Tales From the Low Roads (WARNING: grisly content).

[Low_Roads]

just read the next two (sorry for the delay...been on a hiatus for a while). Very cleverly done...

The Hawk is back too (along with the HDS)! November is rapidly becoming my favorite month! Thank you, Hawk! Your compliments are well worth any wait!

This kind of reminds me of this old movie where these scientists were working in a lab and they made this cloud of sorts, and it killed people. It was an old gray movie, from the thirties. I think. The kind of sound the cloud made was like a vacuum cleaner. Maybe Littlebighead knows?

Anyhow, this piece was well written, but I was a bit disappointed at the end, I didn't want it to end!

Thanks so much, J! Actually, I believe I may have a line on the cloud movie you're talking about. It sounds very much like an old episode of the TV show Outer Limits called "It Crawled Out of the Woodwork" (from the '60s, not the '30s, but shot in the same crisp black-and-white). Your description fits the episode mighty closely. One of my favorites, by the way!

 

[Low_Roads]

Low Roads Story #18

The Putah River Horror​

Putah River flows from Lake Tabor. It flows for nearly seventy miles and then empties into the straights. Because the water comes off the bottom of Monticello Dam it's always icy cold even in the summer. If you ever stick your leg in that water it will almost shock the breath out of you.

All the same, the banks of the Putah are a favorite recreation spot. You can swim in it if you're hardy. It doesn't move very fast and it's only a couple of hundred feet across and twenty feet deep at the most. Even so, a couple of people drown every year because of the cold water. They just get out into the middle and cramp up.

The fishing is pretty good and you can always see boats on the river. Motorboats aren't allowed but you can take out a rowboat. These vacationers will frequently stay overnight, camping in tents on the grassy banks.

There's plenty of wildlife around, but nothing too scary, just an occasional snake in the sleeping bag. It was a big surprise to everyone then when a man turned up killed in his tent. When folks got up in the morning they found a stream of blood coming from under the tent flap. When they investigated, they were horrified to find his remains. The upper half of his body lay on his cot, but past his rib cage everything else was just gone. He had been eaten in half.

The sheriff and somebody from the Wildlife Services came immediately. They couldn't think of a single animal that would kill this way and certainly not something from this area. The ranger found the tracks of the animal. They led up from Putah River. They were not the tracks of any known creature. It was just a row of flat marks in the mud, and it was clear that a massive body had been dragged up from the water.

The sheriff placed the river off limits until the mystery was cleared up. After the gruesome killing, people were scared off anyway. But that wasn't the end of things.

Some of the homes along the river have boathouses. They are attached to the main house and had been built at a time before motor craft were forbidden. Almost all of them are empty now. The creature used an empty boathouse to enter into a residence. It broke down the living room door and lay in wait. This home belonged to a young couple. When the wife got home from shopping, she was attacked. This scene was even worse than the first one. Blood covered everything in the room and only a few spare parts remained.

The sheriff got together a bunch of motor launches. Each one was armed with a fish finder. They set off to track down this menace. Soon, one of the boats picked up a big sonar reading. The object was twenty feet long and moving fast. All the boats went in pursuit, but they could barely keep up. They chased it back and forth for an hour and must have tired it out because it slowed way down and started bumping the boats. They managed to steer the thing toward one of the diked-off creeks where they thought they could corner it. The only possible escape was the canal system, but the entrance was covered with a big iron grate that filtered out junk from the river. A six-foot fence stood at the canal mouth, so there seemed to be no way the creature could use this route. But that's just what it did. The men were stunned to see it hurl itself like a huge salmon over the fence and into the canal.

So the creature had gotten away. The sheriff wasn't too worried, though. The canal was narrow and went in only one direction. It couldn't escape now. He left armed men at the entrance and started off on foot to catch the thing.

But he had forgotten that it could climb out of the water, which is what it did. That was when the last killing happened. A lineman was doing some repair work. The creature came right up to the base of the pole and when the man descended it was right into open jaws.

The sheriff and his men heard the screams and rushed to help. They fired a hale of bullets and the creature died, but it was too late to save the lineman.

They examined the monster. Everyone had seen too many movies not to know exactly what it was. It was a huge White Pointer shark. Its mouth was quite wide, easily large enough to completely swallow a human being. However, there was something wrong with its body. All four of its belly fins were bulky and had little claws like they were rudimentary feet. That was obviously how it was able to walk on land, just the same way as a lungfish does.

A marine biologist came up from the aquarium in San Francisco to have a look. He was the one that pieced together the most probable story.

