BLUE GAP Marvin Miller
CHAPTER 1
Blue Gap is the kind of place that a person could pass right by on the rural, two lane highway and be oblivious to the fact that they had even past it. For most people living in the present day, it was better that way because they would be unaware of the things that had happened there over the past 100 years. However, Ben Patterson was not one of those people. He had ties there.
Ben was a young man in his thirties driving his GMC Yukon to his new home located in the country in Coleman County, Texas, he had said goodbye to city life and wanted nothing more than to live out on the old place that his dad had bought several years before for hunting and fishing. The days of being a hotshot real estate salesman in Fort Worth were now over for him and after a nasty divorce from his wife; he wanted nothing more than to lead a simple life. All of his belongings were either packed inside of the vehicle or stored in boxes that were loaded up in the flatbed trailer he was pulling.
Although he passed right through Stephenville, the town where his Mother lived, he did not stop for a visit, he kept driving on. He loved his Mother, but their relationship had been strained, to say the least, after his Father’s death and conditions only got worse when he and his wife, Tammy, lost their only son, little Jake, in an automobile accident. For now, Ben did not want to answer any questions about how his marriage failed or be in any sort of conflict, he just wanted to get to the country and be left alone for a while.
He stopped in the town of Coleman at the electric cooperative there to have the electricity turned on. Weary of driving, he stretched as he got out of the vehicle in the parking lot and then walked inside of the office. The lady inside the office was nice and very helpful, unlike most utility people in the metroplex. She told him that there would be someone out there the next day as it was getting late. Ben smiled and thanked her and soon was on his way again.
The rural highway that led out to the old ranch was really a beautiful drive that led through the rolling hills. The land was abundant with green grass and live oaks scattered throughout the countryside. Ben was thinking that the best part of the drive was the fact that there was no traffic. He turned left on an old dirt road and passed by an old cemetery on his way to the turn off that led to the old house. An old man named Graddock was only one other person that lived on this road and Ben had never met him, but it was rumored that the old man was something of a recluse.
The drive was washed out and rocky, but it was not a challenge for the Yukon as he turned into what would be considered as the driveway and he smiled when he saw the old house through the massive oak trees. It had been five years since he had been there and the old house still looked about the same as it did back then.
The old house itself was rundown and needed a lot of work, but was still in sound condition. Home repair was not a problem for Ben, he had good carpentry skills. He planned to restore the old house back to its original glory; he would have it looking like new in no time. He parked the vehicle and got out smiling. “Aw, home, sweet home,” he said to himself as he walked toward the front yard gate.
The grass and accompanying weeds were really tall and overgrown as he opened the gate and carefully walked inside the yard. He looked at the long front porch that stretched across the width of the house. Many of the boards were rotten and in need of replacing, as he stepped up on the porch and walked on the remaining good boards leading up to the front door and went inside. The living room floor was littered with dirt, dust and mouse droppings. The walls were splattered with mud dauber and wasp nests and the wallpaper was rotting and falling off. Cobwebs were everywhere and inside some of the active webs, there were spiders. Since Ben was not knowledgeable about the arachnids, he assumed all the brown colored ones were brown recluse and all of the black ones were black widows so he kept a cautious eye on them.
He walked to the door on the left of the living room wall, which led directly to a bedroom. He stood there looking inside at the stained and dirt covered mattress on the old bed frame for a moment thinking that this was where his father had slept on the last night of his life, he had died there. He always wondered about that night, he thought if he had only come with his father hunting that weekend that perhaps his dad would still be with him. A massive heart attack was the official cause of death, but if Ben would have been there, maybe that could have been prevented if he had someone drive him to the hospital. However, as it happened, Ben was busy that weekend; he was closing a deal on a house for a young couple in Aledo. The pungent smell of hundreds of mouse droppings pulled him from his thoughts. Apparently, the little vermin were living inside of the old mattress judging from the amount of shredded cotton lying on the floor.
Ben turned and stepped back into the living room and walked through another door that led directly to another room that was empty, but led to the kitchen. The kitchen was a mess, there were still some dirty dishes sitting on the table as well as in the sink. They had been lying there for five years. He certainly had his work cut out for him as far as cleaning goes, not to mention the restoration project that he had planned.
He walked out of the back door of the kitchen that led to a long screened in porch. At one end of the porch was a small bathroom, unserviceable at this point, of course, and at the other end was a screen door that went out into the back yard. Just a few feet out in the yard was a water well equipped with a windmill on top. He walked over to the windmill and flipped the brake lever into the on position. In the corner of the backyard was an outhouse. The old house had been built before there was such a thing as an inside toilet. The one that was located on the screened in porch was added on later. He walked over to the outhouse to check on its condition and when he opened the old wooden door, he heard a rattlesnake sound out his warning. He shut the door quickly thinking that he needed to go back to the Yukon and get his shotgun, but as he walked around the outside of the house toward the front yard, his thoughts quickly turned to the condition of the exterior of the house instead of a stupid snake.
The house was in bad need of some exterior repairs to the walls and desperately needed a paint job. Some of the windows needed to be replaced as well. As he was making some estimates in his mind, he heard another rattlesnake. He looked around the overgrown grass looking for the snake and saw it near the front porch. He picked up a piece of an old board and started bashing the rattlesnake with it until the viper was dead. He then scooted the piece of board under the snake, picked it up and tossed it over the fence. He carefully walked through the tall grass toward the Yukon thinking that mowing the grass should be first on his list of things to do.
