“So you’re in with the ones starting that school back up, eh?” the old man says to them, then nods before they’ve even responded, “okay, we heard they was doin’ somethin with that property, but we didn’t know what.”
After cresting one final steep hill, Jeremy, Denise, and Lydia encounter a small, well manicured plot of land, then a gravel driveway with large, clean, brand new looking, light grey rocks. Beyond that, a tan and brown mobile home, with some old man tossing wood scrap onto a fire in between.
He glances up at them, wearing a quizzical expression, though not alarmed in the slightest by their presence. Simply staring back down at the fire for a couple more seconds, before appraising them again and raising one hand in a cautious hello.
As they draw nearer, he immediately takes a chatty, neighborly turn, dispelling any threat of unease between them. When possible to do so without staring, Jeremy attempts to take stock of this figure, one of those hardy country types who seemingly live forever despite poor diets and who knows how many other bad habits. His indifferent if thick head of greyish white hair – kind of matching the gravel, actually, Jeremy observes with a smirk – blows every which way in the breeze. A short, stocky frame clothed in burlap jacket, jeans, and work boots, his face craggy with battle scars, and mostly red, although it’s impossible to tell if this latter condition is a constant one, or caused by either exertion or this sudden wind.
Above a tall set of steps, which seem incongruously flashy too, in comparison to the abode, the side door swings open and the lady of the manor stands in the frame just enough to keep it open. She’s wiping a plate with a kitchen towel, but beams and nods in their direction as she wordlessly smiles down at them. Her man has heard or peripherally spotted this opening door, and creaks his head around now, ever so slowly.
“Maggie!” he calls out to her, jerks a thumb back at them, “this here’s some-a the kids from that school!”
Then, jarred by the realization that his manners have been lacking, spins around and extends a hand. “Oh, I’m sorry. Forgot to mention it. I’m Owen Hazelwood, that’s my wife, Maggie.”
After introductions are handed out, the three of them find it impossible to turn down an offer to chat indoors. It had never occurred to Jeremy until his arrival here, but soon after they began speaking with Owen out by that smoldering fire, he realized that these folks could prove a vital link in maybe uncovering some history about the region. And he doesn’t even have to ask Denise to know she’s thinking the same thing, if it didn’t in fact occur to her quite some time ago. Soon enough they are seated around a dingy living room, whose brown carpet and particle board walls are too much for a solitary lamp to overpower. A large picture window does face the other side of the yard, though today’s weak light isn’t offering much help, either, and there’s no view to speak of beyond a laundry line and then a resumption of the tall yellow weeds.
While Owen sits with them, facing the crew from an Ottoman he apparently favors, Maggie drifts in and out from the kitchen repeatedly. Chiming in with details or questions if the mood strikes her, but otherwise engaged with her housework. Meanwhile Lydia occupies a faux rocking chair on gliders, while Jeremy and Denise sit near one another, taking up just 2/3 of a couch. Maggie has made everyone tea and brought out a tin of assorted cookies, both of which the suddenly cold and ravenous travelers eagerly devour.
Prompted by questions about what developments have been made down there, Jeremy and Denise take turns outlining any improvements they can recall. Lydia doesn’t say much outside of, specifically prodded by Owen, his asking what kind of art she’s into, explaining with a shy smile that she’s the unofficial house photographer. Then Jeremy mentions that they cleaned out the barn and just last night had a welcoming dance in that space, during which Lydia shot some impressive footage with her high dollar gear. Yet it immediately strikes him as odd that Owen’s kind of smiling in the overly broad, stilted manner of someone who’s assumed a distant look in the eyes, and doesn’t seem all that thrilled by this information.
“That’s nice, that’s nice,” Maggie says in her lilting, soft voice, from the kitchen doorway, however. Diverting attention in that direction, and causing Denise to think that this skinny, wrinkly woman, with her steel wool helmet of curly grey hair, has that weird brand of bottomless energy which only old ladies seem to possess. “I’m glad somebody finally did something with that place.”
Continuing to chew his bottom lip in a meditative state, Owen finally asks, “you haven’t had any…problems down there, have you?”
“Well,” Denise offers, with a play-acting laugh she hopes passes as authentic, “I’m not sure what you mean, but…just last night, my sister actually thought she saw some guy come and knock on her window…”
“Is that right?” Owen remarks. “Huh. Well what did this fella look like?”
While Denise contributes an in-depth description of the character, she throws herself into it both bodily and emotionally, becoming progressively more animated as she continues. As such, Jeremy’s unsure even she notices the subtle expression passing between Owen and Maggie while she speaks. Neither will turn their head away from her during this tale, but their eyes slowly drift to meet one another’s. And maybe he’s imagining this, but he believes they share a slight nod, too.
Studying them, after waiting for Denise to finish, Jeremy immediately asks, “there haven’t been any…weird incidents or anything in this region, have there? Anything noteworthy?”
“Weird incidents?” Owen repeats.
“Yeah!” Denise enthuses, beaming and borderline cackling now that they’ve broached this topic. “You know, have any ffff…messed up things happened around here? Or better yet, have you heard anything about that place being haunted?”
“Weeeelll…,” Maggie equivocates in a slow Southern drawl, “I’d say just about everywhere has a little touch of somethin, wouldn’t you?”
It’s not lost on Jeremy that this isn’t an actual answer, however. Plus, he feels as though he can just sense it in the air, that Owen is itching to tell them something. He turns his eyes toward the man and leans forward, shifting his feet from the coffee table’s bottom ledge to the carpet, and keeps an unwavering gaze on him. Eyebrows raised, but grinning, to lace this pointed inquiry with a little sugar, he says, “alright then, come on, let’s hear it. What are some things that have happened around here? What kind of scandals are we talking about?’
