HAUNTED HEADS

a novella by Gary Canup

Chapter 1

It was late at night and the deputy sheriff was cruising down the lonely country road. His headlights illuminated the dense brush overgrowing the barbed-wire fences that bordered each side of the road. A rabbit darted out of the brush and narrowly escaped extinction beneath one of his tires. He cruised past a short row of mailboxes that stood beside the entrance to a gravel lane, one of the boxes yawning sleepily in the night. Moths materialized out of the darkness like miniature ghosts, most of them floating over the top of the car, but a few of them proving their corporeality by splattering against his windshield.

There were no streetlights, no lights of any kind, until he spotted, ahead and to the right, visible through a distant woods, what appeared to be a fire, a farmhouse on fire. Just then his headlights conjured out of the darkness a young woman gowned in white, frantically waving her arms and running towards him down the middle of the road, and he slammed on his brakes and skidded to a halt within feet of her. Uplit horrifically by the headlights, she ran to his side window with her pale face shouting words that he could not hear until he lowered the glass.

"Officer, you have to help me!"

"Yall crazy?" he said.

"No but he is! He's burning down his grandfather's house!"

"Who is?"

"Tyler! Tyler Fenton!"

The deputy peered again in the direction of the farmhouse, which was nothing but a knot of orange flame visible through tree trunks black like the charred pillars of a ruined temple.

"Get in," he told the young woman.

She climbed into the rear and closed the door breathing heavily and the deputy sped away, drawling into his handset. "Warren County Fire Department. Come in, Harry."

The radio crackled to life as though clearing its throat after a brief snooze and a sleepy voice drawled back, "What's the trouble, Walter?"

"Got some excitement, Harry. There's a fire at the old Fenton place. Send your boys over there on the double."

"We're on our way, Walter."

The deputy hung up the handset. He glanced into the rearview mirror. Her face was dully pale and even reflective for a moment in the feeble light of a filling station before plunging once again into darkness.

He slowed at a rusty mailbox on which was hand-painted FENTON and turned down the narrow gravel lane and accelerated again, gravel clattering against the underside of his squad car. In the red glow of the taillights a wake of dust floated. The fire was ahead and to the left now. He peeked again into the rearview mirror. She was nothing but a silhouette now, still trying to gain control of her breathing.

"What's your name, miss?"

"Nattie," she replied, as though her mind were on something else.

"Yall from the city?"

"Yes."

"Anyone inside that house I should be calling an ambulance for?"

"No. It's just me and him."

"So why's he burnin' down his grandfather's house?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."

"I'd appreciate an answer, miss."

"He says his grandfather is trying to kill him."

"His grandfather? But the old man's been dead for over three years."

"Tyler's gone mad. That's the only explanation."

The deputy turned into the semicircular gravel drive in front of the two-story farmhouse, which was now half ablaze. They got out of the car, their faces lit with yellow and orange light. The entire veranda was aglow, flames were starting to dance in the dormer windows, and sparks spiraled into the overhanging boughs of surrounding trees. The deputy saw the figure of a young man with a can of gasoline in the glare to the left of the farmhouse, splashing gas onto the side of the house.

"Hey, you!" the deputy called.

"Tyler!" the young woman cried.

"Don't yall know that's against the law?" the deputy yelled.

"Tyler, stop it!" the young woman pleaded in an anguished voice.

The young man continued to douse the side of the farmhouse with gasoline even as the deputy began his approach. Suddenly fire from the side of the house raced back along the flying arc of gasoline to ignite the five-gallon can the young man was holding and at once the young man's clothing was aflame.

The young woman named Nattie screamed.

"Oh, hell!" the deputy exclaimed, breaking into a run.

He tackled the young man to the ground and rolled him around in an effort to extinguish the flames. The young woman was sobbing behind them. The deputy peeled off his leather jacket and used it to smother the flames on the young man's clothing. Tyler Fenton struggled against the deputy's efforts and gazed up into his face not with gratitude but with horror, as though he were seeing his grandfather there.