He walked out to the flatbed trailer behind the Yukon, moved things around until he could reach the mower and lifted it over the edge. He dug out the gasoline can, filled the tank and cranked the engine with the pull rope until it started. It was time to tidy up the place a little.
Ophidiophobia was not much of a concern for Ben pushing the powerful mower through the overgrown lawn. He knew that the mulching blades would chop them into mincemeat if he ran over one. The only fear he had was the possibility that one might be to the sides of the mower so he kept a close watch especially to the uncut grass side of the mower.
When he finished his mowing, he went to the Yukon and got his shotgun and walked to the outhouse in the backyard to see if that snake was still around. He opened the door, looked around, but saw or heard nothing. The creepy-crawly must have escaped somewhere.
Ben walked back to the Yukon and dug out the ice chest to get him a beer. After all, he deserved it. It was getting late in the day and he started to think about camping out for the night. He would let the backseat down in the Yukon and sleep in there. There was no way that he would even think about sleeping in the house. Just then, he heard a vehicle coming down the dirt road. He looked around and saw an old, rusty ’54 Chevrolet pickup driving up his drive. The truck stopped and out stepped an old man with a long, white beard that was stained brown around his mouth from his constant use of chewing tobacco. He wore wire-rimmed glasses, a sweat stained straw hat and some dirty looking overalls and a blue work shirt. The old man looked over at Ben and slowly started to make his way toward him as he sat there drinking his beer.
“Howdy there, neighbor,” the old man said. “I thought I heard a mower runnin’ so I thought I’d come over and see what in thunder was goin’ on. There ain’t been nobody over here in years.”
Ben stood up from his chair and reached out to shake hands with him. “My name is Ben Patterson.”
“Graddock, Warren Graddock,” the old man introduced himself.
Ben pointed to the lawn chair that he was sitting in. “Have a seat, I’ll dig another one out of the trailer.”
Graddock slowly sat down in the chair. “You might have to help me out of this danged thing when I get ready to leave. They sit too low to the damned ground for me.”
Ben pulled a chair out of the trailer and sat it down near the old man. “Maybe you met my Dad a few years back. He bought this place to hunt and fish on about ten years ago.”
“I met him. He’s was a nice fella too,” Graddock said in a gruff tone. He was not really a grouch, he just had that way about him. “I sure hated to hear about him passin’. He was so young and all.”
Ben nodded and looked over at the old house. “I’m gonna live here and fix this place up,” he said proudly to change the subject. “I’m kind of limited on what I can do right now since I’m still waiting for some electricity. They say they’ll be out tomorrow.”
“Them dang ‘lectric people, you can’t believe what they say,” Graddock said quickly. “Damned power goes off ‘round here every time it thunders. Sons of bitches.”
“How long have you lived here?” Ben asked.
“I was born here in 1915.”
“How old are you?”
“I just told you, I was born in ‘15,” the old man snapped. “You do the arithmetic. Damn, boy, I’m 95 five years old. I’ve outlived my family and everybody else I ever did know.”
Ben didn’t know what to say so he just sat there and nodded. Graddock glanced over at him uncomfortable with the silence. He liked Ben, but if the boy wasn’t going to say anything he might as well be home talking to his animals.
“Well, hell, I guess I’d better get around so I can feed the chickens before dark,” he said to break the silence.
“Do you need some help? Ben asked as the old man started to get up out of the chair.
“Naw, I think I’ve got it.” He said as he stood up straight and slowly started walking back toward his pickup.
“Well, I’ll be seein’ you later,” Ben told him with a smile. He actually enjoyed the old man’s visit. “You come back and see me, okay?”
“Sure, I’ll come around in a day or two,” Graddock said as he reached his pickup and got inside. He cranked the engine, grinded the gears as he put it in reverse and took off down the trail.
Ben stood there watching him with a smile on his face and then immediately started getting ready for the night.
The next morning, Ben woke up bright and early in the back of the Yukon full of ideas of what he wanted to accomplish that day. Since he could make no coffee, he substituted Diet Coke for his favorite morning drink to get a little caffeine. He choked down a couple of cereal bars for breakfast and went to the house with the sun shining brightly. The first order of the day was to drag out the old bed from the bedroom and the rest of the burnable trash along with pieces of furniture throughout the house and make a bonfire.
After working a couple of hours on this project, Ben was ready to strike a match to all of the garbage that he had carried out of the house and piled neatly in a clear area just north of the house. He soaked a spot on the large heap of trash with some charcoal lighter fluid and the fire was on the way. He stood there watching for a few minutes as the fire quickly consumed the refuse, but the flames could not hold his attention for very long. He started back to the house to begin his next project for the day and while he was walking along the same path that he had already been down at least forty times, a coiled rattlesnake was ready to strike as he walked by. The snake bit him in the calf of his right leg through his jeans without any kind of warning.
