The Woods: Thompsonville Trilogy, #1

By Rita Kruger

I've been running for years, looking for a safe home, a place where no-one knew me.

From the moment I stepped off the bus, I suspected that Thompsonville was evil. It did not take long before I noticed the sickly children, the horrible school, the missing people, and of course, the tainted history.

I settled in the cabin in the woods, and soon strangers were knocking on my door, each in search of something else. An FBI agent. A man with dark desires. A witch with a death wish. And a serial killer.

Will I be able to hide my dark past from these people? Can I overcome all the dangers of this new town, or will Thompsonville be the death of me?

This terrifying and highly descriptive mystery, THE WOODS, is the first in the Thompsonville trilogy by Rita Kruger.

Warning: It boasts romantic scenes, strong language and horrific violence. Not suitable for children!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rita Kruger
• Release date: Dec 18, 2017
• ISBN: 9781386653059

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

LEAVING HOME

Hey, look Suzy, the hairdresser, said as she watched me walk pass their window. There’s the girl that killed her family.

You don’t know if it was her, Judy whispered behind her hand. She told the police someone else did it.

Would that not be the kind of thing anyone would say? Suzy asked, twisting her customer’s grey hair over a roller. What else was she gonna’ say? Maybe like, ‘look here officer, I just gone and killed my daddy and my brother with this here bloody knife in my hand, so go right ahead and arrest me.’?

I didn’t allow them to break my stride as I walked down Main Street, only nodded politely in their direction, so they would know that I knew that they were talking about me. Everyone in Thompsonville was talking about me. Oh, they tried to hide it, but I knew. I expected that I was the main topic around water coolers, at dinner tables, and over bowls of breakfast cereal. The double murder was top news on the local radio station, and I have heard anonymous callers saying the most horrible things about me.

Anonymous?

Hell, who where they trying to fool? I have gone to school with them, sang in the choir with them, and did Shakespeare with them every year. I sat around camp fires with them, and listened to Johnny’s husky voice tell a dirty joke while the grownups were busy elsewhere. I have heard Tim’s voice whisper spooky ghost stories, and I know what Suzy sounds when she cups her hand over her mouth.

Anonymous my ass.

But life had changed for me. Even buying milk and bread became an issue. It used to be that I would run into people who knew me all my life. We would stop and chat, catching up on how our families were doing, saying we need to get together for a barbeque or a night out at a local bar. From across the street some men in my circle might snap their fingers, click a tongue, and with a raised eyebrow say: Looking good, girl, how ‘bout it? And I’d raise a hand to wave and tell them to call me.

That was before the night when the police responded to a neighbour’s call about a commotion coming from our house. They found me screaming and covered with blood. They told me I was wielding a large butcher’s knife at everything that moved, including Wizard, the family cat. According to the testimony of the police officers given in court, I was incoherent and spilling forth gibberish about some monster who came into the house and did terrible things. Upon investigation, they found Daddy and Joe.

They were both dead.  

After that night, everything changed. When I walked the streets of my hometown and people met my eyes it wasn’t like before. In some, I found a deep sadness or sympathy. They would quietly reach out and take my hand, squeezing it softly while tears rolled from their eyes. This small gesture said everything they wanted to, but couldn’t. I would nod wordlessly and squeeze back.

In the eyes of others, I could read uncertainty, rejection, even fear. They usually tried to hide it. They looked away, crossed the street, or found an excuse to turn away their faces until I passed. Their eyes contained accusations. They measured my dry eyes at the funeral, and in court, and decided I must be guilty.

I made the decision to move while watching Lucille, my best friend since kindergarten, cross the street to avoid me. Moments before she was walking toward me, her eyes filled with uncertainty. Then she stopped dead in her tracks, fear twisted her face into that of a stranger. Before I could reach her she half ran, half stumbled across the street to get away from me.

I stood watching her as fear gripped me. I didn’t follow her, nor did I call out her name. But now, seven years later, I am starting to think there was no place in the world where I could hide. Not from what happened that night, neither from the voice in the nightmare, calling me to come home.

Yeah, right. I have no home, sucker.

CHAPTER TWO

THOMPSONVILLE

We are almost at the summit, whispered Rosa, a kind grandmother who was sitting on the bus next to me on the long trip. You will be able to see right into the valley from there.

She was referring to my new place of residence. Thompsonville. It was nestled in a ring of mountains, which surrounded the small town like a noose around a neck. Our heavy loaded bus scrambled up the side of Mount Celia, entering the basin from the west side. We started the slow and difficult zigzag decent to the small town below.

