Colors On The Mountain: The Souls Are Watching

By Susan T. Gazzara

She couldn't believe the biggest story of her life would fall in her lap the day she was murdered. Resting in Peace would just have to wait until she nailed the man who killed her….

Kate Templeton was bored. The routine scut work of a reporter's life at the Lackawanna Tribune was enough to drive any 26-year-old nuts. It was tedium, pierced by the chaos of an occasional major story.

The routine of boring municipal news cracks wide open one day when local activist Norma Hogan accuses a mining company owner of illegal operations in a drilling site on the mountain, right outside of town.

Norma's lifelong friends Mary Rose and Tom Thompson own the property, leasing a back portion of the land to World Energy Corporation. Norma's convinced spiraling health problems on the mountain are tied to the operation, urging Kate to investigate the situation.

When the Thompson's farmhouse disintegrates in a scorching fireball one night, killing the couple, life on the mountain changes forever.

Kate knows she is facing the story of a lifetime and meets Norma Hogan one night to review proof that ties the Thompson's death to World Energy Corporation CEO Eric Gavin.

Their meeting shatters in a searing hail of bullets, and Kate is forced to move in a direction she never saw coming.

Kate connects to family and friends she loves, as well as those she never knew. Kate joins with her ancestors and an army of colorful souls to avenge her murder, and stop an environmental disaster that could destroy the future for millions.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: May 21, 2023
• ISBN: 9781667897615

Book preview

Grateful Acknowledgements to

Jim Bessey, my editor and patient guide, along this rocky road.

Jim started reading when he was three and writing before he started kindergarten. By age twelve, he had devoured all the Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys Mysteries. Soon enough, he was reading Robbins, Haley, Asimov, Michener, and (best of all) John D. MacDonald. Jim took on his first stint as an editor at seventeen, and served as EIC for his college paper two years later.

Love of words and an appreciation for stories often start early and run deep. Jim has seen twists and turns and difficulties over the years between then and now. He has owned businesses and built houses and raised three wonderful kids. When the entire world changed in early 2020, Jim returned full time to his earlier passion for editing. Through SoWrite Editing, Jim nurtures writers and works tirelessly to help them bring their novels to life.

https://sowrite.us.com

Sandy Tilton–Cover Photography

The freedom to wander in the beauty of New England’s beaches and mountains gave Sandy her passion for nature and a determination to preserve its beauty through her stunning photography.

Sandy’s Face Book Page - Plum Island and Beyond allows her to share the beauty of her little slice of heaven, while reporting on her work on the Save the Pink House Community Project, an effort dedicated to preserving it for future generations.

Thoroughly enjoying her Act 2, Sandy has published her first photo book celebrating the beauty of the Shore and the friendship of the soaring friend who travels with her. Ralph’ N Me, Not Just a Gull!

As JR Tolkien said, and Sandy loves to quote: Not all who wander are lost.

Chapter One

The night they died…

As soon as Mary Rose opened the splintered wooden basement door, the familiar fear reached for her. The rhythmic pounding pulsed out of the darkness, like it always did. It slithered up the stairs, wrapping around her like a suffocating, wet, tattered blanket.

Damn it, she hated it. With every molecule of her ageing, tired body, she hated the noise. She hated the fact nobody believed her even more. When it all started a month ago, she told Eddie from Walker’s Plumbing that it sounded like a heartbeat. He gave her the side eye, looked at the pipes, and finally threw up his hands after the fifth service call.

The heartbeat never reached for Eddie or Tom. The Monster’s pulse reserved its icy tentacles for Mary Rose alone. Everyone else heard the humming silence of an old house. People were starting to look at her with the pity reserved for crazy people. Tom and Eddie drank together every night at the Union Hall, but Eddie told him the next service call was going to cost him. So that was the last time anyone called Eddie, because Tom sure as hell wasn’t going to spend money, he didn’t have just to satisfy his crazy wife.

Mary Rose’s people came from Alabama, where everyone had crazy family. They just sat them on the front porch with enough sweet tea to keep them happy. In the mountains of Northeastern Pennsylvania, crazy was best kept quiet.

It was always the same. The heartbeat ricocheted from cement wall to cement wall, until Tom came to the top of the basement steps, then it stopped.

