Eli McMorn and the Strange Case of Kill Devil Hill – Part 11

I could sense that our interview was near its end. Lawson’s drawn face was pale, and lines of fatigue showed around his eerie eyes and thin mouth. Retelling his strange tale had called up many loathsome memories, and it had affected him.

“What happened after you saw the shadow outside your hospital room window?” I asked.

“A young nurse came to see what was wrong,” he said. “I remember she had a winged Cupid tattooed on her left wrist, almost covered up by her watch. It made me think of the boy that shot me with the arrow.”

Lawson startled me when he lifted the bottom of his faded uniform shirt. He pointed to a small scar an inch below his right nipple. “They told me the emergency room doctor removed the arrow with a pair of wire snips and medical pliers. The arrow missed my lung by a hair.”

“Did you tell the nurse what you saw outside?”

“Yes and she told me to calm down, that I was in intensive care and had been given a lot of pain medicine. She also said that my room was on the third floor, so I couldn’t have seen anyone outside.”

This explanation made sense. In his drug-addled state, Lawson probably imagined the whole macabre thing or maybe he’d just had an odd nightmare. Maybe he was lying. Or maybe he was truly insane.

“Turns out, I’d only been in the hospital for a few hours,” he continued. “This was the night of the same day that I’d been shot.”

Another lonely peel of thunder boomed outside as the wretched weather worsened. A wave of dark rain slashed against the dirty window. I dreaded my ride back into Claiborne. Rush hour traffic on the city’s outdated streets in bad weather was often exciting, but never fun.

“Investigators with the Sheriff’s Department showed up the next morning,” he went on. “My friends had been reported missing by then, and their parents were upset. I told the deputies just what I told you, and they left. My memory of all that is hazy. Like the nurse said, I was on a lot of pain medicine.”

According to the Sheriff’s yellowed incident report on the table between us, deputies went to Kill Devil Hill with a few grim guides from the rescue squad and found five dead bodies. Brooks was stone dead atop the mysterious hill just like Lawson described. Blood was everywhere.

Jimmy Creason was found about 100 yards away with major injuries to his head and chest. Medical examiner said later that his injuries were consistent with a car crash. He also had compound fractures to both legs. Rescue squad men found him because of all the buzzards.

All three of the girls - Kara Creason, Cathy Merriweather and Meghan Caldwell – were more or less found together. Their twisted, partially-clothed remains were found within 19 yards of each other. Kara and Meghan were both missing their eyeballs, and Merriweather was missing her tongue.

“I woke up some time later at the hospital, and the Sheriff and two of his deputies were standing there at my bed,” Lawson continued. “The Sheriff was a big man. The first thing I saw was the gun on his hip, and the second thing was in his other hand. It was a small, plastic evidence bag that contained Jimmy Creason’s bloody class ring. I knew right then that I was in trouble.”

(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.)