Prologue
1
On the edge of what was soon to be the first of many tarred streets, in a town that was growing quite slowly and indiscernibly, almost as if under its own accord, sat piles of gravel and stone and fresh loam in exquisitely stacked cones. Small, wooden crates were scattered around filled with nails still damp from the rain the night before which were already beginning to turn shades of light brown - the rust eating away at them. Thick, tan planks of lumber in various dimensions, some stacked to near geometric perfection, others thrown in more random piles, lined the edge of the soon-to-be-placed stone curbing. The stones, which were laid parallel to the edge of the dirt roadway, resembled common, polished granite except for the peculiar sparkle of shiny, jagged, blue-gray metal chips that had spread themselves, over time, through the molten rock long ago. Thick pools of black rain water had collected in several areas where holes had been dug for foundation posts, or tree plots, or where seeds were to be sewn. Other puddles formed where sections of the landscape were purposely leveled just slightly lower than the area surrounding it. That was where the water that seemed the most unnatural. Stringy, oblong pools reached out in all different directions creating fantastic black shapes on the ground reflecting partial pictures of the sky. And these waters ran: flowing like a river.
But, the rain had since stopped and with the clouds dissipating for the most part, the blistering, red sun was allowed to return and the day would continue. That which brought the rain had moved on.
However, that which was brought on by the rain had yet to arrive.
Adjacent to the abandoned site where the wood and rocks near the road lay unattended was an area that had been cordoned off with fine, yellow twine. It was arranged in the shape of a square and at each corner, hammered into the ground, was a thin, metal rod with the yellow rope tied around it. Hanging from top of these four rods and along the rope at intervals of a half a yard were small twisted strips of sheet metal. With a mixture of gold and copper colors, they each possessed an odd, indiscernible, yet quite nonrandom, shape different from the other.
It was quite a small area of land; No more than a quarter of an acre. Almost too small to comfortably occupy the number of shelters that had been constructed there. The wind that preceded the rain, which had brought with it the sweet, strange odor of the musk weed and carpel root growing just over the west knoll, had peeled off several of the roofs and knocked down the merely makeshift walls. The small, greenish, leaf-stripped were used as twine, but were still not strong enough to hold the structures in place. They had pulled and stretched under the pressure of the blowing wind and once they snapped, bled out their sticky sap onto the ground or whatever laid below them.
The stray rain drops trickled from the rough edges of the partially completed structures that were scattered around the area and aside from the soft, plopping echoes marking the end of each rain drop’s descent, there was not a single, solitary sound except for the unnatural, stream-like humming that the silence produced.
The rain, in its own vicious way, had come to cleanse the land. To sweep away the minute particles in the air and in the ground - the curse that was threatening to stifle it. Through the sand and the dirt and the mud were tracks, overlapping and disorderly, which had led into the wooded area toward the east. Washed away now, like the intentional destruction of incriminating evidence, there was no way to follow their makers.
The trees to the east stretched out for what could been seen as miles in either direction. Each tree reached out beseechingly toward the clearing with long, green, crooked branches. Along the edge of the sandy, desert-like earth in a particularly straight line is where the trees and the forest stopped, or had been stopped. They stretched off toward the horizon in both directions until each one appeared to be nothing but a minute speck shadowed against the hot, nightmarish sky which hung silently over the dead land.
After a time that was as much a minute as it was a millennium, the world, waiting as impatiently as it could for death, became darkened with a sickly gray. The elongating shadows disappeared leaving everything on the ground standing helpless and alone. The blue-black haze in front of the sun slithered by and reached out occasionally with what could have been (should have been) limbs to mar and gouge the land as it passed. It toppled anything that stood within its reach. Arms, or what could have been (should have been) arms, some two or four or eight feet wide, stretched down in funnel-like protrusions and lifted whatever it found on the ground and dragging it up inside itself.
Soon after, everything that had been on the land was not any longer...
...except the sand and the wind.
On the back of the wind rode the silence.
