CHAPTER I
Halloween – Present Day
A mail truck squealed to a puttering stop on Amity Road right outside of the Watkins residence. The mail carrier, Patrick Snowden, cranked the ignition but the truck just wouldn’t start.
“Crap,” Patrick said to himself. He looked over his shoulder and into the back of the truck to look at his load. He still had over half the route to deliver. This was the last thing he needed on Halloween. He grabbed his cell phone and called in the breakdown.
“Hey, Nancy, it’s Patrick. I just broke down on Amity Road. How long until you can get out here to try and jump me?”
Patrick looked out the driver’s side window and saw the withering cornfield next to the Watkins’ home. A gentle breeze blew through and rustled the endless stalks of dead corn. “Any chance you can make it sooner?” Patrick asked.
“Okay, I’ll be here.” Patrick hung up and set his phone down on his lap. He looked from the cornfield to the house. A curtain in one of the downstairs windows moved and caught his attention, but he couldn’t see anyone behind it.
~
The Hilliard Municipal Park was buzzing. Halloween fell on a Saturday this year, so Hilliard put on a Harvest Festival in the park. There were games for the kids, candy give-a-ways, costume parades and face paintings. The pink Crumbz on Wheelz trailer was set up near the entrance of the festival selling pumpkin-spice cupcakes and sugar cookies decorated with black bats and orange pumpkins.
A car drove up the main road through the park, a black Sedan. It passed a small wooded area where the dead trees appeared as ominous skeletal figures - their branches reaching into the gray sky.
Inside the car, Holly Gibson adjusted the radio. She was in her thirties and thin with short brown hair. She parked in a mostly empty lot and stepped out of her car.
She checked her watch – 9:28am. Her brother was supposed to meet her in just a couple of minutes. Holly heard the crowd from the park and looked over her shoulder. There were kids in costumes dressed as their favorite horror villains, and their parents were trying to settle them all down.
Holly smiled and let out a small chuckle as one of the kids dressed as Batman punched the Joker.
Something out of the corner of Holly’s eye caught her attention. She glanced over to the wooded area and saw something in the thicket. Six dark figures stood just behind the tree line. Holly squinted and leaned forward to get a better look, but they must have blended back in with the trees. Just like that, the six distinguishable figures were gone.
“Holly!” Kevin Gibson shouted right behind her. She jumped and turned around and gave Kevin a friendly punch on the shoulder. She laughed.
“You scared me!”
“Eh, it’s Halloween. That’s what you’re supposed to do,” Kevin said in a very ornery manner. He was a little older than his sister and noticeably heavier. He dressed in a large hooded sweatshirt and blue jeans that were slightly too big for him. Even his belt couldn’t hold them up completely.
“What were you looking at?” Kevin asked.
“Oh, nothing. I thought I saw something in the woods, but I guess I was just seeing things.”
“Gotcha. You ready?”
“Yeah, let’s go.”
Holly climbed back into her car and Kevin jumped in the passenger seat. She started the car and they drove back down the road.
~
A cold October breeze weaved in and out through the headstones in the Wesley Chapel Cemetery on the east side of Hilliard.
Valerie Warner pushed Elizabeth Watkins in her wheelchair down a path in the cemetery and off into the grass. They stopped at a small headstone - Seth’s headstone.
Valerie stepped aside and hung her head as Elizabeth started to cry over her husband’s grave. Elizabeth was ten years older and showing it, physically and mentally. Her long straggly gray hair was thinning rapidly and her mind was touch and go, but she still knew to cry for her husband.
In her hand, she held a single red rose.
“Let me know when you’re done, Ms. Watkins,” Valerie spoke softly.
Elizabeth struggled to lean forward and dropped the rose in front of her husbands’ fractured headstone.
Near the entrance to Wesley Chapel, the black Sedan drove in and parked along the stretch of gravel road. Holly and Kevin got out and walked side by side up a path off the road and to a well-kept grave.
They both knelt down and put their hands on the headstone. Holly ran her fingers over the name: Ava Gibson. A single tear formed in the corner of Holly’s eye and trickled down her cheek.
