A Tale from the Hills (20 page)

Although he had only been to that part of town on one previous occasion, William had no trouble remembering the way. He imagined a beacon in the upstairs window leading him forward. Finally, he stood across the street from the huge old mansion for several quiet minutes before he made his way to the front door. During the time that he had stood across the street from the old house, he could not see any type of activity going on in or around the house. A couple of dim lights were burning downstairs, but the entire upstairs was completely dark. And when he knocked at the door there was no response. The house was silent and only a few nights before it had been bustling with activity. Finally after knocking several times, he turned the knob and the door was unlocked. The door opened to an empty house. His footsteps echoed in the high ceiling rooms. His mind instantly flashed back to the mansion on the river where he spent the night with Hank.

“Hello.” he said in a loud voice.

The only response was an echo.

“Hello.” he said again but no response.

Where was the old lady? Where were all of the women who were there a few nights before? Where was

Starla, and where in the Hell was Alex? How could they all be gone so soon after he finally found them the first time?

He found Alex when he went upstairs. He was stretched out in bed, naked and only half covered. One of his hands was tied to the bed post, and both of his feet were tied the same way to the bottom posts. He was staring at the ceiling but he was not seeing anything. His throat had been cut from ear to ear. The moonlight that was beaming through the window made it easy for William to see the horrific scene in front of him. The bed covers were soaking wet and even in the moonlight they were bright crimson. The blood must have pumped from Alex’s wound because it was all over the curtains and the wall beside of the old bed. There were dried puddles in the floor and bloody footprints were everywhere. It looked like several people must have been moving around in the room helter shelter after Alex was mortally attacked. Articles of clothing were in the floor and thrown across the furniture. Alex’s clothing was neatly folded the same way that Starla had folded his own three nights before. Alex’s wallet was lying in the floor and when William looked inside it was empty. Obviously robbery had been the motive for his murder.

A noise coming from downstairs distracted him. And he heard voices. If it was the police then how would he ever be able to explain the scene that was laid out in front of him? Would the police think that he had murdered his friend and coworker? What reason could he tell them for being in the room with the dead body? He could not let them find him in the house. He did not have time to run, so he decided to hide. As horrible as the notion seemed at the time, he would have to try and hide under the bed. He quickly scrambled over to the side of the room that was not completely covered in blood, and laid down in the floor. He thanked God that he was skinny enough to easily get under the bed.

He was so scared that he thought the police would see the bed shaking. He had no sooner than gotten his feet underneath the corner when three sets of shoes appeared inthe doorway. The shoes belonged to women but the voices were anything but feminine.

“I told you that this would eventually happen Sally, but why did you have to kill him?”

“What do you mean girlfriend? I had to kill him. He was going to hurt me. I saw the look in his eyes when he discovered my big secret. It reminded me of the way that my daddy used to look at me after he was finished with me. That look of disgust that always made me feel so dirty and ashamed. I cut his throat before I even thought twice about it.”

“But how did he find out your secret?”

It was a voice that sounded strangely familiar to the boy that was hiding under the bed.

“I don’t really know exactly. He had been coming to see me for a while, and he liked the way that I tied him up. He liked to feel me on top of him, dominating him. I got his feet and one of his hands tied when suddenly he grabbed me, you know down there.”

It did not take the naive William very long to figure out where ‘down there’, was.

The one called Sally continued, “His eyes opened wide and I could tell that he was about to say something hurtful and mean to me. I grabbed the knife that I always keep under the mattress, and I cut him. I barely got out of the way before the blood started spurting everywhere.”

“Thank God that it was a slow night or we would all be swinging from the end of a rope. Hurry up and get your shit together Sally. We got to torch this place and get the Hell out of town tonight.” another of the trio added.

“Are we traveling as women or men?” the all too familiar voice asked.

“We are going as women Starla.” Sally replied.

William almost pissed in his pants. The shock of the murder was bad enough. Now he had to deal with the fact that he spent his first real sexual encounter with a man dressed up to be a woman. He wanted to come out from under the bed and confront the imposters, but he knewbetter. He would end up just like Alex, or worse, if he even tried to do something. If only he had the pistol that he took from Eunice’s, his odds would have been greatly improved.

The three conspirators left the room and he could hear their footsteps going back down the stairs. He needed to get out of the house fast or he would be burned along with poor dead Alex. There was nothing that he could do for Alex, so he left him on his deathbed. He did take the time to loosen the ropes from Alex’s hand and feet. He wanted the poor man to have a little bit of dignity in his funeral of fire.

Lucky for William there was a set of steps at the back of the house that he could use in his escape. He was scared to death that the murderers would see him or be waiting for him at the bottom of the creaky steps. But he was all alone when he reached the overgrown backyard of the once magnificent house.

He got as far as the top of the hill that was near the railroad tracks when he saw the first light from the fire. He lay down in the tall grass to watch the fire and think about Alex, and life, and the path that his own life had taken. He thought for a split second about saying some type of a prayer for his dead friend, but he had just about lost the little bit of faith that he used to think that he had. So many bad things had happened to good people in his life, that he was beginning to question the existence of any kind of a God.

William felt very sad that his friend was dead. And he felt humiliated for himself as well as Alex. They had both been taken by imposters and low lives. Alex’s death was so ridiculous and needless that he wanted to vomit. William knew that he could not tell the police anything about Alex’s murder. The sorted details leading up to the murder would be much too hard to explain. The police would think that they were all deviants and that the man got exactly what he deserved. He should never have been at that place with those people in the first place. The murder and arson would go unsolved and unpunished.