When her husband, her kids or her friends stood on the fraying carpet at the top of the steps, they only heard silence. The basement went from chaos to dead quiet in an instant, because only Mary Rose could hear the monster. Once the bastard got her attention, it sank back into the darkness.

After Eddie’s last service call, Tom told her to stop talking about the stupid heartbeat, because it was getting embarrassing. He said pipes in a 100-year-old house usually knocked. Mary Rose shook her head. This wasn’t an old house sound; it was a heartbeat, and it was getting stronger. It came every day now, but it was different tonight, heavier, louder and tinged with a strange high-pitched gear-grinding screech.

Mary Rose put down her laundry basket and ran her hands through her graying, dingy blonde hair. She knew it was much too long for a 65-year-old woman. It framed her weather-worn face, drawing attention to its creases with stubborn wisps. It was also annoying as hell when it fell into her eyes. She cursed, grabbed a rubber band out of her pocket and pulled the whole mess into a stringy ponytail.

Mary Rose straightened one of the framed family photos hanging on the wall next to the two-toned basement door. The door used to be all green. One day years ago, she started to paint it a bright red. That job stopped just south of the antique door handle.

So now it was half bright red and half faded green, and looked like a cracked Christmas ornament. She hung family photos next to the basement door last month, hoping they would give her the courage to open the damn thing. In the harsh hallway light, it didn’t work; they just drew attention to the faded wallpaper behind them. Twenty years ago, the walls were a bright sun-drenched yellow. Today they had the color of spoiled mustard.

Tonight, the pictures just looked strangely off center, like her life.

Gazing at the remnants of her past, she always wondered if life was ever really that simple. The happy faces and family love in the photos seemed like echoes of another time. She shook her head and leaned over to kiss a picture of her 16-year-old grandson. In spite of everything, the smart-ass kid was still the light of her life. Today, she thanked God he couldn’t see the way she looked in her navy-blue size 16 sweatpants, Eagles t-shirt, and now a ponytail.

He told her he thought it was funnier than hell to whip out his damn phone and upload family videos to that Tick Tock thing he loved on the Internet. He asked her to dance once. She thought she looked like some sort of pathetic, crinkled buffoon.

Mary Rose cringed when she saw herself on the Internet and cried when her family laughed. Nobody saw her tears, because nobody saw her. Getting old was damn hard. In her mind, she was still 20 and filled with youth and strength, and prettier than kittens, as Tom said back when they were young.

It all went away, a little each day, worn down by the stress and struggle of the endless grind of her life. Mary Rose felt like an aging photograph, fading and curling at the edges. She was sinking into the mossy pit of her life and disappearing, bit by bit, and no one cared.

The only thing not disappearing was her anxiety disorder. It had plagued her since childhood, creeping into her life by third grade. She got used to ‘the nerves,’ but they got worse as the years passed. Chilling waves of anxiety became a familiar part of life twenty years ago, as much a part of her as cooking, dirty laundry, and exhaustion.

For the past month, however, the intensity was growing, grinding into her with every heartbeat from the basement. It sucked up her attention like a suspicious mole she couldn’t ignore. Every morning, there it was, tightening her throat, crushing her chest, and ruling her days. Panic attacks came out of the shadows and left her gasping for the breath she couldn’t quite catch.

Thanksgiving last year brought Mary Rose to her knees. While her family basked in her cooking and cleaning, loving every bit of the tradition she’d created, Mary Rose crawled into the kitchen pantry and shut the door. When Tom finally looked for her and found her curled up next to the potato bin, he told her to go to the doctor. Her doctor prescribed Xanax, therapy, and finally, a dog. Therapy animals seemed to help people overwhelmed by fear, he said. Once the dog was certified, they could go everywhere together. She would have an angel ready to help her battle her demons.

She and Tom bought a border collie puppy and named him Lucky. Training was expensive and getting him certified even more so, and they didn’t have the time or the money to do it. His natural loving dog heart had to be enough, and it was. Lucky seemed to know when the panic devils descended. He stayed close, leaning against her legs, or climbing into her lap when she cowered on the floor. She needed that. It amazed her that Lucky knew what she needed when her own husband was so damn clueless.

For the past year, as everything was coming apart, Tom kept to his routine of endless days and male blusters. He stared at her when she shook and patted her hand. Mary Rose never knew what he was thinking, or if he was thinking at all. His face was blank and his voice was absent… always absent. Mary Rose could only wait for what was coming. Something was, and she knew she was helpless to stop it.