“Son of a bitch,” Ben hollered as he looked around to see what happened and saw the rattler. A thousand thoughts popped into his mind all at once. His brain was racing to sort out all of the irrational thoughts of panic. He had to be cool and calm about this. He reached in his shirt pocket for his cell phone and turned it on. Just as it was every time he had tried to do so since his arrival, there was no signal. “You worthless piece of shit,” he shouted at the phone and flung it through the air as far as he could. “Stay calm,” he told himself as he started walking back toward the Yukon knowing that there was no need for panic. He could almost hear, ‘OnStar ready!’
Much to his disappointment, there was no OnStar signal either which added to his ever-growing state of panic. He tried to think logically, but that was very hard to do since his leg was burning like fire and he was uncertain if he was going to die or not. With his heart racing and his breathing becoming more difficult by the minute, he decided that he would try to drive himself to the emergency room some thirty miles away.
Just as he was about to turn the key to start the vehicle, he remembered that he needed to close the back door and unhook from the trailer. He felt extremely dizzy as he got out doing those tasks and before he made it to the back of the vehicle, he passed out.
CHAPTER 2
Ben walked out the backdoor of the old house passing by the rusty windmill and out the back gate of the yard headed for the barn. It was a beautiful day with the birds singing and he was enjoying the morning sunshine and the clear, blue sky. He suddenly froze in his tracks when he saw a rattlesnake laying there in his path. He turned to go another way, but there was another snake lying there as well. He looked behind him and there was a snake there too. It was then that he noticed that he was surrounded by snakes of every kind and color and they were hundreds of them everywhere he looked, there was no escape. They were in the trees, they were hanging on the windmill and even on the roof of the house. He tried to holler, but he could make no sound. He tried to holler again, but still, he could make no sound. Determined that he was going to shout out, he tried as hard as he could to make a sound and when he finally did, it woke him up. His heart was pounding and he was breathing heavily as he looked around the strange room wondering where he was. It took him a minute, but he could tell that it was a hospital.
Nurse Cindy walked in to check on him with a smile on her face. “How are you feeling this morning, Ben?” she asked bringing his medicines to the bed. She was a good-looking woman around Ben’s own age.
“Okay, I guess. Where am I?”
She sat the little cup containing his meds down on the bedside table and picked up the blood pressure monitor and wrapped the cuff around his arm. “You’re at the County Hospital. You don’t remember a thing, do you?”
Ben shook his head no.
“The guys from the electric company brought you in. They found you unconscious out there on your place when they came out to turn your power on.”
Ben’s mind raced as she took his blood pressure. He could easily remember being out at the old house on the first day, but the events of the morning he was bitten were still a little foggy to him. He looked down at his bandaged leg remembering the snake bite. “How long will I be in here?”
“That’s up to the doctor,” she said. “He’ll be in to check on you soon.”
Before Ben could take his pills that Cindy had brought him, Doctor Phillips walked in the room. “Ben, you’re awake this morning,” he smiled. “Let take a look at that leg,” he told Cindy who quickly began removing the bandages and exposed the wound. Phillips stepped down to the leg for a closer look. “It’s looking pretty good today,” he told Ben as he looked it over carefully. “Now, Ben, you’re going to have to take it easy with this leg. In fact, it’s going to look better right now than it will in a few days. The skin and tissue around the affected area will turn colors and will eventually rot out leaving you with a nasty looking wound.” He looked up to Ben’s face. “You’ll probably have to use a cane for a week or so. I want you to come into my office in a couple of days and let me take a look at it. I’ll write you a couple of prescriptions for you to take before you leave here today.”
Ben nodded happy to know that he would be leaving the hospital, but was worrying about how he was going to get home. That was a problem with being new to the area, he didn’t know anyone that he could call. Later, when he was telling Cindy of his plight, she volunteered to drive him home much to his surprise.
“I really appreciate your help,” he told her as they drove along toward Blue Gap.
“Oh, think nothing of it,” she smiled. “My daughter is going over to one of his friends’ house today after school and so I had some time on my hands.” She looked around at all of the pretty scenery as they drove along in her Ford Explorer. “It is just beautiful out here. I hate to admit this, but I’ve lived around here for several years and I never even knew that this place existed.”
Cindy turned onto the driveway and drove Ben up in front of the old house next to his Yukon. She could see the scattered mess around the partially unloaded trailer and then looked toward the house where the only improvement seemed to be that the lawn was mowed. “Love what you’ve done to the place,” she teased as she got out to help Ben.
“Oh, give me some time and I’ll have this place whipped into shape in no time,” Ben told her as he struggled to walk on his leg.
“So, you’re a carpenter then?”
He shook his head no. “It’s just a hobby.”
“Well, you certainly have your work cut out for you,” she told him.
“Just sit me down in this lawn chair,” he told her as she was helping him along.
“We’re not going inside the house?” she asked.
Ben shook his head no. “I’m on a campout here until I get the house in livable condition.”
Cindy sat down in the other lawn chair and they visited for well over an hour talking about future plans, their past divorces and life in general. She invited him to her house that weekend for dinner and he gladly accepted.
The snakebite wound on his leg did not get as bad as the doctor said it would. There was a lot of discoloration for sure and it really got to be an ugly sight to look at, but the good news was that it did not get so sore that Ben could not do his work and he never really needed the cane that Phillips said he needed.
