Blackwater Val
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Richard Franklin has left his Midwestern roots behind to live on the coast of Maine with his family. But in the autumn of the year 2000, he must return to his Illinois birthplace on a sorrowful journey. His wife Michelle has been killed in New England by a hit-and-run driver who is never found, so back home he comes with her cremated remains, to fulfill a final wish and on her birthday scatter her ashes in the park along the river in Blackwater Valley—simply Blackwater Val to locals—the small town where they both grew up and fell in love. With him he brings his six-year-old daughter Katie who still grieves for her lost mother: Katie, who can sometimes guess who’s going to be on the phone before it rings. Who can stop all the clocks in the house, and break up clouds in the sky with her mind, and heal sicknesses, and who sometimes sees things that aren’t there...people who are no longer alive. All gifts she inherited from her mother. Only something isn’t quite right in the Val. Sinkholes are opening up, revealing the plague pits the sleepy hamlet was built over in the 1830s, when malaria and cholera outbreaks ran riot. Mysterious bird and fish die-offs begin to occur, and Katie can see ghosts of the dead gathering all around. But what she can’t see is the charred, centuries-old malevolence which has been waiting for her, and wants her for its very own. Or the pale Sallow Man who haunts the town’s nighttime streets...or the river witch—another Blackwater Val, of sorts—each of whom will be drawn one by one into the nightmarish bloodletting about to take place. ©️ Crystal Lake Publishing
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Blackwater Val EPILOGUE
EPILOGUETHE COLD HANGS on, and on. Sinks in deeper. Lost within it, forsaken, the duped and the defiled wander the streets of the Val in a haze. Wondering what’s happened.One of them, Syd Cholke, enters her Regan Street apartment and drops onto the sofa. Slumps alone in the dark. Much later she hears the front door open and close, hears footsteps enter sheepishly. Then delicate, auburn-haired Alice Granberg sits down. No words are spoken between them. After a time Sydney goes to her and kneels and places her ear against the small hill of Alice’s belly, feels the baby roll lazily there. Soon both are dozing in this position, an empty birdcage on the end table nearby.Mrs. Wintermute shrieks inside her narrow prison below ground, breath hitching in and out. She begs and she wails . . . screaming, screaming . . . and eventually becomes quiet at long last. Meg Bilobran sits propped in her theater balcony seat, draped in sheet plastic, eyes flung wide and staring, as if waiting for the
Blackwater Val CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT1“YOU NEED TO say goodbye,” Katie said, and Richard pulled off the road. Cornfields surrounded them on both sides here at the outskirts of town. The first snow of the season was melting, drifts of white caught between the rows.Reports were breaking over the radio about the previous night’s horrors. A spate of deaths in and around Blackwater Valley, and missing townspeople. Structures burnt to the ground. Palm Clemency had had a lot of questions, but Richard never faltered.Now it was time to leave.After they’d showered and eaten a little, recovered somewhat, Richard had gone to the Deadmond place first thing, found the door unlocked. Found George under the drop cloth in the basement where he and Tom had left him.Moving fast, Richard gathered up Blondie’s things: some toys, bowls, her memory-foam bed, loose cans of pet food and a large bag of dry nuggets, pills prescribed by the veterinarian for her arthritis pain—although he suspected she wouldn’t be need
Blackwater Val CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN1SALT BRACED HIMSELF, centered his weight, and began to clamber to his feet. Slowly. First one, then the other. He looked toward the treeline as he did, saw the front end of the Chevy Blazer glinting there like silvery, lupine fangs, its chrome-plated steel grille guard catching light. A shudder wrenched through him. Still he rose, forcing himself erect, the war ax in his left hand.The others were drawing closer.Glee snatched at Katie fearfully, nestled her to her side. Croom glared into their faces. He bent, retrieved something near Dr. Mint’s fingers: the hypodermic syringe. He held it before him, flicked the plastic tube like he was testing it. “Gyaa . . . ?” his disfigured mouth emitted, a bad-natured grin forming. He thumbed the needle’s plunger, had placed one foot on the shovel handle. They wavered in uncertainty.Julian had gone quiet, head back, maimed arms and legs dangling as he levitated higher. Eyeballs rolled to white. He appeared to be in a t
Blackwater Val CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX1THEY SWUNG TO witness Chip Priewe’s demented features, to see him pointing with the pistol and backing away. Soon everyone was looking, gazes upturned. The high wind which buffeted the trees and tore across the shadowed ground had caught Michelle’s cremains up, and up, keeping them aloft. Lifting and throwing them around with leaves and other bits of debris. Denying them respite—Out of this blizzard of swirled grit and ash, uncannily, shapes were forming.“The trees!” Priewe screamed, spittle flying from his mouth. His lunatic eyes shone moon-bright. “Oh, Christ. Hanging . . . in the trees. Can’t you fucking see them?”They did: apparitions in the night-dark limbs of the cottonwood. Something glimmering in the sleety rain. Thunder crashed and everyone jumped, lightning skittering throughout the clouds. The police chief howled.Shadows were coming to life in the tree branches, undulating with an inner light. Changing particle and position, reconfiguring. But