As she stood at the top of the basement stairs, she thought of her kids and her grandkids and prayed a prayer to protect them. She thought of spring and her garden, and somewhere deep in her heart she was giving up any hope of seeing her flowers bloom this year.

She thought of her cousin Leslie. She was blonde and sassy, in love with life, and getting her way. Leslie danced through life, wearing her red cowgirl boots. and never stopped talking about death. They sat on Mary Rose’s front porch one day, and she said she knew when death was coming.

Leslie said she could see a gate opening, and she knew someone was passing through. She never knew who it was or when they would transition, but she knew it was coming and the gate would stay open until they crossed over. Leslie had talked about death a lot in that final year, telling Mary Rose to always look for signs from the other side of life.

Watch for animals or birds, or bugs that show up in strange places, Leslie said as she sat on Mary Rose’s front porch three years ago, sipping tea and talking about eternity.

Leslie talked about death, the signs and the opening gate right until the day she died, only days after her last visit. It was the cancer that finally killed her. She never told anyone she was sick, but Mary Rose knew later, she must have come to say her goodbyes.

Leslie walked through her gate one day three weeks later, just as the late afternoon summer sun tinged the mountains with golden beams. The day Mary Rose got the call, she cried, then went to the grocery store as she always did. Standing at the deli counter, she was stunned to see a man walk into the store with a giant monarch butterfly attached to the back of his sweater. She pointed it out to him and he shrugged. He said it flew at him out of nowhere, and he did not know why. Mary Rose knew why, and she cried as the butterfly hopped off the man’s sweater, soared over her head and flew out the open door. She waved at the disappearing fluttering shape, quite certain Leslie was saying goodbye, and also quite convinced she had lost her mind.

So, she took her Xanax, and did her deep breathing, and the fear settled down into a constantly present sleeping beast. Mary Rose was used to living with it, but she just never knew when the beast would spring up with tearing talons ready to rip apart her life.

I have to stop this, and I have to stop thinking about Leslie’s damn gate, Mary Rose said.

She smiled at the border collie puppy panting at her feet, picked up the laundry basket and stepped through the door carefully, cringing as the pounding intensified. Mary Rose carefully edged down the narrow wooden stairs. Lucky followed her, as he always did.

The wall next to the stairs was a rotted cucumber green and lined with storage shelves crammed with holiday decorations, old dishes and toys for the grandkids. Mary Rose grabbed a battery-powered lantern that was sitting on the edge of the shelf, and dropped it in the laundry basket. She hated the dark, and it was always dark in the basement.

During the day, light barely filtered through the dirty narrow windows at the top of the wall facing the stairs. The windows were always dirty because they were too high off the floor to be reached and cleaned from the inside. She had to use the long pole to open the window latch, and then crawl through the garden to wash them from the outside. It was easier to plant forsythia bushes in front of them and ignore the problem.

It was always dark, even on the sunniest day. She thought it just emphasized the fact the basement was underground, like a grave. It smelled like lurking mold, sweet rainwater and wet grass, punctuated by the lavender of her favorite detergent.

Even before the panic attacks, she hated the space and could never quite figure out why. When the kids were little, she was afraid they’d fall down the stairs, cracking their heads open on the uneven cement floor.

Mary Rose felt death there and prayed daily to keep it at bay. Even after the kids grew up and left home, Mary Rose still felt the shadows lurking. The basement of the rambling farmhouse seemed to breathe with a pulsing malevolence. The panic disorder that plagued her everywhere damn near finished her off in its shadows.

A new hanging ceiling light brightened the workbench area Tom never used. Piled with cords, tools, boxes, and coffee cans full of nails, a fine layer of dust covered the bench. Tom didn’t go down to the basement anymore. His bad knee made the steps tricky.

The other light, bought to light the laundry area, still sat in its box on Tom’s workbench. A second-hand refrigerator held the overflow from weekly shopping trips, as well as cakes and pies for the grandchildren, when they came. It also held Tom’s beer supply, and Mary Rose couldn’t help but notice he couldn’t get down the stairs to fix the light, but he could get there for his damn beer. So, she did the laundry twice a week, mostly in the dark.