In the next few days Ben cleaned the inside of the house, sprayed several cans of insecticide in it as well and put out more D-Con than an army of mice could possibly eat. He also began his repairs on the exterior of the home as he wanted to get them done first before starting on his remodeling tasks inside. He decided that one of the first places he would start would be the old front porch because the some of the rotting boards were dangerous. He started ripping off some of the boards that were dire need of replacing and uncovered an entire den of rattlesnakes. He jumped back when he first saw them and then quickly went to get his shotgun and began blasting them.
As a result, there were eight dead rattlesnakes hanging on the front yard fence when Warren Graddock came driving up in his old Ford. The old man laughed when he saw them as he slowly made his way into the front yard with Ben. “You know, those damned things are pretty good when you fry ‘em up,” he grinned.
Ben picked up a lawn chair and carried over to the old man so he wouldn’t have to walk as far. “You can have my part of them.”
Graddock sat down and looked around at some of the improvements that Ben had started on. “How’s that leg of your’s doin’?
“Not too bad,” he answered as he walked over to the other chair.
The old man pulled out his package of chewing tobacco and put some in his mouth. He vigorously chewed it for a couple of minutes and then spit, but not all of it hit the ground, some of it got on his already stained long beard.
“You sure make that stuff look good,” Ben told him. “Give me some.”
Graddock held the pouch out for Ben to come get because he sure as hell wasn’t going to get back up. “It’s good for what ails you,” he said as Ben walked over to get the package. “It’s one of my secrets to a long life.”
Ben took some of the tobacco out and put it in his mouth. “What’s some more of your secrets to a long life?” he asked. “Hell, they must work.”
The old man looked over at Ben with a gleam his blue eyes, he titled his head back slightly so he could get a better look through his bifocals. “Eat bacon and eggs every damned mornin’ and drink lots of goat milk.”
“Goat milk?”
Graddock nodded. “Goat milk. Warm and fresh out of the goat. Hell, it’s even better if you suck it outta the tit,” he laughed.
“That’s disgusting!” Ben was talking about the chewing tobacco in his mouth as well as the idea of drinking goat milk fresh from a goat’s tit.
“No, it’s my fountain of youth, boy,” Graddock told him. “And another piece of advice for a long life is to stay away from doctors.”
“Doctors?”
The old man nodded. “Them pill pushin’ bastards don’t know their ass from a hole in the ground. Sons of bitches!”
“What if you get snake bit?”
“I did get snake bit once.”
“How did you treat it?”
“Spit tobacco juice on it and drank a lot of goat milk,” Graddock said quickly with a smile. “Dat gum, boy, what have I been tellin’ you for the last thirty damn minutes?” He laughed and then started getting up out of his chair. “I think I’ll go home on that one, boy,” he said as he stood up. “It’s about time for my afternoon nap.”
Ben started back to work after the old man left and he couldn’t help but laugh at some of the things that he had said about his secrets to a long life. He thought Graddock had a good sense of humor and he didn’t know why, but he was glad that the old codger had taken a liking to him.
Over the next few weeks, Ben had finished the repairs and painting of the exterior of the house. He had also plastered and textured all of the walls and ceilings inside the house and put in new wood floors, new screen wire on the screened in porch and installed a hot tub there. He remodeled the bathroom. Everyday, he worked like a Trojan. His only distractions were an occasional visit from Graddock and his twice a week dates with Cindy.
With the remodeling project over, Ben was excited about going to town and buying new furnishings for his home. For the living room, he bought a new leather sofa complete with a matching love seat and recliner. He completed the room with a 52-inch HD television and some really heavy-duty tables. For the bedroom, he bought a very rustic bedroom suit with a king size bed, a large chest and dresser. For the middle room that separated the living room from the kitchen, he bought a nice desk and chair outfit complete with a new computer. The kitchen now featured a heavy oak table with matching chairs. The house was now something that he could really be proud of and rightfully so due to all of his hard work.
CHAPTER 3
Although he knew his friend Graddock would not approve, Ben had an appointment with Doctor Phillips who just looked at his leg and announced that it seemed to be doing just fine. That aggravated Ben somewhat because he considered the whole doctor visit to be a waste of time and money. He knew that the rattlesnake bite was healing nicely without having Phillips to tell him so. He already knew that it was going to take some more time for the tissue that rotted away to heal over. He left vowing that he would never go see Phillips again.
He drove on over to the hospital wanting to catch Cindy just as she was about to go on break. That idea worked out nicely and she seemed more than happy to see him. He invited her out for the official unveiling of his newly remodeled house the very next day because it was Wednesday and her daughter’s father always kept the girl on Wednesdays. She gladly accepted. Before he left town, he went to the grocery store buying items that he wanted to cook on the grill for his date the next night and then it was on to the beer store where he bought more than enough to last for the next few days.
Ben drove up to Graddock’s old house in the late afternoon hoping the old man wasn’t still taking his afternoon nap. Much to his surprise, Graddock was sitting outside in the shade of a tree in the yard watching his chickens peck and scratch. There were three nanny goats grazing in the yard, a peacock and a couple of geese. The yard looked more like a pen out around the barn with the grass eaten down to the bare nub. It was obvious that he old fellow cared more about being around his animals than he did a well-manicured lawn.
