The Torment Page 5

  Lacey sighed. Those ridiculous stories about Somers Mountain and the Torment. Martin was a regular depository of them. She would have loved to wave off the accounts as pure silliness, like she did when she was younger. But Martin’s certainty and his stories over the years and, let’s admit it, the startling happenings she’d witnessed herself, had undermined her sense of nonchalance.

  After she packed the leftovers and deposited her plate, glass, and utensils into the dishwasher, Lacey carried her steeping tea into the den. The name of the room changed over the years, depending on its function. Mostly it was the family room or the TV room, but it had also served as the study or Martin’s office. In her mind, Lacey always considered it the den, which seemed to cover any activity within.

  Along one wall was a desk and bookshelves that she and Martin built. Nothing fancy—they’d wanted something functional for the girls’ books, their paperbacks, or Martin’s journals and ledgers. Lacey also had a section where she kept her favorite textbooks from her classroom. Those sat in the same spot they’d been left many years before. Lacey groaned ever so slightly when she noticed the dust buildup. Really, though, she didn’t care enough to actually do something about it.

  The years were stenciled on the binding of the journals. Careful not to jostle the tea in her left hand, she picked two journals out of their place in the chronology of books and went to the sofa. She was confident that she had the ones she wanted. It had been, what, four or five years since she last checked them, a few days after she’d plucked a disoriented Jared off Somers Mountain. She could still see him as plain as day sitting in the passenger seat, practically unclothed and wrapped in a blanket.

  Twenty minutes later, Lacey was still puzzling over Martin’s notebooks. She felt chilled; reliving this event did that to her. She cupped her hands around her teacup—nearly empty by now but still warm to the touch. They never did get a full answer as to what happened. At this moment, Lacey was beginning to wonder if the tormenters, whoever or whatever they were, had actually been responsible.

  Mitchell and Hunter were never found. Neither was the van that Hunter was driving—his mother’s van. All the torn, bloody clothes at the scene belonged to Jared and the other missing boys. The bottles of liquor and the cooler with the beer were there. All unopened and untouched.

  Lacey paused in her recollections. She brought the empty teacup back into the kitchen. The soggy tea bag was plastered on the side of the cup. She thought for a second about keeping it for another use. Thought, why bother, and tossed it into the garbage. She’d treat herself to a fresh one tomorrow. She wasn’t so desperate that she needed to reuse tea bags.

  On her way back to the den, she impulsively grabbed a few more of Martin’s journals—she had an approximate idea of dates—and sat back down. As foolish as she felt for chasing ghosts, there was a nagging detail that scared her.

  Rifling through Martin’s logs, it didn’t take long to find the first piece of evidence, which unfortunately didn’t ease her mind any. Martin’s bold penmanship tore brusquely across the lined page from ten years ago.

  You’d think these things would surprise me. But they don’t. They never did. I almost take them for granted, even though they occur so infrequently.

  Jaimie Dudley phoned and I took the call. She was frantic, which is not a surprise. Jaimie has two speeds: agitated and hysterical. Her low-life son Gerald was missing. At twenty years of age you expect a certain amount of maturity in a young man. I don’t believe they should be acting like they’re forty, but you should start seeing some sense of responsibility. Some forward thinking.

  Not Gerald. He barely graduated from high school, was still living at home with his mother, got into fights, drank himself silly, and Mommy kept making excuses for him. Any trouble he instigated was always someone else’s fault.

  Gerald stumbled into the house at around three this morning. Three sheets to the wind, but still a nervous wreck. Jaimie thought he looked like he’d been in a fight. His left eye was puffy, and the same side of his face was red and swollen. He told her, “If anyone is looking for me, Ma, I’m not here.” She tried to talk to him, but he cut her off. “Just shut up about it. I’m going to be hiding in the basement. For shit’s sake, don’t tell anyone.”

