Free The Collected Horrors of Tim Wellman by Tim Wellman Page A

leaning against, were crosses
intermingled with curse words. It was the work of madness, not
desperation.
    "I didn't see this earlier," Steve said. "I
guess the fire blinded me a bit."
    "The crosses are exactly like the ones he wrote
on my chalkboard a few days ago," Evelyn said. "But there was just
a single statement, ' demons rot in hell '."
    "You shoulda seen the jail cell he was in,"
Bernie said. "Filled the walls with this same shit. Like he were
possessed er something."
    "I need to call in the county coroner," one of
the firemen said. "I'm not authorized to move a dead body until he
declares the cause of death."
    The sheriff bent down and grabbed the burnt and
crumbling flesh of Mister Allen's chin and opened his mouth. "I
don't see none of the usual reactions to being burned alive," he
said. "They usually choke on their tongue... teeth explode." He
brushed his hands together.
    "What does that mean?" Steve said.
    The sheriff held his flashlight closer to the
body and began to examine it closely. "Look there," he said.
    Everyone in the hallway moved closer except
Evelyn.
    "What are we seeing, Bernie?" Steve said.
    "Ain't completely sure," he said. "But I'll be
damned if that don't look like a knife wound to me. Right over his
heart." He stood up straight again and everyone backed away to give
the big man some room. "Cain't be certain. I reckon the coroner
will tell us when he gets here."
    Evelyn's mind was reeling. Stabbed. Becky had
mentioned it but at the time no one should have thought it was
anything other than being burned to death. She caught herself and
rested on a calmer thought. Becky had just mentioned a way of being
killed. She didn't know that was what happened; it was just
something that popped into her mind. She forced her own mind to
accept it was a reasonable conclusion to believe someone was
stabbed if a conversation about someone dying was overheard.
    "Anyway, let's all get out of here," Bernie
said. "We cain't do nothin' for him and the way this floor is
saggin' I'm scared we're all gonna fall right through any
minute."
    "You all go ahead," Steve said. "I wanted to
look for an old book up here, anyway." They all started to leave.
"Oh, Miss Crone, Evelyn, can you stay for a moment and give me a
hand?"
    She shrugged. "Yes, I suppose so," she said.
    He looked over her shoulder and remained silent
until he watched the last of the group go down the stairs. "Sorry,
I didn't want the others to know about this." He spoke softly so
that only she could here. "Follow me." He stepped over the body and
walked a few steps down the hall. She decided to follow without an
argument. "Take a look at this." He shined his light on a small
area on the floor that had some sort of design scratched into it.
"By the way, I looked you up on the internet," he said. "You posted
a lot of private information about yourself."
    "What?" she said.
    "Not on any newer accounts, but I found a blog
you had when you were a teenager," he said.
    "Oh," she said. She thought for a moment. "Oh
shit!" She ran her fingers through her long red hair and winced.
"That was a long time ago," she said. "I wasn't the happiest girl
in the world."
    "I'm not judging you," he said. "So, you were a
witch. I was a comic book geek in high school. Witchcraft,
whatever, doesn't matter to me what you choose to believe."
    "Well, it was just a phase," she said. "I
stopped believing in that stuff a long time ago."
    "Maybe you shouldn't have," he said. He knelt
down and ran his fingers over the scratches. "You can't make them
out in this light, but feel this."
    She knelt down beside him, careful to keep her
skirt modestly tucked between her legs. "Feels like writing."
    He grabbed her hand. "Start here and move to the
right. Feel the letters."
    She tried again. "Oh, okay, I can feel them,
now. S U S A N..." She jerked her hand back. "Yeah, okay, you're
trying to tell me Susan scratched this in the floor. How many
Susan's are there at this school this year, let alone over