Some of the trees surrounding the old house were overgrown and some of their limbs rested on the roof of the dilapidated structure. The house was in even worse shape than Ben’s before he started the repairs. “Come in and stay awhile,” Graddock greeted as Ben walked through the yard gate. He was drinking out of a tin can and held it up as if to toast Ben. “Want some goat milk?”
Ben shook his head no smiling. “I just came over to tell you how right you are. I went to the doctor today and it was a total waste of time. All that son of a bitch did was look at that place on my leg and tell me it looked fine. Charged me seventy five dollars for it.”
“Well, hell yes, it looks fine,” Graddock laughed as he sat his tin can down on the ground next to his chair and then took out his package of chewing tobacco. “You’ve been spittin’ tobacco juice on it, ain’t ’cha?”
“You bet,” Ben lied.
“Hey, boy, do you need any eggs?” Graddock ask trying to be a good neighbor. “These dat gum hens have been workin’ overtime here lately.”
“Sure, I’ll take some eggs,” Ben smiled. “And some goat milk too. Hell, I might want to give some to my girlfriend, she’s coming out tomorrow night for dinner.”
“No, you don’t want to do that,” Graddock teased with a chuckle. “You won’t be able to keep up with her. If you know what I mean, but you might want to drink a half a gallon or so before then.”
“I’ll try it.”
If Warren Graddock was an old recluse, he sure didn’t act like one. Ben found him to be friendly as well as humorous. At first, it irritated Ben somewhat that the old man came around so regularly when he first began working on the house, but he soon come to realize that old geezer was probably just wanted some company since he had been living out there at Blue Gap all those years by himself. He never really interrupted Ben while he was working. He would just sit in the lawn chair and watch awhile before getting back in his old rusty pickup and driving away.
Ben arrived back his house well before dark. He put the eggs in the refrigerator, but before he put the goat milk in, he smelled it and thought that he would give it a try for breakfast, but right now, it was time for some beers. He took a Budweiser out of the twelve pack and popped the top as he walked into the middle room and checked for phone messages on his machine, there was none. He went into the living room, turned on the TV, sat down in his recliner to watch for a few minutes and fell asleep.
He started to dream as he slept there, but it really didn’t feel like a dream. He was in the living room, but it looked like the living room would have years ago. There were several people milling about, talking in inaudible tones that were impossible for Ben to understand. All of them wearing clothes that were stylish back in the 1920s. That was when he saw the coffin sitting there with a body in wake. Ben moved over to the casket and looked inside. There was a man’s body lying there, but he did not know who the middle-aged man with a moustache was. He felt like he should have known him, but yet, the man was unfamiliar. He stood there gazing at the man’s face when he noticed that the man’s eyes opened slightly. Ben continued to look on until he was sure that the man was looking right back at him.
“Hey, look at this,” Ben said to the other people milling about the room, but it was as if they could not hear or see him. “This man’s eyes are open,” he shouted and still got no response. Ben looked back around to the man in the coffin. His eyes were now wide open and he was staring directly at him.
At that moment, Ben woke up. He looked around the living room illuminated by the light of the TV. “What the hell was that about?” he asked himself getting up from the chair.
Rib eye steak, baked potato with real butter and grilled jalapenos stuffed with cream cheese was not on Cindy’s diet, but she ate the delicious meal without ever mentioning things like cholesterol or fat. She knew that Ben had worked hard on the meal and it was probably the best steak she had ever eaten in her life, so, why complain? She washed her last bite down with a cold Dos Equis and smiled when she thought of a conversation that she had at work with some of her coworkers. “You know what some people at work told me? They were telling me that the Blue Gap area is haunted.”
Instantly, Ben remembered that odd dream. “Really? I don’t believe in ghosts, do you?”
“Well, of course not, but I just thought it was funny. I think they were just messing around with me because they knew that I had a date and I was coming out here,” she explained. “But I was amazed that several people at work told me the same thing.”
“Well, I guess it’s a good thing that you’re going to spend the night,” Ben smiled. “I wouldn’t want you to have to drive home in the dark through all the spooks between here and town.”
“You’re not fooling me, Ben Paterson, I know your plan now,” she teased. “Get me out here, give me a few beers and then start telling me scary stories to get me to stay.”
“You found me out,” Ben laughed. “I just wanted to get you out here to take advantage of you and let’s start right now!”
“What do you have in mind, sir?”
He stood up from the table and began walking toward the back door. “Let’s get you in this hot tub.”
“But what about the dishes?”
“Leave them,” he said as he reached the door and turned around to look at her.
“But I didn’t bring a bathing suit.”
“That’s even better,” he grinned mischievously. “All part of my plan.”
Cindy stood up and followed after him. “Okay, but you have to cover your eyes until I get in!”
The low rumbling sounds of distant thunder woke Cindy up during the night. She laid there in bed for a few minutes listening and the thunder seemed to be getting more frequent and growing in volume. She could see flashes of light out the window and started counting slowly when she saw lightening until she heard the next rumble of thunder because she had heard that every four seconds equals one mile in estimating how far off the distance the lightening strike was. According to her calculations, it was more than three miles away.
