curtains. The widow was not joking about the curse of Ashmere.
The night passed slowly, neither man getting any sleep. Leonard fidgeted all night as well, occasionally growling at one sound or another. Dawn came eventually and with it the fog again. Both men were ragged, extremely tired, and ready to get out of there.
Terri came out of her room and saw the two men packing up.
“So you survived the night huh?”
“Yes ma’am, but we are getting out of here.”
“What about your Inspector?”
“He must have been taken by those lunatics. If he didn’t come here, then there is nowhere else for him to have gone, especially for this long.”
“I see, well, you boys take care of Leonard now.”
“We will thank you.”
Chin and Derrick finally got the car loaded and left the Widow Waters’ house and headed back into town on their way back to the home office. Derrick didn’t want to go through Ashmere, but the only road out of the hamlet left from there.
Once they enter the city limits, Derrick noticed more activity than the previous day. People were out and about, doing business as if everything were normal. Derrick decided that the local sheriff might be in his office today, so they took a small detour to the station.
There were a couple of police vehicles parked outside the station when Derrick pulled up. He gave Chin a quick glance and they all exited the vehicle and made their way inside. This time, the receptionist, who was the same woman as the day before, greeted them as if she had never seen them before.
“Good morning, and welcome to Ashmere. How can I help you?”
Taken aback, Derrick took a moment before answering.
“We were in here yesterday. I am Detective Cowley, this is K9 Officer Chin Po and K9 Leonard. We are investigating the disappearance of Inspector Drumwell.”
“I don’t remember seeing you yesterday, maybe you came at lunch. Drumwell doesn’t ring a bell either. Do you want to talk to the Sheriff? He knows more than I do.”
“Yes, please”
While the receptionist buzzed for the Sheriff, Derrick and Chin gave each other another unknowing glance, something was very off here. Before they could ponder the situation further, the sheriff showed up.
“How may I help you?”
“We’re looking for Inspector Drumwell. He came to Ashmere about a month ago to inspect the beef that you’ve been sending out of here.”
“Drumwell, Drumwell, doesn’t sound familiar. Let me call a couple ranchers and see if they know your friend.”
The sheriff left the two men and dog in the lobby and made a couple of calls. Within five minutes he was back.
“The ranchers haven’t heard of him.”
“Thank you sheriff. I’ve got another question; do you or anybody on your staff remember missing time?”
“Like taking a nap, maybe, this is a quiet town.”
“No, like an entire day goes by and nobody remembers it.”
“Not that I know of, that would be out of the ordinary.”
“Yes it would. Thank you sheriff.”
The men exited the building and got back in their car. Derrick started the car and they drove out of town. It wasn’t long until they were in the forest again and Derrick pulled over.
“What are you doing? We need to get out of here.”
“What are we going to tell the chief? Ashmere is full of lunatics that come out at night and try to eat us. Nobody has seen Drumwell in a month, he must have gotten eaten. He will send us to the psych ward faster than you can spit. We will never be able to work again for being the laughing stock.”
“What do you want to do, go back and look in every house and barn for the remains of Drumwell?”
“I don’t know, lets drive out to the next town and see if Drumwell stopped there. If we can be sure that he went into Ashmere, then we will go back.”
The two continued on, until they came to the next town. They stopped at the first gas station and inquired about Drumwell. As luck would have it, the clerk worked every day and remembered seeing Drumwell stop to refuel his car and grab a snack. So it was confirmed that the inspector had made it this far. Derrick borrowed the phone at the service station and called his home office to check in and give a report. He left out the bit about the lunatics, but told them that he had not found Drumwell, or anybody who remembered the inspector in Ashmere, but he had made it to the nearest town outside.
Derrick fueled up his car and bought snacks in a futile effort to delay the drive back into the accursed hamlet. But eventually, all preparations had been made and they could not procrastinate any further.
