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Blackwater Val
Last Updated : 2021-09-06
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Synopsis
Richard Franklin has left his Midwestern roots behind to live on the coast of Maine with his family. But in the autumn of the year 2000, he must return to his Illinois birthplace on a sorrowful journey. His wife Michelle has been killed in New England by a hit-and-run driver who is never found, so back home he comes with her cremated remains, to fulfill a final wish and on her birthday scatter her ashes in the park along the river in Blackwater Valley—simply Blackwater Val to locals—the small town where they both grew up and fell in love. With him he brings his six-year-old daughter Katie who still grieves for her lost mother: Katie, who can sometimes guess who’s going to be on the phone before it rings. Who can stop all the clocks in the house, and break up clouds in the sky with her mind, and heal sicknesses, and who sometimes sees things that aren’t there...people who are no longer alive. All gifts she inherited from her mother. Only something isn’t quite right in the Val. Sinkholes are opening up, revealing the plague pits the sleepy hamlet was built over in the 1830s, when malaria and cholera outbreaks ran riot. Mysterious bird and fish die-offs begin to occur, and Katie can see ghosts of the dead gathering all around. But what she can’t see is the charred, centuries-old malevolence which has been waiting for her, and wants her for its very own. Or the pale Sallow Man who haunts the town’s nighttime streets...or the river witch—another Blackwater Val, of sorts—each of whom will be drawn one by one into the nightmarish bloodletting about to take place. ©️ Crystal Lake Publishing
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Blackwater Val EPILOGUE
EPILOGUETHE COLD HANGS on, and on. Sinks in deeper. Lost within it, forsaken, the duped and the defiled wander the streets of the Val in a haze. Wondering what’s happened.One of them, Syd Cholke, enters her Regan Street apartment and drops onto the sofa. Slumps alone in the dark. Much later she hears the front door open and close, hears footsteps enter sheepishly. Then delicate, auburn-haired Alice Granberg sits down. No words are spoken between them. After a time Sydney goes to her and kneels and places her ear against the small hill of Alice’s belly, feels the baby roll lazily there. Soon both are dozing in this position, an empty birdcage on the end table nearby.Mrs. Wintermute shrieks inside her narrow prison below ground, breath hitching in and out. She begs and she wails . . . screaming, screaming . . . and eventually becomes quiet at long last. Meg Bilobran sits propped in her theater balcony seat, draped in sheet plastic, eyes flung wide and staring, as if waiting for the
Last Updated : 2021-09-06Blackwater Val CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT1“YOU NEED TO say goodbye,” Katie said, and Richard pulled off the road. Cornfields surrounded them on both sides here at the outskirts of town. The first snow of the season was melting, drifts of white caught between the rows.Reports were breaking over the radio about the previous night’s horrors. A spate of deaths in and around Blackwater Valley, and missing townspeople. Structures burnt to the ground. Palm Clemency had had a lot of questions, but Richard never faltered.Now it was time to leave.After they’d showered and eaten a little, recovered somewhat, Richard had gone to the Deadmond place first thing, found the door unlocked. Found George under the drop cloth in the basement where he and Tom had left him.Moving fast, Richard gathered up Blondie’s things: some toys, bowls, her memory-foam bed, loose cans of pet food and a large bag of dry nuggets, pills prescribed by the veterinarian for her arthritis pain—although he suspected she wouldn’t be need
Last Updated : 2021-09-06Blackwater Val CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN1SALT BRACED HIMSELF, centered his weight, and began to clamber to his feet. Slowly. First one, then the other. He looked toward the treeline as he did, saw the front end of the Chevy Blazer glinting there like silvery, lupine fangs, its chrome-plated steel grille guard catching light. A shudder wrenched through him. Still he rose, forcing himself erect, the war ax in his left hand.The others were drawing closer.Glee snatched at Katie fearfully, nestled her to her side. Croom glared into their faces. He bent, retrieved something near Dr. Mint’s fingers: the hypodermic syringe. He held it before him, flicked the plastic tube like he was testing it. “Gyaa . . . ?” his disfigured mouth emitted, a bad-natured grin forming. He thumbed the needle’s plunger, had placed one foot on the shovel handle. They wavered in uncertainty.Julian had gone quiet, head back, maimed arms and legs dangling as he levitated higher. Eyeballs rolled to white. He appeared to be in a t
Last Updated : 2021-09-06Blackwater Val CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX1THEY SWUNG TO witness Chip Priewe’s demented features, to see him pointing with the pistol and backing away. Soon everyone was looking, gazes upturned. The high wind which buffeted the trees and tore across the shadowed ground had caught Michelle’s cremains up, and up, keeping them aloft. Lifting and throwing them around with leaves and other bits of debris. Denying them respite—Out of this blizzard of swirled grit and ash, uncannily, shapes were forming.“The trees!” Priewe screamed, spittle flying from his mouth. His lunatic eyes shone moon-bright. “Oh, Christ. Hanging . . . in the trees. Can’t you fucking see them?”They did: apparitions in the night-dark limbs of the cottonwood. Something glimmering in the sleety rain. Thunder crashed and everyone jumped, lightning skittering throughout the clouds. The police chief howled.Shadows were coming to life in the tree branches, undulating with an inner light. Changing particle and position, reconfiguring. But
Last Updated : 2021-09-06
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