The Shadow in the Dark (Part Seven)

 

“I’m happy to take you into town on our way back,” said Sheriff Root. “You can buy some clothes there, and whatever else you might need.”

 

I sat in the passenger seat of his police car still trying to come to terms with my earlier behaviour. I had licked the Nutri-girl bowl clean after Sheriff Root had left. And even more worrying, fifteen minutes or so later I had walked out to where his car was, oblivious to how I must have looked until he looked me up and down and said:

 

“Still going with the Frozen theme, then?”

 

It was only then that I stopped and realised I had gone upstairs to my dormer bedroom and I had dressed myself in the white cartoon sweater, pink denim shorts, grey woollen pantyhose and white and pink sneakers, without even a second thought. 

 

What I had meant to do was ask Rosemary to find me something, anything, that didn’t make me look like a teenage girl who was obsessed with Frozen. She had to have something! Her own clothes, for example. But no, I had just gone upstairs after breakfast, I had dressed, and I had come downstairs without even thinking about it. It was like I was on auto pilot, like when you drive home from work and you don’t actually think about the route you’re taking, because it’s the same route you’ve taken a thousand times before, and despite the fact you’d decided earlier in the day you should detour to pick up some fresh milk, you find yourself back home automatically without stopping for the milk. 

 

It was just like that. I had gone upstairs and dressed myself, seemingly oblivious to what I’d be wearing, at least until I stepped outside and saw Sheriff Root’s amused expression.

 

I stood there for a moment, seemingly confused. I wore a white top with Elsa and Anna hugging one another. 

 

“So, you love warm hugs?” said the Sheriff, as he read the words underneath the cartoon picture of the girls.

 

“I…” my voice trailed off. I didn’t know what to say that might make sense. 

 

“If you don’t mind me saying, you’ve been acting a bit strangely this morning, Miss Ellis. Perhaps I should get a doctor to check you out? You did say you passed out during the crash?”

 

“I’m fine.” I plucked at the teenage sweater that I wore, and then touched the tight denim shorts that seemed a far too perfect fit for my bottom. God, I must look ridiculous. I was an FBI agent. “We have work to do, Sheriff.”

 

“Fine.”

 

And so I buckled up in my seat and we drove out down the narrow private lane and returned to the main road where we drove back along the way I’d come in Henry’s flatbed truck last night. The road seemed less sinister by daylight. Now the trees were just trees and not twisted arms reaching down with claw like hands. We said very little for the first five minutes or so, but then Sheriff Root began to make conversation.

 

“You picked an interesting part of Arkham County in which to crash your car, Miss Ellis.”

 

“How so?” I glanced sideways at him and found myself drawn to his strong chiselled jaw and rugged features. For a brief moment I speculated whether he might be single. I couldn’t see a wedding ring on his left hand.

 

“We had something of a notorious celebrity round these parts in the late seventies. You’ll have heard of him, if you’re FBI.”

“Which I am.”

 

“The jury’s out on that until you show me some proof,” said the Sheriff. “But anyway, I guess you know the name, Joseph Curwen?”

 

Joseph Curwen. Yes, I did. It was an infamous FBI case. “Of course I’ve heard of Curwen. Something of a bloodbath, as I recall? Like the Waco siege in 1993?”

 

“Indulge me,” said the Sheriff as he drove.

 

“Okay. Curwen was one of those self-styled black magicians who made a scandalous name for themselves in the late sixties. He was recorded as associating with Charles Manson and Anton LaVey in California around 1967 and 1968, at the height of the hippy movement, and he was also known to be in New York City in 1976 soon before the Son of Sam killings. Then, by the late 1970s, Curwen established a cult movement in Puwtuxet, Providence, called The Soldiers of Ipqu-Aya.”

 

“That’s the one. Go on, Miss Ellis.”

 

“They had some private land that they fenced off and surrounded with signs telling people not to trespass, or else. There were all manner of rumours about their behaviour, but by and large they seemed to keep to themselves. Only there were a spate of recorded instances of hitch-hikers going missing in the surrounding forest area. All young girls.”

 

“Uh-huh.”