Blackwater Val CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE1THEY PARKED IN the cover of the trees and made their way across Jasper Park, out over its baseball diamond, through the foreboding shadows on the other side. There was scant light here, a few lampposts lining the bike path, some safety lights on at the red-brick shelters. Dark of the new moon, no illumination visible through the cloud cover in the sky, no pulse of stars.On edge, Tommy and Richard milled about. The wooden bat hovered in Franklin’s two-handed grip.Tree frogs were croaking in the river birches overhanging the water—the exfoliating bark on the trees looked like peeling skin at this distance. Besides frogs, a chorus of crickets could be heard chirring in the dewy grass, their evensong waning, getting weaker with the cold. That sound alone was heartbreaking to Richard, signified the inescapable death of summer, an oncoming winter.Tommy noticed the way his friend throttled the bat, the way he stared to the left, the right.“Come on,” Rich murmur
Blackwater Val “THEY POISON THE HEART”
“THEY POISON THE HEART”by Michelle Brooke Deadmond(an excerpt)Soon they tracked the hunted Sauk warrior northward to Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, where finally he surrendered and was taken prisoner at Fort Crawford, thus becoming government property and a ‘trophy’ of war to be put on display.Exhausted, and sick at heart, the 65-year-old Indian chief spoke in chains at the Prairie du Chien fort, standing shackled upon the original ceded lands of his great Sauk ancestors, his long resistance at an end now. The speech he gave that day told of lies and betrayal, of the deliberate, systematic extermination of his people. It would become Black Sparrow Hawk’s~~ Coda ~~“I fought hard,” he professed before his captors. “But your guns were well aimed. The bullets flew like birds in the air . . . my warriors fell around me.” His discourse shifted to admonishment. “You know the cause of our making war. It is known to all white men. They ought to be ashamed of it.” He went on to tell of
Blackwater Val CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR1LISTEN, MY PRETTY-WITTY. Listen to me now.Katie heard the voice enter her head, plain as day. Felt it reaching from far off to connect with her mind somehow. She stiffened involuntarily, her arms tightening around the cremation urn. Was this a trick?Your father will find you, it continued, invading her thoughts, but first you must trust me and listen, eh? Close your eyes, cover them so that you cannot see. They are coming. And your father will find you.There was a brief pause, a scanning of her trepidations. Who is this? the young girl wondered, eyes shifting.Your mother paid a kindness to me once. I am repaying it to you. Do what I say, and do not look. No matter what you hear, what you feel, do not look. Do not see . . .I’m afraid, thought Katie, and the voice reached into her head in response.Do not be afraid. You have your mother’s gift. Let it flow through you. Take hold of it, child. The power lies within you . . . it is yours. It always has be
Blackwater Val CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE1“SAY YOUR NAME for me,” the old woman said. “Speak it now.”Hesitation: “Richard Franklin.”She repeated his words, pronouncing them slowly—“Richard” came out as Ricard.“Now say mine.” Her tongue darted over shriveled lips that were barely there. “Say it.”A small red fox with half its tail gone was circling around his shins, he’d noticed, brushing against them. “Witch Beulah. But I’m not sure . . . ” Richard swallowed. “Beulah the Witch.”The puckered mouth curved. “Why have you come this night? What would your pleasure be, eh? And why should I help you?”“His little girl—” Truitt began.“Let him speak it himself, Thomas.” Her eyes glinted obsidian-black in the firelight. “Well?”Richard spoke, going over it all again, telling her about Katie and raking fingers through his hair, telling her that he had nowhere else to go. She listened, allowing him to finish before beckoning them both.They followed her through the dark, followed the swish of her ski
Blackwater Val CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO1THERE ARE PARTS of Illinois known for their inspiration, places of important historical significance and remarkable beauty. Places to give one pause, just knowing they could exist in a flat, windswept floodplain state such as this. On the flipside of that coin, the dark side of it, there are also areas of desolation and blight-ridden anguish. Stark places where menace walked, natural and unnatural, where even nightbirds chose to hide and take to roost rather than sing their evening songs.The Island was of the latter.Angell Island was named after Clarissa St. Angell, first woman from the township of Blackwater Valley ever to graduate college and actually earn a degree. She had been born into poverty out on the remote island in the year 1860, and the poverty of the place had only increased since then. Along with the decay and disrepair.A hodgepodge of shabby little houses and trailers, the 33-acre tract of land sat floating off shore in swampy muck out on the
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