The Uncanny Tales of Crush & Pound 1 Read online

  As he marched down the hall to his cubicle, he opened the file again and began reading over the circumstances surrounding the case. After flipping through the pages and scanning the information that had been gathered, he concluded to himself that the case was “just another” set of mysterious circumstances noted by locals after too many drinks at the local bar, and that he should probably pack his swimming trunks. Pound passed by Sherry’s cubicle on the way to his own, and she nearly knocked him down with yet another folder. Sherry Lance was a cute young lady who was hired on to be an administrative assistant with the potential to progress further, and she showed all of the tenacity of a seasoned field agent. If anything hot came in, she would typically study the details and obsess over which agent she thought should take the case.

  “Pound, are you going to the Outer Banks?” she asked, eyeing up his folder.

  “Unfortunately, and I don’t think there’s much to it that isn’t alcohol related. Why do you ask?” he replied, knowing full well she would spill whatever river of information she was harboring.

  “Hmm, I don’t know, there probably is more to that mysterious light show than you think, but this one I have here . . . is hot! And it can’t wait!”

  “I didn’t hear that since I am already out the door,” he said as he locked his computer, grabbed his briefcase, and saluted Sherry on his way down stairs. Sherry sighed to herself as he disappeared behind the exit door.

  **********

  The basement of the building held the parking garage, and the Department was allotted three vehicles for field work, one for each of its agents: Shakespeare Crush, Isaac Maxwell Pound, and Seth Hogan. At the moment, Crush had the full sized truck, which left the two 50-mpg hybrids for Pound and Hogan. Hogan was on vacation and had apparently disappeared, and Crush was sent to find him. Pound looked the two cars over, and as usual when he had the choice, he chose the one with the CD player. As he began to load the car, his cell phone began to vibrate. When he looked at the caller ID, he saw that it was Theresa calling.

  “Nuts,” he said to himself in disgust. Without acknowledging the call, he placed the phone inside his briefcase, started the car, and drove out of the parking garage into Baltimore. “She’s the boss, so she can live with the decisions she makes,” he thought to himself.

  **********

  The trip from Baltimore to the Outer Banks was about a six hour drive with traffic, and since he started out on a Friday morning, there were plenty of accidents and delays on I-95 to Richmond. By the time Pound arrived in Kitty Hawk, the few hotel rooms that were still available were filling up fast. In the end, he had to settle for a beachside motel with no shower and a barking dog over in the next unit.

  “I guess this is better than the campground option,” he thought to himself as he remembered a childhood family vacation that included head-to-toe mosquito bites and no HVAC.

  After unpacking and listening to the voicemails from Theresa regarding a possible change of assignments if he was still available in Baltimore, Pound smiled and began a quick study of the specific details of the case at hand. Apparently, there had been numerous sightings of the strange “light show” at a local lighthouse, the Bodie Island Lighthouse to be more specific. Local residents and park personnel had reported sightings of a full spectrum light show emanating from the room which housed the Fresnel lens. Park officials reported that the Fresnel lens was in operating condition, however, it was not designed to flash blue, red, and green as the sightings had reported. In short, the case may be a freak reflective change in the lens or even a hoax, but since the government was involved, the case had merited a rudimentary investigation by the DAM. To Pound, the procedure was simple: sit and observe the lighthouse for one night while reassuring the park officials and residents that the DAM is aware of the situation. In the event nothing happens, he should go back to the office to pick up the next folder. If another light show appears, Crush should get the case.

  Still, Pound could not help but feel a little uneasy when he realized that according to the literature, the correct pronunciation for the park was “body” island lighthouse.

  “Hmm. I wonder if there is anything to that,” he whispered to himself. Putting the folder away, he stretched his cramped legs from the long drive and scratched his chin in thought. “All right, enough work for today. I’m at the beach on a Friday night,” he said aloud. He quickly changed into a t-shirt and headed out to the pier to check out the waves and the beach life. After a short walk, Pound arrived at Duda’s Pier, and as he entered the double doors, he found that this beach was not as exotic as the ones that he normally frequented. No gambling and no parade of motorcycles with scantily clad ladies could be found. No, this beach was more of a family environment where children actually had room to build sand castles and where radios were not allowed to blast music at 110 decibels.

