Drummer Boy: A Supernatural Thriller (38 page)

Surrendering to a cause greater than yourself.

Vernon Ray finally understood, and he changed the cadence to sound the retreat. Glory and honor were found as much in defeat as in victory. Maybe more so, when the war was senseless and never-ending.

We don’t belong together.

We’re not of this world, we don’t belong, so we might as well do it together.

Not so lonely that way.

Vernon Ray stepped back, tears leaking from his eyes, blurring the sad, frightened face of Bobby Eldreth. The colonel was dead, at least for now, though his uniform was turning to dust and his flesh was evaporating into the milk of mystery and yesteryear.

“Queer,” Dad yelled, slashing his saber at the air as if he could cut a path between their great gulf.

“Don’t go in there, son,” the sheriff yelled.

Hardy Eggers, high in the bulldozer’s cab, squinted at the Hole as if it were an old enemy, pushing the machine to its limit, black smoke boiling from its pipe. Donnie Eggers-another who didn’t belong-knelt in the mud, head bobbing as if he could still hear the snare over the rumbling diesel motor.

Vernon Ray imagined Donnie would continue to hear the muster call long after the battle was over, and would wake in the night and seek its direction in the wind.

Then the cool, comforting embrace of the shadows took him, and he marched backward into the Jangling Hole, home at last, free to be, belonging.

Drumming his heart out, the sticks dancing in his hands like old friends and lovers, the troops rallying around him.

Dad was mouthing insults that were drowned by the bulldozer. His last glimpse of daylight was the sheriff yanking Bobby away, and Vernon Ray wished he could say good-bye and tell him of a love lost, or maybe a love never known, but in the end Bobby belonged to that other world.

The last thing he saw was Bobby struggling against the sheriff’s grip, reaching toward Vernon Ray and the Hole.

Then the bulldozer blade smashed into the granite boulders framing the cave, a cruel cannonade into the gates of Kirk’s stronghold. Stones loosened, soil spilled down, the phantom soldiers let loose a desperate moan as they prepared to die all over again.

As the earth showered down around him, Vernon Ray played on.

Halloween had passed, but its shadow clung to the mountain where two boys walked the ridge.

Dex kicked in the dirt, looking for souvenirs. Dex would love to have a bone, a junky piece of rusted metal, maybe even Vernon Ray’s little Rebel cap, anything to prove he’d trespassed and defied yellow tape that blared “Police Line-Do Not Cross.”

Bobby wished Dex would find something, because they all wanted proof that the Battle of Mulatto Mountain had actually happened.

Well, not everybody. The sheriff seemed perfectly happy to make it all disappear, but the reporter made sure it didn’t get buried along with Vernon Ray. Her digital photographs had all been blurred and smoky, and Hardy Eggers, after making bail on a vandalism charge, had invoked his right to remain silent and was likely to keep it for the rest of his life.

Jeff Davis was the picture of the bereaved parent, so shaken that he’d cancelled the Stoneman’s Raid re-enactment, though he’d been spending most of his time locked away in the room that housed his Civil War memorabilia.

Bobby had gone over to the Davis trailer once, when his mom had sent him with a bean casserole, that staple of southern comfort in a time of sorrow. Bobby heard Jeff talking to himself behind the door but hustled out before things could get weird. Dad was acting like Dad again, so Bobby saw no need to go questioning lineage and patriarchy. He had enough on his mind.

Like the pile of rubble around them and whatever path Earley Eggers had walked as he made his way home.

“So what really happened, man?” Dex said.

“I done told you,” Bobby said. Dex was getting on his nerves. Life without a best friend was hard on a guy. Dex just didn’t understand the real stuff, and talking to him about emotions was like talking to a chicken about the price of eggs.

“Yeah, sure, a bunch of baloney about ghosts,” Dex said. “I know you’re just making it up to get in Karen Greene’s panties.”

In truth, he couldn’t meet Karen’s eyes in the hall between classes. Whenever he did, he thought of Vernon Ray trying to kiss him.

“I’d rather have V-Ray back,” he said, studying the mounds of heaped dirt, stumps, and rocks. The heavy equipment brought in to search for Vernon Ray-or his body-was still parked around the clearing, though it had been three weeks since the runaway bulldozer had closed the Jangling Hole for good.

“I got to admit, it’s kind of creepy that they didn’t find him,” Dex said. “I mean, you saw the Hole. It couldn’t have been more than 10 feet deep. Where could he have
gone
?”

Bobby had wondered the same thing, but he didn’t know how to explain that maybe some people just weren’t made for this world. They came into it fresh and whole and good, but the world wasn’t ready for them.

Or maybe Vernon Ray was right: if you were different, you didn’t belong
.

Bobby gazed across the ridges that stretched in the distance like brown waves of a dirty sea. Autumn was giving way to winter, and soon even the brown would be a memory as all turned to gray.

“I guess he went everywhere,” Bobby said.
And I hope you fit in there
.

He picked up a rock and tossed it toward the closest gash in the soil. It bounced off an upturned tree root and settled on the black skin of Mulatto Mountain.

“You read too many comic books, dude.” Dex dug in his jacket pocket and pulled out a cigarette pack. “Want a smoke?”

Bobby shook his head.

Dex lit his cigarette and looked at the sky, where a dark swell of clouds were bloodied by the sundown. “Thunder?”

Bobby nodded again, a stone in his throat. He knew the suffocated rattle of a snare drum when he heard it

The beat goes on . . . .

“We better get out of here before it rains,” Dex said.

“Yeah.” Bobby turned away from the disturbed rubble of the Hole and headed down the mountain.