She laid there listening to the rumblings of the thunder and drifted off to sleep only to be startled by a loud crack directly overhead. She quickly sat up bed and looked over at Ben who was still sound asleep and wondered how in the world anyone could sleep through that. The light from the lightening bolt was so bright that it lit up the entire bedroom through the window and the immediate thunder that followed it shook the entire house. She jumped out of bed frightened and went directly to the bedroom window to look out. Ben had no curtains or blinds on the windows so she had a full view, the lightening from the thunderstorm was so rapid the entire countryside was illuminated in a long series of flashes. Suddenly, the bright flash from an intense lightening bolt blinded her momentarily and she thought she was seeing things when she started getting her vision back for there floating in the darkness was what appeared to be a ball of fire.
The brightly glowing orb seemed to be floating there near the cars close the trees with only an occasional slight moment to the left and to the right. It began to drift upward a few feet and then appeared to be moving closer to the house as it hovered there in the front yard between the yard fence and house. “Ben, wake up and look at this,” she managed to shout. He moaned and she looked over at him to see if he was awake. “Look it this!” She quickly looked back out the window, but the sphere was gone and the rain started to fall.
“It’s only a thunderstorm,” Ben said still half asleep as he sat up. “Come back to bed.”
“That was the strangest thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” she said moving away from the window. “It was a lightening ball. You know, I’ve heard of those, but I just thought they were a myth or something.”
CHAPTER 4
Although Ben liked Cindy very much and thoroughly enjoyed her company, he was glad to see her go back home the next morning after breakfast. He did a few chores around the house after her departure and then drove over to Warren Graddock’s to see if he had made it through the thunderstorm without any problems. He found the old man sitting in his spot outside in the yard with his beloved animals. Graddock was his usual jovial self until he mentioned the lightening ball that Cindy had witnessed. It was then that Ben noticed that his eyes widened and he fidgeted in his chair. He seemed even more restless when Ben asked if he had ever seen one.
“I’ve seen several of ‘em, in my life” he nervously admitted. “And the damned things scared the hell outta me. I hope I don’t ever see one again.” He reached for his trusty chewing tobacco and packed some in his mouth before he continued on with his story.
“When I was a little boy I went to church with my Mama and Daddy one Sunday. Now, the church met in this old building that they had been using since the Civil War and the preacher and all the deacons decided that they needed a new home and rightfully so. They had a new one built and it was about ready to move in. So, this particular Sunday was the last time that they would ever have church on the old building and they planned on, since it was the mornin’ service and everybody was there, that a group of men would load the piano and move it to the new church.” He took a pause from his story long enough to spit.
“Well, that mornin’ while the service was goin’ on, there was this big old thunderstorm that had built up and by the time the sermon was over it was a thunderin’ and carryin’ on, but it wadn’t rainin’ or nothin’ so the men that had volunteered to load the piano into the wagon and carry it to the new church, decided that they would go ahead and do their chore while the women went over to the new church to get the picnic lunch ready ‘cause we were all gonna go eat over there.” Graddock chewed his tobacco even faster as the story progressed.
“By the time the men got the piano outside, that thunderstorm had gotten even bigger. That damned thunder was so loud that it was shakin’ the ground and spookin’ the horses. It took four men just to hold ‘em so they wouldn’t run off with the wagon. Now, there was eight men tryin’ to get that damned piano loaded on the wagon and they was workin’ just as fast as they could ‘cause that damned lightenin’ was everywhere. Then there was this crack of thunder and it was so loud that it sounded like a cannon goin’ off by your ear and the lightenin’ bolt was so bright that it damned near blinded us and I was a kid and I was just standin’ around watchin’ and that’s when I saw this big old ball of fire break off from the lightenin’ bolt. It just hung there floatin’ in the air. It didn’t move, it stayed there for a little bit and then it just darted toward the wagon and it was like it consumed it for a moment killin’ all twelve men and two of the horses. The wagon and piano was busted into splinters. Some the men’s hair and beards were singed off. The boots and shoes were knocked off some of ‘em. The bottoms of a couple of em’s feet was blown out like they exploded or somethin’. The horses were like they were fried and there was a smoke risin’ up in the air from all of ‘em and, my Lord, how it did stink!”
Ben had listened intently to the entire story, but was somewhat skeptical wondering if the whole story was, in fact, true or the ramblings of an old man that could possibly have just a touch of dementia at his age. “What year did this happen?” he asked just to see if Graddock could give a date.
“1923,” he answered quickly. “I had just turned eight years old. I didn’t see another until the next year when I was nine.”
Ben did not want to get on that subject, he wanted to hear more about the church. “Did they get a another piano for the new church?”
Graddock shook his head no. “There wadn’t much of a need. The church just slowly fell apart after that. Some of the people in the congregation blamed the preacher and from there, people just sort of went their own ways,” he explained. “The preacher stayed on here. In fact, he had that house built that you’re livin’ in today.”
“My house?” Ben was surprised.
The old codger nodded. “And he lived there until he died.”
Ben’s mind was racing. Flaming spheres of fire? Lightening and deaths? What the hell was all of this? “Do you think this place haunted?” he asked to get to the point so he could decide if he should leave or listen to Graddock’s stories.
