Black Creek

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Act 1

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Act 2

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Act 3

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Epilogue

  Afterword

  Black Creek

  Copyright ©2018 by Dan Kemp

  www.midnightmouthful.com

  Cover art ©2017 by Hampton Lamoureux

  www.ts95studios.com

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the author except for the use of brief quotations in a review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  ISBN 9781976716706

  Act One

  The forest was dark, and all he could hear was his own breath and the pounding of his feet.

  The ground was slick, yet somehow he kept his feet beneath him as he tore through the undergrowth. Branches bit at his face and arms, but he slapped them away and told his legs to keep pumping.

  His chest was getting tight, and eventually he couldn’t help but to slow down. It was only then that his feet slipped. He landed hard on the muddy ground, sliding into the base of a tree with a painful thud. Now his head was spinning, so for a moment he could only lie still and listen.

  He could hear faint screams off in the distance behind him. With a moan he heaved himself up against the tree trunk. Looking back in the direction he had come, a dim light filtered through the dense trees. Fire, he knew. His friends were likely all dead. He would be too, soon enough, unless he kept moving.

  The sound of rustling nearby gave him a start, and he lowered himself to the ground once again. The sounds passed behind him. Whatever caused them, it was fleeing from the same thing he had been. He pulled himself upright but faltered, feeling a sharp pain in his arm as it brushed against the bark. A warm trickle of blood ran across his wrist. Instinctively he looked down, but in the oppressive darkness he couldn’t even see his own arm.

  The screaming behind him had gone quiet, but the forest was not silent. There was a dull, heavy rumble echoing through the woods. He could feel it underfoot, too, like a slow drum beat deep within the earth.

  Time to run again. He soon hit another tree, but spun off of it as he went and kept running. The sound was growing louder and the beat faster, and he willed his legs to go faster until they simply could not. Closer now. He got the sense of a break in the trees to his right, so he threw himself that way.

  He hit something hard and pressed himself against it. The beast seemed to go past, its heavy footfalls moving off to his right and becoming faint.

  He felt around blindly, trying to get his bearings, finding himself to be surrounded by thick vines. The only way out was right in front of him. He laid his head back and tried to slow his racing heart.

  THUM

  One single, earth-rending footstep. He closed his eyes and held his breath.

  THUM

  Another. He could hear it now, its moist breathing. Sniffing, trying to catch his scent. It was right in front of him now, close enough he could nearly see it in the darkness. The massive creature made a deep throaty rumble, almost like a purr, as it regarded him. There was no way out.

  "Fuck."

  When the monster roared, the trees shook and a wave of foul, hot breath washed over him. The man's eardrums burst and bled, and he never heard his own scream.

  Joseph

  1890

  Prince William County, Virginia

  Has the whole world gone to shit, or just this town?

  Joseph Brooker hauled open the heavy old door and slipped inside, eager to escape the winter cold. He shrugged off his overcoat and hung it on the hook near the door. A fire was already burning in the grate across the room, and he was glad of it. For a moment he just stood silently, warming himself near the hearth.

  "Are you okay, Joe?" His secretary sat at her desk just feet away, looking at him over the rim of her glasses.

  Joseph turned to her. "I'm fine, Mabel. Just a bit of trouble in town.”

  “There's always something,” she said.

  "Always," he agreed, as she looked back down at her work. She was an older woman, quiet but kind, and had worked for Joseph's father for many years. She was still a valuable asset, although Joseph doubted he'd have the heart to fire her even if she weren't. He walked over to his office door.

  "No visitors," he said, turning back with one hand on the knob.

  "Of course," she answered. "Mr. Crawford came looking for you again earlier."

  She didn’t look up again, expecting no response, and Joseph gave her none. He closed the door behind him.

  His office was a cozy, circular room which felt more like home than anywhere else did these days. Against the back wall sat his desk, a fine oak piece his father had used before him. In the corner was a sofa, and atop it a pillow and blanket still tangled and untouched from where he had slept last night. The fireplace was two-sided, heating both his office and the main entryway. The flame crackled pleasantly as he slumped onto the sofa, so he closed his eyes, just for a moment.

