[Macey Wuesthoff]

Prologue Continued...

* * *

Monday morning found one of John’s buddies, Reggie Sayers, who
looked a lot like Goober from The Andy Griffith Show and was about as
stupid, too, sitting at the bar inside The Feed Trough, Grimshaw’s one
remaining café. John’s other three buddies, Doyle Fell, Tim Bowers,
and Sam Farmer, sat on each side of Reggie.


Between chews and spits of smokeless tobacco, Reggie concluded
the latest story he’d heard about John. “A freak accident Friday night, I
hear! Burnt John’s face real bad! Don’t know for sure what happened.
Don’t think nobody does. Hear it was a kitchen fire or something. Now
I’ll tell you what: John’s oldest baby Sarah’s gonna be livin’ with a rich
uncle to take a little pressure off of poor John because that accident just
plain left him with more than he can handle, what with five kids and
all, I hear.” Reggie paused to spit a stream of tobacco into a Dixie cup.


“John ain’t got no living brothers or sisters,” remarked Tim. “So
reckon that must be on Gay’s side.”


“No, that can’t be, either,” said Doyle. “When we were little, Gay’s
family and my family lived next door to each other, and Gay and I
played together every day. She was an only child.” He scoffed,
“Reggie, it sounds like you ‘hear’ wrong.”


“Nuh-uh!” insisted Reggie. “I’ll tell you what, I know it’s true
because I live next door to Beauford Hicks, and his baby Kathy Sue’s
best friends with Sarah. Sarah stayed the weekend with the Hicks
while John was getting all doctored up at Woodland County General,
and I heard John and Sarah both talking to Beauford about it when John
come to pick Sarah up Sunday. There they was, all standing around
Beauford’s old truck when I heard it.” Reggie smirked at Doyle.
“Shows what you know, Mr. Smart-Ass-I-Grad-je-ated-Val-a-victoria-
So-I’m-Better-Than-The-Rest-Of-Y’all-Dumb-Old-Rednecks.”


Sam put in, “Why’s Sarah got to go? Ain’t John going to get back
on his feet eventually?”


“Nope,” said Reggie. “He’s damaged for g-o-o-o-o-d. See, that fire
got his eyes. Now I hear he’s blind as a bat.”


The café door opened behind them. “You hear wrong.”

The four men turned and found John leaning on a walking stick in
the doorway. The skin immediately surrounding his eyes was red
and charred. His eyelids were a deeper red, having taken on an almost
brownish tint. They were closed and still, like they would be if he were
soundly sleeping, but were far too grotesque for him to actually appear
at peace. The bottoms of the shriveled lids had melted into the skin


beneath his eyes and sealed themselves shut. Everyone could tell that, even after the layers of dried blood, blackened scabs, and pieces of charred flesh healed, John would never be able to open his eyes again.


Yet as the rain at last began to pour around him, John insisted, “I
was blind, but now I see.”


* * *

Grimshaw, 1975

A group of people dressed in identical black hoods and cloaks
circled Ansel, who stood next to the campfire in the circle’s center, his
hands in the air. Four other cloaked figures surrounded him, each
pointing guns at his head.

Just hours ago, Ansel had been driving to the Sheriff’s Office to
deliver valuable evidence of the existence and criminal activity of this
bloodthirsty cult. His brakes had gone out, and he’d crashed his pickup
into a roadside tree. One of the men holding a gun on him, George, had
“happened along” and picked him up. Ansel had willingly gotten into
George’s truck, and during the ride, confided to George what he’d
learned about the cult. He had thought he could trust his best friend…

They took the 10” x 13” manila envelope that held Ansel’s evidence
and tossed it into the fire. Helplessly watching the flames devour the
envelope, Ansel silently thanked God it didn’t hold the only evidence
of what he knew. Although now he wasn’t so sure he’d live to tell
another soul where the rest of it was.

He knew his life was in the cult’s hands. Still, he could not hide his
disgust with them, especially George. “How can you be a part of this?
You who supposedly work by day to save animals, yet slaughter them
by night! And children! Let’s not forget you slaughter children, too!
You have a child of your own, for God’s sake! How would you feel if
he were used as a sacrifice?”