The water that the river empties into is connected to the bay. Bay waters are thick with White Pointers. Even though plenty of fresh water flows into the straights, some marine animals can come and go. The straights is where the Grizzly Island Dry Dock is located. That's the place where repair work is done on Navy ships, including the nuclear submarines. Several years back, there was an accident. A sub went down in the straights and the sea life was subjected to nuclear pollution. That's the only thing that could explain why the big White Pointer would mutate that way and why it could live so long in fresh water. White Pointers prefer cold ocean currents, so the icy river water attracted it.

After this incident, the water in the straights was carefully monitored. No other freaks were ever found, so maybe the radiation wasn't to blame. Maybe it's just a new species.

 

[His Divine Shadow]

What is it about human nature that makes us fear when the water disgorges one of its own onto land? Lungfish are mostly harmless but then we have snakeheads and the like ... somehow it is frightening! Perhaps we fear what we left behind in the deep oceans? Cthulhu, anyone?

One wonders, then, what such wrecks as the Scorpion and Kursk will yield, eh?

 

[Low_Roads]

What is it about human nature that makes us fear when the water disgorges one of its own onto land? Lungfish are mostly harmless but then we have snakeheads and the like ... somehow it is frightening! Perhaps we fear what we left behind in the deep oceans? Cthulhu, anyone?

"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!"

It may be that folks naturally fear the sea... we're at such a disadvantage in an environment which, of itself, can kill us so easily and stymie our movements so thoroughly. Ocean critter-dom has to be utterly foreign just to exist and function in a thick setting like that... which, I suspect, is why fictional extra-terrestrial life is so often patterned after it.

One wonders, then, what such wrecks as the Scorpion and Kursk will yield, eh?

I'm old enough to remember when both ships were sunk. Each time it struck me in a traumatic way... lost aboard a submarine is one of the top 10 ways I'd least like to peg out (the claustrophobia, I suspect...) There'll actually be a Low Roads submarine story later in the series... #95, so we'll have a ways to wait.

 

[Low_Roads]

Low Roads Story #19

Hide and Seek​

If you're driving down Rockville Road from the freeway, you will cross Green Valley Road. That's one of the two main crossroads. If you turn left, you will head into the hills. They are wild, craggy hills, not as rugged as the forestland surrounding Tabor Lake, but people have been known to get lost there. If you follow the road all the way, you end up in Green Valley.

Green Valley has a little community and grape vineyards, but between there and Rockville Road the land is too rugged to farm. The soil just isn't good enough. A few people have homes along the way, but they're pretty remote from each other and from everyone else. A couple of the landowners do let their cattle roam up into the hills to graze. That's all they're really good for, though.

There are some interesting sights to see up that way. The old abandoned chalk quarry is just visible from the road. It's full of water and dangerous, so fences keep you from getting too close. There is Rockville Park, a recreation area you can only enter on foot. High up in the hills you can see caves. These caves aren't very extensive but they're historic. Indians were supposed to live there at one time.

One of the most striking landmarks is a granite plateau. It's not really very big, only about two hundred feet across at the top. You can climb up there easily enough, although you have to be careful about rattlesnakes. All the same, it's remarkable. There isn't another one like it in Tabor County, not even up by the lake where land is alot more rocky.

Quite awhile back, there was some trouble up in these hills. A landowner complained to the sheriff that one of his cows had been slaughtered. The sheriff sent men to take a look, thinking that the animal had been butchered for its meat. When the deputies got to the scene, they were shocked to see the corpse. It had been completely stripped of its hide. No edible parts seemed to be missing. No one had a theory as to why this had been done.

About that time, a stranger was seen up in the hills. Deputies stopped him, but it seems he was some sort of state law officer. He had alot of authority and didn't bother to explain why he was there.

Soon, another of the rancher's cattle had been killed. Its hide was stripped off too, in exactly the same way. The locals were getting really nervous, locking up their homes tight. The rancher was more angry than scared. He didn't like losing his property this way and vowed that he would hunt down the perpetrator himself. He was told not to go into the hills with a gun, but it didn't look like he would listen. In the meantime, the government man was seen every now and then, haunting the countryside.

Then it happened. The rancher's body was found. He had not listened to reason and tried to find whoever it was that was victimizing him. Evidently that's just what happened. His skin had been cut from his body in just the way it had happened to his cows. Local residents were really terrified now. Some of them moved out, never to come back. The rest barricaded their doors and armed themselves.

A week went by without any incident. That didn't make things less tense for the folks who lived there. Then word came in that the state agent had killed a man up on the granite plateau.

Sheriff's deputies brought him in. He was more ready to talk now. It had been his special assignment to bring in a lunatic who had escaped from an asylum.

The insane man had been an important military officer. A few years back he had been captured by terrorists and tortured to reveal secrets. They peeled off alot of his skin with knives, but he never broke. In fact, he got loose and killed all his tormenters.