2
From The New Hampshire Union Leader, April 15, 199-
CENTER STRAFFORD - This quiet, eastern New Hampshire town was rocked last night when three unidentified bodies were discovered inside a burning vehicle near the town’s reservoir. The fire department and local police responded to Edenborough Road, a small, unmaintained tote road which is the reservoir’s sole access, after area residents reported hearing gunshots and smelling smoke just shortly after 8:30 p.m. The commotion attracted several on-lookers as fire fighters battled the blaze for over an hour. Acting fire chief, Stu Redmond who was one of the men that doused the vehicle with hundreds of gallons of water, was baffled as to the cause of why the vehicle continued to burn so long. The fire chief wouldn’t comment if a chemical agent or something entirely different was responsible for the odd behavior of the flames. It was not until the fire department was able to control the flames when the bodies were discovered inside. State police and the state fire marshall’s office were called in shortly after.
Upon the discovery of the bodies, the crowd was immediately asked to clear away as the area was cordoned off with yellow crime scene tape. What happened next can only be described as a freakish, unexplained occurrence. As authorities approached the vehicle, the driver’s side door swung open and one of the charred, but intact bodies seemed not to fall, but to beginning stepping out. As it did it burst into flames and fell to the ground. As the state police troopers arrived, several of them assisted Center Strafford police in driving on-lookers back out of view of the vehicle. Two people who refused to leave were placed under arrest by state police, but later released. Authorities said this morning that they are still denying access to any part of the reservoir or Edenborough Road.
The bodies, believed by some witnesses to be all adult males because of their apparently enormous size, were transported to the state Coroner’s Office for autopsy, but according to Center Strafford Police Chief Frank Yount, no information about their identities would be revealed until the next of kin were notified and a full investigation was completed into the possibility of foul play. “The State Police will be handling this case and we will be giving them our full cooperation.” Yount said. “We will be investigating this as a possible homicide.” Chief Yount would not comment whether the victims were still alive after the fire had been extinguished.
Area residents say that several vehicles, mostly pickup trucks and utility vehicles, use the dirt road on a daily basis which is off Route 202A just miles from the Barrington town line. “The reservoir is well known as a party spot for the teenagers.” said one Center Strafford resident who wished to remain unnamed, but has lived in the area for several years. “They come and go all night, every night. I’m not surprised something like this has happened. It was bound to.” Another resident who frequently walks his dog down Edenborough Road said, “Can’t abide them people using that road for their business. My poor dog don’t dare go that way no more. Neither do I for that matter. Especially after the rain.” When asked to elaborate, the man refused to comment further.
This is the first homicide investigation in thirty years for the town of Center Strafford which has a population of just under 1,500 year-round residents. During the summer months the population swells to nearly 3,000 with most of those residents occupying the seasonal cottages around Bow Lake which was the site of Center Strafford’s first and only homicide.
In 1968, Jason Lemkey, a seasonal resident from Taunton, Massachusetts, was killed when his cousin, Sonny Deitrick, and a friend, Herbert Welton, held him against the grating of the Bow Lake dam which controlled the water flow into the Isinglass River. Lemkey fought vigorously to escape the strong current while, at the same time, struggled to fend off Deitrick and Welton. Lemkey’s legs became snagged in the grate near the base and were broken by the twisting force of the current. Lemkey was left by the two boys to drown. Deitrick and Welton were later arrested and after an investigation and several hearings were remanded to the state boys’ facility until their nineteenth birthday which, for both youths, came less than three years later.
It has been said that none of the residents will sleep well after this incident, but Chief Yount assures the townspeople that the safety of Center Strafford has not been compromised by this incident and he considers it “isolated”. Yount did emphasize that police patrols will be doubled beginning immediately and he will be petitioning the selectmen on Monday morning for a mandatory 24-hour patrol referendum which will be presented for a vote at an emergency town meeting scheduled for sometime late next week. “I wish to stress right now,” Yount said at a press release meeting this morning, “that there is nothing unnatural or extraordinary about this case. The rumors about what drove this fire to burn so long or the bodies inside still being alive afterward are completely untrue. I want to assure you all that nothing strange or out of the ordinary occurred while this fire was being fought.” Yount would not comment on the condition of the bodies or how it got out of the vehicle other than saying it must have “fallen out”.
