It was pure luck that I picked up Pastor Davies’ trail in New Hampshire.
When I did, I hated him all the more.
I was in the town of Amherst, and I came upon a funeral. They were preparing to lower the body into the ground, and, out of respect, I stopped and took off my hat.
The coffin slipped as it was lifted into place, and there was a decidedly loud thunk from within as the head of the deceased struck the coffin’s lid. What surprised me was not the noise, but the spot in the coffin from which it came.
It was lower than it should have been, and a gentleman standing nearby must have seen my expression.
“This is the only coffin ready-made,” the man informed me in a low voice. “No one had a child’s coffin prepared.”
I looked at him, and he continued.
“The truly sad part is, we don’t even know the child’s name. He and his father stopped by yesterday morning, took a room at the back of Ms. Susan’s, and then; the man asked her to keep an ear out for his son. He said he was going to the grocer for a bit of milk. The child, he told her, was feeling sickly.”
The man cleared his throat. “Well, Ms. Susan’s the mother of five herself, so she agreed. When lunch came round, she knocked on the door to check on the boy, and she found him inside. He’d been strangled. His father’s handprints stood out on his neck. It’s why we put him in the ground so quickly. Those damned prints. I hope to God they catch him.”
“I’ll keep my eyes open,” I said. “What does he look like?”
“He shouldn’t be hard to see,” the man said. “He was a man of the cloth. A pastor, I believe.”
I listened with growing hatred as he described Pastor Davies in exquisite detail.
I waited until they finished burying the Davies’ boy, and then I went on my way.
While I had wanted to kill Pastor Davies for accidentally slaying my friend, I was going to torture the son of a bitch for murdering his son.
He’ll die with my hands around his throat, and I’ll make it last as long as I can.
#horror #monsters #supernatural #death