Doctors grafted on fresh skin to save him, but the ordeal had snapped his mind. He was put in an asylum north of Tabor County. He was a resourceful man, though, and escaped. The torture and the operations had horribly disfigured him, and everyone thought he couldn't possibly go undetected for long. But after a few weeks of trying, it was clear that the asylum staff would never be able to find him.

For various reasons, they wanted to keep the escape quiet. They didn't want to cause a panic, for a start. Then, there was a sense of respect for the military man's reputation. I guess they were also ashamed that he had gotten away. So, the government man was called in.

He knew that the old soldier was trained in survival skills. Therefore, he started tracking the man through wilderness areas. The trail led into the Rockville Hills. Then the killings took place. The agent knew he would have to stop this menace by any means, but no matter how hard he tried he couldn't locate the madman.

He searched the Indian caves, but the lunatic hadn't been there. The caves overlooked the plateau and the agent thought he saw something odd on top of it.

By the time he got to the plateau, the sun was sinking. He made it to the top and took a good look at the object he had just glimpsed before. It was a crude shelter, like a tepee. The sides of it were made out of the stolen cowhides. The agent approached it cautiously, his gun drawn. A bizarre figure emerged from the entrance.

It seemed to be the murdered rancher, but that man had been big and fat, and this figure was shorter and more compact. The figure came on swiftly, shuddering and clutching a long, ugly blade. The agent had no choice. He shot the figure straight through the head, killing it instantly.

They brought the dead thing off the granite plateau and learned the truth. In fact, it was the lunatic. He had taken the dead rancher's skin and sewed it onto his own twisted body with a bone needle and sutures he had made from animal gut. The knife he had wielded must have been stolen from someone. It was a wicked hunting knife, perfect for killing and skinning things.

The way I heard it, they gave the poor lunatic the hero's funeral he had earned before he went crazy. The evil deeds he had done weren't his fault. He was as much a victim as anyone he had killed.

 

[Journia]

A touching story Littlebighead. A tragic tale of a great man who descended into darkness, and took a number of others with him. It tells a great deal about human nature and how it can be easily taken away by a simple change of mind...a slight...turn of the screw....

I tell you, you should compile these stories into some sort of book to get published. These would really sell, I'd even look them over for errors if you wanted....I am serious.

 

[His Divine Shadow]

Flashbacks to Predator and those skinned soldiers hanging high sprang to mind with our skinned victims! Something else calls when skinned bovines are mentioned ... HDS canna recall what movie or book or whatever the fading memory hails from. The whole story reminds me of a yet another book I read a few years back but don't recall. And, of course, we have the obvious Hannibal reference a la Buffalo Bill. Too many references! XD

A dreadful fate to befall any living thing. So thing and overlooked, the skin, yet to remove it is pain unimaginable and to live without it impossible. It certainly would imbalance a mind to have some removed. Silly authorities, putting him in an asylum. Take they no lesson from the Joker and Arkham?

Ah, that's the book! Haruki Murakami's Kafka on the Shore. A scene similar to the torture of the military man, where I believe a Chinese army officer has his Mongolian henchman cut the skin off of a living man. I do enjoy the memories your stories bring to the surface again. Like multiple stories maybe! *Best Zoidberg voice*

 

[Low_Roads]

A touching story Littlebighead. A tragic tale of a great man who descended into darkness, and took a number of others with him. It tells a great deal about human nature and how it can be easily taken away by a simple change of mind...a slight...turn of the screw....

Thank you, J! Greatly appreciated! A genuine morale booster!

I tell you, you should compile these stories into some sort of book to get published. These would really sell, I'd even look them over for errors if you wanted....I am serious.

Nice of you to say so! Though I have zero interest in writing for money (my sign work keeps me plenty busy in that regard). I doubt there'd be any wide public interest in this series, anyway... look how little commentary's been prompted by this thread. You, the HDS, the Hawk... personally very gratifying and perfectly sufficient for my wants, but hardly the numbers which would ever inspire professional hopes. No, this series already does what I want it to do; it entertains my friends and generates much good discussion!

Having said that, please feel free to alert me to any errors you may notice, either via thread commentary or in a PM! I'm constantly forced to make little corrections to the text; I'm far from being my own most effective proof-reader. I rewrite and edit incessantly; use spell-check with religious zeal; scan the finished material dozens of times... and still manage to be taken aback by blatant miss-spellings, poor word usage or logic errors! Well, that's the beauty of word processing... only a moment is required to correct mistakes... unlike the era before computers, when fixing a one-word flub entailed a half-hour of drudgery!