Before going into the basement, Mary Rose would make the Sign of the Cross, ask the Blessed Virgin to protect her, and pocket her crystals. Tom always laughed at her, sneering at her fear. It was useless to argue. He didn’t believe her. No one believed her. She was crazy, according to her family… She believed them, and stopped fighting it.

The fear never left though, it just settled into her bones. It became as much a part of her as wrinkles, gray hair and exhaustion. Keeping the house and their piece of the Mountain alive was draining her.

Mary Rose leaned against the basement door as a jarring surge of exhaustion hit her. She used to love the sprawling, white clapboard home, with its gleaming hardwood floors and stunning wrap-around porch.

They inherited the three-story house and a large tract of land on Dunmore Mountain from Tom’s grandfather when they were young and hopeful. Then the kids came, the years passed, and hope faded almost as fast as the money. Money was always tight and the struggle to pay the bills never ended. The kids grew up and left and still it wouldn’t stop. The bills kept coming. She felt like a hamster on a wheel, always running but moving nowhere.

The house and the 10 acres of mountain surrounding it cost money. For years, they frantically focused on preserving a heritage and a history that was fading away before their exhausted eyes. Today they were both burned out; they paid what they could because they really couldn’t do anything else. Tom was sure the drilling deal would help, and it did for a while. They paid off their bills, but new home construction was at a standstill and no one needed Tom’s sheet metal skills.

It didn’t take long for the bills to build up again. Tom spent his days drinking at the Union Hall, while Mary Rose spent her days selling railroad souvenirs to tourists in Steam Town. World Energy Corporation paid them every month for shale drilling rights to the back half of their property, but it wasn’t enough anymore.

Mary Rose was just happy the towering pine trees lining the back of their residential lot blocked her view of the drilling rig. She knew it was there, with its monstrous cranes and cables and cursing men, but it was better not to dwell on it. It was hard to put it out of her mind completely though, because her best friend, Norma Hogan, never stopped talking about the damn thing.

Norma was 70, with gray hair pulled into a thick braid. She wore jeans and a red flannel shirt every day of the week and lived in a cabin on the side of the mountain about a mile away. She marched against the Vietnam War in the 70s, after fighting for civil rights since high school.

Today, Norma fought for the environment. She was convinced pollution and climate change would destroy the planet before her grandchildren could run on the mountain. World Energy Corporation was number one on her hit list. She hated the company and despised the suits running it.

Norma fought the drilling company for years and was furious at everyone when it got approvals to operate. She eventually forgave Mary Rose, blaming her lack of involvement on a husband who never got off his fat ass. Mary Rose got mad at Norma for that one, even as she secretly agreed with her.

Norma became an angry fixture at town meetings. Every time she walked to the microphone, she said danger was lurking in their town, and told anyone who would listen that the World Energy Corporation was bringing more of it into their lives with every truck that rumbled up the mountain.

Norma bitched about the water every day. They all grew up drinking the water from the mountain’s springs that fed the wells dug in the front yards of every house on the mountain. It happened slowly, but the sharp crystal purity of the water was gone. It was dull now and smelled like something even Mary Rose couldn’t identify. Worry was starting to pick at the bubble of resignation Mary Rose lived in. She had to admit, something wasn’t right on the Mountain.

Norma said her grandkid’s allergies were worsening by the day, and three people on the street had cancer. Too many kids at the elementary school had asthma, and it seemed everyone was sick.

Mary Rose had to admit she wasn’t the only woman being ignored. Nobody listened to Norma either, and their voices faded into the background of everyone’s daily struggle to cope.

She had to smile, remembering a little over a week ago, when Norma marched into her kitchen with flashing eyes, and two reporters in tow. The newspaper did one series on the fracking operation and was working on a second one, focusing on local health concerns. Norma jumped at the chance to get them on the mountain.

Norma was furious the day they came. Her grandson had spent three days in the hospital and Mary Rose was sure the neighbors heard her yelling about who was to blame. While Norma angrily paced back and forth in the kitchen, Mary Rose glared at her, made tea, and smiled at the reporters. She admitted she was concerned, but said they signed a contract and their word counted for something. Norma rolled her eyes, slamming out of the kitchen door in disgust.

