October 30th – 7AM – Wednesday
Deputy Jamie Dart buttoned up his tan uniform and pinned on his silver badge. He straightened himself up in the mirror and then took a sip of his coffee before setting it back down on the bathroom sink.
He walked from the bathroom, down the hall and into his living room where the TV was on. The news was reporting that Tom Parsons had committed suicide after confessing to killing four people.
The news anchor mentioned something about Halloween, and the story cut to an interview with Mayor Hopkins announcing that for the first time in two years, he would allow the public to go trick or treating if the weather permitted it. He explained this with a huge smile on his face and relief in his voice.
Dart couldn’t help but share his smile. The town had sat in an eerie darkness for the past three years that it wasn’t accustomed to. They needed this; the kids needed this - Halloween could be fun again.
The cell phone sitting on the coffee table began to ring, and Dart picked it up quickly. “Hello?”
Dana was on the other line, speaking with a slight shiver in her voice. “Deputy, are you on your way in?’
“I’ll be leaving in a just a minute. What’s up, Dana?”
“Someone just called in and said they saw two dead bodies on Flanker Road – burned to death.”
Any relief that Dart had quickly dissipated. How could that be? Tom Parsons was dead!
“I’ll head right over,” he said. “Have you been there all night?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Go home, Dana. I’ll have someone cover you for the morning. Get some rest.”
“Thank you, Deputy.”
Dana hung up, as did Dart. He stood in his living room; the happy news report in the background became nothing but a blunt ringing in his ears. How could there be more bodies?
Dart hopped in his cruiser and flew uptown, ignoring all of the traffic signs and lights. The rain had stopped, but the overcast still left the air damp and cool. He needed to see what was going on. Flanker Road had already been blocked by police tape by the time he arrived. Dart pulled up as close as he could then jumped out and entered the crime scene.
“Who can tell me what’s going on?” Dart shouted.
“Over here, Deputy!” a man’s voice called out. It was Eddie Wong, the stations’ top forensics officer.
“Eddie, what’s going on here?” Dart asked, approaching the man.
“Two cars, two dead bodies. We have a blue Kia off to the side of the road with its’ hazards on. Then we have a black Buick in front of it. One body, burnt to a crisp in the ditch over there,” Wong pointed, “and another body in the middle of the road, once again, completely burned.”
“That’s Agent Boyd’s car,” Dart said, pointing at the Buick. He moved closer to the body in the road and studied it momentarily. “That’s Mark Boyd.”
“We know,” Wong said. “We looked at the registrations in the glove boxes. The other man is Brian Burnside.”
“Can you tell how they were burned?” Dart asked. “Was it a blowtorch?”
“Unlikely. A blowtorch would have a point of origin – a darker spot where the initial burning started. I can’t seem to find any origin spot on either body. They actually appear to have been burned from the inside out,” Wong explained.
“How does that happen?”
Eddie Wong shrugged his shoulders. “I really don’t know.”
Dart stepped back, completely astonished. He looked at the bodies again, and then looked at his surroundings. It was an isolated road, surrounded by woods. He turned to a group of officers:
“Hey! I want these woods checked for any sign of someone. Footprints, personal belongings – look for anything, got it?”
The officers nodded and broke away, splitting up into the woods.
The front door to Dana’s one bedroom apartment opened and she walked in, tired. She removed her jacket just as her brown-colored miniature schnauzer trotted through the living room and too her feet.
“Buffy!” Dana said with a smile. She knelt down and pet her dog as he rolled over onto his back. “It’s good to see you!”
Buffy barked and ran back into the kitchen where he began to eat from his bowl. Dana walked in, plopped down on the couch and turned the TV on. The annual horror movie marathon was on and they were airing a cheap low-budget science fiction movie, “Invasion of the Creatures.”
Dana kept it on for a minute and laughed at the ridiculous premise. An abrupt crashing sound grabbed her attention and she turned around to face the kitchen. “Buffy?”
She hopped up and jogged into the kitchen. “Buffy, are you okay, baby?” She walked in the kitchen and Buffy wasn’t there. “Buffy?” she called out. She looked around the kitchen but couldn’t find the source of the crash. She opened a couple of cabinets but everything was still stacked and organized like normal.