Flashbacks to Predator and those skinned soldiers hanging high sprang to mind with our skinned victims! Something else calls when skinned bovines are mentioned ... HDS canna recall what movie or book or whatever the fading memory hails from. The whole story reminds me of a yet another book I read a few years back but don't recall. And, of course, we have the obvious Hannibal reference a la Buffalo Bill. Too many references! XD

Ouch! I can tell the flashbacks are proving painful! The flayed livestock angle was actually prompted by urban myths about cattle mutilation (UFO experiments, supposedly... Zeta grays shopping for genuine cow hide). The psycho himself was Ed Gein inspired... the model for every knife-wielding crazy from Norman Bates on up (so Buffalo Bill is definitely on target!) I'd forgotten all about the Predator skinnings... that happens so early in the film, and later on he's only pulling organs out Schwarzenegger's crew. All the landmarks are actual local locations, incidentally. I climbed to the top of the granite plateau years ago. Can't do that now... the surrounding property got bought up by a real estate concern.

A dreadful fate to befall any living thing. So thing and overlooked, the skin, yet to remove it is pain unimaginable and to live without it impossible. It certainly would imbalance a mind to have some removed. Silly authorities, putting him in an asylum. Take they no lesson from the Joker and Arkham?

Yeah, the Joker treated Arkham Asylum sort of like a motel, didn't he! XD Good for a change of scenery! What he really needed was the electric chair (though that probably wouldn't have kept him down long either!)

Flaying has always gotten under my skin (so to speak) as particularly nasty treatment. I had nightmares about it when I was younger. There's an especially unpleasant moment in Fred Saberhagen's Berserkers where the planet-machines remove a ship captain's pelt efficiently in a single piece. This wasn't even torture... they were just taking him apart to see what he was made of. Burrrrrr!

Ah, that's the book! Haruki Murakami's Kafka on the Shore. A scene similar to the torture of the military man, where I believe a Chinese army officer has his Mongolian henchman cut the skin off of a living man. I do enjoy the memories your stories bring to the surface again. Like multiple stories maybe! *Best Zoidberg voice*

Kafka on the Shore... that I'll have to look up! Thank you for the tip! Not that I'm obsessed with torture per se, but the reference has aroused my curiosity! While we're on the subject, it seems to me that Zoidberg spontaneously molted his entire exoskeleton from time to time. Once again, an alien race shows us how to do these things properly!

 

[Low_Roads]

Low Roads Story #20

Tunnels​

There once was a kid who lived in the little community of Rockville. Rockville is a loose collection of houses and businesses that's almost a town. You can't really call it a town because it's too small. Rockville is alot older than Fairview. It was actually a Pony Express stop way back when. Rockville has a general store and a feed store. The feed store used to be a blacksmith's back in the days when folks needed one. There's also a stone church that's a protected historic site now. Connected to the church is the Rockville Cemetery. It's historic too, and people from the last century are buried in there. It's this graveyard that's important to the story I'm telling now.

One of the branches of the central creek ran right past this boy's house. As a result, in the summer when the creek was dry he could easily travel the Low Roads, as the kids say. That means you can go down there to visit the vagrant camps. The hobos and the Mexicans would always have something to sell you, things that kids can't buy in honest businesses.

This kid had a whole collection of dirty magazines that he'd bought entirely in the Low Roads. He had so many it was becoming hard to hide them. Still, he needed new ones so he could develop a fresh supply of fantasies.

One night after dark, he sneaked off to make his purchase. Doing this wasn't hard. You just asked the first camp you came to if they had what you wanted. If they couldn't help you, they could steer you in the right direction. Everybody was pretty friendly down there. They had to be if they wanted to keep doing business. And you could always count on running into one or more of your buddies, out on their own errands, to help you. Of course, going down there wasn't one hundred percent safe. I've heard of kids who had been murdered or eaten by the hobos. But I never actually knew anyone this happened to.

So this kid found the right camp and paid for two or three choice magazines. He was on his way back home and had gotten pretty close to Rockville. That was too close to civilization for the migrants, so there wasn't much of anybody around. He came to a certain spot and fell right through a sinkhole.

It was a narrow sinkhole, only about a foot and a half across, but he fell through it easily. The opening was all matted with roots, which had made it hard to see. The kid fell about twelve feet and landed on some soft sand at the bottom. The sand saved him from injury. He looked up at the opening. It was too far for him to reach and there was no one around to hear him if he shouted.

The kid had landed in a regular little chamber, about eight feet across. When his eyes got used to the dark, he noticed side tunnels gong off in all directions. He felt a slight breeze coming from one of these and, hoping it was a way out, started off into it.

There was enough room in the tunnel for him to move easily. It seemed to have been well maintained. That should have worried the boy, but he didn't think about that at the moment. He was just happy that he might be getting out. The tunnel went on for quite some distance. It was totally dark, but the boy didn't meet any obstructions and made good time.

Every now and then the tunnel would branch off. The boy always felt for the breeze and took that fork. His trail took him up inclines and down again. It went to the right and the left, seemingly at random. He covered quite alot of ground.