The fire had become a raging inferno by the time that William decided to return to the boarding house. Thefire department showed up but there was nothing they could do except try to prevent the fire from destroying any of the other houses on that street. Lucky for them all of the old houses had huge yards to separate the structures from each other.

On the way back to the boarding house, William decided that as soon as he got his next paycheck he was going to leave Wilkesboro for good. The last few hours had completely turned him against everything in the town that he used to love. He wanted a change of scenery or heknew that he would go crazy.

************

The fire completely destroyed the old mansion in the once elegant part of town. The fire marshal found human bones in the ashes and rubble. The county coroner determined that the bones were those of an adult male approximately thirty years of age. They had no way of determining who the man was but they figured that he was a bum or a hobo. They suspected that he accidentally started a fire and burned to death in his sleep. The bones were buried in the county cemetery with no grave marker or funeral service. There was a clipping in the “Wilkesboro Sentinel” newspaper that mentioned the fire. The article stated that the identity of the dead man could not be determined. William cut the article out of the newspaper and added it to the things in his suitcase. He hated the fact that his friend had simply disappeared off the face of the Earth. No one would ever tie his disappearance to the bones that were found in the old house. They would have no good reason to put those two facts together. Alex was fired from his job. He would never claim his belongings in the boarding house, and no one would ever know why except William. He would go to his won grave with that secret.

William showed up at work as usual and acted as if nothing was out of the ordinary. But he jumped every time that he heard a loud noise or if someone came up behind him suddenly. It would be three more nights before he got paid, then he would have enough money to leave townforever. He made a silent promise to himself that he would never look back.

************

The last night that William spent in Wilkesboro started like any other Friday night. He collected his wages from the mill and went back to the boarding house. He usually hid most of his hard earned money, cleaned himself up, and went out for a couple of hours to one of the local bars. He never carried all of his money with him because he had a secret fear of getting robbed.

There was nothing at the bars that interested him anymore. As soon as he was safely locked in his room, he started preparing for his trip. He could not have packed any sooner because of his nosey landlady. He knew that she snooped around in his room while he was at work. He had purposely left things out of place and returned to find them where they were supposed to be. No one else had a key to his room except her. He kept his suitcase locked or she would have messed in it too.

It did not take him very long to get his belongings together. He wanted to be able to leave on short notice. He suspected that the landlady got up early and he wanted to be out of town before her big feet ever touched the floor. All that he would have to do would be to put on his clothes and steal away into the early morning light. He went to sleep with travel on his mind.

He dreamed that he was standing across the street from Paradise. The place was lit up like New Year’s Eve, and he could see the outline of many people stirring around inside. He knew that he did not want to be there, but something was compelling him to go to the front door. The rest of the neighborhood looked deserted, and the big houses on either side of Paradise were boarded up. Weeds and vines were growing over everything in sight. Even though it was a dark night he could see bugs and spiders crawling over the vines, and snakes were hanging from the tree limbs and porch railings. He watched rats fighting over the grisly remains of some kind of dead animal.

When he reached the front door of Paradise, it opened as if by magic. There was a swooshing sound that seemed to announce his entry into the room. A room full of strangers turned to acknowledge his arrival. The women curtsied and the men bowed at the waist. The looks on their pasty faces seemed to say, “It’s about time that you were getting William.”

He felt out of place in the crowded room because everyone was dressed in fancy attire, and he was only wearing boxer shorts and a button up shirt with all of the buttons missing. An old lady stood at the foot of the stairs and motioned for him to go on up. As much as he wanted to be somewhere else, his feet were moving independently from his will. As he climbed the stairs he saw three pairs of shoes standing together at the landing. His eyes moved up their bodies as he climbed to the second floor. Their bottom halves looked like beautiful ladies. But as his eyes moved upward their appearances changed. They were no longer the beautiful ebony Queens that they once had been. They were wrinkled old trolls with bulging eyes and matted hair. Their lips were painted brightest red but when they smiled at him, their teeth were yellow and broken and fiercely sharp.

The troll standing in the middle spoke in a girlish voice, “We have been waiting for you William. Some of the people that you know are already here. They have been waiting for days to see you.”

William had no control over his movements. He was standing in front of the three ghastly beasts as if by magic or witchcraft. He wondered what kind of power could control him in such a manner?

“We must prepare you to see the others.” another of the trolls announced. “It won’t take us very long to get you ready.”

One of the trolls proceeded to remove his shirt and he was powerless to stop her.

“Such a pretty boy.” she said in her girlish voice and flashing a grotesque smile. “I sure would like to sink my teeth into you.”

They were all laughing now.

“Your friend was lots of fun until he just gave out. We drained all of the fun right out of him.” she added. “And by the way there is someone else here who wants to see you again too. You have not talked to him in quite a while.”

As he stood there trembling the one who used to be called Starla, bowed before him.

“You loved this the last time that you were here.”

She began removing his shorts as she looked into hiseyes.

“Try to control yourself this time.” she sneered.

Now he was completely naked in the company of the three ugly trolls. They took a moment to glare at his body before one of them spoke.

“Now you are ready to join the party.”

One of the trolls walked in front of him, and one stood on either side of him. It was an escort straight from the bowels of Hell. They proceeded down the hallway. William soon heard a familiar voice that only added to his fear and loathing.

“William my boy, how the Hell are you?” the old man spoke before William even saw him.

In his vulnerable and humiliated state, William beganto cry.

“Cry baby!” the old man said. “How can you call yourself a Hill? Seventeen years old and crying like a baby. Your friend here has not made a sound and he’s been here for days.”