Shades: Eight Tales of Terror (6 page)

Lamar Tarlington.

That dead bastard was watching us from the house at the intersection behind us! He was following us!

No, seriously! You know that blue house with the tall roof on the corner of Maple and Wallace? It has this big picture window in the front of it, and Lamar Tarlington was standing in it, big as life! And this time there wasn’t no way it was anybody else. He was wearing that same suit he has on in the portrait. Oh yeah, and the cleaver. What Laura was calling a really big knife was one of those huge butcher cleavers you see in some of those old movies. Probably the same one he used to kill those kids.

*Note: The weapon Lamar Tarlington used in his murders was never recovered, so this is purely speculation on the part of the suspect.

I almost crapped my pants again, because there he is glaring out at us the same way he was back at the school. He was standing there like he was both pissed and… inevitable…or something. I don’t know how to say it better than that.  It’s more like the look of somebody who thinks he’s a whole world better than you and you’re just a little piece of trash that got in his way somehow. There’s anger in it, but something else too. All I know is I’m fighting not to start crying and blubbering like Laura had been, but I don’t say nothing to her and I just keep her headed for her house instead. If she had seen that, I’m pretty sure she would have just sat down right then and never stopped screaming.

But she didn’t see it. And because she hadn’t seen him since coming out of the school, her nerves were starting to settle a little as we got closer to her house. She pointed it out to me as we got closer and I could see she was even beginning to get a little excited. I guess she was starting to believe that everything was going to turn out okay in her little world, like it always had before.  And why not?  I’m sure she was used to guys stepping up and making everything better. That’s just the way life worked for her.

Thinking about that is when I realized why she didn’t choose to hide in the girl’s bathroom back at school.

So we reach her place and she’s all excited, and I’m getting mad because I’m just beginning to understand how I got dragged into this thing.

Hell yeah, I was getting mad. Wouldn’t you? I was about to be running across town with a dead psychopath on my tail, all because some jackass was too cheap to buy a bimbo a real birthday present. And she hadn’t gone into that bathroom to hide…she had gone in looking for a sucker to play white knight and I stepped up like a real chump. Hell, I even volunteered for the run after knowing what was going on because I didn’t have a choice anymore.

There ought to be a law against cheerleaders.

So she fishes a key out from under a little frog statue in the fro
nt hedge, then looks all sneaky-like at me like she wishes I hadn’t seen her do it. Seriously, is there a burglar alive who wouldn’t have looked under the frog? Anyways, I could tell she was even thinking about leaving me out in the yard while she went inside but I guess she realized that might have been pushing her luck.

“Hey, Corvin?” She acts all awkward.
“Look. I’m going to run to my bedroom and get the pen. You wait for me in the living room, okay?”

“Sure.”

Hell, I really didn’t care if she left me in the yard at that point. After seeing Tarlington again, all I wanted was to get that pen and start hoofing it for the museum.

She opened the door and we went inside. We go into the living room, which I
notice is pretty nice. They obviously weren’t rich, but it sure beat the hell out of the dump I live in. They had nice couches, a carpet without a trail wore into it, and one of those big screen TVs that makes an Xbox worth having.

“I’ll be right back,” she says and heads down the hall.

I walk over to the fireplace and look at the pictures on the mantelpiece while she goes to do her business. They’re the usual stuff…family portrait, vacation shots, a picture of a wiener dog in a heart shaped frame…and there’s a couple of cool looking knick-knacks as well. I spot this little clock made out of glass so you can see all the gears turning inside, so I pick it up for a closer look.

That’s when Laura started screaming.

I had already heard her scream before that day, but this was different. This scream didn’t just sound like her being scared…it sounded like somebody who was scared, hopeless, and not wanting to believe it all at the same time. I figure that’s the way some people in a car wreck scream right before the collision and they can see the truck filling up the windshield.

B
efore I even think about it I’ve dropped the clock and I’m running down the hallway and toward all the screaming. It’s coming from behind the left door at the end of the hall, and I figure that’s her bedroom. Don’t ask me why she closed the door. Maybe it’s a chick thing.

