White Christmas, bloody Christmas (5 page)

"What're you getting all fixed up for?" he asked her.

"Charlie Wade Hampton's coming to pick Arthur and me up later. We're going to Palmyra Church for the Christmas program."

"I thought I told you to stay away from that boy," he said. Marie could see his face becoming flushed with anger. "You ain't goin' no where! You can just forget about it."

"You ain't gonna stop me, Papa. I'm going and that's that!"

"Oh no you ain't!"

"How about you just watch and see if I don't!"

Charlie glared at her through his glassy, sleep-starved eyes and clenched his teeth. "Well," he growled in a low voice, "we'll just see whether you do or not..."

Marie ignored his threat and continued to roll her hair.

Charlie, still wearing his long overcoat, stepped in front of the fireplace and spread his hands to warm them. The front door opened and a young man appeared. Charlie's face hardened even further in anger. He stared into the flames and surveyed the situation. Arthur had gone to Germanton and would not be back for at least thirty minutes; Carrie and M ae Bell were almost ready to leave—he couldn't let them get to Elijah's house. His planned Christmas surprise required that the younger children remain at the house. What about him, he thought glancing in the young man's direction. It wouldn't matter, he'd just "surprise" him, too...

Yes, now was the time to move if he was going to do it today. He would have to move quickly. Soon, he mused to himself, all of their troubles would be over.

He walked to where he had hung his old black felt hat on the wall and lifted it from its nail. CallingtoFannieover the tops of the two girls' heads he said, "I've got something to check on

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out in the barn/'

Fannie nodded and continued to help her daughters prepare for their long, cold walk to Uncle Elijah's. She fumbled nervously with the buttons on Mae Bell's plaid coat. Charlie was controlling his temper, but she couldfeel it. It hung in the air like a threatening cloud. At least Carrie and Mae Bell would be gone for the day. Perhaps they wouldn't have to endure another fight.

Charlie's mind raced wildly as he devised his final plan. He must move quickly! He drew short, quick breaths as he grabbed up the gun he had left on the porch after the target practice. He moved with long, ground-covering strides through the deep snow, glancing over his shoulder every few steps to be sure the girls had not yet left the house. He had made his decision. Now there would be no turning back—no stopping for anyone or anything. He hurried through the barn, picking up his other guns. In a few minutes, Charlie had reached his position behind the tobacco barn. He was about five hundred yards from the house. Now, all he would have to do was wait just a few short minutes.

The girls gave Fannie a hug and left the warmth of the cabin. For a long moment, she stood in the frosty front window and watched them make their way across the cold, white landscape. She said nothing to Marie and the young man as she passed them on her way to the kitchen. It had been a while since she had checked on the fire.

Meanwhile, in the nearby woods, Elijah Lawson and his sons, Fred and Claude were ending their morning rabbit hunt...

In the distance, Charlie could hear his daughter's voices, but still, he waited—waited for them to get just close enough. His fingers nervously tapped the stock of the rifle.

He made a last, quick check over his guns. A couple of weeks before he had had them all checked by a gunsmith. He held one and propped the other two against the wall of the

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barn. He had his 25/20 calibre Windchester rifle; his double-barreled 12-gauge shotgun; and a 12-gauge single barreled shotgun. Charlie took his final position and waited patiently for his daughters'to pass by his position. Nervously, he rested his head against the back of the barn. The long minutes ticked by. His rapid breathing made tiny, white puffs before quickly disappearing in the cold winter air.

Little Carrie and Mae Bell innocently took their usual route to Uncle Elijah's house. They could not know the danger that awaited them as they grew ever nearer to the familiar old tobacco barn...

Finally the girls drew near. Charlie stepped out from behind the building. He was ominous looking with his eyes almost obscured beneath his broad-brimmed black hat. The girls were startled by his sudden appearance.

"Papa?" Carrie asked. "What're you doing here?"

No answer. Charlie raised his rifle, aimed, and fired his first shot. Young Carrie, hit in the head, fell to the ground. Little Mae Bell, bewildered and screaming in terror, turned to run back to the safety of the house and her mother. Before she could take more than a step or two, her father had switched guns and shot her in her back left side with his 12-gauge shot gun, destroying part of her left lung.