“It doesn’t get any easier, Ava. We miss you everyday,” she said.
Kevin put a comforting hand on his sister’s shoulder and blankly stared at Ava’s name.
Holly looked into her brother’s eyes. “It kills me to not understand what happened to her, Kevin.”
Kevin nodded. He looked past his sister and saw Elizabeth Watkins and Valerie Warner about thirty yards away. The sad look on his face turned to anger. “Someone knows what happened to her,” he said.
He stood up and walked fast across the green grass in Elizabeth’s direction. Holly stood up and watched him.
“Where are you going?” Holly asked. She noticed the two women and then ran after Kevin. “Kevin, no!”
“Hey! Watkins!” Kevin shouted aggressively as he stormed towards them.
Elizabeth Watkins turned her head slowly and watched Kevin approach. Valerie stepped in front of her and Kevin stopped.
“We’re here mourning the ten year anniversary of our baby sisters death – a death she suffered at your house!” Kevin shouted. “The cops have not been very cooperative in the past with us. Tell me, Ms. Watkins, how does a young girl hang herself in your home and five others die of heart attacks? Tell me, how is that possible?”
“You need to step away, sir. Ms. Watkins is paying respect to her deceased husband,” Valerie sternly spoke.
“Oh, I’m so sorry for your loss,” Kevin said sarcastically as Holly joined his side. “Our sister died in your home and you all walked free!”
“There was never any proof of foul play, sir, if that’s what you’re getting at,” Valerie said, defending the ones she cared for.
“Then what happened? Everyone just dropped dead from heart attacks – at the same time? None of that makes any sense! You owe us an explanation!”
Valerie stood her ground and Elizabeth put her hand on her caretakers’ side. Valerie noticed and stepped aside.
“Young man,” Elizabeth began, “I am sorry for the loss of your baby sister, I truly am. I know what it’s like to lose someone close to you. But I haven’t done anything wrong. This town has looked upon me with accusing eyes and whispering words about murder and witchcraft since the day we moved into our home. If anyone owes anyone anything, this town owes me an apology.”
Kevin stared at the old woman with his mouth open in disbelief. He couldn’t believe she just said that. “You really are a witch…” he said and then turned around and walked away towards Ava’s grave. Holly followed him.
Elizabeth watched Kevin closely as he left. Her upper lip trembled with anger.
~
Postal Supervisor, Nancy Harris, turned the corner onto Amity Road and drove up about a quarter of a mile where she saw Patrick Snowden’s broken down truck sitting off to the side of the road.
In the passenger seat of her SUV, twenty one year old Chris Potter sat with jumper cables on his lap. He was the young custodian at the Post Office, hired right out of a failed two-year stint at community college.
“Whenever you want to make the jump to mail carrier, Chris, let me know and we’ll get you started on the training,” Nancy said.
“Okay,” Chris said. “Who knows? Maybe someday.”
“It’s a good job. It pays well.”
They approached the broken down mail truck and pulled up behind it. Nancy looked in the rearview mirror to make sure no cars were flying around the curve behind them, and then got out of her car. Chris climbed out the side door and the two of them walked up to the driver’s side of the mail truck.
Nancy peered in the truck. The sliding door was open but no one was inside. She leaned in over the seat and looked into the cargo area.
“Patrick?” she called. There was no answer.
Nancy stepped back out of the truck and looked around. “Patrick?” she called out again. There was still no answer. She looked behind her at the Watkins’ house. It didn’t appear anyone was home. She then looked to the cornfield. It waved eerily in the wind and the stalks towered over the land like an unnerving and dominant creature. All she could hear were the wind chimes singing on the Watkins’ front porch.
Nancy pulled her cell phone out of her suit jacket and dialed Patrick’s number. She waited through a few rings and finally heard his phone behind her. It rang from deep within the tall, dead stalks of corn.
She held the phone down by her side and called out once again: “Patrick?”
Nothing.
Nancy looked around with her eyes and at once, felt uneasy. Something wasn’t right. She ended the call with Patrick and dialed 911.