Anyways, the door was closed and she was screaming like a banshee so I didn’t even slow down but just busted in
at a full run. I bash through, go stumbling in, and I’m halfway across the room and almost on top of her before I can stop. And then I’m screaming when I almost didn’t because she’s standing by this dresser, next to her closet…

And her head is gone!

I mean it, man! Her head was gone! Her body was just standing there twitching with her hands up in the air like they had gone to grab her head to keep it from coming off or something. There was blood pumping up out of her neck like a fountain and running down her neck and shoulders. Then her body sort of stumbles and turns toward me with her hands still up and shaking, and then it falls right into me. Man, I’m screaming like a little girl now, and I fall down and start crawling backwards to get away from the thing.

It just lays there and flops for a second, and then it doesn’t move anymore. I’ve got her blood all over me, and I think right about then I started to understand what fainting was all about. I seriously thought I was going to for a second…but that’s when I realize I can still
hear her screaming!

So I look back up from the floor, over her body, and that’s when I nearly pass out again. Hell, I nearly died right on the spot to be honest.

Her closet door had this door-length mirror on it, and there stood Lamar Tarlington looking back at me.

He’s still got that wild, angry look and those wide eyes, and now he’s glaring down at me. I can’t even make a sound now, like my throat is locked up or something. Then he raises his hand and he’s got Laura’s head hanging from it by her hair.

And it’s still screaming!

I mean it! She was looking right at me through the mirror and still screaming, even though she was just a head and should have died
. I could tell she could see me and wanted me to help her, but what the hell could
I
do? And he stands there holding her head up like he wants to be sure I get a good look at it, while he stuffs this big bloody cleaver he’s holding in his other hand into his belt.

Then he raises his other hand up beside her head and holds up three fingers. He stares at me and does this for
about ten seconds. Then he just slings her head over his shoulder like a sack, and turns and walks past the edge of the mirror and out of sight…like he’s heading for the bedroom door.

I couldn’t do nothing but
lay there for a minute, listening to her screaming getting further and further away. Then I heard a door slam and the screaming stopped.

That’s when I realize I’m all alone with a dead body
. Then I really freak out.

I jumped up and ran out of the room, banging my face on the door when I jerked it back open. Then I hoofed it out of that house without looking back. I mean, what the hell else was
I supposed to do? She was gone and there wasn’t anything I could do for her. And I sure as hell wasn’t hanging around to see if he was coming back.

So that’s what really happened. T
hat’s what her neighbors saw when I came running out covered in blood. I was there, but I didn’t do it!

And no, I don’t have any idea where her’s or Barry’s heads are. But I bet you’re never going to find them, because I don’t think they’re in the world anymore…at least not on this side of the glass. See, that’s what I figured out last night while laying there in my cell. Every time I saw him, he was on the other side of a window or a mirror. Same thing when Laura saw him in class. That’s where he exists now…or his ghost…or whatever…

But if you get too close, he can still reach out and get you.

So there it is, dude. I can tell you don’t believe me. Hell, I was there and I don’t believe me, but that’s still the way it is. I can’t do nothing about it. But I didn’t kill those two, and I ain’t confessing to nothing I didn’t do.

So you can take your superior smile and shove it right up to where the sun don’t shine.

This concludes the statement of Corvin Bradshaw.

A combination of
fingerprints, blood spatter evidence, and shoe print analysis conclusively puts him at the scene of the second murder at the time of death. Whether he was there as the assailant, an accomplice, or as a witness is still open to conjecture. He did not have the murder weapon when apprehended.

He has a solid alibi in regards to the murder of Barry Price. He was across town, riding the bus to school in the full view of about twenty witnesses, when Barry’s decapitated body was found in his bathroom on the floor in front of the sink.

A call to the museum established the existence of just such a pen as described by the suspect. But after a quick check, the staff reported it still occupied its place on the vanity dresser in Lamar Tarlington’s bedroom.

