These Things Linger by Dan Franklin
Author:Dan Franklin [Franklin, Dan & Publications, Cemetery Dance]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cemetery Dance Publications
Published: 2024-02-02T00:00:00+00:00
Chapter Nineteen:
THE
LION
I stared at the phone for a long minute before stuffing it into my pocket and looking around.
The sky was now black and shrouded in purple puffs of cotton clouds. Breaths of wind rushed through sparsely leafed trees. Night had made its claim. I regarded the chubby orange gourds at my feet.
Darkness had brought the candlelight to life, but my jack-o-lantern still looked depressed. Not irritated or menacing, but deeply, sourly saddened. It shared my opinion of myself, I suspected.
âFuck you,â I told it.
Rayâs on the other hand, with the fire glowing, had taken on a more sinister light. I had been so caught off guard by Buzzâs revelation that I hadnât really thought about the rest of what heâd said. The smaller pumpkin leered out at me through the otherâs grinning mouth.
In the dancing light of the burning wicks, it wasnât two pumpkins coexisting. It certainly was nothing cute. The outer shell was dark and frail, the inner guttering with hidden life as it was being digested. As it was digesting. The larger pumpkinâs residue had dried against its face and traced glistening, snail-like trails, but the smaller seemed all the more alive for it. It was no longer a baby, but a ravenous parasite. A consuming.
âDevoured,â I said. The word came to my lips and passed out before I could stop it.
Lacey had known it, too. Must be something in the water. The idea didnât come as a flash of insight or anything new. It was something Iâd always known, but never allowed myself to speak out loud. Now that Iâd heard Buzz speak the words, I couldnât shake them. Fair Hill really was haunted.
My professor had said statistics didnât apply to individual cases but to trends, and there was a trend in Fair Hill that was far outside the numbers heâd cited. One or two out of hundreds was a tragedy, but when it crossed into a majority, that became an epidemic. That became the case of a predator hunting prey. Something had dragged the town down into the broken shell it had become, was dragging it further still. Gutting it as effectively as Buzz at his best.
Ever since John Jameson died, he had claimed, but he was wrong. That was a tragedy, but tragedies happen. The town had mourned the loss of its wayward soldier, but the decline hadnât started until a few months after that. Not spring, but summer. Ever since Lacey and I had performed that bloody act of unnatural desire. We called out and something answered.
We had damned Fair Hill.
And damned my uncle twice over when I called him home.
âI forgive you, Uncle Matty, for anything you did or didnât do. I release you. You were the best father I ever could have had,â I said. I swallowed past the catch in my throat. âIâm so sorry I didnât sooner.â
I hoped he could hear it. I wondered if he would ever be able to forgive me.
No sooner had the words passed my lips than that smell of ammonia and rot waxed stronger.
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