The Haunting of Sam Cabot by Mark Edward Hall

Author:Mark Edward Hall
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Tags: Horror
Publisher: Lost Village Publishing
Published: 2009-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

Linda arrived home to a yard full of emergency vehicles. I sat in the kitchen in shock. The cops had been questioning me for nearly two hours. Linwood Devlin’s body had been lifted out of the well nearly an hour before. His upper torso was nearly unrecognizable. His face was missing. The skull had cracked open like an egg and Devlin’s brain had leaked out. I was told that they were still fishing for it in those murky depths (but learned later that they’d given up without finding it). The police wanted to believe that Devlin’s violent plunge into the well had caused the disfiguration. So did I, but I knew better. I had been witness to something extraordinary, something supernatural, something . . . I don’t know, maybe something evil beyond articulation. I wasn’t about to tell the cops that, though. Even if I’d wanted to—which I didn’t—I couldn’t have. It would never have been allowed. Something not even close to a conscious thought process, something on a level that was probably ten stories beneath visceral warned me to stay away from such notions.

Mustn’t tell what’s in the well.

The policemen who handled the body had gagged at the foul jelly-like substance that covered it. I explained the reason for Devlin’s visit, that there was an unidentifiable toxin in the well and that he was here for a sample.

“But how did he fall?” the policeman, a Lieutenant Atkins kept asking me.

Each time I gave him the same answer, which was: “I don’t know.”

“But you say you were standing right behind him?”

“Yes,” I said for the umpteenth time. “He must have slipped or something. I just don’t know. One minute he was there and the next he was gone.”

Atkins nodded, but I could see that he wanted more from me.

“Are you insinuating that my husband might have done something to cause his fall?” Linda said outraged.

“No, of course not, Mrs. Cabot,” the lieutenant replied. “But we do need to get to the bottom of this.” He looked back at me. “Mr. Devlin had rope burns on his hands. Can you explain how they got there?”

“No,” I said again. “Maybe it didn’t happen here. Maybe it happened on his last job.” My voice sounded insanely calm, insanely reasonable.

“We don’t think so.”

“And what am I to assume by this?”

“By what?” asked the lieutenant, as if he didn’t know.

“This interrogation,” I said, nearly losing my temper. “Am I under arrest?”

“No, of course not, Mr. Cabot,” the lieutenant said, a small acerbic smile on his smug puss. “I can see no reason for that. There doesn’t seem to be a motive.”

They fished in that murky well for the remainder of the afternoon and all they brought up were buckets-full of toxic sludge that looked and smelled like shit from the bowels of something unholy. They took several samples for testing. After what happened, after all was said and done, they should have been back there like gangbusters filling that hole into hell with whatever they could lay their hands on.

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