Chapter One, Morbid Memories

No one in this town would talk. It seemed as if I’d been working on this story for months, searching for at least a thread in the mystery I had been chasing. Something tangible that would point me in the direction of any answer. One after another, residents would relate a dry history of Rainesville. They had all left me parched and thirsting for more.

If not for vague, but bloody ghost stories remembered from my grandmother. If not for my mother refusing to speak of the town she grew up in. If not for a hundred other reasons, I wouldn’t be here chasing a legend. Possibly a legacy.

Finally, after making a multitude of phone calls, one of the townspeople pointed me to a Mr. Jasper Cotes. He would tell me what I wanted to know, they insisted, Jasper was so old that he didn’t care, so I should take a drive out to his cabin.

So, of course I leapt on the opportunity. Rain pelted my shoulders and back on the short walk to my car. A few large drops stung my cheeks with their force. Already I dreaded when the shower would end. Here in the south a quick thunderstorm meant an evening of choking humidity on a burning hot August day.

With the directions I had hastily scribbled onto the hotel notepad held tightly in hand, I drove off in search of Jasper. Before long, I found the landmark. A burned shell of a church sat at the corner of the crossroads I was to turn left on.

Ahead lie patchy forest, nearly choked out in some places with kudzu. Cooler air flooded through the open windows, along with the loamy scent of a forest. Near the middle of the narrow road another smell mingled with the regular ones. The sickly sweet scent of death rode the breeze. I figured a deer or other animal had found it’s way closer to the blacktop to die.

A few minutes later I pulled up to the Cotes farm. Steam rose from the silvery painted tin roof from the heat of the sun that was chasing away the passing rainstorm. It didn’t take long for the heat to build again, hopefully I would not end up soaked from sweat before my interview with Mr. Cotes was over.

Before I could knock, the screen door screeched a welcome. The man who stepped from the doorway had to dip his head on the way to the porch. I estimated him to stand six and a half feet tall later, but at the time I just stood there in wonder at the incredibly muscled ‘old’ man.

His hair reflected light much like snow. Deep lines creased his face, but his eyes struck me as those of a much younger man. Startling blue and clear as an unblemished spring morning, deep in hue and riveting. His gaze held me for a moment, before he motioned to one of the ancient rocking chairs on his porch.

“I know why you all are here, Ms. Rainey. I got a phone call from my neighbor telling me about the reporter from Greensboro who was gonna come and ask me for a sit down.” Jasper grinned. ” I reckon they might have told you a little more about me. Like how I ain’t all there and how I like to tell ghost stories.”

I shook my head. “No one said anything like that, Mr. Cotes. I just was told that you would tell me more about the history of this area. It seems to be a touchy subject with some of your neighbors.” Hoping he would actually tell one of his ghost stories, I leaned forward and asked.

“Do you like to tell stories?”

Jasper stood, “Give me a minute.” He mumbled, the screen door slamming behind him as he went back inside. I could hear him moving about inside. A few minutes later he emerged carrying a platter that held a large pitched of sunlight colored liquid. With the slices floating inside, it could only be homemade.

“I don’t go a’storyin’ without something to wet my throat.” He said while pouring me a glass.

“I’m going to tell you something from when I was a young’un. It still gives me the willies when I think of it.” He nodded to himself. “Yes, it sure enough does. But I’m going to tell you anyway, because someone needs to know.”

At the time, I wasn’t quite sure what someone needed to know. “Ok, I am listening, Mr. Cotes.” I told him, hoping he would begin shortly.

“Alright then, ready or not, this is what I have to say. Back when I was a child, a gang of us boys used to play in that burned down church up at the end of the road yonder. Yes, it was burned even then, though it was in better shape.”

I nodded.

“It was chilly, the day I am telling you about. Hell, it was damn near cold enough to freeze the dingle berries right off’s a hunting hound. It struck everyone odd, because it was only mid-September. The real chill never sets in good here until November, sometimes not even then.”

Mr. Cotes paused, cleared his throat and took a sip of his lemonade.

“Anyways, you can see the woods from here. Back when I was young there weren’t no road through there, just a little rough path that was about grown over. Poison oak, ivy, skunk weed, you name it, it grew on the sides of that damn path.”

” I cut through there on my way home when I knew I was gonna be late for supper. My mother didn’t abide any of us young’uns being late, so it was a rare thing. I took off towards home not paying any attention to my friends yelling to not go. Most of us was afraid of the Rainey Woods because of the stories our parents told about the place.”

Mr. Cotes again paused, and sipped his drink. A look of what might have been a remembered sort of fear crossed his face but was gone before I could really be sure.

” As I was saying, I didn’t pay them no mind. Mayhap it was my trying to be brave or just plain foolishness, but I went in laughing. After about a hundred feet into the woods, I stopped laughing and just walked for home. Was then that I heard footsteps behind me. Thinking it was one of my friends, I turned around about to hail them and stopped short. Weren’t no one there.”

“Now, that ain’t a really thick forest. You can see that from here. Some trees aren’t really more than saplings, even then. It’s what we call a ’strip wood’. Years before there was a thicker forest stripped of most of it’s trees. What you see now is re-growth. I could see through the trees and there was not a soul there.”

Another sip of lemonade.

” It was on my mind that one of the boys was trying to scare me, so I just turned and kept on for home. Then, I heard the sound again and this time I spun around fast because it was a lot closer. I looked as hard as I could, still not seeing anyone.”

“My bravery ran out of me like water slipping through a sack. I’d had enough of hearing things and not seeing someone. Let the other boys laugh when I told them, but I was going home as fast as I could.”

“I lit out of that spot running hell bent for leather. My Granny, god bless her soul, had told me some damned grisly things about what the old man Rainey had done to his family. The spot where I had heard the noises were just about where the barn had stood. Up ahead and to my right was the ruin of the house, but I just kept running.”

“Granny’s descriptions of the hooks he used to hang them boys of his burned into my mind. I could nearly see them as I ran. No, I didn’t know if there was a ghost after me, I just knew that there was usually a body to be seen when feet crunched dry leaves.”

” The sounds of someone running behind sped me on. Didn’t even risk a glimpse backwards, I might miss a step and fall over a log or old plow part. Whatever it was sounded as if it was right behind me. I heard saplings whipping, like whatever was plowing through them meant business.”

He stopped and stared towards the woods for a moment.

“Finally, I saw the break in the woods and the road beyond. I put some juice on my run, but a tree branch caught my jacket. I pulled right off it and jumped out of the little forest like an Olympic jumper I seen on TV once. You better know that I hightailed it home.”

“Later on that evening my mom came to me. She fussed about having to mend my coat. I had ripped it worse than I thought. On the back the rips were long. It looked like a few claws had cut right through it.”

Jasper took a long drink of his lemonade while the cicadas sang to fill the silence. It was several minutes before he spoke again, but this time I could hear the long suppressed terror in his voice.

“If I hadn’t been scared, I learned to be right then.”

We sat there a while longer and talked of more history. Jasper related the tales his grandmother had told him. She had known the Rainey family, had been one of the people present at the burning of Mr. Rainey’s body. His grandmother watched the smoke swirl, then bury itself into the earth instead of rising. Jasper said she had always carried a charm against evil with her ever after, then passed it to him.

When I left his farm, I was much more educated. I also took a different route then the one I came by.