  He awoke what must have been an hour or two later, judging by the waning light at the window. The blanket was pulled up around him, and he couldn’t remember taking off his shoes, but there they were on the floor. Wiping a bit of drool from his chin, Joseph retrieved a small day planner from his shirt pocket and flipped to today's date. February 12th, 1890. There were only two tasks listed, scrawled in his own messy writing:

  1- meet the new guy

  2- kill jonah

  This latter instruction was, in fact, written on every single day in the book, though he needed no reminder. In any case, it wasn’t what he was looking for at the moment. At the bottom of the page was an address. That he even needed a reminder of this, in such a small town as his, was just a bit disconcerting. Getting old always was.

  He took note of it and put the journal away before pulling himself free of the quilt and sitting up. A faded photograph of a beautiful young woman stared at him from the top of a small side table. Joseph stared back at it. "Another day, my love," he said.

  The fire had died down to embers, and Mabel was gone for the evening. Joseph locked the door behind him and set back out into the cold evening air.

  The main street was empty, and a light flurry fell around him. He huddled into his coat and made his way south. Most of the shops were closed for the day, others seemingly closed forever. His town was long past its prime, b
ut Joseph had never lived any place else.

  A man hurried past. "Good evening, Mayor," the man said, his breath billowing out in front of him.

  "Harry," Joseph replied, and the men went on.

  Joseph's father, mayor before him, had often bemoaned the state of their town. Joseph himself had never seen those good old days, and as he got older he began to understand that neither had his father. The town had not been anything you could truly call thriving for at least thirty years before his father was born. Back in the late 1700s, tobacco imports made the port one of the largest in America. Since then, two wars had come and gone, and Joseph was now the mayor of a port town whose only shipping lane was silted in. The ships weren't ever coming back, but life did go on.

  Joseph turned one last corner and found his destination, a new home which sat across the street from him, right on the edge of town. Its construction had been paid for, apparently, by some big-shot out of Baltimore. The man himself had moved into the home just days ago. New residents were not unheard of, but a wealthy man choosing this failing town as his new home did strike Joseph as a bit unusual.

  Joseph crossed the street, noting a light on inside the home and smoke drifting from its chimney. He climbed the front steps and knocked on the door.

  It was a long moment before any response came, and he was just about to knock again when the door finally opened. The man looked to be in his thirties. He wore a plain white shirt and trousers, and held a steaming mug, which he sipped after he opened the door. His brown hair was shoulder-length and pulled back in a bun, bangs hanging down to frame his eyes, which were a strikingly bright green. A closely-trimmed beard lined his face. The man didn't say anything.

  "I'm Mayor Joseph Brooker, you can call me Joe. I make sure to welcome everyone to town when they move here."

  The man set his drink down and offered his hand. Joseph shook it.

  "Call me Hank. Nice to meet you."

  "If you don't mind me asking, what brings you to the area? We don't get many new residents. Rumor had it you came out of Baltimore."

  "I did. Retired, in a sense. Done with the city life. Hoping for a bit of peace and quiet, for a change."

  "I hope you find that here."

  "As do I,” Hank said, taking another sip from his drink. “Would you like to come in?"

  "Another time, maybe. I'll be getting home. If you need anything, my office is just on the other side of town."

  "Thank you, Joe," Hank said, and closed the door.

  Joe went back down the steps and across the street. A strange man, he thought. Joseph, who counted himself a progressive man, was not perturbed by the man's unusual appearance. His story could be true, but he doubted it was quite so simple. In any case, Hank seemed nice enough. For now he had more pressing concerns, but he would keep an eye on him.

  Back at the corner, he hesitated. Joseph had the distinct feeling that Hank was still watching him. Resisting the urge to look back, he set off down the road.

  ***

  Joseph dreamed; it was the same dream he'd had most nights of late. The scene played out the same, night after night, and Joseph was powerless to make any change.

  As always, Joseph came home from a long day of work, surprised not to find his wife there to greet him. An initially casual, then increasingly concerned, search from room to room and around the grounds. The uncertainty, an agonizing two hour wait before finally he threw on his coat and ran back into town.

  A crowd was gathered in the town square, and some men tried to stop him from going in. He pushed past them, sent one sprawling to the ground.

  In the square he found her, Mary's lifeless body swinging from a rope. His head spun, and he fell to the ground. That was still all he remembered of that day.

  ***

  "You need to go home," Mabel said. She had just entered his office with two cups of coffee. Mabel put one on his desk, then took a seat on the sofa.