“Yes, there’s lots of haints around here,” Graddock informed him, but Ben had heard enough for one day. He said goodbye to his friend and walked to his Yukon to leave. He glanced over at Graddock as he was driving off wondering how anyone with half a brain believe in such things as lightening balls and ghosts haunting the earth? Ben decided that Graddock was probably just a superstitious old fool full of strange stories from the past.
Graddock continued to sit in his yard after Ben left thinking. He wasn’t sure if Ben believed his story or not and wasn’t very concerned about it because he knew that the young man didn’t really have an inkling of what had happened in the past at Blue Gap. One thing for certain, he wasn’t going to tell him until Ben was ready to hear it all.
He knew what he had seen in his life and he certainly didn’t need an out of work real estate agent from Fort Worth to validate whether or not he was telling the truth.
Warren considered whether or not he should ever tell Ben about the second time that he had see the fireball. As he had already told Ben, it was 1924, when he was nine years old. He was fishing one day and the afternoon had gotten away from him. It was getting close to sundown before he noticed that it was getting so late. He rolled his fishing line around his pole and hid it in the bushes so no one could find it. He then pulled his fish that he had on a stringer out of the water and began his two-mile journey home proud of his catch. He was walking along the creek bed knowing that he was going to be in trouble when he heard a whippoorwill start his nightly calling. Suddenly, an orb of fire rose from the ground in front of him. There were no thunderstorms in the area anywhere and yet, there it was just like the day at the church.
Terrified, Warren tried to run away, but the ball of fire seemed to chase after him. It followed as he turned through the woods and ran as fast as he could through the brush and the briars thinking that if the sphere caught up with him he would be killed. After quite a distance, he checked behind him and saw that the ball of fire was gone. He stopped to catch his breath and while he was doing so, he began hearing voices coming from the old graveyard. He checked behind him to make doubly sure that the burning disk was not anywhere around. When he was certain that it wasn’t, he slowly started making his way to the cemetery trying to make out what the voices were saying. When he neared the fence, he hid in the brush and looked out into the graveyard and although it was almost dark, he could see Preacher Jones there talking with Daisy Jackson. It appeared that Jones was demanding something from her and Daisy was distraught. Warren listened closely so he could hear them.
“This is what I want and, damn you, this is what you’ll do,” Jones scolded.
“No! No, I can’t do it again,” Daisy cried wringing her hands. “Please don’t make me!”
“You have to and, dammit, you will!” Jones lunged forward and slapped her in the face. “Camazotz demands this!”
“I’ve given my only child, I’ve taken other people’s children. I can’t do this again!”
“The goddess demands a sacrifice and you will provide it!”
Warren had heard enough, he backed out of the bushes and ran as fast as he could all the way home. It was well after dark when he came walking up to the house carrying his three dead fish on the stringer. His parents were sitting out on the front porch enjoying the cool night air.
“Where have you been, boy?’ his father asked as he stepped up on the porch.
Warren wanted to discuss something far more important that fishing. “I saw Preacher Jones and Daisy Jackson talkin’ in the graveyard and they were talkin’ about stealin’ a kid and killin’ him,” he blurted out.
His parents looked at him as if he had lost his mind and said nothing. After a moment, his father got out of his chair and walked over to him. He sternly looked at his son and with one vicious slap in the face, he knocked the boy backward and off of the porch. He then turned and walked inside the house leaving Warren laying there on the ground.
His Mother got up and walked down the steps to where he was still laying on the ground and crying. “Warren, I don’t understand you. Why would you be tellin’ lies about Preacher Jones?”
“It’s not a lie, Mama, I heard ‘em talkin’ about it,” he sobbed.
His Mother shook her head thinking that her son was a habitual liar. “Get up and go get ready for bed.”
Warren thought his parents would surely believe his story a couple of days later when another child disappeared. This time, it was Preacher Jones’ own daughter, Kate. Just like the four other children before her, she was stolen from her bed in the night while the family slept.
Preacher Jones was quick to accuse Daisy Jackson and it was easy for him to convince the rest of the community of her guilt. After all, he was a community leader and she was considered to be mentally unbalanced person driven to insanity from the death of her husband and the more recent disappearance of her only child. Just about everyone in the area had seen her, at one time or another, wandering through the countryside alone crying, laughing and mumbling to herself incoherently.
Four cowboys went out on their horses to find Daisy and when they did find her, they roped her and herded her back to Blue Gap. If Daisy was not insane before this incident, she certainly was when they tied her to a tree. She was fighting like a wild animal, kicking and intelligibly yelling mixed in with her frequent screams. The cowboys’ only mistake was that they tied her with only one rope and that she broke it with what seemed to be with amazingly little effort. The cowboys scrambled to rope her again. Instead of tying her with a rope, this time they bound her with chains from the hardware store before tying her to the tree.
There was no law enforcement in Blue Gap, the town was so small that there was little need of any, but on this day, there should have been. The crowd of people gathered there that day were panicked and terrified of Daisy Jackson and soon they were nothing more than an angry mob calling for her lynching.
When Preacher Jones saw this, he joined right in becoming the leader of the mob. He instructed the cowboys to drag the woman the cemetery and the crowd followed after them. There was an huge old oak tree inside the graveyard and one of the cowboys threw a rope over one of the lower limbs. They hung Daisy Jackson there that day still bound in her chains in front of the crowd of people that had followed them from the town. Some of the people said that she was a witch, others said that she had a demon, while some thought she was just plain crazy, but they all agreed that she was the person responsible for the missing children.