At this time the investigation proceeds on the assumption that Corvin Bradshaw is either an accomplice or a mentally unsound witness. Psychological testing is scheduled to attempt
to determine his state of mind and whether he would be fit to stand trial. It is worth noting that his violent aversion to both mirrors and windows seems to be quite genuine.

So far, neither head has been recovered.

Dance of the Ancients

January 1, 1954

Three grim men sat in the front of the fog shrouded boat, their rifles pointed skyward.

Sheriff Carl Gartner squinted through the mist at the approaching shadow of the island once called Deerhunter Hill. The water around it only reached four or five feet deep at the present but, as Lake Hallisboro filled up behind its new dam, the low hill was doomed to disappear beneath the waves. Unlike some of the other places destined to vanish under the growing lake, Carl wouldn’t be sorry to see it go.

The Sheriff shook his head in disgust at the way things worked out.

It could have all gone so much easier.

The rising water meant the inevitable eviction of a backwoods nuisance who had been a thorn in his butt for the past ten years. If only people had left things alone, the water would have done all the work for him. No fuss, no muss. But then that state trooper showed up waving an eviction notice, and when Carl showed little interest in delivering it had decided to take matters into his own hands.

And never came back.

“Idiot,” the graying Sheriff sighed at the approaching shore. “We could all be home watching the Cotton Bowl instead of slogging around in this mess. Hell, Martha even made deviled eggs so I could eat’em while I watched the game. Les, if we find that jackass alive, your job is to get him away from me as fast as possible… because if Luther hasn’t shot his damn fool head off, I’m gonna be awful tempted to do it myself.”

“Don’t look at me,” Deputy Les Patterson drawled, “Kathy’s had this grand experiment going with a soufflé she read about in one of those women’s magazines before you pulled me out here. As far as she’s concerned, somebody better be dead for me not to be there to ooh and ah over it when it’s done.”

Sheriff Gartner considered that, then nodded in sage agreement before turning to the younger of the two deputies.

“Well, Pete,” he groused, “now you see why this job ain’t a married man’s way to make a livin’. It ain’t bad enough we might have Luther Cole shootin’ at us, we get to look forward to havin’ our ears pinned back when we get home too.”

Carl chuckled inside at the way the kid looked back and forth between him and the older deputy. He knew the young man was having a hard time understanding how he and Les could be griping about ballgames and wives when they could be heading into a potential shootout. The youngster probably wondered if they were both crazy. The Sheriff sorta felt bad for him, but he understood the kid would have to figure this one out for himself or find a new line of work.

“Hey, Earl,” the Sheriff called back to the local mechanic whose boat they were borrowing, “might want to slow down some more. We got trees coming up, and a lot of them are out in the water now.

Deerhunter Hill had once been a forested prominence where the San Lupo river joined Hollow Creek. Its vaguely trapezoidal shape led many locals to believe it was an ancient Indian mound of some kind, but the state geologist who green lighted the dam project dismissed it as a natural formation. So the dam went forward, and the waters rose. Now the low hill rose out of the water like a tree crusted behemoth in the mist.

Sheriff Gartner motioned to the mechanic to stop the boat and the craft drifted to a halt about twenty feet from the tree line.

“Whatcha thinking, Carl?” Les studied the fog shrouded trees.

“I’m thinking whatever happened here is already old news, so we ought to circle the island first and see if we can find the trooper
’s boat.”

“Makes sense. You want go ashore there?”

“Depends on where it is,” the Sheriff replied. “I want to go straight to the cabin first, since I figure that’s the best place to get answers. But it might help to know where the trooper went ashore, and it sure won’t hurt to know where another boat is available if we need it.”

The deputy nodded without answering, his narrowed eyes never leaving the tree line.

“Besides,” Carl continued, “I want to go ashore close to the shack so it don’t look to Luther like we’re trying to sneak up on him. He’s already crazy enough without us giving him even more reason to start shooting.”