Then, the breeze seemed to die. The kid got a little panicky. Had he done something wrong? Maybe he'd passed the right fork. He scrambled frantically and came to a tunnel that led upward. He took it immediately, hoping for the best.

The tunnel came to an abrupt end. The boy felt around. His hands touched wood. The tunnel ended in a wooden box. He stopped for a minute to try and make sense of this. Then he knew.

The tunnel had come up inside a buried coffin. Rockville Cemetery had been fairly close and the boy must be in it now. He was terrified that the dead body might be close by, but that didn't seem to be the case.

This forced him to consider everything carefully. Why was there no body? Why did the tunnel lead to a coffin? Who was maintaining these holes anyway? The sudden realization that he might not be down here alone made him more scared than before.

He hurried off in a blind panic. Then he felt his breeze again. He followed it pretty doggedly this time. It angled up and he broke through into a narrow pit about eight feet deep. He saw stars above and almost wept for joy to be out in the open air again. Then, he realized what the pit was. It was an open grave, ready for a funeral the next day.

The boy screamed and screamed for help, and the caretaker finally heard him and got him out. The authorities were called. When the sheriff arrived he was skeptical about the boy's story, but a deputy went down into the tunnel, and he was soon convinced.

The next day, the funeral was called off and a big force of men took over. They had brought a big tanker full of poison gas. They plugged up the sinkhole in the creek bed and started pumping poison down the open grave.

Five days later, men were sent down into the tunnel system. It was incredibly extensive, but they all kept in touch with walkie-talkies. A great many graves had been broken into. Eventually they came to a large chamber. It was full of skeletal bodies. There were gnaw marks on the bones and it was pretty clear that the meat had been eaten off. Some of the bodies had been fresh, but alot of them were pretty old.

In the middle of the chamber was a furry, curled up body. It was poisoned by the gas and stone dead. They brought the body to the surface and had a look. It was about three feet tall and vaguely man shaped, but was covered with soft, red-brown fur. It looked rat-like, with beady, bright eyes and rodent teeth. Signs were it had been living in those tunnels since the very start of the dry season.

This is the only official record of an actual ghoul existing in modern times.

 

[His Divine Shadow]

Here we have some truly "low roads", that's for sure! Can't say I know what is worse, finding yourself in an empty coffin or finding yourself in an occupied one. Neither brings much comfort! Clever lad, though, realizing his situation; can't say I'd divine my location with such rapidity, especially not after twists and turns under the earth. I wonder, though, seeing as how we don't often dig up old graves to see their conditions if ghouls like that one are even now doing their deeds beneath the soils of our cemeteries. HDS thinks cremation looks better all the time. XD

 

[Master Chief]

Ah yes, since last I checked, this series has grown quite numerous. I;'m not an expert at giving reviews, so I'll make my comments short and sweet.
This is a good story.
There we go!

 

[Low_Roads]

Here we have some truly "low roads", that's for sure! Can't say I know what is worse, finding yourself in an empty coffin or finding yourself in an occupied one. Neither brings much comfort! Clever lad, though, realizing his situation; can't say I'd divine my location with such rapidity, especially not after twists and turns under the earth. I wonder, though, seeing as how we don't often dig up old graves to see their conditions if ghouls like that one are even now doing their deeds beneath the soils of our cemeteries. HDS thinks cremation looks better all the time. XD

For me too! I've always had my eye on the Neptune Society; seems much more "no muss, no fuss" than the excavation option! Interestingly, the idea of excarnation has always appealed to me (it seems to recycle the nutrients in most efficient fashion!) I suspect that folks aren't legally allowed to do that in our area, though.

Thanks, as always, to the HDS for his detailed observations! I agree... the kid in this story displays entirely more presence-of-mind than I would have! While cemeteries are stereotypically creepy locations, it was my hope that this unusual angle of approach would offer a new wrinkle. Rockville Cemetery will figure in further stories (the next being #24, "The Walking Nightmare")... it's a real location, incidentally, a pleasantly shady rural boneyand within walking distance of our ranch. Our family has a plot there... my place has been reserved, so eventually I'll be part of its soil (unless I really do decide on the "ashes to ashes" route!)

Ah yes, since last I checked, this series has grown quite numerous. I;'m not an expert at giving reviews, so I'll make my comments short and sweet.
This is a good story.
There we go!

Thank you, Master Chief! Very nice to hear from you again! This series really has swollen considerably, although it still has a long way to go! It's like a glacier: chilly, slow growing, tough to dislodge... and leaving lasting destruction in its wake!

 

[Cbarton]

True, HDS, those roads can't get much lower, but with LBH at the helm, anything is literally possible (rimshot)...

Another well-written tale...many would not think to feel for a breeze in a tunnel or cave to find the way out, but it's a tried-and true maneuver.

