Costly Obsession: Animalize

  Chapter Six

  ...except the Lord keep the city, the watchman walketh but in vain.

  Psalms 127:1

  No Swimming Until Further Notice! It was the first time in their history that the residents of Epson, South Carolina had ever been banned from their favorite recreational spot and many were downright furious about it. Others were nearly hysterical over the public health noticed released that very day. What could be so bad about swimming in the lake? Of course, as soon as word spread that two dead bodies had been pulled from the lake, which took about ten minutes, the hospital and doctor’s offices were flooded with concerned citizens, and those who just wanted to squeeze a little more information (or gossip) out of the doctors and nurses. The official story for the press spread like wildfire before the report even aired on the six-o-clock news and by that time everyone had their own versions of the story.

  ‘The couple had been identified as Annabelle and George Sheere from Boston who had been vacationing in Florida and were returning home. The driver, George Sheere, had run off the road shortly after leaving the Deer Lake Motel on highway 39 most likely due to the fierce storm. The vehicle was discovered the next day having sunk in Deer Lake. The car has been removed, but until the possibility of any health risks has been ruled out by local medical personnel the lake will remain off limits. When asked about the condition of the bodies all Sheriff Marshall would say was that there was damage to the bodies and that it was being looked into. Although he did mention the attack on Mr. Farley’s livestock and urged citizens to stay inside during twilight hours and to avoid any stray or unknown dog.’ As reported by Channel 16 News.

  It took hours to collect all the pieces left behind of the poor souls in the lake and to be honest they couldn’t be certain they had found all the remains, but what they did find of the Sheeres were held at the town morgue until an autopsy could be performed. Then they would be packaged and shipped to the couple’s hometown for the funeral, but Epson was such a small community the town morgue was nothing more than the hospitals meager facilities, the basement. Other than natural causes most of the time the morgue remained empty. In case of an accident or a severe enough illness the patients were transported to a larger hospital in Charleston where they received more precise care. Not many specialists even practiced in Epson and the town itself consisted of one community hospital, two grocery stores, two gas stations, one restaurant, two fast food joints, one school K-12, a town paper, the town hall, one police station with combination fire station, four stop lights, and one hotel/ motel/ bed-n-breakfast. Nearly everyone knew each other and most were related somewhere along the lines by either blood or marriage. New blood was just that, new blood. It was in fact a small, sleepy, little town, and it’s only natural in a set up like this that rumors of the wild dog attack spread like the plague. Some said it was actually wolves, others said cougars, and the more eccentric claimed it was escaped mental patients from Crystal Falls, Georgia. The town buzzed with the news, the kids with fear and excitement, the parents with concern. Traps were set in the woods and near the lake, and the town was put at ease with the assurance of the imminent capture of whatever creature was creating such havoc. Family pets were all invited indoors for the night and dates and outings were canceled to many hearts great disappointment.

  At the station Frank Marshall, who just hours ago had pulled the bodies from water, sat at his desk his brow furrowed deep with worry. ‘Wild dogs my… foot.’ he thought. He was no doctor, no expert of any kind really, but he had grown up in this town and he knew the capabilities of a pack of wild dogs. Wild dogs don’t attack people inside a moving vehicle. Maybe the couple hit one of the dogs stunning it and brought it into the car, then when it came to it panicked and attacked? No, that was too much of a long shot, besides it just didn’t add up. Only the two passengers were found in the car, of course an animal could have escaped through the rear window that had been shattered, but that too was strange. The window had been broken from the outside in; shards were all over the back seat, front seat, victims, and the dash. Whatever did smash through the window had to have done it from the outside and had to have either been extremely large or powerful, and he was guessing it was both. No ordinary dog, wild or not, could decapitate a man like that either, the size of the claw and bite marks alone were astonishingly and frighteningly enormous.