I tried not to look out of the windows to the woods where the trees- Birch, Red Pines, Maples and Oaks, were. They were tossed around by a fierce wind in a wild dance. Like giants they shoved each other. There was no escaping their groaning. Neither the screaming sound of the branches sweeping the side of the bus. The terrible howling sound the wind made when it pushed through the dense forest made the hairs on my neck stand on end.

It sounded like a woman screaming. Someone tortured. I expected a half-naked woman with wild hair and waving arms to burst out of the forest at any moment. More than once I turned my head to scan the line of trees closely, my heart beating like a wild drum.

She never came.

As we drove, storm clouds descended into the valley, hanging low over the mountains. Dark, menacing and colossal. Soon they covered the sky with a thick, heavy mass. It seemed as if this valley was the only place left in the world. The sound of thunder rolled in from far away, engulfing me in arms of panic. The lightning, when it struck, made several people on the bus jump. The loud crackle after the initial bang lasted for an eternity, it seemed.

I wanted to clasp my hands over my ears and close my eyes against the storm, but that was a luxury permitted exclusively to children. I wasn’t a little girl anymore. I had to be strong. In childhood life taught me to face my demons alone. Even on a bus filled with people.

Next to me, Rosa shivered. I don’t know why, but this place always gives me the creeps.

I nodded silently. Rosa Murphy was a prime example of what a grandmother should look like, from the thin hair braided and stacked in a bun to the purple thick rim glasses perched on the bridge of her nose. She had more wrinkles then a road map. On this day, she wore a long dress covered in tiny pink and purple flowers, and a white sweater she had obviously knitted herself. She smelled like cinnamon and vanilla.

This was her fifth trip, crossing over the mountains to see her daughter who lived in Jamestown, about two hours’ drive pass the Thompsonville stop. Rosa spent huge portions of the trip knitting a baby blanket in soft hues of green and yellow for her grandchild. I fiddled with it once, and its softness caressed my soul with memories of my brother Joe, when he was just a baby, and how the weight of his body filled my shaking arms. His arrival shook the very foundations of my life and our modest two-bedroom house.

He was a big boy, Daddy told me. To take care of him would be my responsibility, he insisted. I was just ten years old and not nearly ready to take care of a baby. Nevertheless, most of Joe’s care fell on me anyway, whether I was ready or not. Because, as our daddy put it, Joe had killed Mommy when he came into the world.

Sometimes, when I missed Momma really badly, I would make Joe pay for what he had done. That always made the grief less hard for me. Daddy didn’t do anything to make his missing go away. Not in the beginning anyway. The next year he discovered the forgetfulness hidden in a bottle of brandy. After that, nothing much really mattered to him. Not momma, Joe or me.

Life pushed us into doing things we were not ready for, or never thought we would do in the first place. I didn’t feel ready for a new town and new people or this new teaching job. Yet five days ago, I took up my mother’s ring, closed my eyes, and let it tumble out of my fingers onto a map. I listened to it hit the table, roll a bit and then topple over. I said a soft prayer to momma, fate, God... to whatever was out there listening. I wanted a new start, a new life, a new beginning. I wanted a forever home. I was tired of running from one place to the next.

The town was Thompsonville. My fate was sealed. Joe, when he was born, also sealed my fate. So did Daddy when he took to drinking away everything precious. My whole life slipped out of my control, guided by the actions of those around me. Even my choice to leave home wasn’t really my own, but something Lucille initiated when she crossed the road to get away from me.

This was the sixteenth town I moved to since I left my childhood home seven years ago. According to the pictures on the internet, I was sure that this was the place in my dreams. Or should I rather say, the place from which the mysterious voice called out to me in my dreams?

You know, Rosa said in a shaking voice. The driver told me this is the first time in two years that someone is getting off in Thompsonville.

I nodded. This was the third time she told me.

Are you sure about this?

I sighed. Yes ma’am. I start work soon. Teaching at the local school.

I heard stories about the town. Some people call them rumours, while others insist they are tall tales or legends. But we all know that in every story there is at least some truth, some original seed rooted in reality.

The bus slowed down to a stop again. The fourth since we started to descend. We only managed to get halfway down the mountain in an hour. Rocks and boulders, knocked down by the storm outside, tumbled into the road to block our path.

What stories did you hear? I asked, needing something to fill my unsettled mind. If I take such a long journey again, I would buy some wool and needles. I could have knitted a whole jersey in all the hours I spend on busses, or waiting for busses, since I started this trip. At least a scarf. Rosa lifted her eyes and looked left and right, as if she was expecting someone to jump out to arrest her.