  Jaimie was shaken but let him go. She was riled at this, so couldn’t go back to bed. He said “hiding,” after all. What did that mean? She sat up in the living room and turned on the TV to watch a show she’d recorded. She may have dozed, but she wasn’t out long—or so she claimed. Anyhow, before she knew it, it was six in the morning. She thought she’d check on her son.

  He wasn’t in the basement. He wasn’t anywhere in the house. What made her anxiety skyrocket was a fair amount of blood in the basement bathroom. She swore up and down that he wasn’t bleeding when he came home. Only his face was swollen. And, this was the kicker, she would have known if he left, or if someone had come into the house. She was in the living room, after all, and she could see the door to the basement. In fact, the door was closed.

  When I checked out the place for myself, it was as she said. No Gerald. There was blood, but I’ve seen enough head wounds in my time to know these things bleed a lot and often look worse than they are. I told her that Gerald must have slipped out when she dozed off, but she was adamant—that could not have happened.

  Then she dropped her bombshell: “It’s probably because of that little tramp Dakota Bodine. She’s pregnant and the baby’s Gerald’s, or so she says.”

  The Bodine family, at least part of it, lives in Floyd County. I called over and got a second shocker. Raymond Bodine, Dakota’s father, was found dead late yesterday at the bottom of a staircase. Head bashed in, although the coroner thought the injury looked a little too “rounded” to be from the edge of a step. More like a pipe or baseball bat. But he went with the accidental fall, which was the sheriff’s conclusion.

  Gerald was never seen again, Lacey remembered. They searched, but he was an adult, at least in terms of chronological age. Some rumors persisted for a while that he pushed Raymond Bodine down those steps. It was generally known that Raymond didn’t like Gerald, and according to the speculation running wild, he was none too happy about him being the father of his grandchild. Besides, Dakota was seventeen at the time.

  Over the years, Lacey had seen Dakota with the youngster, a girl, she thought it was, around town. There might have even been a few more kids by this point.

  The big issue, however, wasn’t the child. It was the fact that Dakota’s mother was a Grahame. From the Grahame family from Somers mountain fame.

  Lacey sighed and gently placed the journal on the couch cushion next to her, feeling almost reverential about it—it was Martin’s, after all—and reached for a different journal.

  The second entry was harder to find because she was less sure of the date. She found it after flipping the pages a couple of times in each direction. Four years prior to Gerald’s disappearance, so a good fourteen years ago. Martin had made just a brief entry, which is why she’d missed it at first.

  Evan Avery’s remains were identified in the Caufield trailer fire three days ago. The fire was really more of an explosion. A meth lab. No sign of Nathan Caufield. Avery’s widow swears that Evan was being forced into making meth by Caufield. Evidently, he owed a substantial amount of money to Caufield, probably from drug deals gone wrong or misuse of the merchandise. Everyone suspected Caufield’s body to be in the trailer with Avery, but no. He just wasn’t there. Caufield’s live-in girlfriend says she hasn’t seen him in days.

  Lacey glanced at her watch. The time was approaching nine. She couldn’t explain the drive to locate these stories, but once she started there was no stopping her. The implications were unnerving.

  Beyond the nonaccidental deaths, rapes, assaults, thefts, injuries, and child abuse—accounts in Martin’s notes that peppered his experience as sheriff over the years—he’d written about anecdotes from predecessors, or folklore going back to the assau
lt on Somers Mountain. The victims in these cases had last names of Grahame, Caufield, and Chilton, or they were descendants of these families. The perpetrators were hurt, maimed, or killed soon after, and those who survived didn’t live long. Then their bodies disappeared before burial. At first glance, most people wouldn’t make the connection. Martin did because he was infatuated with the folklore—the legend of Somers Mountain.

  Now Lacey made the same connection. When you teach middle school for decades, you learn about all of the families and who is related to whom. You learn all of the stories. While Martin wrote about all kinds of cases in his journals, he maintained a special interest in those accounts related to Somers Mountain. The names of the victims in those stories—at least the ones she could find in Martin’s journals—were the names of the descendants of the Kingdom on Somers Mountain. She was sure of it.

  The offender would die and disappear.