  "I did go home," Joseph said. "I came in early to wash up."

  "If you say so."

  The lie was believable enough, with the mayor's office having recently been outfitted with one of the only indoor plumbing systems in the town. But Mabel's expression made clear enough that she didn't believe it. "It's been almost a month."

  "I met that new fellow a couple streets over," Joseph said, changing the subject.

  "Who is he?"

  "Named Hank. Didn't get his last name, actually. As we'd heard, he came from Baltimore. Didn't say much else. Looking for a peaceful place to settle down, he said."

  "What do you think?"

  Joseph sipped his coffee and ran a hand through his graying hair. "I don't know what I think."

  "That makes two of us."

  They sat for a while, quietly drinking their coffee and enjoying the warmth of the fire. After some time, they heard the front door open. Mabel left without a word, closing the door behind her. Joseph could hear muffled voices from the other room. He couldn't make out who the visitor was, but he had a pretty good idea anyway.

  "It's Mr. Crawford again," Mabel said, peeking through the door. "He knows you're here."

  "Send him in."

  Joe pulled himself up in his chair, as he had been slumped down almost to the point of falling out. A moment later the door opened and Gray Crawford walked in. He was bald, only three years older than Joseph but looking fifteen years his senior. He wore his usual policeman's uniform.

  "Chief," Joseph said.

  "Mayor," he replied, taking the chair across the desk from Joseph and pulling it out to a more comfortable distance.

  "Sorry, I heard you were looking for me. I was avoiding you."

  "I figured as much. You know if I could do anything about it I would. I'm sorry, Joe."

  "I know." That much was true. His dread over seeing the man these past few weeks had less to do with any anger toward him personally than Joseph’s general desire to avoid the issue entirely. In fact, Gray had long been one of Joseph's closest friends. The longer he managed to avoid him, the guiltier he began to feel about his misplaced resentment.

  "We'll get him eventually, I promise you that."

  Jonah Shaw. The man had been a local nuisance for over a decade, one who Joseph's own father ran out of town. It was all over some minor offense—an overreaction, really, even Joseph could admit that. Whatever the former mayor had hoped to achieve, he hadn’t, and Jonah had been a menace ever since.

  He and his gang were holed up somewhere nearby, though no one knew exactly where, and he reared his head two or three times a year. At first it was only simple vandalism and petty theft. As of late, he had progressed to more outright acts of aggression. Several local youths had recently gone missing, the boys apparently to join his ranks, the girls presumably for some more horrifying purpose.

  "One way or another," Joseph answered, leaning back in his chair and lacing his hands across his chest.

  "I'll pretend I didn't hear that," Gray said.

  He and Joseph had truly been on the hunt for Jonah for over a year now, but as of yet the two men had little success locating him. Twenty four days ago, Joseph came home to find his wife missing. She was already dead, as Joseph learned a few hours later. Jonah hadn't been seen since, but Joseph very much doubted he was actually gone. Not long after, Gray sent for the sheriff out of Manassas, twenty miles away. This had, so far, prevented Joseph from pursuing the exact type of justice he had in mind.

  "He killed my wife, Gray."

  "Probably," he said, with a grimace. "But there's no real evidence of it yet, and he has a right to a trial. If I were you, I'd want to do the same thing. And if I did it, a lawman would punish me for it just the same. Please, don't put me in that position."

  "No promises." Joseph finished his coffee and set it down hard on the desk.

  Gray sighed and stood back up. "I'll just have to find him before you do then."

  Joseph was going to let him go without another word, but reconsidered. "Gray," he said. His friend turned around. "Yo
u meet the new guy down the road? Hank?"

  "I did indeed. Odd man."

  "What do you think?"

  Gray stood quietly for a moment, apparently thinking. "I don't know," he said. "He seemed nice enough, but there's something more going on there, I suspect. Young man with a lot of money leaving the city to live here? A crook maybe, con man. Could be something worse."

  "I thought the same. I’ve decided I’m hoping he's just a retired bank robber looking for a quiet place to settle down. We don't need any more violence here."

  Gray laughed. "See, now, that's exactly what I was just trying to tell you."

  Dorian

  November 2020

  Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

  "Good afternoon, Mr. Black, sir," the old doorman said, shooing aside a few people to make way for Dorian. "I hope you are well."