::😛arks lawn chair next to glacier, ice-pick in hand if needed for defense:::

 

[Low_Roads]

True, HDS, those roads can't get much lower, but with LBH at the helm, anything is literally possible (rimshot)...

Another well-written tale...many would not think to feel for a breeze in a tunnel or cave to find the way out, but it's a tried-and true maneuver.

Warmest thanks, Hawk! I don't spelunk (I'm not exactly claustrophobic, but I do get antsy in tight spaces. Particularly in situations where tons of weight are pressing... I'd have made a lousy miner!), so I must have read or heard that nugget of information. It never hurts to squirrel away factoids, even if one can't make practical use of them!

::😛arks lawn chair next to glacier, ice-pick in hand if needed for defense:::

A wise precaution! No one I know is prepared for another ice age right now!

 

[Low_Roads]

Low Roads Story #21

The Room Upstairs​

Tabor County's western creek used to flow past an old, two story building which had been deserted for years. It was known as Thompson's Store because I guess someone used it for a store at some point. But no one who owned it could make a living with it, and no one owned it for very long.

For a start, the building was really remote. It was out in the hills and the only way to get there was on an old dirt road. You couldn't even use this road in the winter because the rain would turn it to mud.

But the most important reason why nobody wanted to go out there was that this place had a real bad reputation. It was built way back in the 1800s and was a den of sin. It would attract the worst elements from all over, tough guys and bandits who would come for booze and gambling. There was also an opium den and prostitutes. All this was on the first floor of the building.

That was nothing, though. Up above, on the second floor, was where the real evil took place. Up there, men would play games with human lives. Russian roulette between two or more unwilling men was just the least of these. The most notorious competition was so ugly you couldn't be sure it was really true or not. It involved two victims. Each one had his arms tied at the wrists and his legs tied at the ankles. In a big room on the second floor there were two hooks in the ceiling, about ten feet off the ground. The men would be hung by the wrists from these hooks. Then, big heavy buckets were tied to the ankle ropes. There was a big box of iron weights up there. Each one was about a half pound and had "ten dollars" scratched into the metal. Rich men would take turns tossing the weights into the buckets, one by one. This contest could go on all night, with folks betting on the outcome. Finally, the buckets would become so heavy that one or the other of the victims would be stretched to death. Then the victor would win the value of the weights in his bucket from the loser. A large supply of kidnapped victims was kept on hand for these games.

No one was absolutely sure that these stories were true. There should have been alot of dead bodies around, but no one had ever discovered the graves. Still, nobody passed close to the old place if they could help it.

Only a couple of dozen families lived up that way on various ranches. It so happened that one young boy in the vicinity was the terror of the rest of the youngsters. He was big and strong for his age, and mean too. He didn't take a bath too often and the other kids called him Smelly, but not to his face.

It was Smelly's habit to rough up the kids and take their change. If a boy or girl was unlucky enough to run into him alone out in the woods, they were in for real trouble. Smelly always carried a length of rope in his back pocket. He would bind his victims tightly to a tree and then have a little fun. First, he would make the kids smell his stinky armpits. Then he would find a beetle or a snake and stuff it down their shirt. He always carried a big owl feather behind his right ear. He liked to strip off the kids' shoes and socks, then use the end of the feather to tickle between their toes until they screamed. He loved to hear the way they begged for mercy. After about an hour of this kind of torture he'd cut them loose, but he'd throw the shoes away, making them walk home barefoot.

No one was ever brave enough to tell on Smelly. But they finally got desperate enough to figure out a scheme. They got together and scraped up fifty dollars. Then they bet Smelly that he wouldn't go to Thompson's Store and check out the upstairs room. He would have to take a camera and bring back a picture to prove that he'd been there. Smelly could have probably just taken the money, but he wanted to prove what a big man he was and agreed.

The kids were hoping that something bad would happen to Smelly. And something must have, because he didn't come back. Days passed and his parents were starting to become frantic. One of the kids finally confessed what had happened.

The sheriff and some deputies drove out to Thompson's Store and searched it. They found the boy's body in the upstairs room. It was in a most bizarre condition. The joints had all come loose and he was stretched completely out of shape. When he was laid out, he measured seven feet long.

They found the camera, too. When the film was developed, there was a disturbing picture on the roll. Alot of men's faces were in the picture. They were really notorious men who lived in the previous century and had been dead for years.

One of the kids must have felt remorseful about what happened to Smelly, because a few days later the whole place went up in flames. The fire department got there in time to prevent the flames from spreading and burning down the hills, but the store was completely destroyed.

When the firemen sifted through the rubble, they found a secret well that had existed beneath the building. Inside were the skeletons from hundreds of bodies.

