Shadows of Lives Once Lived
by Jeffrey Scott Holland - part 8

She trembled. "His lungs were gone without a trace. When Truman heard this, he told Jackie. They got kinda scared. Ten years after George died on Halloween, I thought I heard that old gate out front squeak. I thought Truman must be home early from work because I looked at the clock and it was just 2:30. After a minute or two, I looked out and the gate was open but nobody was there. Later I was told that at 2:30 Truman had been killed at work. A bulldozer had gone out of control and crushed him."

Ray started to wonder if she was on the level, or if she was just messing with him. "Are you serious?"

She looked him straight in the eye. "I am dead serious. After I told Jackie what had happened, he lost it. He adopted that black boy because he thought it would make things right. I guess it didn't. Eventually, it got to him so bad that he started acting really senile. He mumbled to himself a lot. I guess it finally got him. How did he die?"

Ray looked up at her. "I'm not exactly sure yet. I think it was a heart attack."

She looked kind of surprised. "Hmmm... That's odd."

He got up to leave. "Thank you for telling me all of this. You don't know how much I appreciate it. When I find out how he died, I'll let you know."

She grinned. "Thank you. I would like that. You have a nice day now. I'll see you at the festival I hope."

He smiled. "Yeah, I'll be there." He went out the door and got into the patrol car.

Ray stopped back at the station to look up some files. He wanted to see if he could verify what Lorene had told him. As he looked over the files for George Mackey and Truman Weston, he saw what she had told him was true. They had both died mysteriously.

He started to leave and go to the festival when he noticed a stack of faxes that had been received. It was the autopsy report for Jackie Miller. He could feel the hair rise on the back of his neck as he read it.

The report said Jackie Miller's arteries had been burned to a crisp, as if his blood had been lava. They had extracted his heart, which was black and crispy, for further analysis. It was a medical first, and the lab had already made arrangements for experts to come in and examine it.

By the time Ray got to the festival, it was dark. He found Danny and told him what he had found out. Danny was shocked, or maybe he was scared. Ray couldn't tell.

Danny said, "At least three different people have told me that when they drove by the old Mackey place, they saw people walking around out there. I asked them if it was kids wanting to have fun on Halloween, and they said they didn't know. They just looked like shadows."

Ray grabbed Danny's arm. "Come on! Let's get out there!"

Danny followed him. "Okay, I just need to stop at the bathroom for a minute."

There was a strange, foggy mist hovering above the ground as the headlights of the car came into view. As Danny drove up the road, Ray loaded his gun. He didn't know if it would do any good, but it made him feel better anyway. They pulled over to the side of the road in front of the house and observed the movement in the yard.

Ray tried to determine what was moving, "What is that?"

Danny didn't try to answer. Instead he just sat there with his mouth open. Finally, he realized what he was seeing and mumbled, "Shadows, I guess."

Ray could make out at least five shadows. They looked like silhouettes of people in front of the porch. They slowly moved closer towards the car, as if they were dragging their feet.

Ray rolled down the window and fired a warning shot into the air, but the shadows continued to move toward them. They had no idea what kind of thing they were dealing with.

Ray turned to Danny as he rolled the window back up. "Get us out of here!"

Danny already had cranked the motor back up and floored it. They drove on down the road and turned around.

Ray asked, "What are you doing?"

Danny turned the car around. "I'm going back, but I'm not slowing down for anything!"

Ray looked over at the speedometer as it approached 70 mph. As they approached the old Mackey place, they both looked over to see the shadows back up around the porch again. Danny turned back to see the road again, and began to slow down.