Rain would be okay. It would come in silver with a liquid
tatta tatta tat
, beating its ancient pulse across the skin of the Earth. It would pound like a million drummer boys, so that Vernon Ray’s lonely rhythm could be lost among them. It would bathe the uncertain grave of the Jangling Hole. Rain would smooth the heaps of loose dirt, rain would sweep away the scent of decay, rain would wash the world clean.

Most of all, rain would veil his welling tears.

THE END

I have written 10 novels, including
The Red Church, Speed Dating with the Dead, Disintegration,
and
The Skull Ring
. Other electronic works include
Burial to Follow
and the story collections
Ashes, The First, Murdermouth, Gateway Drug,
and
Flowers.
I live in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, where I write for a newspaper, play guitar, raise an organic garden, and work as a freelance fiction editor.

Come to the Haunted Computer, become a Spooky Microchip, and help me build my next book. You’ll also find writing tips, free fiction, and survival tips.

Talk to me
via email
,
Haunted Computer on Twitter
, or
Scott’s blog
. If you enjoyed this book, please tell your friends and give another Nicholson title a try. If you hated it, why not try another one anyway? What doesn’t kill you only makes you stronger, and what
does
kill you is probably lurking in my next book. Read on for more.

You should read these other thrillers because you deserve a strange, daring adventure:

THE RED CHURCH

Book I in the Sheriff Littlefield Series

By Scott Nicholson

Stoker Award finalist and alternate selection of the Mystery Guild

For 13-year-old Ronnie Day, life is full of problems: Mom and Dad have separated, his brother Tim is a constant pest, Melanie Ward either loves him or hates him, and Jesus Christ won’t stay in his heart. Plus he has to walk past the red church every day, where the Bell Monster hides with its wings and claws and livers for eyes. But the biggest problem is that Archer McFall is the new preacher at the church, and Mom wants Ronnie to attend midnight services with her.

Sheriff Frank Littlefield hates the red church for a different reason. His little brother died in a freak accident at the church twenty years ago, and now Frank is starting to see his brother’s ghost. And the ghost keeps demanding, “Free me.” People are dying in Whispering Pines, and the murders coincide with McFall’s return.

The Days, the Littlefields, and the McFalls are descendants of the original families that settled the rural Appalachian community. Those old families share a secret of betrayal and guilt, and McFall wants his congregation to prove its faith. Because he believes he is the Second Son of God, and that the cleansing of sin must be done in blood.

“Sacrifice is the currency of God,” McFall preaches, and unless Frank and Ronnie stop him, everybody pays.

Learn more about
The Red Church
and the real Appalachian church that inspired the novel:
The Red Church

SPEED DATING WITH THE DEAD

By Scott Nicholson

A paranormal conference at the most haunted hotel in the Southern Appalachian mountains . . . a man’s promise to his late wife that he’d summon her spirit . . . a daughter whose imagination goes to dark places . . . and demonic evil lurking in the remote hotel’s basement, just waiting to be awoken.

When Digger Wilson brings his paranormal team to the White Horse Inn, he is skeptical that his dead wife will keep her half of the bargain. He doesn’t believe in ghosts. But when one of the conference guests channels a mysterious presence and an Ouija board spells out a pet phrase known only to Digger and his wife, his convictions are challenged. And when people start to disappear, Digger and his daughter Kendra must face the circle of demons that view the hotel as their personal playground. Because soon the inn will be closing for good, angels, can’t be trusted, and demons don’t like to play alone . . .

Learn more about
Speed Dating with the Dead
and the 2008 paranormal conference and inn that inspired the novel:
Speed Dating with the Dead

THE SKULL RING

By Scott Nicholson

Julia Stone will remember, even if it kills her.

With the help of a therapist, Julia is piecing together childhood memories of the night her father vanished. When Julia finds a silver ring that bears the name “Judas Stone,” the past comes creeping back. Someone is leaving strange messages inside her house, even though the door is locked. The local handyman offers help, but he has his own shadowy past. And the cop who investigated her father’s disappearance has followed her to the small mountain town of Elkwood.

Now Julia has a head full of memories, but she doesn’t know which are real. Julia’s therapist is playing games. The handyman is trying to save her, in more ways than one. And a sinister cult is closing in, claiming ownership of Julia’s body and soul . . . .

Learn more about
The Skull Ring
and False Recovered Memory Syndrome:
The Skull Ring

DISINTEGRATION

By Scott Nicholson

Careful what you wish for.

When a mysterious fire destroys his home and kills his young daughter, Jacob Wells is pulled into a downward spiral that draws him ever closer to the past he thought was dead and buried.

Now his twin brother Joshua is back in town, seeking to settle old scores and claim his half of the Wells birthright. Jacob’s wife Renee is struggling with her own guilt, because the couple had lost an infant daughter several years before.

As Jacob and Joshua return to the twisted roles they adopted at the hands of cruel, demanding parents, they wage a war of pride, wealth, and passion. They share the poisonous love of a woman who would gladly ruin them both: Carlita, a provocative and manipulative Hispanic whose immigrant family helped build the Wells fortune.

Joshua wants other things, too, but Jacob’s desires are divided between the forbidden love he can’t possess, the respectability he can never have, and the revenge he is dying to taste. And Renee has dark motives of her own.

If only Jacob can figure out which one to blame. But the lines of identity are blurred, because Joshua and Jacob share much more than blood.

And the childhood games have become deadly serious.

Learn more about the psychological crime thriller
Disintegration
:
Disintegration

BURIAL TO FOLLOW

By Scott Nicholson

When Jacob Ridgehorn dies, it’s up to Roby Snow to make sure his soul goes on to the eternal reward. The only way Roby can do that is convince the Ridgehorn family to eat a special pie, but a mysterious figure named Johnny Divine is guarding the crossroads. When peculiar Appalachian Mountain funeral customs get stirred into the mix, Roby has to perform miracles . . . or else.