 

[Journia]

AH, what an ending Littlebighead. You have quite a way with the characters. Smelly seemed a most dubious foe, using animals and insects in such a manner. my goodness. But that is nothing compared to his punishment. But the end all, the revelation, of the hiding place within the building itself.
So that's why they never found graves....

I do so love stories that make a slight mystery in the early stages, and then say, "Oh, by the way, here is the answer to that other mystery a few minutes ago." How delightful. I thank you Littlebighead. You have made my night.

 

[Low_Roads]

Good of you to say so, J! Your kind appreciation has managed to make my night as well! Yeah, Smelly may have been a loser (albeit a fun-loving one), but he scarcely deserved so nasty a fate! At least he got some revealing photography out of the deal (perfect stuff for the Fortean Times... too bad he's not around to capitalize on it). I'm very pleased you enjoyed the double-revelation! I like to do that sort of thing when possible; it helps minimize the predictability of these rather straightforward tales.

 

[Journia]

Indeed! I also like the photograph. It actually made me read a serious book before going to bed, in order to counteract the evils that story brought to my mind.

 

[His Divine Shadow]

Thompson's Store makes a comeback! Just realized too that it shares a name with a certain robotic 'ler we know, eh?

Seven feet! Even for a large lad that's a stretch (Har dee har, HDS). Evil knows evil, as they say, and those spirits of the dead ne'er-do-wells must have seen it in 'ol Smelly. I wonder if it was those spirits our intrepid heroes of a previous Tale heard coming down the stairs in the old store. And a well of skeletons! Beat out Pitch Black's own pit of calcified remains the LBH did!

 

[Low_Roads]

Indeed! I also like the photograph. It actually made me read a serious book before going to bed, in order to counteract the evils that story brought to my mind.

Thanks J! I think of that sort of devise as "fear once removed", a tactic well employed in the British Quatermass series (where the menace is nearby, but observed indirectly through film, remote broadcast, etc.). It has the benefit of making a threat concrete and nebulous at the same time... observing the simulacrum of a horror means you can glory in its ugly details while sweating the uncertainty that it might be perched directly behind you!

Thompson's Store makes a comeback! Just realized too that it shares a name with a certain robotic 'ler we know, eh?

It might well have been the shack where that tin terror was first hammered together (empty speculation, of course! Only the Bandito knows the true story!)

Seven feet! Even for a large lad that's a stretch (Har dee har, HDS). Evil knows evil, as they say, and those spirits of the dead ne'er-do-wells must have seen it in 'ol Smelly. I wonder if it was those spirits our intrepid heroes of a previous Tale heard coming down the stairs in the old store. And a well of skeletons! Beat out Pitch Black's own pit of calcified remains the LBH did!

My thanks to the observant HDS! True indeed, I had intended the passed-away nasties to be "aged" reflections of Smelly's miniature, his fate a breath of poetic justice (well, overkill really! Not that anyone's mourning... ). Yeah, the guys in "Why the Cars Disappeared" just avoided taking Smelly's place! I didn't know that at the time... I just wanted the location to be spooky enough to drive them back into the night. Oh, and the well... I better own up to that. The skeleton-filled well was inspired by a similarly clogged shaft (though by only two bodies) in Lovecraft's "Color Out of Space" (fine! I just ruined the surprise!) So, the idea is borrowed... I did manage to beat "The Ring" to the punch, however!

 

[His Divine Shadow]

Ah, that's the book! Haruki Murakami's Kafka on the Shore. A scene similar to the torture of the military man, where I believe a Chinese army officer has his Mongolian henchman cut the skin off of a living man. I do enjoy the memories your stories bring to the surface again. Like multiple stories maybe! *Best Zoidberg voice*

My memory really does stink muchly. The book I should have noted was The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by the same author. Bad HDS, bad!

 

[Low_Roads]

I spent about an hour trying to locate a detailed synopsis for The Wind-up Bird Chronicles... everything I found was more concerned with the contemporary story (the stuff with the psychics and the missing cat) than anything having to do with the Manchurian occupation, which I gather takes up a lot less space in the novel (even though Japanese wartime atrocity appears to be the underpinning of the plot. Sorry if I have this wrong; I'm guessing, based on what little I was able to glean). This sounds like one very weird read! A bit Lynchian, in that Toru appears to be a cypher surrounded by strange, hostile intrusions. A skinning certainly wouldn't seem out of place... just what do you find once you've pealed a mechanical bird (or a clockwork orange!)

 

[His Divine Shadow]

That'd be right. The Manchrian sidestories are relayed through letters scattered about. I'll not reveal more than that lest I ruin the plot. Murakami does pen peculiar things, aye.

 

[Low_Roads]

I'll not reveal more than that lest I ruin the plot.

Much appreciated! I may get around to reading it someday!