 

“So, as part of the investigations into the disappearances, a patrol car calls round at Curwen’s property. They’re only going to ask some routine questions, the same as they were doing across the county, but without warning, or provocation, some trigger happy cult members open fire on the patrol car. Well, within a few hours the estate is completely surrounded by local law enforcement, FBI and special weapons teams. There was a brief siege and then the order was given to storm the compound,” I said.

 

“The bloodbath you mentioned.”

 

“That’s right. Curwen was killed in the shoot-out, along with many of his followers. And inside the compound they found evidence of a sophisticated slavery network. Underground basement chambers full of cages, a few of which still had naked girls in them. The girls had all been branded on the left thigh. A real horror story.”

 

“A nasty business,” agreed the Sheriff.”

 

“But that was in Puwtuxet, in Providence. What has it to do with where I crashed my car?”

 

“Well, before he set up his cult in Providence, Joseph Curwen spent several years in Arkham County, close to where you crashed last night. There’s an interesting local legend about him in 1978. Seems he spent his time here on what he called his Ninevah Working. Curwen had this ambition to communicate with other worldly beings and presumably barter his soul for the gift of eternal life. The usual flights of fancy you get with people who believe in the occult. He had a few followers here – all young, naïve women, of course - and set up a complicated ritual in the remote woods where he had determined that ancient beings of considerable power had appeared many centuries ago to the native Americans. Go back far enough in the ancient folklore of the region and you’ll hear accounts of Native American tribes being uprooted by powerful sky beings and taken from their homelands, presumably thousands of years before white settlers came to the East coast. Entire villages disappearing, that kind of thing. Anyway, according to the story from the late seventies, the locals hereabouts observed a series of strange phenomena that night – power outages across the county, strange lights in the sky, and a storm of unnatural origin that kept most people indoors. Curwen seemingly emerges from the forest intact come morning, but none of his followers do. He then went on to claim he had successfully summoned a demon from the inscriptions on an ancient clay tablet that dates back to the city of Ninevah in Mesopotamia, spoken with it, and that the demon had given him the secret of eternal youth.”

 

“Such a shame he gets shot dead a few years later then, just when he’ll enjoy never growing old,” I said, sarcastically.

 

“Poor timing on Curwen’s part,” agreed the Sheriff. “That wasn’t quite the end of it, of course, because… ah, but it looks like we’ve arrived.”

 

Sheriff Root parked the car in a narrow layby and then climbed out. I tried to follow, but found I couldn’t work my seatbelt loose. Try as I might the catch seemed stuck. 

 

“Ah, sorry, it’s a bit temperamental,” said the Sheriff as he opened the passenger side door. “If we had the budget, I’d get things like this fixed.” He leaned into the car and reached for my seatbelt clasp, and as he brushed lightly against my body, I felt a sudden and exciting thrill of being so very close to him.

 

The Sheriff has you restrained

 

He has made you helpless

 

I squirmed and a soft gasp escaped my lips.

 

“Something wrong?” asked the Sheriff as he twisted the locking mechanism before then releasing me.

 

“No!” My thighs twitched, seemingly of their own accord. I felt a momentary heat. But then he stepped away and the feeling subsided.

 

I drew another breath, composed myself for a few seconds, and then climbed out of the car. As I did so he reached his hand out to help me, but I quickly pushed it away.

 

“Don’t presume to touch me!”

 

“Okay. Sorry.” The Sheriff stepped, away, seemingly perplexed by my mood swings. “I didn’t mean any harm, Miss Ellis.”

 

“So you say.” 

 

I felt suddenly irritated that he had acceded to my order. I tossed my head, angrily. “You need to get that seat belt fixed.”

 

“Yes, I should,” he agreed.

 

My irritation grew. I was obviously in charge here. So be it. If a man wishes to relinquish his birth right, a woman will happily take advantage of it. 

 

“I didn’t appreciate being trapped in your car seat.”

 

“Again, my apologies, Miss Ellis.”

 

Weak

 

He is weak

 

Like so many men of Earth

 

Where is my Master?

 

I drew another sharp breath and gazed about the lonely road. “I think… it was perhaps thirty yards down here.”

 

“Show me.”

