People of the Dark by Wright T.M

Author:Wright, T.M. [Wright, T.M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Horror
Publisher: Crossroad Press
Published: 2012-06-30T02:45:53+00:00

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

At the end of the first week in April a stocky, moon-faced middle-aged man, wearing a yellow hunting jacket and carrying an over-and-under shotgun, came to the house and asked if he could use the phone. It was mid-morning, a little past eleven. He looked awfully agitated. He was even sweating a bit, although the temperatures that day hovered at just below fifty, so I asked him why he needed to use the phone.

He shook his head slightly. "No reason," he said. He smelled of gunpowder and cigars; his hunting boots were encased in mud.

"No reason?" I said.

He shook his head again, made a poor attempt at a Nothing's wrong, really! kind of smile. "There's been a little accident," he said, and inclined his head to the left. "Someone got shot."

"Oh, Jesus!" I murmured.

"So I need to use the phone"—another poor attempt at a smile—"I need to use the phone," he repeated, his voice quaking noticeably, "to call someone—"

I let him into the house, nodded at the phone on Erika's small desk in the library. "It's over there," I said.

"Thanks," he said, and went to it, picked it up, looked at it a moment, looked confusedly at me. "You think I should call the operator, and then she can call the sheriff, or you think I should call the hospital direct—"

"My God," I cut in, and went quickly over to him, took the phone. "Is the man dead?" I asked.

Another look of confusion. "What man?" he said.

"The man you shot, of course."

"I didn't shoot a man. I shot a woman."

"A woman? What woman?"

He shook his head. "I don't know. Some woman. I think she's dead."

"Where is she?"

He pointed toward the road in front of the house. "Across the road. In a gully." He grinned stupidly. "I thought she was a woodchuck. I shot her because I thought she was a woodchuck. What's your name?"

I put the phone down, put my hand on the barrel of the man's shotgun. "Leave that here, okay?" I said soothingly. "Leave that here, and show me where the woman is."

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