The Winslow Incident

THREE WEEKS LATER

HAWKIN RHONE’S CABIN

“Want to check out my tooth?” Hazel pulled back her cheek to expose the shiny gold crown her cracked molar had earned her from the dentist that morning.

Sean came in for a better look. “Cool.”

She let go of her cheek. “Makes my mouth feel weird. Like my tooth’s too big.”

“Let me see.” He leaned even closer and kissed her.

Then he shrugged. “Feels all right to me.”

They were stalling, Hazel realized, standing outside of Hawkin Rhone’s cabin, reluctant to go inside. And for what? After all they’d been through, certainly this was nothing they couldn’t handle.

Emboldened, Hazel climbed the steps to the porch, clearing away cobwebs with her good arm as she did. Her other arm was still in a sling—a real, hospital-issue sling this time—and the doctors had cautioned her that it might take yet another surgery to set her elbow right. At least now she was armed with a full bottle of Vicodin.

She glanced back at Sean where he remained at the foot of the steps, eyeing the door to the cabin warily, as if the bogeyman himself might suddenly burst out.

“Don’t worry,” Hazel told him, “I’ll protect you.”

He laughed before joining her on the porch. “You know what? I believe you now. At least when it comes to the ghosts.”

“Oh, yeah? What else is haunting you?” she asked.

“The long arm of the law.” He shot a look over his shoulder as if lawmen might close in on him at any moment. Then he returned his anxious gaze to Hazel. “That’s what.”

She hated that he still felt distressed; he’d suffered enough. She rested her hand on his shoulder. “Sean, I told you not to worry. It’s business as usual around here. My dad said that since no one’s talking, there’s no way for Riley Washburn to sort it all out, let alone determine any fault beyond Fritz Earley. Even Ben Mathers is smart enough to keep his mouth shut.”

“Guess you’re right. Besides, nobody was in their right mind. Washburn would have to arrest every single person in town.” He grinned, his brown eyes clear and bright.

Hazel couldn’t get enough of seeing Sean, sturdy and sound again. It had taken him, her father, and the others seven to nine days to crawl back into their minds. Aaron had been the worst off—it took him two weeks to settle back into his body for good. But everyone still alive at the time the forest service helicopter responded to the fire did eventually recover.

Though Hazel knew that nobody in Winslow would ever be the same.

She turned from her boyfriend and placed her hand on the cabin’s roughhewn log door, saying, “Last one in has to be rodeo queen.”

She pushed on the door but met with resistance. Putting her weight behind it, the door finally swung open and she stepped inside, Sean right behind her.

It was obvious that nobody had been in the cabin for years, probably not since Hawkin Rhone himself was last inside. On the cooktop of the potbellied stove, a single plate and rusted-out percolator sat next to a metal mug stained dark with dried coffee. Positioned in front of the stove was a chair with most of its stuffing scavenged by rodents. A tattered blanket was wrapped over one arm of the chair, and on top of that lay an open book, face down: The Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe.

When she glanced at Sean, the look of wonder on his face told her he was thinking the exact same thing she was. “Look at this,” she said. “I can’t believe we were so afraid of him.”

“Us, and every other kid in Winslow,” Sean marveled. “Before and ever since.”

This was the scene they had interrupted that summer day. This was what the man—driven mad by isolation and remorse—had been doing right before they dared each other to cross the creek, to trespass and steal a souvenir, surely frightening him when they’d clamored onto his porch. This was how he was spending his afternoon right before they killed him.

Hazel’s heart filled with pity as she imagined Hawkin Rhone sitting beside the little stove, the blanket warming his old man legs, reading his poems for probably the thousandth lonely time and eating a lunch of berries and squirrel.

Sean walked slowly to the chair. Digging into his pocket, he pulled out a gold, heart-shaped pendant on a chain, reached to the shelf behind the chair, and gently hung the necklace around a frame containing a photograph of the Rhone family: mother and father, Zachary and Missy, all young, all smiling. Sean had discovered the pendant among the bones after he dug them up; Hawkin Rhone must have had it on him when he was buried the first time. Later, when Hazel and Sean had read the engraving, For Missy, Love Father, they had both felt that it belonged here—the site where he paid his penance—rather than reburied with him in the church cemetery, burdening him for all eternity.