Although Daisy died that day without uttering a single word about her association with Preacher Jones, he was driven to his confession in the form of a note that he left before hanging himself. In the letter, he told of how he came into contact with a demon called Camazotz who enticed him with promises of great wealth and power. However, this would not be without a price, Jones had to become a servant of the demon and worship her like a god by sacrificing young children to her in acts of cannibalism. It was then that he recruited Daisy Jackson and forced her into his service to abduct children for the sacrifices. He sealed their unholy alliance by cutting the heart out of her only child and serving it to the bloodsucking demon.
Jones’ demise began when Daisy Jackson abducted Jones’ own daughter and brought her to the sacrificial ritual as the offering. She knew that Jones could not refuse Camazotz and so he killed his own daughter as an offering to the demon. He later devised a plan that would be the end of Jackson and asked the demon to strike her speechless so she could not implicate him in any of the abductions.
Jones was a deceiver and a greedy, heartless man who fooled the people of Blue Gap into thinking that he was a man of God and happy to serve as their minister while he was making blood sacrifices of their children to a demon goddess. He felt no remorse for his actions until Daisy Jackson’s betrayal and then he was grief stricken. Three days after the death of Daisy Jackson, he wrote the confessional suicide note, carried a rope with him as he climbed the windmill behind his house and hung himself there knowing that he had no chance for redemption.
The lightening bolt tragedy, the child murders, Preacher Jones’ suicide all spelled the end of the Blue Gap community, but the Graddock family stayed on. Warren’s parents never said another word about the subject, but the younger Graddock thought that he had an apology coming from his Father for the way he slapped the boy off of the porch that night when the lad reported what he had seen and heard.
That apology never came.
CHAPTER 5
Ben walked out of the bathroom drying off from his shower when he heard his telephone ring. He ran past the hot tub and turned on the kitchen light so he could see to get to the phone that was in the computer room. “Hello,” he answered, but only heard a loud noise that sounded like hundreds of people moaning, crying and wailing. Ben thought it was a soundtrack to a movie and someone was making a prank call, so he hung up. He went into the bedroom to put on his underwear and tee shirt wondering how anyone could have gotten his new number.
He went on to bed being tired from the day’s activities and the previous night spent with Cindy. He fell into a deep sleep almost immediately only to be awakened a few hours later with the rumblings of thunder and a high wind. The winds relentlessly blew against the house and suddenly, the front door blew open in the living room. Ben got out of bed to go shut it thinking that he neglected to fully close it before he retired for the evening. This time, when he closed the door, he turned the deadbolt to lock it.
Outside, the thunder and lightening continued and the winds were merciless. He turned on the TV to see if there were any weather reports on and as he was flipping through the channels, the power went off leaving him in the dark. He slowly made his way back to the bedroom to find his flashlight that was sitting on the mirrored dresser just for times like these. As he felt his way over to the dresser there was a bright flash of lightening outside that lit up the bedroom. Just then, catching his eye in the mirror in the flash, he thought he saw an old woman standing outside of his bedroom window on the porch. He turned quickly to the window, but saw nothing. He grabbed the flashlight, and ran to the front door in the living room. He opened it quickly and stepped outside on the porch. There was nothing there. Ben shook his head thinking that his mind was playing tricks on him and stepped back inside the house. He shut the door and locked it.
The thunderstorm continued to rage outside and as he made his way back to the bedroom, he noticed that the light in his computer room suddenly came on. He thought this was very unusual since the power was still off so he went to investigate. Sure enough, the ceiling light was on, but instead of being at full power, it only had a dim glow to it. He stood there looking at it wondering how in the world could a light, even at half power could possibly be on when the electricity was off? The bulb suddenly began to grow brighter and as it exceeded its glow for normal use, it exploded sending slithers of glass into the floor and leaving Ben in the dark once again with only his flashlight.
He made his way back to the bedroom and laid down trying to come up with logical explanations for all of the things that had just happened. The power failure was nothing new in this area, the high wind simply blew the door open and the glowing light bulb had to have had something to do with the electrical storm. The only thing he could not explain was the reflection in mirror of the old woman standing on the porch. Without much more thought, he decided that was probably just his imagination. The thunderstorm was moving on and he drifted off to sleep again.
“So, were you ever married, Warren?” Ben asked Graddock the next day when he was over for a visit.
“Yes, I married back in 1940,” he answered. “I had two sons. Steve died from polio back in 1952. Then there was Lyle, he died in a car wreck in 1961. My wife, Etta, died in 1964. I’ve been alone ever since.”
Ben got up from the porch, walked over to the ice cooler and got a beer. “You sure you don’t want one of these?” he asked.
Graddock shook his head no. “Goat milk is about as strong a drink as I can handle.”
Ben smiled and sat back down wondering what kind of question he should ask next. He thought it was best if he did not ask about the old man about his deceased family, it might be too painful for him. After thinking for another moment or two, he decided that he would pick up right where he left off last time they talked. “Do you really believe that Blue Gap is haunted?”