 

[Low_Roads]

Low Roads Story #22

Stoned​

The area around Tabor Lake is completely wild and primeval. It's the only part of Tabor County you could really refer to as forest. The land is choked with tall pines and furs and the scrub makes some places impassable. Alot of the hills are bare-naked granite and probably impossible to climb unless you're an expert.

You can't get onto alot of this land anyway. Most of it is protected unincorporated wild land. It's fenced and you can't enter without special permission.

This was the last place the Indians in the area lived. Back when Mexico still owned California, they had been forced out of the fertile land of Gordon and Ross Valleys. They settled in the wilderness around the lake. Eventually life was so tough that the tribes went extinct. That's the way the story usually goes. But Indians were hardy and used to living out of doors. There were plenty of fish in the lake, even back then when it was smaller. Maybe things aren't as simple as we've been told.

You just have to take my word about this one. I don't have any proof, only what I saw. And I can't tell you I understand any of that, either. I would like to tell you that I have a witness to confirm my story. But I don't. Not anymore.

I was plenty wild in my youth. My pal Joey and I used to go everywhere. We didn't care if it was private property or not. Barbed-wire fences aren't hard to get past, especially if there're two people. We would go all over Rockville Hills. This was before the park was ever there. We almost got caught a couple of times. The wild land in Tabor County can be treacherous if you're not careful. The hills can be cliffy and high. In the warm months you have to watch out for rattlesnakes. I've heard there can be mountain lions and black bears, but I've never seen any. I did see a coyote once. Still, there was hardly any place we didn't go.

The government land up by the lake was another matter, though. The fences were better. They were storm fences with rows of barbed wire up top. Also, I've heard that the fines are really high if you got caught. For a long time we never tried to get in, but the idea would pester us.

One summer, the two of us were up at the lake campgrounds with our families. Joe and I were out exploring on our own when we found a break in the fence. A tree had fallen over and torn it down. I guess no inspector had ever found this, because the break looked pretty old. We couldn't resist the opportunity.

The government land didn't seem all that different, but we checked out alot of it anyway. We had heard there was a waterfall somewhere up this way and we were anxious to see it.

After a couple of hours I was getting afraid we might not be able to find our way back. Joe was pretty insistent though, so we kept going. We had just come over a rise when down below us was a strange looking secluded valley. The slopes were all terraced like they had been built that way. It was easy to go from level to level and we slowly made our way down.

The really strange thing was that these levels were full of stone pillars. Not too many at first, but down lower the levels were pretty crowded. They were all about six feet tall and a couple of feet around. They didn't look natural at all. There must have been hundreds of the things.

We made our way down to the lowest level of the valley. In the center of everything was a big hole in the ground. It was about six feet wide. It looked like a well, but we couldn't see any bricks. It seemed to be pretty deep. We couldn't see the bottom, but neither of us got too close.

The whole area was unnaturally still. It spooked us, so we decided it was time to go. As we made our way out, we noticed a glow coming out of the well. It was an intense white light. That stopped us. We watched fascinated as a white ball of pure light rose out of the well.

I've only ever heard of ball lightning, but this is just what it looked like. It hovered above the pit in a sort of leisurely way, then started moving among the pillars on the lowest level. It threaded a path around each stone. The ball looked like it was hunting for something, and we got the nervous idea it was hunting for us.

We scrambled out of the valley and headed in the direction of the fence. Joe turned around and gave out a yell. The ball of light had crested the hill and was heading our way. It wasn't so leisurely now. It crackled and hissed and spit off sparks like it was angry.

We tore off down the path, but the ball didn't look like it was going to stop. The fence was still a long way off so hollering for help wouldn't do us any good. I saw some dense trees ahead and pulled Joe into them. If we picked a zigzag path, maybe we could lose it. We tore through the trees in a panic and somehow we got separated. I just ran wildly. I don't know for how long. It seemed like hours.

The trees ran out and I found I was in a clearing. I stopped stark still, waiting for something to happen. Then about fifty yards away Joe appeared. I headed his way so we could get together again, when the lightning ball shot out of the woods and smacked right into him. There was a blinding flash and a wave of wind knocked me over.

I guess I passed out, because when I got up the sky was in twilight. I looked for Joey but he wasn't around. But a stone pillar was standing right where he had been. It was exactly the same kind as the ones in the valley.

I never went back to the campgrounds. I just couldn't face Joe's parents or explain what had happened. It didn't matter much. I never got along well with my folks. I wasn't going to miss them and I'm sure they wouldn't miss me.

That was years back. I've never seen any of my family since that time. I support myself with odd jobs and in the summer there's work in the fields. I sure miss old Joe. On hot nights me and the other guys camp out in the creek beds and tell each other the strange stories of our lives, like I'm telling this one now.


Below: a preview page from Chapter 12 of the Low Roads comic, due at the end of the week (either then or over the weekend, depending on how much work I'm able to squeeze in).