Eli McMorn & The Strange Case of the Missing Professor - Chapter 8

When I think back on that night in the Claiborne Sinks, I realize how unwise it was to stop for the night. It was a moonless, overcast night and soon became so dark that I couldn’t see the handcuffs in front of my face. To make matters worse, a thick fog rolled in, and the clearing where we sat was like a pit of inky, greasy blackness.

Officer Bill Friemann and I had spent the day stumbling around a thick patch of woods that should have been easy to walk out of. We were scratched up and exhausted, yet neither of us felt like sleep. My eyes eventually adjusted to the darkness, and I could see Friemann where he sat at the base of a moss-shrouded tree a short distance away.

The fog carried the faint smell of mud and must have moved into the woods from the Alabama River, which should have been a short distance west of where we sat in the clearing. If this was true, then the highway and should have been due south of our position. This was the same clearing where I’d found the missing professor’s possessions and where Friemann had handcuffed me hours ago, before our daylong tramp through the hot, snake-infested woods.

Friemann pulled out his police radio and fiddled with its switches. It was dead and useless. The battery had run down hours before. Even when it worked, he’d been unable to raise any of his fellow officers or Claiborne dispatch.

“I don’t understand it,” he thought out loud. “We should have been able to walk out of here easily. I should be home right now. It’s like something doesn’t want us to leave.”

I agreed but didn’t say so. I sat there in the dark, thinking about my Berretta stuffed in his utility belt and about where he’d stored the keys to the handcuffs.

An instant later, our ears were met by a long, low noise from the south. At first, I thought it was the horn from a riverboat, but it reminded me more of the blast from an old foxhunter’s horn. The sound startled us both, and we got to our feet.

“It’s the rescue squad,” Friemann said, excited by the prospect of finally being found. “We’re over here!” he shouted in the direction of the horn, his hands cupped around his mouth.

Another deep blast from the horn answered him, and it was followed a second later by a bone-chilling howl from what sounded like a large dog or coyote.

“Officer, take these cuffs off of me right now,” I said. Even then, I could sense that the source of the horn and howls were unnatural. I would need both hands to deal with what was coming.

Friemann turned and looked at me in the gloom, as if he’d forgotten that I was there. “Huh? No way. We’re about to get out of here, and you’re going to jail until we sort out everything that’s going on.”

In that moment, the forest went as silent as an empty church. Gone were the sounds of the insects and night birds that had filled the darkness only moments before. The wind had stilled. My mouth was as dry as cotton.

Another nerve-racking howl pierced the darkness, closer this time. We turned to face it and saw, about 50 yards away, a blue-white orb of light, floating a few feet off the ground.

“Friemann, you need to take these cuffs off me right now and give me my gun,” I said, an order, not a request.

Friemann ignored me. Instead, he pulled out his large flashlight, and I thought at first that he meant to strike me with it. He then clicked it on and began to wave it wildly in the direction of the slowly approaching orb. The flashlight’s beam cut weird shafts of light through the thick fog and caused odd shadows to move through the trees.

“Over here, we’re over here!” he shouted, again and again.

The strange orb picked up speed, and I could hear leaves on the ground being disturbed. I thought of the howls we’d heard and wondered if I’d be able to get my gun from the distracted officer even with handcuffs on.

Friemann continued to yell, but I knew that this was no rescue party. Another blood curdling howl let loose, and the source of strange light was close enough now that I could see the shape of a man, and something big and black at his side.

Friemann’s light sputtered and then died. In the light cast by the approaching orb, I saw confusion on Friemann’s face as he tapped the flashlight against his palm to get it to come back on. “Are we glad to see you,” he said to the man-shape that now stood at the edge of the clearing with an old-style lantern in one hand and coarse cloth sack in the other.

I backed against the giant ash tree at the edge of the clearing and mentally prepared myself to deal with what would come next. Into the clearing emerged the stranger I’d encountered the night before and at his side was a large, black hound. I could see that dog had abnormally large claws and teeth as it let loose another long howl.

“Quiet, Ol’ Shuck,” the stranger said, never taking his eyes off Friemann.

For whatever reason, I felt that the stranger hadn’t seen me. All of his attention was on Friemann, who was confused by the situation.

Friemann’s light snapped back on suddenly, and the beam shot out towards the stranger. I saw old spiderwebs all over the stranger’s black, old-fashioned clothes. Nasty, black hair hung down from beneath the dirty stovepipe hat that sat atop his large head.

The stranger leaned in toward Friemann, raised his lantern a little and asked, “Is you real?”

In the light of the stranger’s lantern, I saw Friemann clearly. Puzzled by the question and overwhelmed by the uncanny situation, Friemann answered in a voice that dripped with fatigue. “What do you mean? Yes, I’m real.”

The black dog began to growl, a sound that seemed to vibrate the moldering leaves at our feet. Gooseflesh broke out on my arms as the stranger’s twisted mouth broke into a hellish half-grin, exposing an unnaturally long canine tooth. Friemann swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple working up and down in his throat, his last noteworthy physical act before the end of his life.

In that moment, I looked away, my attention drawn to the cloth sack in the stranger’s oversized hand. Something small wriggled inside. The stranger’s lamp and Friemann’s flashlight both went off at once as my ears were met by the cries of a baby.

(All rights reserved. This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.)