Valley of the Scarecrow (24 page)

He’s still alive!
Kelly thought, joy and hope flowing into her heart, giving her the second wind she needed to run over to him and leap up onto the altar. “I’m here, Gramps,” she told him. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

She used the hatchet to chop through his bindings, then carefully laid Malcolm down on the floor to assess his injuries. Turned out he was a bit banged up and exhausted but for the most part fine. After Kelly ran to the camp to get them both some much-needed water, Malcolm started coming around in a hurry.

“Thanks, angel,” he said, finally able to sit up. “You really saved my bacon this time. I owe you.”

“You don’t own me nothing. I’m just glad you’re alive.”

“Me too. I think he wanted me to suffer the way he had all those years ago. Seeing as he couldn’t get his hands on my father…I was the next best choice. Killing me would have been too quick and easy, I guess. You’re covered in blood. What happened?”

“Joshua’s gone. I killed him. I think the evil might be dead and gone too. The fields all died the same time he did.”

“And Dan?”

Kelly just shook her head, tears starting to flow again. Malcolm pulled her to his chest and let her have a good hard cry. After everything she’d been through tonight, she needed it. Once her sobs began to dry up, Malcolm lifted her head and said, “Let’s go home, honey. There’s nothing left for us here.”

Kelly nodded and they helped each other to their feet. “We’ll have to send the police back here,” Kelly said. “Someone has to come…” she started but couldn’t finish the sentence. Malcolm knew what she was trying to say though.

“I’ll make sure your friends all get a decent burial. Promise. Come on, we got a long walk ahead of us.”

“Will you be able to make it, Gramps?”

“Don’t worry about me. I’ll damn well crawl if I have to.”

They made a quick stop back at Kelly’s tent to get Dan’s car keys out of his bag and to pack a light backpack full of snacks and a few bottles of water for the trip. Arm in arm, drawing strength and willpower from each other, they set out across the dead field, making a beeline for the forest and the wooded trail beyond that would eventually lead them home. It was going to be a long, hard walk
back to the logging road where they’d left the cars but anything was better than spending another minute here in this desecrated field surrounded on all sides by madness and death.

The crows on the roof of the church silently watched as they walked away.

Always the crows…

F
OREVER
A
ND
E
VER
, A
MEN

Dawn broke above the rim of the eastern forest, chasing away the darkness of yet another cool October night. The sun dragged along behind it a bright blue sky, yesterday’s storm nothing but a memory and a few scattered mud puddles on this perfect Saturday morning. The majority of the crows took to the air early, nervous and screeching their confusion from on high as they circled the church trying to understand what was different about this day. They could look down at the hundreds of acres of dead crops lying on the ground below, see the blackened cornstalks that used to provide a reliable food source for them, but their tiny brains weren’t able to comprehend the devastation of their land. After circling restlessly they spread out and drifted away from the main field, realizing they’d have to search farther away from home than normal to get their breakfast this morning.

Back at the church, still perched on the bell tower steeple was a group of twenty of the largest crows in the murder, patiently watching their younger brethren circle aimlessly but eventually leave the immediate area in search of food. Once they were gone and things had considerably quieted down, the leaders of the big black birds silently looked around at one another, not needing to use their high-pitched voices to know exactly what must be done. As one, they took to the sky, flying with strength
and purpose toward the south side of the dead cornfield, heading directly to the spot where Joshua Miller’s disintegrated remains lay facedown in the wet soil.

As the birds settled down to earth they came in two at a time, the first two landing side by side about a foot apart. The following pair swooped down to land on top of the backs of the pair before them, and so on, the process repeating until they stood ten birds high, their black bodies entwining and molding together to form a huge feathered mass. Out of this unnatural chaos a body began to form: two arms spreading out to the sides, two legs starting to separate and take their first confident steps, and a head of solid darkness gazing around, its shadowy features blank and indistinct. Something about the entity repelled the sunshine, not just deflecting the early morning light, but swallowing it whole anywhere within a six-foot radius, the demon walking in perpetual midnight.

The Man in Black very rarely walked the earth, preferring to hide in the shadows and let his minions do his bidding, but Joshua Miller was special. Never had such a devout holy man been turned so completely toward the darkness, such unending love for humanity twisted into limitless rage. And with the magic talisman finally removed from the reverend’s neck, he could approach him without fear of repercussion. The demon walked over to where his scarecrow lay dead and defeated, shaking his head in bitter disappointment and barely contained anger. Part of him wanted to punish Reverend Miller, drag his soul down to the House of Pain for a serious attitude adjustment, but that wasn’t what he’d manifested here today to do. He had something much better in mind.

Bending down beside Joshua’s chemically ravaged body the Man in Black blew into his dark hands and exhaled
out a glowing green mist, forming the weightless substance crudely into the shape of a heart. He whispered a few words into his hand and the glowing heart began to beat. He plunged his fist containing the heart into the remains of the reverend’s chest and released it, stepping back to watch what was about to happen.

The glowing heart throbbed inside Joshua’s body, reconnecting to his arteries and veins, and started pumping tainted blood back through his system. Reverend Miller’s body began to repair itself: cornstalks wrapping around bones that were solidifying out of dust, muscles and organs knitting back together and swelling into life, flesh, skin, and hair wrapping around his inner shell until he resembled the gigantic man-monster he’d been the day before. Joshua’s lungs filled with air, his fists clenching in spasms as he drew his first deep breath. Green sparks flew from his eyes when he opened them for the first time, his rotted mouth releasing an earsplitting roar.

The scarecrow climbed to his feet.

Around him, the field was coming back to life too, his rebirth the corn’s as well. The blackened stalks filled with water from the cursed soil, turning a healthy shade of green again as they pushed up from the ground to stand tall and majestic, towering over Reverend Miller and his dark master. Joshua walked over and knelt at the feet of the Man in Black, reaching out to kiss his shadow-shrouded hand. “Thank you,” he said.