 

And so I walked down the road, following the line of the crash barriers that flanked the Miskatonic river. Despite my ridiculous Disney princess clothes, I was very much in charge. That was clear enough. Strangely enough, the thought irritated me. 

 

“Here.” I stopped some six yards from a twisted bar and a stretch of crushed vegetation screening a muddy slope that plunged towards the river. Fifteen yards down the slope, wedged between a couple of tree stumps that projected out at an angle over the fast flowing river, was the remains of my beloved Toyota Camry.

 

The Sheriff peeled away from me and began checking the roadside as I stood and gazed down at the wreck of my car. 

 

“Well, the skid marks on the road are visible enough. You must have braked along here,” he said.

 

I folded my arms and considered the events of the previous night. “She emerged from those bushes,” I said, as I pointed at an expanse of dense vegetation. “Just ran straight out into the road. And she was naked.”

 

“Hmm.” The Sheriff paced over to the bushes and took a look while I marshalled my thoughts. “There’s some evidence of disturbance. A few broken branches, but that could just as easily be an animal.”

 

“It wasn’t an animal.”

 

Slaves are animals

 

The thought came unbidden into my head, but I pushed it away. “There’s a bridge further down river,” I said. And there was. Now that there was daylight, I could clearly see that some eighty to a hundred yards away a condemned wooden bridge stretched across the width of the Miskatonic. It was conceivable that the naked girl I saw last night might well have reached the bridge in her headlong flight from whatever it was she was fleeing.  

 

“I wouldn’t advise crossing it,” said Sheriff Root. “The bridge has been closed now for several decades. The wood is rotten.”

 

“The girl might not have known that,” I said. “Are there any tracks heading down that way? Across the slope, I mean?”

 

“Hard to tell.” Sheriff Root paced slowly along the edge of the road, looking for any sign that a girl might have plunged into the vegetation there, and then down the slope towards the bridge.

 

“Her tracks should still be fresh if she did. I’m going to go down the slope and follow along the river itself, just in case there are any tracks at the bottom.”

 

“Well, be careful. The slope pretty much ends at the river bank. There’s not much of a pathway to follow.”

 

“I’ll be fine.” I worked my way down the slope, holding on to roots and sloping tree trunks as I reached my car. The mud here was slick with my own tracks from the previous night when I had clawed my way back up onto the road. The side door was still wide open and stick in the sloping mud. I leaned in and searched again for any sign of my cell phone, FBI badge, or gun, but couldn’t find them, even with the aid of daylight. And then, frustrated at their loss, I inched my way further down to the river bank itself.

 

Sheriff Root was right. It was going to be difficult to make my way along the edge of the river, for the vegetation grew out, leaving nothing much on the way of a path that I could access. And yet, if the girl had scrambled down the slope after crossing the road, this is where she might have ended up. And then I saw it, thirty yards down from my car, signs of trampled underbrush. “I think she did come down this way.”

 

“She’ll be scratched to hell if she did,” said the Sheriff. “Nothing but brambles and tree branches all the way down.”

 

Bit by bit I worked my way along the river bank until I reached the stretch of slope with the trampled vegetation. From there I could plainly see signs of frantic movement along the river bank in the direction of the derelict bridge. 

 

“We’re on the right track,” I said.

 

“Ashlee, don’t go on the bridge.”

 

“I’ll be fine.”

 

“No, Ashlee, it’s been condemned for decades now. The wood is rotten. We’ll drive round to the other side.”

 

“I’m just going to look on this side first,” I said.

 

“Wait for me. I’ll join you.”

 

But I didn’t wait. I pushed on and within a couple of minutes reached the foot planks of the rotting bridge. The left hand rail had collapsed entirely and been washed away into the Miskatonic, who knows how long ago. The planks that stretched across the river were mostly intact, but here and there a few had broken, been splintered, or had completely fallen away. The entrance to the bridge had a rusting chain stretched across it with a danger sign forbidding anyone from crossing. 

 

“Ashlee!”

 

He was really irritating me now. I was FBI, for God’s sake. He was just local law enforcement. Time to show him that I knew what I was doing.

 

I stepped out onto the bridge.