Finding nothing else to distract them, they steeled their nerves and drove back into the forest towards Ashmere. Once again, the fog descended rapidly. They ate their snacks in an effort to keep the eerie feeling of being watched out of their mind. Then, the now familiar shriek came in over the radio, that didn’t make the occupants of the car any more immune to it than the first time. They drove along in silence until they got back to the town. This time, it was like the first time they came to town. The streets were vacant. Derrick drove back to the sheriff’s office and went in alone. The receptionist gave him the same blank stare as the previous day, he didn’t even bother trying to communicate with her, he just left and got back in the car.
“We need to get back to the Widow, and ask her more questions. The receptionist has gone blank again.”
“Maybe it’s a time of day thing, like the closer it gets to sundown, the more they fall under the effect.”
“I don’t know, but the Widow isn’t affected by it.”
They drove back to the widow’s house. She was standing on the porch by the time they came to a stop.
“You boys came back quickly; I didn’t realize the country charm that my bed and breakfast had.”
“We can’t go back until we have some concrete evidence.”
The men went inside the house and explained to Widow Waters what had happened at the sheriff’s station.
“I think you had better unpack your car again, it sounds like you’re going to be here for a while.”
Chin and Derrick once more, unloaded the car and took their belongings up to the rooms that they had previously occupied. By the time they were done, dinner had been prepared and set out.
The three of them set down to the table and went about the meal. Derrick nor Chin had much of an appetite and as a result, didn’t eat much. Once again, as the sun was going down, the police scanner shrieked, signaling the end of the day and the beginning of another horrible night. The two bade the widow goodnight and went upstairs to resume their watch on the landing. This time though, they were less edgy. Perhaps it was because they knew what was ahead, but they weren’t as paranoid as the previous night.
As a result, they were braver. Derrick had the curtains pulled back on the upstairs window and kept an eye out it, to look for the lunatics. Once the fog broke up and the moon rose, Derrick saw a sight that he really wasn’t expecting. A dozen of robed figures were walking up the hill surrounded by scores of nearly naked people that were scampering this way and that. All this was being done without a single torch or any speaking. Derrick motioned to Chin to come look out the window and was rewarded with Chin’s eyes bulging as soon as he comprehended what was happening.
“Sweet mother of Mary” Chin whispered as he saw the oncoming dark figures.
Derrick waited for them to start entering the house to come get them, but as he watched, the robed ones walked to the side of the house and down into a previously unnoticed cellar. The naked horde shambled around the house, making no noise except their quiet footfalls. They did not care what was in front of them, Derrick watched as a few walked over the car. They just kept moving in a counter-clockwise motion around the house in a continuous stream of human flesh.
Derrick recognized the receptionist from the sheriff’s office and a few other f
aces from this morning. For hours the lunatics kept this up, Chin and Crowley felt their hair rise on end. Finally, all the tension left the air in a flash. This was followed by the robed figures leaving the cellar and walking back down the hill, surrounded by the nearly naked lunatics. An hour later the sun rose.
“We have to see what is in that cellar. I don’t think the Widow Waters is telling us everything.”
Minutes after the sun had risen, and the fog was already settling down, they made their way outside to the cellar. A heavy pad lock barred their way. Fortunately, Chin knew how to pick it and soon they had opened the door. The stone steps were well worn and obviously recently used. The smell of burnt flesh wafted out of the cellar.
“Do you want to take Leonard down there and investigate, while I stay up here and make sure that nobody closes the doors on us?”
“No, how about we take the hinges off the door and keep the padlock with us. Then we both go down.”
“Fair enough”
It took the men five minutes and a ratchet from Derrick’s car to take the hinges off. With no threat of being locked in the cellar, the two men let Leonard go first and descended into the darkness. They both carried flashlights and had their service pistols out. When they reached the bottom of the stairs, they looked out across the cellar, amazed at the sight before them.
The center of the room had a pentagram painted on the floor, with a small pile of ash in the middle. The walls had heavy curtains adorning them, but when Derrick drew one back, he was greeted an