  The harsh florescent light did little to calm his nerves, the wild dog story was just that; a story and it was his job to not only find out what really happened to these poor people, but to protect the citizens of this town from whatever it was as well. It was his responsibility to stop this thing at all costs, but how far would he have to go to find the truth and could he accept the answers he found? What was it going to take to stop this unseen terror? There was no way to explain what had happened, at least no rational way. He had managed to keep the details secret from the public for now but how long would that last in a town this size? Hours at the most. When the time came what would he say, what could he say without causing a panic? “Uh, we don’t know what kind of animal tore this pore woman limb from limb and ripped the head clean off her husband, but we do know that it has a strong jaw with a super-size set of teeth and immensely sharp claws. Thank you for coming. Oh and it’s still on the loose. Good bye and have a nice evening.” Yeah right, the entire town would be having nightmares and crazed, panicky monster hunters would come out of the wood work. That’s all he needed on top of things was a bunch of edgy townsmen with guns, he’d be busted down to beat cop in a second, say goodbye to any chance of re-election.

  To this day, or at least in the twenty-five years that he’s been on the force, the town had yet to be the home of murder. He couldn’t even remember any since before his grandfather’s time. Suddenly an idea came to mind. Actually it was more like the urge to do something than an idea. It was nothing he could get his mind around, but he was drawn to his computer and on a whim he punched up the last murder that had happened in his sleepy little town. He may not be able to remember any, but since the installation of the new system every known fact about the town was within its circuitry and it might just have the answer he was looking for… and there it was.

  In the year of our Lord 1874 a rash of deaths at first thought to be the result of animal attacks, but later ruled murders, plagued Epson. Chills raced through him as he continued thinking the records had to be wrong. They were of course quite old, mostly taken from crude town papers and documents from the previous town hall and heaven knows how they investigated things back in those days, but still facts were facts.

  Six people were found murdered, countless animals killed, and more were missing; some never to be found again. Every body found had been horribly mutilated, many of the parts were never recovered and those who had lost most of their family were unable to even be identified. A rugged sketch of a man accompanied the file along with a wanted poster warning residents of the danger this man held for them. He had come to town after being driven from his own land, where exactly that was no one knew, for religious crimes and settled just outside of town. He was a model citizen, abiding all the laws of the time and not practicing anything of what was unknown at the time to be his true religious beliefs. The stranger eventually fit into the town without suspicion and those who knew of his past were led to believe that he was exiled for being a Christian in a heathen land. Years went by before anything unusual began to occur, at first it was only the disappearance of a few animals. Then entire herds were decimated, but things like that happened even near town and at times the mutilations were blamed on wild wolves, bears, and any other kind of beasts that could be rationally blamed. Days later a young couple who had been sneaking around together had disappeared as well, but no foul play was determined. It seemed that the two had eloped during the night in defiance of the young woman’s parents not agreeing with their daughter’s involvement with a young man not of their social standing. To the parents horror the idea of an inner-class marriage would have been a
blessing when the bodies of four people were found so horribly mutilated they could not be individually identified. They had been discovered only a mile from town and were found to be travelers from Louisiana to Virginia; the only one to survive was a twelve-year-old girl. She had wondered into town half dead from exposure, even after recovering she would not speak of anything before the day she was encountered wondering down Main Street. Soon after the stranger vanished and the deaths ceased. It was later ruled when his home was searched that he was deeply involved in the black arts, so naturally the murders were lain on his head. Six ravaged bodies in all were unearthed including that of the stately young woman, but at least the terror had finally loosed its grip on Epson.

  The evidence was shoddy, circumstantial at best; certainly not enough to condemn a man on, but those were different times. Still there were too many similarities to ignore. Maybe it was some kind of animal that had just never been seen before or who hadn’t returned to the area until now. Curious, Frank Marshall scrolled through the article to find the identity of the survivor and read the name of his very own grandmother. He snatched his keys from his desk and dashed for the door muttering to the deputy that he had to run out for a while and to notify him when they heard from animal control. With that he was gone.