Owen nods, as though expecting this, and looks off into the near distance, at the windows next to that side door, in casting his thoughts back to recall. “Okay, well, this woulda been twenty-five, maybe thirty years ago at this point. They was this high schooler, Roger Terry, lived over off of Stokely Farm Road…”
Maggie has by now drifted back into the kitchen, the sounds of running water and gently clanging dishes reaching their ears once more. But nobody’s paying much mind to this, for at the mention of this road, Jeremy lights up with recognition. “Oh, okay, out by that huge lake?”
“Huge lake?” Owen replies, blinking, mouth downturned.
“Okay, so wait,” Denise interjects, maintaining a curious, animated intensity, relishing this juicy opportunity to play detective, “was this the tall man my sister saw last night?”
Owen shakes his head and says, “no, this weren’t the fella you described. Roger Terry weren’t that tall at all.”
“I see,” Jeremy says, nodding a few times, “well, but anyway…you were saying?”
“Right, so yeah, this Roger Terry,” Owen continues, drawing his focus inward once more, “like I was saying, he was a high schooler, junior I believe, lived with his folks over off Stokely Farm Road. ‘Cept one morning in the spring of that year, he woke up and shot his entire family to death. Both parents and a younger sister. Just shot ‘em to death, and then stood at the end of the drive and got on his school bus like nothin ever happened. Nobody found ‘em until later that afternoon, the mom’s sister came over and saw ‘em all dead. The kids was on they way home from school by then. Sheriff and his deputies brought three cars out and pulled Roger’s bus over.” Owen waves a finger at some distant point in that general direction, miles beyond the corner between side door and kitchen archway. “They got out with guns drawn and yanked him off that bus, right on Stokely Farm Road.”
While Denise and Jeremy drop their mouths and openly voice surprise, even the mostly silent Lydia is muttering how messed up that is, with whispered, shocked wows and a continued shake of the head. Maggie is in the doorway again, leaning against its side, adding how it was all over the papers and the only thing people talked about for months. Fascinating though this is, however, Denise feels she must leapfrog to more important points, before talk becomes sidetracked again.
“So what prompted this? And what happened to him?”
“Nobody could ever figure out what prompted it, and he never said,” Owen explains. “He just snapped one day and that was that. You’d see him on TV sittin in the courtroom lookin halfway catatonic, though. In all this time he’s still never said nothin about it. They tried him as an adult, though, they gave him life without. He’s up there to this day, a-course.”
“Wow…,” Jeremy croaks, staring at the floor. But then snaps his fingers and glances over at Owen again, Maggie as well, to recall, “hey! That kinda reminds me of something, well, I don’t know why it does, really, but…”
“Yeah?”
“Well we passed this overgrown road on the way over here. You know anything about that?”
“Over thataway?” Owen questions, points toward the side door and its accompanying wall. “Bottom o’ these hills?”
“Yeah! What’s the deal with that?”
“Well, okay, that used to be the main road. That looped over and connected with Stokely Farm,” he explains, tracing a long line, from his right to his left, with that same index finger.
“Main road for what?” Denise asks.
Owen nods again, turning his attention her way before he elaborates, “well, okay, now, among other things, the lane back to your school fed off of it.”
“Wait a second – was this Roger Terry’s school?” Jeremy asks.
“No, no, that one was actually down into Stokely. This place here’s always been a, what you call, artsy kinda deal or whatever. But now, okay, yeah, you had your long dirt lane through that forest and the swamp, leading up to the school. A-course now you’re comin in from the other direction. S’far’s I know they closed off that lane. Well, maybe not closed, but it don’t serve no purpose.”
“Well that’s weird. I wonder what inspired the switch?” Denise says.
“That I couldn’t say for sure. I think just general, you know, development, they had to reroute some stuff.”
“Was there ever a fire?” Lydia startles all of them by suddenly questioning, as though snapping away from a highly involved daydream. “I seem to remember something about a fire.”
“Yep, yep, they was indeed a fire,” Owen tells her, “that may-a had somethin to do with it, I couldn’t tell ya.”
Saying their goodbyes, they receive enthusiastic pleas from the home’s elderly residents, that these kids and anyone else is welcome here any time. By this point, they’ve been gone two and a half hours, although it’s not until they’ve reached the outdoors and they start trudging down that first hill that Jeremy’s inbox lights up with three texts and a voicemail, all from Emily, all apparently sent quite some time ago.
“Huh. They must have a shitty signal in there, too,” he observes, reading the messages. Emily mentions that her team has stumbled onto some weird pond – apparently a big deal, considering the caps and exclamation points (WEIRD POND!!) – and also casually states that they earlier found “that one cemetery,” although he’s not quite sure what she means by this. Later texts, meanwhile, and the voicemail, are all variations asking where the fuck he and Denise and Lydia have disappeared to.
“What, like it’s better out here?” Denise jokes.
“Eh, you know how it is. Sometimes no signal is better than a bad one. Most of the time, in fact.”
“I know. I was just messing around. But, you know, I have to admit,” Denise offers, glancing back at the trailer, the smoldering remains of a fire one last time, “I do feel a little better after talking to them. Especially him. I mean, I guess I was sorta right about there being some bad shit in the air around the place. But probably nothing like I imagined.”
“It’s funny you say that, actually, because I’m thinking just the opposite,” Jeremy tells her, “that old man has me thinking you probably were right, all along. I think Kidwell knows a lot more than he’s letting on.”
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