  After watching the waves come in and observing a half-lit fisherman pull in fifteen bony, undersized sea bass, Pound decided he had experienced enough of this sleepy little village and that it was time to drink to the health of Theresa Tatum for sending a middle-aged single bachelor to Bodie Island. On his way out, he stopped to ask the pier attendant if he could point him to any night life, and after the attendant tried to sell Pound on exploring the menu of the pier restaurant, he reluctantly handed him a coupon book to all the local dives.

  “Thanks,” Pound replied as he dusted his feet off at the exit and made his way to Tortilleo’s, a local bar housed inside a rundown beach home that specialized in fish tacos. When he arrived, the parking lot at the little house was full, and he was forced to park the two-seater hybrid by the dumpster, exactly where it belonged.

  “There’s no wait at the bar,” the hostess said as she pointed to the small bar in what appeared to be the living room of the old home.

  “Besides cramps, what does it take to get a seat at the toilet?” he commented as he wiped crumbs from the bar.

  “What’ll you have, buddy?” the bartender inquired. He was obviously not taken back by the dragon tattoos tracking up Pound’s arms, and Pound appreciated that greatly.

  “A rum and coke, and anything you know about Bodie Island,” Pound replied.

  “Oh, I guess you’ve been hearing the tales, huh,” he said as he poured the rum. “If you believe everything you hear, though, you won’t be back.”

  “Come again?”

  “Oh, nothing,” the bartender said as he slid the mixed drink over. “History goes back a long ways, if you think about it. What do you think this place was like before the colonists came?” he asked with a pause. “It was ruled by natives, you know.”

  “I see. Meaning?”

  “I mean this isn’t the first time strange things, unexplained things, have happened around here. Indian spirits are everywhere around.” Pound gave the man a sideways glance of doubt as he continued. “Don’t believe me, eh? What do you think happened to the Lost Colony, then?”

  The bartender moved on, and Pound drained his glass, paid his tab, and moved outside to watch the sunset by the dumpster. Clouds had rolled in and lightning was passing from one dark cloud to another in the purple sky, making almost a magical, mystical evening light show. Pound thought the time had come to visit Bodie Island.

  A short drive down Croatan Highway and then a left turn following the Bodie Island Lighthouse signs, and Pound was in sight of the old lighthouse. At the entrance to the property, a chain was pulled across the drive, blocking the way in for the night. The park hours were posted on the sign, and no one was allowed in after 6 p.m. during the season. Scanning each direction, no park rangers were in sight, so Pound stepped over the chain and into the protection of the tall pine forest just past the ranger outpost.

  “Mosquitoes! Can’t get away from them!” he murmured to himself as he swatted his neck. “The bugs here probably carried off the colony,” he thought to himself. The hike through the small forest was relatively flat, but loaded wit
h thorns which were digging into his skin and drawing even more mosquitoes with the scent of fresh blood. At the end of the path, there was a white two story house along with the lighthouse, which was currently under construction with scaffolding from top to bottom. As he was judging the distance of the open field between himself and the lighthouse and how to get across without being noticed, a twig snapped behind him. Surprised he quickly turned to find a young lady in a ranger uniform with a pistol in one hand and a club in the other.

  “Who are you, and what are you doing here?” she asked in a stern, professional manner.

  “My name is Agent Pound from the Department of Adventures and Mysteries. You can put that gun away.”

  “I’ll be the judge of that, Mr. Pound. Put your hands behind your head and turn around,” she commanded. Pound reluctantly did as he was asked, and she padded him down and retrieved his wallet from his back pocket. Putting the club away and getting out her flashlight, she examined his identification and badge and then began questioning.

  “Do you always trespass on assignment, Agent Pound?”

