Page 10 of Sins of the Fathers
They thanked him, and Mickey went back inside. Grady looked to Dawson. “Thoughts?”
“I think Denny was right that it’s ghosts, not vampires. Want to bet that some of the victims have been descendants of the mob who killed the family?”
Grady nodded. “Yeah, I was thinking the same thing. Seems to go in cycles every ten years—probably on the anniversary of the deaths. That would track with the ‘animal attack deaths’ and missing persons reports we found in the records.”
“So let’s put an end to it.” They stopped at the truck to pick up shovels, fairly certain they’d be necessary. Dawson hiked the duffel’s strap higher on his shoulder, and they set off into the woods.
With the sun shining and everything in leaf, the walk would have been pleasant if it weren’t for the potential fight awaiting them at their destination.
“I wonder why the mob thought the people in that house were the ones to blame,” Grady said as they walked. In all their research, they hadn’t found any kind of explanation, not even in the scant articles about the deaths.
“Could have been a grudge, or folks they didn’t like living here, for whatever reason,” Dawson replied. “All it takes sometimes is being ‘odd.’ And the kicker—the SPS and the HDF probably both claim the incident when they’re trying to justify what they do.”
“Ugh. Don’t even mention them out loud.” Grady spat on the ground for good measure.
“It’s not bad enough that we’ve got monsters to hunt. We don’t need that kind of trouble, but you know both groups would be all over this kind of thing,” Dawson replied, kicking a stone in frustration.
Both the HDF—Human Defense Front, and the SPS—Supernatural Protection Society, were grassroots reactionary groups, and as far as Grady was concerned, domestic terrorists. The SPS avenged what it claimed to be crimes against people with paranormal abilities that eluded the jurisdiction of regular law enforcement. The HDF was their opposite, claiming to protect people without special abilities from cryptids and those with any form of magic.
“They’re fucking vigilantes,” Grady grumbled.And everything we do falls right in the cross-hairs of both groups. We protect humans—and also the cryptids and people with abilities who aren’t hurting anyone. And we do our damnedest to catch the folks that the regular laws can’t touch.
Here and there, Grady could make out signs that there had once been a dirt road, long overgrown, where they were walking. Slight banks on either side indicated the driveway’s course, with trees on the right and left larger and older than those that had sprung up in the center.
They stayed within sight of each other, spreading out to cover more territory, still close enough to join a fight if needed.
Denny’s research had given names and ages for the people who’d been murdered by the mob. John and Matilda Samuels, both in their forties. Isaiah Carpenter, in his early thirties, possibly a hired hand. The Samuels had bought the land and house from Hedda Thorpe, a widow who had built the place with her late husband between the World Wars.
“It wasn’t fair to Hedda that people gossiped about her being odd,” Grady said as they walked. “And it definitely didn’t help that the place got a reputation for being haunted.”
“Plenty of old women out in the country are folk witches and healers or have a touch of the Sight,” Dawson responded. “They can defend themselves because they’ve got real ability. The people who get hurt are the ones who don’t.”
By the time Hedda sold the place, people already talked about the Thorpe farm having ghosts—and maybe a touch of darkness. Either the Samuels didn’t know or didn’t believe in that sort of thing. From the old articles Grady and Dawson found, the family got off on the wrong foot with the owner of the farm next door, who wanted Hedda to sell to him instead. The Samuels and their neighbor reported minor acts of vandalism they blamed on each other.
Then the neighbor’s cow was found torn to pieces, and two teenagers went missing.
Frightened, suspicious neighbors needed an excuse and a target. Unfortunately for the Samuels family, they provided both.
“I can’t believe that no one was ever convicted of killing the Samuels,” Grady said, thinking that it was a beautiful day for such a gruesome task.
“You know what the small towns are like out here,” Dawson reminded him. “That sort of thing happened more often in the past than we want to think about. Still does. Methods change. Murder doesn’t.”
At the end of the overgrown road lay a large clearing that was gradually being reclaimed by nature. A massive tree rose from the ground where the driveway ended. Grady could see the hints of what might have once been a flower garden, roses growing wild amid the weeds.
“The foundation’s here.” Dawson kicked lightly against a large stone set in the ground. They walked the house’s footprint, but nothing of the building or its contents remained.
“You think there’s a family cemetery?” Grady looked across the clearing.
“Maybe,” Dawson replied. “But did anyone bother burying the ones who were murdered?”
“Shit. What if their killers just strung them up and left them for the crows?”
As soon as he said it, Grady felt certain that was what had happened. “Let’s get the shovels.”
Grady grabbed one for him and Dawson, who then took a forked willow branch out of the duffel. “Been a while since I dowsed for graves,” Dawson admitted.
Tradition held that a dowsing stick in the hands of someone with talent could find hidden things—like fresh water, lost objects, and unmarked graves. Science might not validate the old practice, but plenty of granny witches swore by it, and the techniques were passed down by word of mouth from generation to generation.
“See, Daw? That psychic talent of yours is good for more than just giving you bad dreams,” Grady teased.
