The veil of death P. 1

Trevor James presents,

The Veil Of Death

A spine-tingling Mystery.....





CH.1.

West Texas 11 AM.

The Turner Residence.



Hot desert dry heat. Tumble weeds are playing about lazily in the distance. The sun is beginning to bare it’s teeth. Texas teeth. Sherriff Ike Donaldson is sweating profusely. A large, bowling ball of a man, with a bright red head. He is ¾ bald. The sheriff wears rattle-snake skin shoes. He is said to have slayed them solo with nothing more than his .22 Winchester after falling into a Cave full of fierce rattlers. Legend has it that he was bitten 13 times and somehow survived. Though when he is asked of the incident, the Sheriff calmly tips his wide brimmed leather hat and states, “ Sometimes ya’ git lucky, sometimes ya git’ dead.” It has become his mantra. The sheriff mostly uses this saying as a helpful tool in calming down the local drunks when they become rambunxious and start throwing spurs at ladies or feeding whiskey to the cattle . Though Sheriff Donaldson fingers his service revolver in lieu of his hat in those cases. While Sheriff has a reputation tough as nails, he is well known to favor diplomacy over violence. He is also wily as a fox; little goes on in this county that escapes his gaze. And currently he is gazing at the Turner residence. Former residence.

Donaldson was no forensic expert, but a man of instinct , gut feeling, premonition, etc…and he sensed darkness that morning along with his sugary breakfast cereal . The wind was whining ghostlike over him , and the front screen door was bouncing back and forth like a tennis player in a match. The door had been smashed open with some sort of blunt object., from the inside. Donaldson sits on his haunches, gritting his teeth and running sand through his fingers. He has just inspected the crime scene with his deputy, and is lost in deep thought. One solitary house is visible if you follow the sand being blown from his hand. It is The only residence for 3 miles. The Turner homestead; built in 1905 by Nathaniel Turner. A once cheery yellow shuttered , egg white house. The heat and sand has not been kind to it over the years. The loss of the family fortune in 1929 and Nathaniel’s suicide shortly after , have cast a grim pall over the family and the estate . The house is creaky in the wind and covered in decades of soot, sand, and weeds. It is reminiscent of an old Victorian mansion abandoned to rats and hoboes with their cocaine . In short, a ghastly and ominous sight Juxtaposed against the searing tan sand full of scorpions. Donaldson is annoyed the murderers hadn’t chosen the next house down the narrow dirt road. That would be sheriff Reid’s territory. “ Sometimes ya git lucky, sometimes ya git dead”.

The bodies would have remained undiscovered for some time, had it not been for the coyotes. Old man Wilburth had witnessed a pack of them licking their chops over a smattering of bones on the front porch. Though this kind of behavior is not abnormal to West Texas; the real clue that alerted old man Wilburth to something asunder was the reflection off a bright gold Texas belt buckle. He recognized it instantly and stopped his vehicle to observe the gleaming gold lying on the porch. The 14 karat gold Texas map belt buckle had originally belonged to Nathaniel Turner and been passed down to grandson David Turner . Now both deceased. The belt buckle and the house was all that was left off the once great family fortune . Old Man Wilburth pulled up close to the house and noticed several attic windows broken out and blood trails rolling down from the attic to the gutters, dripping eerily down the house and creating slithering trails that looked like snakes. . Old man Wilburth quickly shooed the coyotes away with his trusty single barrel shotgun( Ole Chester) , and drove his 1972 red Ford pickup immediately to the sheriff station.

Coroner’s report had listed the deaths between 2-4 weeks previously. But, it was hard to determine David Turners death, seeing how there remained scant evidence. It was assumed that David had died around the same time as his wife, Margaret Turner. Her body had not been touched by the Coyotes. Only flies and other critters had defiled her. The reason for this was, her corpse had been duct-taped to the ceiling in the attic. “ Duct-tape really is good for everything” Donaldson had remarked with lament to his most valuable deputy, Jose Sanchez. Sanchez grandparents were from Mexico. Though this did not affect his appetite for coffee and donught with the Sheriff. Sanchez was already gaining a slight potbelly from doughnuts and lack of excitement in the county. Donaldson liked it that way.” Sometimes ya git lucky, sometimes ya git dead”….