  The Torment.

  It was nearly ten when Lacey closed the journals. She hadn’t given this much thought to the Torment in years, and now she was immersed in the topic.

  She recalled an incident that had to be twenty or so years old by now. Martin came home from the office out of sorts, and his face was red and slightly swollen on his left side.

  “Did somebody hit you?”

  Martin grumbled, clearly embarrassed about admitting it. He prided himself in his ability to handle volatile situations and deescalate them before they reached that point.

  “Damn Collete.”

  “What happened?”

  “The idiot was supposed to appear in court, so I went for a visit. Took a swing at me when I knocked on his door. He was drunk, of course, and swears he didn’t realize it was me. Still, he’ll be spending the night locked up till I figure out what to do with him. I’ll add something beyond his DWI offense—the original reason I went to see him.”

  Lacey sighed quietly. This Collete story didn’t involve her Collete. Darrin would have been a child then. This was his father, sadly enough. The whole family came from a long line of ignorant troublemakers.

  “The whole Torment thing? I really think they’re talking about the Collete family. I swear to God.”

  They’d laughed at the time, but now she had to admit to herself that she was seriously considering the connection. Tamara’s maiden name was Chilton. The Chiltons were descendants of the Kingdom. Darrin Collete murdered three descendants.

  Her cell phone vibrated. Lacey startled.

  That hadn’t taken long.

  The red-blue emergency light bars flashed in a migraine-inducing pattern, forcing Lacey to squint and turn her head to avoid scorching her retinas. Daphne broke away midsentence from one of the other deputies and jogged toward her. The young woman’s eyes darted from side to side, searching for something she knew wouldn’t be found. She was biting her lower lip, and wisps of blond hair bounced uncontrollably with each step. Calming her would take all of Lacey’s focus. From behind, she heard an approaching siren—a third county sheriff patrol car on its way to join the other two—increasing the autokinetic effect on everyone standing around.

  “Sheriff.” Daphne called too loudly given the shrinking distance between them. “Still no sign of Jared. I’m going up Two Forty-One to find him.” The deputy pointed in the general direction of the ascending county road and most direct way to the peak of Somers Mountain.

  “Fill me in on what’s happened.”

  The call Lacey had received at home was from the college intern working in the office. He said that Daphne had gotten a call from Jared. Something about how Jared, after leaving his parents’ house, saw Collete and his son. He chased them, but lost control and crashed his car on County Road 241. Lacey would have been frustrated at Jared’s carelessness under typical situations, but not tonight—especially after reading Martin’s journal entries.

  “Let me show you.” Daphne’s flair for the dramatic remained undamaged in a crisis. She turned on her heels and strode briskly toward the front of the sheriff’s vehicles. Lacey had to run to keep up. Within moments they put the pulsating LED lights behind them, and Lacey was momentarily relieved. Then she saw Jared’s Hyundai Tucson.

  The speed limit on this stretch was forty-five, and Jared probably had been driving at least that fast. Skid marks were visible in the flashing lights for a number of yards, after which Jared had clearly made an abrupt right turn.

  It looked as though he’d been trying to avoid something. Or someone. There was an old oak tree about nine feet away and he rammed it, with the front grill of the passenger side taking the direct impact. The accordion-shaped destruction was pushed back past the right-side wheel well. The windshield was cracked.

  When she took out her flashlight and shone it on the open driver-side door, Lacey could see that Jared had hit the door trim, most likely with his head. There was blood, but not a lot. At least not yet. The airbags had deployed, so Lacey hoped for the best.

  Daphne was rapid-firing her information and Lacey hadn’t been paying attention.

  “Hold on. What did he say?”

  Daphne rolled her eyes slightly, her youth betraying her efforts to be systematic.

  “Jared called me. Said he was in an accident because—” Daphne’s voice had escalated. She took a deep breath and resumed in a forced whisper. “He drove into a tree because he saw Collete and his little boy, the one from today, walking toward Somers.” The last word was barely audible. “How can that be?”

