Strung by Jacobsen Per

Author:Jacobsen, Per [Jacobsen, Per]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Horror
Publisher: HumbleBooks
Published: 2021-10-01T04:00:00+00:00

ACT 3

NEWCREST

"Listen to them, the children of the night.

What music they make!"

— Bram Stoker, Dracula

— Chapter 17 —

As the day progressed and they approached Newcrest, Randall gradually became more and more anxious about what he would find in the city. In many ways, it was like sitting on a bench in a waiting room, where the head physician could come in the door at any time with either very good or very bad news.

In this version, though, he was just sitting in the passenger seat of Tommy's Chevrolet instead, and the message wouldn't come from a man in a white coat with a clipboard.

It would come from the dead. If not the full answer, then the number of hanged people in and around the city would at least give him part of it. The dead would clarify whether his bad premonition when talking to Allie on the phone had been correct. They would tell him if the darkness that had sucked the humanity out of the people from East Alin—the same that, according to Melanie Rosencamp, had spread all the way down to Walkersville, Maryland—had also infected Newcrest.

In other words, the silent voices of the dead would tell him whether the hope he stubbornly clung to was nothing more than a blind and irrational denial of the truth.

And so far, it didn't look too good. There were stretches where they didn't see anyone hanging, yes, but by and large the number had only increased.

Tommy felt it too. He didn't say it out loud, but the way he closed his eyes and let out a small sigh every time they passed one of the improvised gallows said it all.

On the right side of the car, a large, orange billboard rushed past. As he only caught it out of the corner of his eye, Randall only saw a few of the words written on the front of the sign. However, he had driven past here so many times before that he didn't need to read the sign to know what was written on it.

PISTOL PETE'S USED CARS—GET A YOUNGER MODEL, WITHOUT GETTING TROUBLE FROM THE OLD ONE!

Actually, Pistol Pete's sign—though the man himself probably didn't realize it—had for a time served as a checkpoint for Randall. Navigating had never been his strong suit, and in the beginning, he often ended up being a little late when he had to pick up Billy on the weekends. At some point, however, he realized that Pistol Pete's eye-catching billboard was an excellent warning that the important right turn was coming up.

"You may want to slow down a bit," he said. "There's a road on the right coming up soon. It's a shortcut, but it's right after the turn, so it's easy to miss."

Tommy narrowed his eyes for a moment and then lifted his index finger from the steering wheel.

"Over there?"

"Yup."

Knowing that within the next few minutes he would get his first glimpse of Newcrest, Randall leaned back in the seat and closed his eyes.

In the

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