“Honored,” replied George.

Ansel spat in his face. “You sick bastard!”

George pulled out a handkerchief and calmly wiped his face. “Look
around, Ansel. You might be surprised how many people you know—
or thought you knew—who share the same sentiments.”

During the previous evenings when Ansel had witnessed the cult
performing gruesome rituals, distance and darkness had prevented him
from seeing the faces behind the hoods. While Ansel had suspected a few
Grimshaw citizens might be involved, he had presumed the cult was
made up mostly of strangers who convened in the Grimshaw woods
because of its seclusion. The idea of the participants actually being
people he’d known throughout his entire twenty-five years of life…that
had seemed too horrifying to be possible. Nonetheless, when one after
the other dropped their hoods, Ansel learned that George was right; all
of them were from Grimshaw.

The cult members included his mailman, local farmers, teachers,
morticians, doctors, and even clergymen and officers of Grimshaw’s
county, Woodland! No wonder the Woodland County cops hadn’t
wanted to talk to him about what he knew! With each hood that
dropped, Ansel’s jaw also dropped, farther and farther.

George remarked, “Consider the recent achievements of all of the
people you see here, Ansel.”

Indeed, Ansel realized these people had experienced a variety of
unexpected successes in the last two years, just after the recession and
drought had ended. For several of them, the gains had been economic;
their incomes had surged, mostly via their supplemental farming.
Others, such as the county officers, had been hired or promoted into
positions of prestige, authority—power. And a few of them, who
previously had not fit in well anywhere because they were different
from “normal” society, had recently found social acceptance among all
of Grimshaw’s community groups. Even George had received a
promotion at work, and his farm was flourishing more than ever.

George went on, “We are all reaping the everlasting rewards that
allegiance to Satan brings. Wouldn’t you like to reap those rewards,
Ansel? Don’t you find yourself wanting something more out of life,
financially, vocationally, physically, socially?”

“No,” Ansel replied with firm sincerity. “Even in hard times like the
ones two years ago, a body can do well enough on his own, or with
God’s help as opposed to Satan’s.” When George snickered, Ansel
retorted, “I’m living proof! I survived all right, and I’m not greedy for
anything else. I have everything I want now.”

“You are the typical blind Christian fool,” George said. “You think
you are blessed with everything, when really you have nothing.”

George nodded at the cult members still wearing hoods. Again the
hoods began to drop, one by one. Each face was hauntingly more
familiar to Ansel than the last.

After the final hood fell, Ansel shook his head and said softly, “My
God, how could you?” Then he looked at them and yelled, “Any of
you?”

From deeper within the wooded shadows, another cloaked figure,
this one gigantic, stepped forward, carrying a machete. Everyone
turned expectantly toward the figure. George and the other men inside
the circle kept their guns pointed at Ansel, but the rest of the cult
members fell to their knees, as if some sort of god had entered their
presence. Their leader.

“You have only two choices, Ansel,” George said. “You can either
choose the oh-so-noble and self-righteous road less-traveled and die at
our hands with nothing, as a few men and women before you already
have. Or you can choose the golden, traveled road of alliance with
Satan, a path to a better life.”

Ansel looked at the townspeople, George, and the approaching
leader. Mostly he looked at the newest face that had been revealed to
him. A silent tear ran out of his eye. “Oh God, no,” he said in a whisper
of fading faith.

The leader closed in. His fiery breath burned down upon Ansel’s
upturned face. For the first time, Ansel could see the shadowed
countenance beneath the hood but did not recognize the man. Yet his
face was so sinister, so frightening and evil, Ansel could have sworn he
wasn’t a man at all, but the Devil himself.

And Ansel did swear that this wasn’t a man when the being’s pupils
narrowed into tiny slits, and his eyes began to glow red.

“Join us,” the leader ordered. He raised the machete. “Or even God
can’t save you now!”

End of Prologue
Next Post: Chapter 1