  By this time a few onlookers had arrived, and a few other cars were rubbernecking. The county road wasn’t a busy thoroughfare, but enough traffic would appear over time, especially as word of an accident got out.

  “William,” Lacey called to one of her officers. “Take care of this traffic before we have more problems on our hands.”

  She barely heard the “Yes, ma’am” as she returned her attention to Daphne.

  “Did he say he was hurt?” Stupid question, she could see the blood.

  “No, I mean, I don’t know. He said he was going to go after those two, Collete and his kid, I mean. On foot.”

  “Where were they going?” Lacey was irritated with herself. “Where was he going? Jared that is.”

  “Two forty-one. He said they were headed that way and he planned to follow. Look, Sheriff, we’re running out of time. I’m going after him.”

  “Daphne, no you’re not.” Lacey made a split-second decision. The girl was overwrought and likely would run Jared down if she took off after him. “I want you to calm down. You and Dave take a look around here. Jared may be confused or need help. He may not have gone that far, or he might’ve gone the wrong way in his confusion. Check out the immediate area. Call the hospital. Maybe a good Samaritan picked him and brought him to a doctor.”

  “But—”

  “But, nothing. You know I’m right.” Although Lacey wasn’t sure she was. “I will ride up Two Forty-One and look for him. Lord knows I did this once before. Besides, I don’t want you hightailing it up there and getting into your own accident.”

  “Sheriff…”

  Lacey shook her head. She adopted her teacher expression. “I’ll let you know what I find. Trust me.”

  County Road 241 provided good approach to Somers Mountain and various hiking trails. The route was popular for hikers, cross-country runners, and tourists traveling to their starting-off points. Most traffic was during daylight, which meant that Lacey had unobstructed access. She rolled down her windows and lowered the volume of the dispatch to listen for… well, she didn’t know what. Maybe a cry for help.

  Lacey had been up this road routinely since the night she’d rescued Jared all those years ago. The high beams of her headlights tracked the elevating landscape in stark shadows. As the altitude increased, drop-offs became steeper on her left side while rocks and small boulders that had rolled down the mountainside appeared on the right. None of these natural elements had been visible during the blizzard, although her focus and energy remained entirely on mai
ntaining control of the car and making sure it never slid over one of the unseen hollows. Now she could search the immediate area to both sides with more ease.

  How far had Jared travelled? He was in great physical shape, but could he have fallen or aggravated a minor injury in the accident? The road leveled out for a brief stretch before its final ascent to the peak of the mountain. Jared wouldn’t be able to make it quickly up that part of the road without considerable effort, regardless of how good an athlete he was.

  In less than one hundred yards, the Kinney homestead would appear. Maybe Jared would be there with Aaron and Laz at his side.

  The radio crackled. Daphne was asking for updates.

  “No, Daphne, nothing yet. I’ll—wait, hold on.”

  A figure appeared in her headlights, along with a hint of two more ahead near the Kinney driveway.

  Lacey wasn’t surprised as the nearest figure turned to flag her down. It was Jared, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt with sweat stains covering both the front and back. He had been running. It was amazing that he’d made it this far.

  “Sheriff?”

  “Daphne, hold please.” She hit her emergency lights briefly to let Jared know who was coming.

  The car pulled alongside Jared, and he yanked open the passenger door and jumped in. Lacey didn’t even think the car had come to a full stop. She glared at her deputy and was ready to berate him when she saw that some of the sweat stains were blood from his forehead. He was trying to catch his breath, pointing ahead with urgency.

  “Daphne, come in.”

  “Have you found him?”

  “Yes, I just got him in the car. Get yourself up here. I’ll meet you at the Kinney place. You’ll need to take this darn fool to a doctor.” She tossed the mic away in frustration.

  “No, shit. Look.” Jared pointed again.

  “Jared, I swear to God, I would smack you upside the head if you weren’t bleeding from it. What are you thinking?”

  “Dammit, Sheriff.”

  Jared was pointing toward the windshield, still panting from exertion.