“So this Luther Cole is really crazy?” the younger deputy asked. At the ripe old age of twenty, Pete Sawyer had been on the force for a mere six months. And since his family moved up from Houston only five years earlier, he barely counted as a local.

“So I hear,” Carl muttered as he motioned Earl to start moving the boat along the shoreline. “I only met the man once, and that was fifteen years ago. I arrested him for hunting quail on Eli Cooper’s property without permission. He didn’t put up a fuss, just paid his fine and left. I think he may have said six words the whole time. ‘Course, he still lived with his nephew back then.”

“What happened?”

“His nephew died, leaving him the last surviving member of the old Cole family…the one the county’s named after. He never seemed interested in running a farm or anything, and now I wonder if he was capable. He always lived with a member of his family until the last one died. Then he just up and disappeared.”

“Disappeared?”

“Yep, he just packed up a few things and abandoned the family property. Nobody was quite sure what to do about it. Especially since the land was paid off. They eventually found some distant relative in Oklahoma who saw to it the taxes were paid, and after about six or seven years the courts handed it off to them. Meanwhile, Luther turned up living in a little lean-to down on Hollow Creek.”

“What was he doing down here?”

“Who knows? Fishing, drinking, shootin’ coon… The folks in Oklahoma gave him some money in a bank account, just to make things extra legal involving the land, but he hardly ever came into town to get any. And since there wasn’t much of a way back into this neck of the woods until the lake started filling up, he almost disappeared back here.”

“Almost?”

“Yep. He had a way of turning up from time to time and causing trouble. Usually, it was hunting on some farmer’s land. Then I’d have to come running out, but he’d be gone by the time I  got there. Small stuff like that—annoying as hell, but I never thought he was dangerous. Then he built that shack up on Deerhunter Hill, and things seemed to get odd.”

“Odd?” T
he young deputy watched the trees slide by in the mist.

“Yep, he didn’t show up on people’s property so much anymore, but sometimes other hunters would run into him.”

Les Patterson snorted.

“You’re using the term ‘hunters’ a little loosely there, Carl.”

“Yeah, okay,” the Sheriff laughed. “I mainly mean moonshiners. They had stills back here in the boonies before the lake came in, and sometimes they would come across old Luther. Apparently some of those encounters got sorta strange. Then word would kind of filter back into town…and the word is he’s been losing his marbles back here.”

“What do you mean?” Pete asked.

“Well, the story is Andy Johnson caught him fishing near his still, wearing nothing but his long johns, and his face and chest were all smeared with charcoal or something. Then Taylor Morris and his boy were out coon huntin’ when they spotted Luthor dancin’ in a circle, buck nekkid, up here on Deerhunter Hill. They said he saw them and started yelling, but it was all gibberish.”

“Damn.”

“Yeah.” Carl lit a cigarette and continued to watch the shore. “I hiked out here to this shack after that, just to see if he was alright, but he wasn’t around. I waited half the day, but finally gave up and went home. I’ve done it two other times after similar incidents over the past few years, but I guess he sees me coming and hides till I leave. He’s been starting to worry me, since the recent word is his last few encounters with the moonshiners have gotten nasty.”

“Yeah?”

“Nothing specific.” The Sheriff took a long pull on the cigarette, then squinted at the glowing end as he dredged up the memories. “Just vague rumors. I heard he may have traded shots with Colin Peese across Hollow Creek one night, but nobody would admit to nothing. Then, about six months ago, Abner Coffey shows up to town with a big bandage around his head and one ear missing. He says he got drunk and fell out the back of his pickup while his boy was driving down a gravel road. But the word is he caught Luther Cole messing with his trout line on the San Lupo, wearing nothing but a dead deer for a cape, horns and all. When he yells, Luthor rushes up and clubs him four or five times with this stick he’s tied a rock to, then runs off.”

“Damn!”

“Yeah,” Les interjected, “so if you don’t want to get your skull cracked today, or shot by a guy running around with his johnson hanging out, I recommend you look sharp. By the way, there’s the trooper’s boat.”