Sean turned back to Hazel, relief softening his features. “You know who’s next, don’t you?”

She nodded. Before Violet and Daisy Rhone had left to go live with their aunt in Gig Harbor, Hazel heard their dread-fueled whispering about Gus Bolinger. The old veteran had lost a hand to gangrene and had his wrist fitted with a large steel hook. At that, a new bogeyman was born in Winslow.

“Gus the grappler,” she said, repeating the kids’ dark words.

“Nice.” Sean grimaced. “Real nice.”

“Don’t forget the vampire in Second Chance Mine. They still haven’t figured out where that sick maniac came from.”

“A carny, probably. Hope it wasn’t Cyclone Clyde.”

“I hope not either,” she agreed, wondering what had become of their bag of weed that Tanner had with him. “And the most ghoulish bogeyman of them all . . .” Hazel winced. “Tanner Holloway’s leg.”

“You’re right.” Sean’s eyes reflected the horror of that image. “That amputated leg’s gonna be walking around in the nightmares of every kid in Winslow for a long time.”

“Poor Tanner.” She shook her head. “You know, I’m surprised, but ever since he went home, I actually miss him a little.”

Sean frowned. “I don’t.”

Feeling as though they were finished here at last, Hazel left the cabin. Once back outside, she paused, titled her face up to the sun, and released the pent-up breath she’d been holding for years.

Then she glanced at Jinx, where he was taking a nap in a sunny spot of dirt, wearing a gigantic plastic cone around his neck because he refused to stop scratching at the stitches in his ear.

Coming up behind Hazel, Sean wrapped his arms around her and bent his head to hers. “I’m glad you stayed,” he said. “You, I’d miss.”

Hazel thought about her own mother not bothering to pack anything, not bothering to say goodbye before leaving everything and everybody behind. “Don’t worry, Sean. Before I go anywhere, I’ll give you plenty of time to pack your bags, too. And bring extra bologna and cheese for our—”

Hazel gasped and Jinx shot up, barking his furry head off.

Something was coming, gnashing and crunching its way through the woods across the creek.

She whipped around to face Sean. “Bigfoot,” she mouthed, and pushed past him to get back onto the porch. The whereabouts and whyabouts of the creature in the woods had yet to be discovered. Wolf, bear, Sasquatch, nobody knew for sure.

“Hey!” a high voice called.

Hazel turned to see Patience emerge from the trees on the opposite bank, a colorful beach towel draped across one arm, the other arm gesturing to them with a scoop.

“That’s it!” Hazel placed her hand over her pounding heart. “That is the last time I let anything on this mountainside freak me out.”

Sean squinted at her with skepticism. “We’ll see.”

“You guys coming, or what?” Patience shouted.

As if she’d meant him, Jinx was already loping her direction, tail wagging, cone bobbing.

Hazel held out her hand to Sean, which he took in his own and pulled her down from the porch.

Then they walked to the edge, kicked off their shoes, and waded into the cool, calm waters of Three Fools Creek.

Time to teach Patience Mathers how to swim.





DEDICATION

For Peter Tackaberry

co-creator of this story

best part of my story





ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Elizabeth Voss is the author of The Winslow Incident, a tale of ghosts, madness and other strange happenings in the remote mountain hamlet of Winslow, Washington. (Five Star Mystery Series, Gale/Cengage; Harlequin Worldwide Library Suspense; and a Daphne du Maurier Award Nominee for Excellence in Mystery/Suspense.) Her short stories “Hawkin Rhone” and “Treats for Adeline” are available from Cemetery Dance Publications.

Elizabeth grew up on a forested island in the Pacific Northwest, a curious place of dilapidated cabins, forgotten graveyards, and creatures prowling the woods. She is a member of the International Thriller Writers and the Horror Writers Association. She lives in Santa Monica with her husband and frequent co-author Peter Tackaberry. Together, they are at work on a second novel. There will be ghosts.

Please visit on the web at www.elizabethvoss.com.