The White Guy Dies First by Terry J. Benton-Walker

Author:Terry J. Benton-Walker
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tor Publishing Group

GRAY GROVE

ALEXIS HENDERSON

A fog lay thick over Gray Grove, and the demon was still asleep in the muck of the marsh the night the girls arrived.

They rode side by side in silence, Rumi in the passenger seat, slumped against the window, fitting a fresh battery into her video camera, and Kaitlin with her hands locked in a white-knuckle vise grip around the steering wheel. The headlights of the truck snared on the eyes of animals in the brush. A cat. A possum. Perhaps a deer, or something wearing its skin.

The two girls found their way to Gray Grove as part of their shared podcast, Girls and Ghosts, which launched investigations into the many haunted locations throughout the South. Tonight’s episode centered around Kyle Adams, who was said to have disappeared at Gray Grove more than forty years prior.

It was a big night, their first time recording an episode on-site, but Rumi wasn’t in the mood for filming that evening. The day before, while Kaitlin had been partying at a friend’s house, Rumi had pulled an all-nighter to finish her research on Kyle’s case.

Kyle had been a blond-haired, blue-eyed varsity quarterback who had found his way to Gray Grove while chasing William Jones, a Black boy he’d been bullying for the better part of the school year. William was the last person to see Kyle alive, and in the wake of his disappearance, many suspected William of a murder they couldn’t prove. Ultimately, he wasn’t imprisoned for Kyle’s death, but that wasn’t to say he walked away unscathed. He’d gone down on drug possession charges and remained behind bars for the rest of his life.

Rumi recalled the day she’d interviewed him at the beginning of that very summer. She’d driven up to the Northborough Georgia Penitentiary for the occasion, during visiting hours. William was waiting for her when she arrived, sitting on the other side of a plexiglass window, dressed in a lurid orange jumpsuit. He was older, pushing sixty, and looked almost nothing like the frightened boy Rumi had seen in the black-and-white newspaper photos, beneath headlines like MURDER AT GRAY GROVE? And QUARTERBACK KILLER. But his eyes were still wide and soft.

“How did things escalate between you and Kyle that night?”

“His girl was sweet on me,” William said into the receiver in a broken whisper. “Kyle didn’t take that well. He followed me home one night, after my shift at the docks. But you have to know it wasn’t me who killed him. Kyle was out for my blood, but I didn’t want his spilled.”

“Then what happened?”

For the first time, William had locked eyes with Rumi. “That night, when Kyle pulled his switchblade from his pocket, something from the marsh protected me. I don’t know what.”

Kaitlin pulled Rumi from her memories and back into the present. “You know we’re doing a good thing here,” said Kaitlin. “For Kyle. For his parents.”

And for the listeners and the brand sponsorships they afforded, Rumi wanted to add because she knew that was nearer to the truth of it.

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