Charlie picked up a three-foot two by four that had been propped against the side of the tobacco barn. The girls were still moving—still moaning. He didn't want them to suffer. Standing above his dying little daughters, Charlie came down against their heads with blow after blow until the little bodies lay silent in the blood-soaked snow.

He picked up Carrie's pretty little blue hat from where it had fallen in the snow and tucked it in his pocket. One by one, he dragged the limp bodies of his two little daughters into the tobacco barn. There, he carefully placed stones beneath each of their heads. He folded their lifeless little arms across their chests and closed their eyes. He drew Carrie's little blue hat from his pocket and laid it beside her head. Calmly

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and deliberately, he closed the door and turned the latch behind him. Now there could be no turning back. He gathered up his guns and began to run back toward the house—there was very little time...

At the Lawson home, that one neighborhood youth was still in the house talking to Marie and Fannie. He really liked the pretty, dark-haired Marie and often tried to get her attention. Marie was busy curling her hair on her water-wavers in preparation for the Christmas program at Palmyra Church. She was about half finished with the job. Marie was still determined to go, even though her father had insisted that she would not.

"Couldn't help but notice that raisin cake on the kitchen table, Marie," the young man said, smiling at Marie. "Looks delicious. You make it?"

"As a matter of fact I did," answered Marie, "If you're here long enough, you can have some with us if you want."

"That's real nice of you, Marie."

Fannie opened the firebox of the stove and gave the embers a few pokes. More wood was needed, and none was left in the woodbox. It would be necessary to go outside and get more, she realized. She walked past the two teenagers and went out the front door. Working briskly in the bitter air, she gathered several pieces in her arms and started back toward the porch.

Charlie's footsteps made a crunching sound in the crusty snow as he hurried toward the house. Fannie was just stepping onto the front porch when she saw him running toward her with guns in hand.

"Charlie?!" she called to him as he grew near, "is something wrong?"

Charlie didn't answer. A deafening shot rang out. The wood in Fannie's arms went hurling across the porch. Death came quickly. The shotgun blast at close range had ripped a huge hole in her body, destroying half of her heart. The blood

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quickly drained from her wound onto the edge of the porch and spilled down on the whiteness of the snow.

At the deafening sound of the shot on the front porch, the comb in M ar ie's hand went flying across the floor. M arie and the young man ran to the front window and looked out. Marie screamed in horror at the sight of her mother lying in a pool of blood on the front porch. Terrified, the young man fled through the back of the house. He had heard about Charlie's arguments and his threats of the past few weeks and instinctively knew what was happening.

Marie flung open the front door as Charlie came down against Fannie's skull with the butt of his gun. Half crying, half screaming, Marie begged her father to stop.

"Please, Papa, no— Please!!" She fell to her knees at the sight of her bleeding, lifeless body. "Moma!?!" she screamed, "Moma, no...no..."

A passerby on the snowy road in front of the Lawson home paused briefly at the sounds coming from the farm. There were screams and shouts—the reports of a gun being fired. They must be hunting, he thought to himself. Lots of people hunt on Christmas Day. Still, why so much shouting... and the sounds of those screams...

A few hundred yards away, neighbors Charlie Hoover and his son were in their yard cutting wood. They could hear the horrible sounds coming from the Lawson home also, and knew instinctively that something was more wrong than usual at the Lawson's...

Charlie stepped over Fannie's body and started toward Marie. She scrambled to her feet and backed fearfully inside the house. There, they argued.

Terrified, four-year-old James and two-year-old Raymond ran and hid—James beneath the downstairs bed and Raymond behind the kitchen stove.