  “No, usually I’m greeted with courtesy,” he answered.

  “I’m sorry. Didn’t you read the posted park hours on the sign when you parked out front,” she said as she handed him back his wallet. “You can put down your hands now.”

  “Thanks,” he replied as he turned back around to face her. “So what exactly has been going on around here?”

  “This way,” she said as she motioned for Pound to follow her toward the two story house. The wind was picking up along with the lightning, and between clouds in the sky, he could make out a full moon peeping through and illuminating the abundance of plant life surrounding the lighthouse. Perhaps he had been incorrect in his initial judgment of the effectiveness of his abilities here. There seemed to be a significantly higher density of plant life than he would have expected.

  A flash and boom of thunder brought him back to reality, and he and the ranger broke out in a run for the porch of the house. “I didn’t catch your name,” he yelled out to her over the wind.

  “Oh, my name’s Jessica,” she said as she fumbled through the ring of keys. After trying four different keys on the lock, she finally managed to unlock the door just as another flash of lightning struck and the rains came pouring down. They bolted inside to the park store and put on a pot of coffee as they waited out the storm.

  “So tell me what you know about Bodie Island, Jessica,” Pound inquired.

  “There isn’t much to tell. There is a lighthouse here and a lot of mosquitoes,” she replied chuckling. She had become more comfortable with Pound as they talked, and she decided that it was acceptable to share her own experiences. “But I suppose you mean concerning the light show out there. To begin with, there isn’t much to describe. The beam from the lens is just your normal white light, only concentrated so that it’s visible for several miles. Recently, there have been other colors of light, green, red, blue, even purple.”

  “That’s what the report says, but couldn’t someone have placed another light source inside, causing the rainbow of colors?” he asked.

  “You know, that’s what I thought at first,” she said as she pointed out the window to the lighthouse. “But if you look closely, the lighthouse is in the midst of a reconstruction project, and the stairs that lead to the top have been removed.” Another lightning strike lit the night and a red glow emanated from the lens as they watched. Then a shutter slammed shut against the front window with a crash, and they both jumped in surprise.

  “I see your point. What about the scaffolding? Someone could climb it and get inside the lens room, couldn’t they?”

  “That is exactly what I first thought. But the scaffolding only goes halfway up the outside of the lighthouse. To get to the top, they would have to scale the last half without any help, and that just doesn’t seem likely.” As the words were passing her lips, another lightning strike collided nearby, and the lights flickered out as a transformer exploded in a shower of sparks and electricity. Now they were left with only the red glow of the lighthouse peering through the window. Before Jessica could get her flashlight turned on, another crash came from the front of the house. This time it was the door.

  WHAM!!! And then another, and when Jessica clicked on the flashlight and shined it at the door, she saw that the casings at the lock were shattered and the knob was jiggling as if someone were trying to get in.

  “Tell me there’s another ranger on duty,” Pound whispered.

  “Just me. I’m the night watch,” she whispered back apprehensively, as if just uttering the words were taboo. “I work alone,” she continued as the knob began to turn ever so slowly. Before she could say anymore, bit by bit the door sluggishly opened. Backlit by yet another strike of lightning, a skeleton stood in the darkness of the door frame.

  No words passed their lips as the investigator and the ranger bolted through the back door and out onto the back porch, only to find that the house was surrounded by a patchwork of skeletons, some with missing limbs or extremities, standing ankle bone to knee bone deep in mud and rain. The next few seconds seemed an eternity, as Jessica and Pound broke into a sprint toward the lighthouse through the grasp of the reaching undead as they pawed in on the living. Pound connected his elbow to the shoulder of one bony assailant, and then struck another with the loose shoulder blade of the first, shattering the skeleton’s forearm and freeing Jessica to hurdle over the construction netting and dash up the front steps of the lighthouse. Again, she fumbled with the keys, and in spite of her shaky hands, she found the right one, unlocked the door just in time for them to enter, and slammed the door shut on the feet of two more skeletons that had nearly slid in behind them.

