The Pastor's Chair by Peter Mark May

Author:Peter Mark May [May, Peter Mark]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: horror, supernatural, occult
Publisher: Crossroad Press
Published: 2022-12-17T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Sixteen

* * *

“Didn’t expect to see you here today,” Jeb said through the open window of Andrea’s car as it parked up next to his Chevy on the front schoolyard. Then he noticed an older guy was sitting beside her pulling a camera from a battered black case.

“What, when the town’s most famous family is dug up? Beats covering the annual dog show.” Andrea smiled back at him and turned off the engine. “This is Wally Whitmore. By the way, he’s gonna take some pictures.”

“Nice to see you again, J.J. Used to cover a lot of your games when you were starring for the Broncos. I even caught one of your Penn State games a few years back,” Wally said raising his camera a little as a welcome.

Jeb stepped back and let the two of them get out of the car. Andrea was wearing a strappy white flora top over a black pair of jeans and her eyes were covered with brown lensed sunglasses. Jeb’s eyes couldn’t help dart to appreciate the slight cleavage on show and Andrea smiled and shook her head when she caught him doing it.

Wally was the shortest of the three. Round of stomach with a grey mop of frizzy hair and a walrus-like moustache, his bald spot soon covered with a white floppy hat.

“So, when does the fun begin?” Andrea asked, moving up to stand beside Jeb.

“Any time now,” Jeb pointed over to a smaller digger that was pumping exhaust fumes over the other side of the hill and moving on tank tracks towards the four graves in the plot.

“So who exactly are they digging up today, Jeb? I know it's Pastor Henry’s grave there and his brother Daniel’s grave, but who else?” Andrea exhaled as the heat of the May mid-morning was starting to kick home now.

“Mary Arnell, the Pastor’s wife, and his eldest daughter, by the name of Agnes. The younger daughter Elizabeth ran away to Atlanta to marry a sailor by the name of John Black.”

Jeb and Andrea turned to see Wally had given the quick history lesson while he fixed a larger lens on the camera around his neck.

“How do you know all this?” Jeb asked the resident Babylon Echo photographer and local history buff.

“I like to research the town’s history, much of which is forgotten these days. Did you know for instance that there was a bit of a hoo-hah about the Pastor burying his brother in that little-biddy family plot over there so close to the church?”

“Why was that?” Andrea asked, looking from the revving digger, sidewards to Wally.

“He hung himself from the rafter of that school, the very day he finished building it. He never married and his brother the Pastor insisted he be buried there, but the town leaders didn’t want a suicide to be given a full Christian burial right next to the church they worshipped at every Sunday. Things had been strained for years between the Arnells and the leading townsfolk. Even back then

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