There was a volley of words between father and daughter. Marie clawed at her father's face, his skin rolled up beneath her fingernails. Charlie clamped his big farmer's hands

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around her upper arms. Marie was only a few feet from the fireplace. The poker! If only she could break free of his grasp and reach the fireplace poker. With all her strength, Marie jerked her right arm free and broke her father's hold. She hardly felt the tearing of the ligaments in her arm and shoulder as she desperately turned and reached for the poker. It only took a second for Charlie to pick up the shotgun he had laid to one side. Boom! The blast slammed into Marie's body with such a great force that it snapped her neck, and the sound of it was deafening in the closed room. At that moment the mantle clock ceased it's ticking. The time was 1:25 in the afternoon...

The young man who had been at the Lawson house burst breathlessly into his home with the news of what was happening at Charlie's house. His family was frightened. They spent some long minutes trying to decide what to do. It was too dangerous to go over there. If Charlie Lawson was really killing his entire family, he probably would kill anyone who got in his way. They were confused and didn't know what to do. So, they did nothing. They decided to stay out of the situation entirely. Within a few minutes, the news would come to their home by another source. The young man was not allowed to return to the Lawson house that evening.

The two remaining little brothers cried and trembled in their hiding places. Charlie followed the sounds of the sobs coming from beneath the bed and pulled James out. With the determination of a madman, he struck his son in the head until he no longer moved.

Charlie couldn't quite reach Raymond who was crouched behind the stove. He tried to force his rifle in at an angle so that he could shoot the little tyke, but only bent the barrel trying to aim it. Somehow, Charlie coaxed the little boy from his hiding place and struck him dead also. His tiny little body was left half out and half under the stove.

Now, there was only one person left in the house—tiny

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Mary Lou. She lay crying helplessly in her crib. Charlie raised the butt of his gun and, in a brief moment, the house was totally and utterly silent. Charlie now stood alone in his blood-spattered home. There was no sound at all except the soft crumbling of a dying ember in the fireplace.

Charlie took a quick inventory of the bloody scene he had created. He went back to the body of his wife and pulled her limp form inside just far enough to close the door behind her. Then, he went to the bed where he and Fannie had slept and took her pillow and placed it gently beneath her head.

"It's all for the best, Fannie," he whispered to her as he closed her eyes and folded her arms across her chest. "We'll all be together in just a little while, you'll see. Everything's gonna work out fine. You'll see."

He pulled himself up the narrow steps to his children's room, leaving his bloody handprints on the staircase enclose-ment wall. He gathered up each child's own pillow to place under their heads...

surprise whoever is here."

Elijah stepped over to the window and cupped his hands against the panes.

Claude opened the door...

"Oh, my dear Lord, No —" Elijah gasped, shocked at what he saw in the front room of the house.

Claude had pushed the door open at the same time that his father had peered into the window. It came against Fannie's feet with a dull thud, opening only a few inches. He strained his eyes around the edge of the door. The bodies of his Aunt and cousins lay strewn across the room. Deep, red blood was everywhere.

He reeled backward from the horrific sight in utter disbelief. "What in the name of God has happened here!?!"

They gave the door another push. "Wait a second," whispered Claude, gripping his father's arm. "Do you hear that?"

From somewhere in the upstairs of the house they could hear the muffled scraping and shuffling of footsteps.

"Somebody's up there," breathed Claude. "We've got to get out of here and get some help! Whoever did this is still in the house!"

Although they had guns with them, they had no ammunition with which to defend themselves. In a panic, they ran for help. The closest home was Mr. Bob Heath's which was only one tenth of a mile away.

As he ran, the rabbit that was hanging from Claude's waist fell to the ground. Instinctively, he glanced back in its direction. A movement in the upstairs window of the Lawson house caught his eye. There, he saw the expressionless face of a man framed in the shadowy window. He wasn't sure, but it looked like Uncle Charlie's face...

Once they arrived at the Heath home, they quickly learned that Arthur and S anders had gone on foot to the general store in Germanton. Hearing this, Rufus Heath, one of Bob's sons, took his car and drove to Germanton in search of Arthur...

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Knowing that someone had found the bodies and would be returning, Charlie frantically finished gathering up the children's pillows, bloodying the sheets on the beds as he did so. He hurried back downstairs and placed each child's battered head on a pillow, carefully closing their eyes and folding their arms across their chests.