The heavily wooded and wet-- but paved-- road that led to Angstadt's Junkyard was at least scenic, Mark thought to himself. They drove through the downpour in the midst of a seasonally bare (we hope!) line of oak trees.
They both marvelled at the scenic waterfall that dropped a hundred feet off Blue Mountain, just off the road.
"Rain's coming down pretty hard, eh?"
Mark looked down at the Saucony-- running brown and fast-- that ran next to the road; it looked to be near flooding stage.
There was a sign at the junkyard's entrance read: NO SCRAP TAKEN TIL SPRING FURS BEING BOUGHT NOW. A German Shepherd barked at them fiercely. A man came out of the blue schoolbus that was sunk so far into the mud that it looked like it was made in it. The guy hunched over as he walked toward the shepherd; he took the dog by the collar and gently led him to the chicken coop a few yards away. The chickens squawked, then quieted down.
"What do you two want?" the guy asked as he walked toward them, "car parts for your getaway car? hahahaha!"
"No," Mark said, taking the investigative lead, "I want to ask you some questions about Doctor Ray Macpherson."
"Are you a cop?"
"No."
"Is he a cop?"
"No."
Wearily, he beckoned to them. "Let's go inside."
Once inside they both looked around at the place: it looked like an art studio, both finished and unfinished clay sculptures cluttered the bus' interior.
"Would you two like beers?" the Indian asked, no doubt smelling the alcohol they brought in with them. They accepted and he returned in seconds with a couple Kurtzville BottlingWorks beers. "You look like your brother,"he said to Dennis.
"Do you know what happened to him?" Mark asked.
"He stopped coming around; I don't know."
"Did he leave? Was he finished his research?"
"I'm going to ask you again friend," Angstadt inquired of Mark, eyeing him warily. "Are you a cop? I'll tell you the truth, I'm dying.... stomach cancer. It's time for me to talk, you know?"
"I quit the Philly Police Force on Monday.
"Well now that we know who is who, I'll let you in on the big secret. I think the members of that whacko religious cult that masquerades as a church killed him. Ray thought the Kurtzville church was an apocalypse cult that had been practicing in secret for three centuries; maybe your uncle was right, maybe the end is near..."
"You know who I am?" Mark asked, obviously genuinely surprised.
"You used to walk the roads by Saucony Creek with a fishing pole, you reminded me of a sad Tom Sawyer. Yeah, they don't separate church and state much around here. You and your cousin, Maureen you two reject the church, eh?"
"That's about right; is being the son of a god something you want to deal with? You think being acquainted with a god's sorrows is some kind of picnic?"
"Yet, you appear to be like your uncle," the Angstadt said confidently, "guns, liquor and the lust for the flesh of your own blood."
"This is getting Biblical all right," Dennis interjected with a smirk.
"It all apparently started for the Europeans around here in the late 1600s when a guy named Jacob Kurtz moved into the county, kicked some of my ancestors asses right out of here and started some farms.... and a church.
Neither Jacob nor his associates had ever experienced such magnificent crop growth as they got here. It's been a fertile area for centuries; Jacob caught onto this and decided it was a good idea to worship who was really responsible for the wonderful harvests they enjoyed here. They began worshipping nature under the guise of Christianity and became part of the what the Christians call the pagan tradition. The reality is that Kurtzville has good dirt; it's all about the Herkel's Loem-- it has nothing to do with gods....
"A few years after, Jacob and his wife, Maggy, were trying to have a child to no avail. Maggie had produced three stillborns who were buried in the yard just outside their stone house; it was their turn to provide Molech his necessary sacrifice.
The new gods they chose to worship in their new land now expected something from them-- the flesh of some of their newborns. Keep Molech happy with the flesh of infants and the crops grow. That was the deal and for a century and a half and six magic children the gods kept their part of the deal--the crops grew.
"Sometime in the 1920s, though, one of these children began exhibiting horrible tumors and this particular child apparently grew into some sort of monster that you folks have been hiding up in that Historical Society's tower for the past 70 years or so. At least that's the legend......
"Do you know anything about this?" Dennis asked Mark.
"It's all new to me" Davidson responded.
But something was building inside him now, something that felt like it was going to be real hard to stop.
"It's in you my friend and there's no way to get it out, there's no way to escape from your fates. Go to the cabin Ray rented while he was here digging around, it's back by 737 and the waterfall. It's hard to miss my friends.
"You want to take a ride?" Mark asked the Indian.
"No thank you-- I would say that you two are the last two people I want to be seen with around here."
"I got one more question, sir. Do you think my cousin is involved in the killings that have happened and continue to happen around here?"
"No. I don't think so. I think that Maureen adheres to different philosophies than her family does. I'm a bit of a voyeur, you know, I've seen her out in the woods, practicing her chants. I think she's basically pure."
"Basically?"
"Basically. "
"Thanks for your help," Dennis offered.
"No problem. "
"You wanna go check out that cabin?" Dennis asked.
"Might as well," Mark replied, a feeling of nervousness beginning to seep into his spine.
"If this place is so fucked up," Dennis asked, "why do you stay here?"
"This is good land. Someday the crops will again grow strong and I-- in one incarnation or another-- will be here waiting. But until then I'm lying low, you know what I mean don't you Mark?"
"I'm beginning to get the idea, yeah."
"When this Kurtzville Congregation crap is over stop by and have a beer, Mark. You too Dennis. I get lonely out here and I like the company."
"Maybe if you clean the place up, calm the dog down, more people might stop by."
"The hell with it," Angstadt said in reply, waving his hand. He took the Shepherd back inside the bus with him. The rain was not letting up.
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