“Do not disappoint me again,” the demon said, turning away and instantly metamorphosing back into twenty dark winged birds, flying off toward the church.

Reverend Miller regained his feet and for a moment considered running up the sloping path into the woods to give chase to the hell spawn of Tucker who’d somehow
bested him. Rash decisions weren’t like him though, so he took a moment to think this through, a cold smile coming onto his face as he realized there was a much better way to go about getting his revenge. Why do all the dirty work, when he could have some help?

Joshua spun around and started jogging for the front steps of the church. Once inside, his anger grew tenfold when he discovered the old man had been released from the cross too. Two Tuckers still alive was completely unacceptable. Joshua headed for the basement and threw open the metal door imprisoning the mummified bodies of his three loyal followers, Harriet Jones and brothers David and Simon Driskle. They were still chained to the walls where the village elders had secured them seventy-four years earlier. Reverend Miller’s dark heart filled with seething fury, seeing the last remaining members of his congregation treated this way. He savagely bit down on his right wrist, blood bursting from his severed veins, and walked inside the small chamber. Behind him, half a dozen thick cornstalks snaked across the basement floor and entered the room with him. Seconds later the basement was bathed in an eerie green glow, and Joshua began to laugh.

Reverend Miller stepped out of his church and walked around the corner to his right, his newly acquired leather hat held tightly in his clenched hand. He stared at the message the young fool had scrawled on the boards in red paint, shaking his head in bitter resentment. In the name of his dark father he vowed he’d repaint this place of dark worship and restore Miller’s Grove to its past glory. Anyone who got in his way would pay dearly, but first there was the matter of taking care of the descendants of Angus Tucker. Joshua wouldn’t rest until he’d
crushed them beneath his feet and wiped out their family name forever. Maybe there were more out there than just the girl and the old man. Mothers, fathers, siblings—all tainted pieces of Angus Tucker’s vile bloodline. They all needed to be found, all needed to pay for his enemy’s crimes.

Sins of the father
…Joshua thought, his teeth tightly clenched.

Harriet Jones and the Driskle brothers walked around the corner to join their leader, pausing to read the cryptic message defiling the church wall together. They’d been transformed the same way Joshua had been, united and fused body and soul with the cornfield of the damned to be so much bigger, stronger, and faster then any of them had been in their former lives. They looked to Reverend Miller for instruction, ready to do his every bidding with no regard for their own well-being, wanting nothing more out of their existence than to please him.

“Find the girl and her grandfather,” Joshua said, his voice a low growl.

His three disciples immediately walked off into the field, heading for the wooded trail to the south that the reverend had told them their enemies had taken. Joshua stayed where he was for a moment, seething at what three generations of the Tucker family had done to him. Walking over to the wall, he used the still-bloody wound on his wrist to smear a big red
S
in the middle of the message. When he stood back to admire his handiwork, the warning on the church now read:

THE SCARECROW
S
WILL WALK AT MIDNIGHT

With an evil grin on his face, Reverend Miller placed the stolen outback hat on top of his head and strolled off
into the field to join his old friends. Together, they had a score to settle and seven long decades of pain and suffering to pay back. After so long vengeance would taste sweet and Joshua was prepared to do whatever was required to get it, even if it meant his own destruction. Tonight was going to be a hell of a night, one the Tucker family and perhaps the world would never forget.

From above, the ever-vigilant crows silently watched as the scarecrow walked into the field of bountiful corn, and disappeared…

STRANGE MAGIC

“Gord Rollo is one hell of a talent, and
Strange Magic
only solidifies that he has more than proven himself as a writer…If you haven’t experienced Gord Rollo yet, you haven’t experienced horror.”

—The Horror Review

“A great book. (A) uniquely dark vision.”

—Jimmy Z. Johnston, Horror-Web.com

“Gord Rollo has created an enticing horror adventure…A satisfying story,
Strange Magic
brings one back to the era of early pulp horror, when young readers would hide under the covers with flashlights…and then be too frightened to turn the flashlights out!”

—Fresh Fiction

“…will make the reader cringe and his flesh crawl right off his scalp.”

—Dread Central

CRIMSON

“Rollo is the best new horror writer I have come across in years. If he continues to horrify us with his brutal and amazing tales of the macabre, then I believe we have a new master of horror on the rise.”

—The Horror Review

“As a coming-of-age tale, Rollo nails this part with Kinglike precision.”

—
Dark Scribe Magazine

“Crimson
isn’t for the faint of heart. Tossed in with spiders, scarecrows and leeches is a bloodthirsty killer Jack the Ripper wouldn’t cross, along with cannibalism and infanticide. Hardcore horror junkies will be pleased with this satisfying page-turner that delivers genuinely scary sequences.”

—
Tampa Bay Newspapers

THE JIGSAW MAN

“Does not let up until the final page. A superb excursion into modern horror.”

—Edward Lee, Author of
The Black Train

“Gord Rollo is a writer of amazing—and dark—talent. Guaranteed to keep you turning the pages!”

—Brian Keene, Author of
A Gathering of Crows

“A suspense-thriller, pain-filled page-turner that will surprise you right to the end. I nominate it for best horror novel of the year.”

—Horror World

“In
The Jigsaw Man
Gord Rollo edges closer to his early promise as a northern Stephen King.”

—Gene O’Neill, Author of
The Burden of Indigo

“Gord Rollo is a talent of horrific proportions.”

—The Horror Review

A LEISURE BOOK®

September 2010

Published by

Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.

200 Madison Avenue

New York, NY 10016

Copyright © 2010 by Gord Rollo

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E-ISBN: 978-1-4285-0925-2

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