Carl brought his mind back to the present and peered through the fog where Les pointed. He spotted the vessel, a short distance into the trees.

It bobbed gently on the water where the missing trooper must have moored it to a low hanging limb. The craft appeared more modern than the antique Earl had brought down the river to transport them. It also looked empty, but the sheriff could see no sign of violence or anything else amiss…other than the fact it should have brought the trooper back to town yesterday evening. Its presence confirmed the man never left the island.

“Ah hell,” the sheriff sighed. “Well, that’s it then.”

“’Fraid so,” the senior deputy grunted. “And this means Luthor is still on the island too. I guess he either don’t know how to use a boat, or he just don’t feel like running and hiding this time.”

“Let’s hope it’s the former.
” Carl checked his rifle and glanced over at the younger deputy whose face now tightened into a pale mask.

He hated pulling the kid into something like this with so little experience, but circumstances forced his hand. Roy Palmer was out of town on vacation, and Ernie Gillis nursed a broken foot at home. That left him and two deputies to cover all of Cole County.  So, like it or not, Deputy Pete Sawyer was about to get his feet wet.

Carl stared across the water at the empty boat a moment longer, taking another draw on his cigarette while he considered the situation. He could feel the eyes of both his deputies on him as they waited to hear his next course of action. The Sheriff pulled the cigarette from his mouth and flicked it out into the fog.

“Oh well…” H
e watched the ember land in the water and snuff out. “Whatever happened, it didn’t happen here. Earl, go ahead and take us up to the head of the island near the shack and we’ll get off there. I guess it’s time to see if Luther’s home.”

***

The shack squatted between two trees, a dismal assemblage of planks, plywood, and corrugated metal.

Carl peered ar
ound the tree he leaned against and surveyed the area around the building for any signs of life. Off to his left, Pete snugged himself up against a tree trunk of his own. The youngster clutched his rifle to his chest, his wide eyes fixed firmly on the Sheriff.  Carl made a mental note to keep an eye on him. Les had slipped off into the mist to check around back of the structure, and the Sheriff now waited for him to return before taking any further steps.

The shack didn’t have a rear exit
, but that didn’t mean Luther couldn’t have already been hiding out back—waiting to open fire once they closed in on the building and bunched up. Carl Gartner had made it through WWI by being smart enough to avoid falling for those kinds of tricks, and he knew Les learned his own lessons in the war against the Nazi’s. And thinking of all the fresh faced boys like Pete who never made it home from those wars made Carl feel slightly guilty for bringing the kid on this venture. But the young man signed up for this, and when you wear the badge…

“Pssst! Sheriff!”

The sheriff started, then glanced over to see Pete nodding in the direction of the shack. Embarrassed to be caught woolgathering, he looked around the tree to see Les had reappeared and now moved his way up the side of the structure till he squatted by the front corner near the door. This meant the rear of the house was now clear of threat, and it was time to move to Step Two.

He signaled Les to let him know he saw him, then stuck his head further around the tree and hailed the house.

“Luther! Luther Cole! This is Sheriff Carl Gartner! I need to talk to you!”

He pulled his head back around the tree in a hurry and grimaced, waiting for the blast of a shotgun.

Nothing.

With a long exhale, and a glance over at the pale-faced youngster, the Sheriff tried again. He hated this part of these kinds of things. Hell, he hated all parts of these kinds of things. A m
an could get killed doing this. And the fact he should have been home eating deviled eggs and watching the Cotton Bowl only made it worse.

“Luther! We don’t want to hurt you! We just want to talk! We need to know what happened yesterday. If you can hear us, give us a yell so we know you’re listening.”

Somewhere out in the mist, a loon warbled his discovery of the new lake. No other sound disturbed the silence.

“Shit,” Carl muttered from behind his trunk, “he either ain’t home or he’s holed up with his shotgun and just waiting for one of us to stick our head in the door. I should have known this wouldn’t work.”