  Breathing a temporary sigh of relief, Jessica slid down the length of the door onto the floor and jumped in fright as the broken toe bones danced like jumping beans on the tiles. Pound, however, was mesmerized by what he saw inside the lighthouse. In the center of the round room, a red beam of light originated from the floor, shooting straight up through the vertical axis of the lighthouse and disappearing through the floor of the lens room at the top of the structure.

  “What is that?! What’s happening!” Jessica gasped.

  “I have no idea, but that has to be the source of the mystery,” Pound answered as he pointed the scapula at the beam of light. “Do you have a shovel?”

  “No, I don’t have a shovel! I have a gun! Do you want to shoot our way out! Oh yeah, they’re already dead,” she shouted with a bite of sarcasm and fright mixed together for good measure.

  “Right,” he replied and began searching for any item he could use to excavate. In the bottom stair landing, there was a closet, and reaching his arm inside the dark cubby hole, he felt a crowbar and sledge hammer leaning against the wall. Using them together, he pounded the sharp edge of the crowbar into the tiles in the center of the red beam, breaking the tiles loose and revealing the subfloor of wood.

  “What’s under here?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. I’ve never defaced the lighthouse to see what’s underneath!” she replied as dust and bits of wood flew out from the door molding. “Hurry!” she screamed.

  Pound struck several more mighty blows into the floor, and the center collapsed inward, unexpectedly taking Pound down with it. After falling for what seemed an eternity, he struck the bottom shoulder first into what appeared to be a concrete structure in the shape of a well. The red beam of light was centered in the mud at the bottom of the well, and Pound grabbed the loose shoulder blade to begin an excavation into the beam. Within a few minutes he was knee deep in muck and filthy water when he struck something solid as he drove down mightily with the blade. Tossing the bone shovel aside, he submerged his body in the mud and brought up the remains of a skull from the base of the newly plowed pit.

  As he held it up high for examination, red light pulsed upward through the eye sockets in a rag
ged throb, almost like a heartbeat. As the skull throbbed and the red eyes flashed, a peace settled over Pound’s countenance. Then his eyes became heavy, and his head began to nod with exhaustion. Pound held onto the skull with one hand as his knees buckled under him. One side of his face splashed into the murk at the bottom of the well, and Pound lay at the bottom of the cylindrical opening to the netherworld with only millimeters separating his lips and nose from drowning in mud. All the cares of the world were tossed to the side as the skull pulsated in his hand.

  Suddenly, a cry for help rained down from Jessica above and brought Pound out of the trance induced by the skull. Pulling his face and body out of the water, Pound rose back onto his feet. With focused concentration on the vines and brush in the landscape surrounding the lighthouse, Pound began to make cerebral contact with the vegetation. For long minutes, he stood patiently in the pit holding the skull in his hand, while in the chamber above, the skeletons burst through the door and snatched Jessica from the lighthouse.

  Silence fell across the park with only the sounds of the storm in the background. A vine twisted and turned and weaved its way from the forest through the front door of the lighthouse, slowly snaking down into the well. Seconds later, Pound crawled up the vine through the damaged floorboards of the chamber with the skull tucked away in his shirt.

  Outside of the lighthouse, hundreds of skeletons gathered together hand-in-hand around the perimeter of the property, and two grimy skeletons held makeshift blades against Jessica’s throat in the center of an emaciated circle of the undead. By the various rags dangling from the zombie-like creatures, Pound believed the skeletons to be of native origin, but he could not discern whether they were victims of some tribal war or massacre, or whether they each died of natural causes. What he could tell was that they were summoned there by the skull. Holding the red beacon above his head, he approached the two undead restraining Jessica, and offered the skull to them in exchange for her. They released her, shoving her to the ground at Pound’s feet, and with outstretched arms they received the skull together in place of the park ranger. Unexpectedly, the mass of undead bowed before the prize, and then they rose as one tribe forming a procession, walking past the lighthouse and out into the ocean water.