Are you sure you want to hear?

I believe in being prepared, I lied. I have never been one to give credence to myths and legends. That was backward, small-town crap.

She smiled. Well, let me think a moment. I don’t want to miss any important stuff.

It was about four hundred years ago, she told me and the other bored passengers who leaned in to listen. "When a group of people reached the place on top of Mount Celia, where we crossed over, and fell in love with the valley. They were five families altogether and loosely tied by marriage. The leader, Colonel Peter Horace Thompson, had two daughters and five sons. Both daughters were still unmarried and beautiful. They looked like identical twins, although they were born two years apart. They both, like their brothers, had blue eyes, blonde hair and light skin that burned easily in the sun. They were their father’s pride and joy and he guarded them like precious stones.

"Theresa, the eldest, was engaged to Juan Paul MacGregor, the son of one of the other families. Juan Paul was a womanizer, following his daddy’s ways. He couldn’t keep his hands off women, whether they were pretty or not. He wasn’t a happily engaged man. His plan had been to stay a bachelor and make love to as many women as he could charm. At the time, men of business, like Agnus MacGregor and Peter Thompson, sealed important deals by bonds of marriage. There was no way for Juan Paul to get out of the engagement, but he vowed to not go quietly into that dark night.

"Then tragedy struck. One day while Theresa was out riding, a snake scared her horse and he bucked her out of the saddle. Unfortunately, her foot caught in the reigns. Thor, her beloved horse, dragged her all the way down the mountain. People said her screams reached Serendipity Estate’s stable, where Juan Paul was rolling in the hay with the pretty, brown skinned, Indian milkmaid. There was no doctor in town, and her father sent message to Jamestown for help. The doctor arrived two days later and was able to save her life, but she wore the scars of the accident all over her body.

Two weeks later, when the swelling was mostly gone, Juan Paul saw his fiancé for the first time since the accident. He ran out of the room and vomited into the first vase he could lay hands on. Then he went home and told his father if he had to marry, at least it should be to someone beautiful. After weeks of angry discussions between all parties concerned, Juan Paul married Selena, the younger daughter, at the wedding planned for her sister.

That must have been horrible for Theresa, I said. Not only was she losing her fiancé, he was marrying her own sister.

She’d be seeing them together all the time, the woman behind us said. Constant reminder of what she lost. That would drive me crazy.

Rosa nodded.

This is where the story gets interesting, Rosa said. Theresa, whom everyone assumed was too ill to attend, walked into the church during the ceremony dressed in a black ball gown, with a blood red veil covering her face. In a loud voice, she placed a curse on the union and on all the children that would ever be born to them. The town’s people started whispering and laughing. Theresa turned on them with a curse for all the children of Thompsonville. Then she walked out and was never seen again.

And? the young woman in the row behind us asked.

And what? asked Rosa.

Were they cursed?

Rosa looked out of the window at the trees sweeping by. Most of what I told you is truth. You can find in the historical writings of Thompsonville. Jamestown Tribune mentioned Theresa’s accident and that their doctor attended to her. It also carried front-page news of the wedding of the children of two prominent families in Thompsonville. Juan Paul and Selena. All of that is fact.

Yes, we get that, but what about the curse? the woman insisted.

No mention was made in the paper about Theresa disrupting the wedding, or of the curse she placed on the town’s children. That part might be nothing more than rumours.

Might be? the woman said. That suggests it could be true.

When Peter and Simone Kruger, children of the other founding members, left town, they were broken people. Simone had lost four babies, stillborn at birth. She gave birth to two children that survived pregnancy, a boy and a girl. The little boy died in his crib before he could even walk. The little girl grew up strong and was just as sweet and loving as her mother. The whole town doted on the girl, as it did on all its children. Still, one morning when her parents got to her room she was simply gone. At first it was thought that she was kidnapped, but when no ransom demand was ever made people assumed she was abducted.

By whom? I couldn’t help but ask.

By Theresa, who else? Rosa said. At least that is what people in town thought.

What about other children? What about Juan Paul and Selena’s children? the man across the aisle asked.

The children of Thompsonville have always been a sickly bunch. Yet, that is expected in families that are so intermarried as they all are. The children who are lucky enough to survive to the age of consent are usually married to relatives of the original families living outside of Thompsonville.

Juan Paul and Selena?

Oh, yes, Rosa laughed, I’m sorry. I am getting on in years. Sometimes things slip my mind.