Walking gingerly inside the Turner residence ,Sanchez and Donaldson were hit with the strong stench of rotten meat. Both men instantly threw a dusty old bandana over their mouths . “ AWW hell Jose, I reckon this aint gonna be pretty” Donaldson muttered, “ I reckon you can wait outside if you don’t want to see this”. Jose stoically lowered his bandana and loudly replied “ sir, it is my duty”. The sheriff nodded paternally , hitched his britches up high and proceeded into the living room. Nothing seemed amiss in the room except for an outdated TV guide and a large coyote poo by the love chair. Donaldson briefly wondered if the poo might be considered evidence in this matter. He quickly shut the idea out of his mind and briskly entered the kitchen. The kitchen again seemed in order, besides the obvious smell of old milk. “ What do ya’ reckon them ol’e Turner folks was doing with these Sheriff?” Jose pondered aloud sheepishly looking at the old wooden kitchen table. Donaldson looked at the table and noticed 2 pairs of glazed over eyes staring back at him. “ What in the Tarnation is that Jose?!”. The table had 2 dolls standing erect in the center, both were close to 22 inches tall and made by Chinise workers . The dolls were apparently made from some foreign plastic,( though after an exhaustive chemical analysis a few days later it turned out to be an extremely common plastic and was a somewhat embarrassing moment for the sheriff who had some sort of vague lead involving communist agitators stirring up the West Texas population for some apparently nefarious purpose; and the Sheriff had to apologize to the Asian tourists he had detained for ludicrous reasons that no-one quite understood, especially not the Japanese tourists….) One doll was square and yellow with a long wiener shaped nose, the other was pink and somewhat reptilian. The yellow dolls aqua blue eyes pierced deep into the sheriff and gave him chills up his spine. Jose then explained that they were characters from the popular cartoon show “SpongeBob Square pants”. This appeared to be enigmatic. The Turners were a 60 something couple, that had never bore children. And furthermore, Turner was not the sort of man who would possess children’s toys. Sheriff Donaldson stared for a straight minute at the square one’s eyes. He had the look of a gunslinger in a QUICK DRAW-DUEL; to the death….



Donaldson has a terrible nightmare that night. In it, he is walking in a field of wheat, when a dust-devil picks him up silently from behind. He flies helplessley round and round in the vortex, soaring higher and higher. He see's the Turner house spontaneously appear for a moment and twirl around him. The Turners are in the attic window trying to shout something to him. But Donaldson cant hear. Just as soon as it appeared, the house dissolves into black flies that fly beyond the vortex. He looks up and sees, the sun? No wait, it’s moving! It as if the sun ( or something bright and at top of the funnel) was falling down and getting bigger and bigger. "Oh God! It’s going to crush me! he moans. As the object grows closer and closer, a heinous sound erupts. It is getting louder and louder and Donaldson realizes it must be coming from the yellow object. Laughter? It has a machine-gun rhy, high pitched and wild . A Madman? The yellow object now covers the entire top of the funnel and Donaldson realizes; It was the doll from earlier. The laughter grows louder and louder, more and more diabolic! The beasts eyes fix on him and a devilish smile becomes visible. The creatures vile yellow arms outstretched for embrace. And IKe- realizes- it- will- only- be a couple- of- seconds- until… he…. touched…. AGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!-



Donaldson wakes alone in his bed drenched in hot sweat, though the AC was at a cool 56 degrees. “ Just a dream, just a dream “ he repeats over and over , yet it had seemed so real. That yellow creatures soft and wet foamy grip was an agony worse than his wife’s death 2 summers ago. Sheriff Ike Donaldson cannot sleep the rest of the night; between memories of the blood spattered house and his dream. He makes a large pot of coffee and sheepishly opens the cap of a hidden flask of Jim Beam ,to give it some kick. He looks out behind from habit , to see if his wife was spying, but she is not. Donaldson Put on a Patsy Cline record and sits at the kitchen table. He opens the Turner case file and any pertinent information Jose felt fit to fetch for him. He soon discovers something deep in the Turner family history that both alarms him and excites him........

To Be Continued…