ancient garb. \"Uh, good morning.\" It was all he could muster.

Isaiah Shelby cleared his throat. Spence knew that this meant the men wanted more information from him than that.

\"I am a stranger here, gentlemen. I\'m Chad Spence.\"

Matthew probed, \"On what business? Your accent is strange.\"

\"Business? Of a sort.\"

The men took the response wrong. Their pinched-up faces shadowed disapproval, indignant at the response.

Spence said, \"I\'m an historian – from Indiana. I am researching cemetery records.\"

Matthew said, \"Why? Who cares about the dead, except an undertaker? I know many of the Speed family who live in Indiana, the mayor of Indianapolis, and you don\'t sound like you are from Indiana.\"

\"Mr. Spence, I am a forthright man,\" Edwards said. \"Be ye a Christian?\"

How to answer these men? He needed a cover story or he might end up in the jail, the next block over. He also was no Christian, but this might start a row, too. Still, he felt truth was best. \"No, sir, I am not, and the rest of my business I shall keep to my own counsel.\" A pregnant pause ensued. \"I am seeking a man. Do you know Jacob Carter.\"

The minister exclaimed, \"Incredible. Why you want to seek the devil\'s own agent, I know not, but I am on my way past his place this very hour. Come with me. Perhaps I can share the Lord\'s gifts with you on the trip.\"

In an instant, the two men were now on horses – how Chad knew to hang on to the beast or how they were miles down a country road he knew not – and came to the edge of a scruff plot of land. The broken fenced yard was more dirt than grass. A mongrel dog growled with its whip marks lying open, blown by flies.

It was early afternoon, but an unshaved man emerged as if only awoke. The beard was tangled birds\' nest; his hair thin and his scalp red except where white scabs appeared. He was unmistakable, even alive.

\"What the Hell do y\'people want?\"

The minister spoke. \"I am Reverend Edwards of Bardstown. This man is Chad Spence on some business with you.\"

The man spit in the dirt. \"To domdaniel Hell with thee, Preacher, I have nothing to do with thee or your God.\" He pointed to Chad with a yellow tooth grin. \"Y\'damned grave grubber, keep your hot hands off me cold grave lest I pull out my Bowie and scalp your hide. Your business is not with me, but y\'will find business soon.\"

The minister looked perplexed but had no response.

The man pulled a wad of tobacco out and started to chew. \"Hey, Reverend, you believe in Heaven?\"

\"I do, sir.\"

\"What\'s it look like?\"

\"It is golden, a stream of pure water flows through to the throne of God.\"

\"Y\'think y\'gonna see that?\"

\"I do. All saved men shall.\"

\"Well, preacher, do y\'b\'lieve hypocrites will enter the Pearly Gates?\"

\"I have no time for debate such as this. May God\'s Holy Ghost convict you of your sin.\"

Carter spit juice on the ground. \"May Satan take a pound of flesh out of ye, for yours, Edwards.\"

\"Mr. Spence, why you associate with a rough man like this, I do not know. I have other souls to seek. I will part with you, I trust you will find your way back to town.\"

Before Spence could think, or dismount, time shifted. A woman\'s scream let out.

\"Let\'s go boy. Y\'had your eyes on me all this time, now see the truth.\" Carter tugged at Spence\'s coat. There was no option except to follow the girl\'s screams.

The two men suddenly stood at the edge of a green bank. The summer leaves rustled in the trees under a gently breeze. On the bank, face down, naked from waist to ankle, lay Eliza Withers, dead. The grass around her head was black with blood. Drying the water off after washing the blood from his body in the creek, Edwards stood to one side; and pulled on his clothes.

Carter pulled a revolver out, one that might have been used in the Civil War, and fired it. The minister turned - eyes wide from the shock. He clutched his chest and fell over. Eliza stirred. She stood, her dress falling over her naked legs, drenched in blood, a gash grinning at her neck, but she spoke.

\"Chad Spence, tell this story.\"

Dead Edwards leapt up. Blood oozed out of his mouth as he spoke. \"Secrets go to the grave, Spence. I\'ve kept this secret for more than a century. Do you think a simpleton such as you will destroy my great legend? The powers of darkness are at my disposal - have been as a child. I shall reach from Hell and skin you alive. These two poor spirits will not stop me.\"

Great snakes came from the ground and grasped both Carter and Withers. The serpents dragged them half into the earth.

Edwards wailed a horrid laugh. \"I have better plans for you, though, Spence.\"

Black, tiny shiny bugs oozed from the ground, their pincers clicking, ripping at Spence\'s boots. In a moment, the leather would give way and his flesh would be devoured, microscopic bite at a time, and then carried away to Hell.

\"God, help me!\" Spence cried an atheist\'s repentant plea.

Then, at that moment, out of the water a veritable army of dead women emerged from the creek. Native American girls with bashed in heads, Kentucky maids with cut throats, strangled black slave mammies, Georgia belles in dirty, blood stained Antebellum dresses, all with hate in their eyes.

\"No!\" Edwards cried, tried to push their long nails away, but the raped women dragged the evil Preacher back into the dark water. Not a ripple remained on the mirror surface.

Eliza was already under ground, but Carter\'s head was still just above the grass. He said, \"Spence, y\'know the truth. Y\'tell that girlfriend liba\'ryun of yours, she\'ll understand now. Then write it all down in a book, boy. Bless your eyes, Chad.\"

(7)

The phone rang just then.

It was, \"Darla!\"

\"Oh, Chad, I had a terrible dream. You were so far away and in trouble, but I couldn\'t come to you. Honey, I love you, are you alright?\"

\"I am now, Sweetie.\" Spence looked out the window. The ice was melting under the bright sun. \"It should clear up in a little bit. Can I walk over in an hour? I have something we should discuss. I also have got to see about getting a new marker for the Old Jailer\'s graveyard.\"

\"I\'ll fix breakfast. Y\'all be careful coming over, it\'s slippery.\"

\"Darla, dear, I know exactly how hard it is to walk down a slippery path, but I think my footing will be sure and my path clear from now on. Oh, and I love you too. I\'ll see you in a little bit, and then I can show you just how much.\"

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