Rosa looked at her hands clasped in her lap; her mind seemed to drift far away from us. After a long time she shook her head, as if to wake up from a bad dream. They never did have children, those two, which of course only added fire to the rumours about the curse’s existence.

CHAPTER THREE

CALLING

The room is dark. Smoke hangs heavy in the air, making my eyes burn.  My heart clenches painfully. Sweat beads in my palms. I wipe them on my pants as I take a deep breath.

I turn, seeking a doorway. My left foot becomes entangled in something. Despite the wildly flailing arms, I loose balance and fall on my ass.

A cackle.

Welcome home, honey. The voice is familiar. I have heard it in my dreams for ages. Always talking about home. Calling me again and again. Come home, honey.

I’ve been waiting for you, she says.

Before the words end, I am on my feet again. My eyes find the sliver of yellow light shining from beneath the door. Keeping my hands in front, I feel along the floor with my left foot. Slowly I make my way there.

There is no way out for you now, she says. We have called. You came.

This isn’t my home, I answer.

Then why did you come?

Why did I come? I don’t know. Even in the dream, this answer eludes me.

A shove in my back. I fall forward, shrieking. Landing hard, the air leaves me like a waterfall. A weight comes down on my back, heavy and hard.

I push back.

Relax, she whispers.

Something sharp nicks my neck. Hair hangs into my face and then something wet licks the spot.

The blood never lies, she says. And your bloods speaks volumes.

I struggle to rise, but she only chuckles at my feeble attempt.

Welcome home, she says.

And then she is gone.

My head snaps forward and I’m awake.

CHAPTER FOUR

STORYTIME

Cold slipped onto the bus with the men as they climbed up the stairs. This was the sixth time they had to clear the road. The velocity of the wind gathered speed, and the howling sent shivers up my spine.

Next to me, Rosa shuddered. I don’t like this place, she whispered.

I nodded my consent; wondering if I had made the right decision. Maybe this wasn’t the place for me, the place that I needed to be to find healing. I desperately longed to settle down where no one had ever heard my name or my story. That was why this time, I changed more than just my address and the style of my clothes. I am cutting all ties with my past, intending to start fresh and clean. I didn’t give any forwarding address to anyone. All souvenirs form my old life had been burned. My hair was a fashionable red, cut in a cheeky choppy style. My weight had always been on the wrong side of thin, but in the last weeks I have gained a few pounds and looked like a healthy, happy specimen of the human race.

The wind was howling outside, drawing my attention. I turned to look at the forest.

God, I thought to myself, who picks a place to stay by dropping a ring on a map?

I did, of course. After a bottle of red wine, a double funeral, weeks in court, and a friend who crossed a road to get away from me. In every new town I went, people eventually connected me to my past, and when I was unable to walk down the streets without people turning away from me, I packed and left.

I looked down the aisle at an East Indian woman serving hot sweet-smelling tea from her thermos to the half-frozen men.

Would there be enough for a cup to warm me?

The atmosphere in the bus seemed as cold as the weather outside. I turned my eyes to look out of the window. The trees swayed and groaned under the harsh power of the wind. A branch, torn off a Red Oak tree by the wind, moved several feet, despite its size. It landed in a flurry of reddish dust.

It was then that I first noticed the lights of the town in the distance. It beckoned invitingly to me, and my heart felt lighter at the sight of something familiar and welcoming. Civilization beckoned. My spirits lifted, and I turned to Rosa with a smile.

Look there, I said, pointing out of the window. I see lights.

She leaned over, eyes searching the forest.

Almost there! her voice sounded happy, despite her misgivings about the town.

The bus stopped suddenly. The next moment Rose fell over me, her small body almost leaving the seat completely. I lifted my arms to catch her but found myself flung forward with enough force that I hit my head and knees on the seat in front of me, pushing Rosa down into the space between the seat and my torso. I heard curses and exclamations amid the sounds of knocks and bumps. Something heavy hit my heels, sending a sharp burst of pain up my ankles and legs. I screamed.

I pushed back into my seat, allowing some space for Rosa to move. She stood, pulling herself up by grabbing onto the seats in front of us. There were tears in her eyes, and she clutched her left arm to her body. Blood was gushing from her hand. I was unable to move, my eyes stuck on the red liquid running down her dress and onto the half-knitted baby blanket in the bag at her feet. My stomach heaved with nausea. I gulped hard, swallowing down the bile rising up my throat.

Oh, my God! Rosa said, looking at her bleeding hand.

She started crying. The sound of it roused me into action.

I pulled an unused handkerchief out of my