Dana turned back and walked into the living room. “Buffy, where are you?” A loud thud came from the bedroom down the hall. She walked slowly down the hall towards her bedroom. The door was closed as it normally was. She turned the knob slowly and opened the door a crack. “If anyone’s in here, I’m calling the cops!”
There was no answer from the bedroom. She held the door open a crack for just a second longer and then pulled it shut again. She backed down the hallway just as the electricity went out with a quick surge. She gasped and jumped back around. She crept her way back into the living room, keeping her eyes open and her mind alert. She stopped in the middle of the room and looked around. The silence was overwhelming and a tear began to run down her cheek.
Right then, an ice cold wind blew on the back of her neck and paralyzed her; she could feel each and every goose bump rise from her skin. She stood in the middle of the room, unable to move a muscle, and started to squeal and whine.
“What’s happening?” she softly pouted to herself. Dana remained stiff and stared straight ahead just as a dark, cloudy figure materialized in front of her. Dana’s eyes were wide and the terror she was feeling was unlike any she’d ever felt before. The figure took its’ full form and Dana screamed at the top of her lungs.
Dart arrived at the station an hour later, completely puzzled. He sat down in his office and felt a little fuzzy. He scratched his head, and then pulled his cell phone out of his pocket. He dialed Officer Donald Rains again. It went straight to voicemail.
“Rains, it’s Dart again. I never heard back from you last night. Please call me immediately – we have a problem, and I’m going to need to you keep Sharon Ferguson and her family there a little longer. Please call me back.”
Dart hung up and heard a young woman’s voice down the hall from his office.
“Hello?” the woman called. Dart looked down the hall and saw a Jessica Morgan and Sean Nettle standing in the lobby looking for assistance.
“Can I help you guys?” Dart asked, walking into the lobby.
“Deputy,” Jessica began, “remember us? We were the ones who called in-“
“The burning cross. Yeah I remember,” Dart said. “What do you need now? I’m extremely busy.”
Jessica turned to Sean, and he spoke up. “Well, we have some information on the Blood Coven that not a lot of people know. We think you need to hear it.”
“I don’t have time for this.”
“You should make time.” Sean insisted.
Dart hesitated for a moment and then gave in. “What?”
“We were given a tip of information, and then went to the library yesterday to research it more before we’d actually come to you. We got some solid facts out of the research, and we think they facts are extremely important to what’s going on here.”
“I’m listening,” Dart said, becoming slightly impatient.
“Tom Parsons was killing the blood relatives of the original coven. Well, as it turns out, there were three families in the Blood Coven. The Lores, the Farmers, and the Kohns. So, which bloodline was he trying to get rid of?” Sean said, before continuing:
“Our research shows that the Lores were the truly evil ones – demonic in every possible way. They’d skin people alive, possess innocent people with thoughts of murder and malevolent spirits, burn down homes and pretty much set fire to anyone that wasn’t part of their family. Now, the Farmers and the Kohns were part of the coven too, but not nearly as dangerous. They’d practice witchcraft, sacrifice animals, preach their beliefs, and only on extremely rare occasions would they actually commit a crime.”
Dart was listening intently as Sean pulled out a notepad from his coat pocket. He opened it up and showed Dart a page full of names and notes. He explained more:
“We went back through the family trees and discovered that Carol Lindon was a direct descendant of the Kohns family. Vivian Lowder was a descendant of the Farmers family. Now here’s where it gets good,” Sean said, flipping the page to reveal two more names scratched down. “There are two names associated with the actual Lores family. Pamela Lockwood and Sharon Ferguson.”
Dart was in shock. “Pamela Lockwood was Bud Lockwood’s mother – she died last year. And Sharon Ferguson…”
“She’s in protective custody, right?” Jessica asked, already knowing the answer.
“I can’t get a hold of my officer who’s watching after her,” Dart said. “Sharon Ferguson?” He couldn’t seem to wrap his head around it.
Jessica took a deep breath. “Deputy, the Blood Coven returning to Stewart Hollow may not be as impossible as you thought.”