Every paranormal investigator that’s been at it any length of time has that one case, that one hot spot, that pushed their buttons. Mine is located in the Mississinewa State Forest, down a dead end trail that leads to Goose Creek.
It’s made its way into my fiction more than once, including my forthcoming Wolfe & Crowe occult detective novel which will be released by Ghostwriter Publications next spring.
As to my connection with Goose Creek, well, I’ve told the story before, and most of you have heard it, so I thought that, as we neared All Hallow’s Eve, I would share an excerpt from Descendant that captures the flavor of that place rather than recount again what transpired there. Fact and fiction are not always as far removed as some might think…
An excerpt from DESCENDANT:
The Agents walked side by side, each with their flashlights beaming forward, penetrating the dark that engulfed the road ahead. Descending one hundred yards, they saw the road stretch out across Goose Creek. They stopped at the base of the road as it led out into the great expanse. For eight months out of the year, this tiny inlet was filled with water, water held in check by the Mississinewa Dam. This bit of road they stood upon would be under thirty or more feet of water and erosion worked hard at whittling the asphalt to a narrow lane, supported by what remained of the foundation underneath. They panned their lights out across the wide creek that was left to course its old habit, draining down from the lumbering hills to the north, south, and west and racing for the Mississinewa River. Dead trees rose up from the fractured waste like arcane pillars reaching for the stars overhead.
“Good lord, “ Martin said, “it’s like a scene from an old Hammer horror film. Where’s Christopher Lee when you need him?” he laughed.
“Dead fish,” Selina commented, panning her flashlight across the ground. “They’re everywhere.” She knelt down for a closer look. “Probably a byproduct of releasing all that dammed water so fast, but we should look into it just the same.” She picked up a couple of the fish, bagged them, and slipped the evidence into her shoulder bag.
“Well, well, well… what have we here?”
Selina looked up to see Martin about twenty feet away examining the road’s surface. “What you got?” she called out.
“A circle, roughly nine feet in diameter,” he said kneeling down closer. He ran his finger across the rough surface and placed it to his mouth. “Salt,” he added. “A protection circle. I can almost make out the chalk drawn glyphs inside. Chaldean, maybe?”
Selina joined him. “Yeah, maybe? Hard to tell in this light. Let me take a couple of pictures and we can feed them into the PC for analysis later.”
“Alright,” Martin agreed. “I’ll move ahead and see what there is to find.” Stepping away from the circle, Martin Crowe didn’t have to walk far.
Forty odd feet ahead the road came to an abrupt end. Roughly fifteen feet below ran Goose Creek. Across a twenty foot expanse the road restarted. Once, years before, a bridge had crossed this creek, washed away by the rise and fall of the reservoir. It wasn’t this that held the Agent’s attention however.
“Selina, come here. You’ll want to see this.”
Selina Wolfe shouldered her camera and strode across the eroded roadway. What she saw raised a dozen questions in her mind. Two more circles, near the edge of the former bridge. One was three foot in diameter with a triangle formed within it. A mound of what appeared to be entrails were heaped in the center untouched by carrion feeders. The second circle was six feet in diameter, similar to the protection circle further back, but with a border and more elaborate chalk drawings within that ring.
“Pretty elaborate for a bunch of high school kids, don’t you think?”
And there you have it. This coming Friday, the Penny Dreadful Company will release the first of four prequel chapbooks featuring Special Agents Wolfe and Crowe. They will more than whet your appetite for the horrors that await within the pages of Descendant…
Happy Hallowe’en everyone.
Dr. Landon Connors enlists the help of two FBI agents, Wolfe and Crowe…from within the Paranormal Operations Division…to look into a group known as The Nightstalkers, a group who fight the forces of darkness, outside of the law…and a place that is something of a way-station for things on the other side.