One reporter was a sweet red haired young thing. She drank her tea, shook Mary Rose’s hand, and asked if she could stay in touch, and she did so. She and the nice young man with her walked the neighborhood and one day got themselves thrown off the drilling site.

While they annoyed Tom with their questions, he smiled at them. They were feisty, and he liked that, in anyone but his wife. Yesterday, the nice young man and the girl reporter walked back onto the drilling site and took pictures of the operation.

Mary Rose and Tom watched the fracas from the back of their property line. They were trying to trim their bushes, so they weren’t really spying. Tom laughed once the yelling and cursing started. The nice young man and the pretty redhead jumped into a rattletrap car and took off down Phoenix Street and off the mountain.

Mary Rose tried to remember the reporter’s name. The young woman had left her several messages and wanted to come back tomorrow.

The house’s aging water pipe system was their last big project. The pipes snaked throughout the house, in the walls and the ceilings of all three stories. There were water spots on the ceilings of all three bedrooms on the second floor, so something was leaking somewhere. Tom agreed that needed to be fixed, but rolled his eyes when Mary Rose complained about the heartbeat that pulsed out of the darkness.

The aging matrix of water pipes snaked throughout the sprawling house, finally coming together in two big pipes bolted to the back wall of the basement. Fresh water and waste water came through the basement, but Tom refused to believe her when she said that’s where the problem was

One pipe drew water in from the well, fed directly by one of the many springs dotting the mountain. The second pipe carried waste water out of the house and into the leech field of the septic tank in the backyard. Several years ago, some kid or one of their friends decided the pipes needed a personality. They drew large faces on each pipe with permanent magic markers.

No one owned up to the artwork, so Mary Rose made two of the hooligans paint the pipes. The paint didn’t work, and the faces gazed through their feeble attempts like demons from another dimension. When the heartbeats started, Mary Rose could swear she saw the pipes shuddering and the faces grinning as they knocked against the basement wall like a monster struggling to escape.

Mary Rose pulled her mind away from a past she couldn’t change and turned to a present she feared. But damn it, the clothes were dirty. She pulled the lantern out of the laundry basket and switched it on. The basement was all cement and shadows. She put the light on top of the dryer and shook her head in resignation. She was so tired of being the only one to face the darkness. She sighed and kicked the aged washing machine in disgust.

It’s ten at night and here I am sorting this damned pile of laundry after working an eight-hour day. I wanted to have it all, not DO it all. Shit, my life sucks. Mary Rose knew she was talking to herself and cursing like a whore. She did that frequently these days, because nobody else listened or cared.

The first load of Tom’s shirts, washed an hour ago, hung neatly on two racks bolted to the wall. Every time the pipes spasmed, the shirts fell off. Now her pile of clean towels kept falling off the folding table.

It’s not my imagination, is it, Lucky?

Mary Rose bent over to pat the puppy sleeping on the pile of towels scattered across the linoleum floor. He looked up and yawned.

Oh, some help you are. Who knows, Lucky? If I weren’t so tired, I’d worry more about all of it, too. She smiled at the puppy as she nosed one of Tom’s work socks.

Mary Rose jumped as the pulse started out of nowhere. She could swear she saw the pipes move across the wall, shuddering as the heartbeat built to a screech that pounded at the exact center of her forehead. Lucky whined, sinking down into the pile of towels now scattered across the floor.

Oh, for the love of God, dog, it’s the water heater and the damn pipes. We don’t have the money to find the problem, let alone fix it, so live with it and get the hell off the towels!

Mary Rose fumbled in her pants pockets for the cigarette pack she knew was there and shouldn’t be. The asthma was getting hard to deal with, but her nerves were worse.

She turned on the tap in the basement utility sink, grimacing as she saw the water’s brown tinge. She shook her head as a foul odor seemed to surround her in waves. It smelled like rotten eggs and Mary Rose was certain the aging refrigerator in the basement’s corner had finally died, taking two dozen eggs right to hell with it.

She lit her cigarette and waited for the iron or whatever the hell it was to flow out of the faucet before putting another batch of Tom’s shirts in to soak. Mary Rose glared at the flowing water and then leaned closer to the faucet, staring in confusion as the water glowed orange. It went from dingy gray to orange with yellow flecks.

She felt the rush of heat pouring from the sink and backed away, almost tripping over Lucky, who cowered close to the basement steps.

No, no, no, she whispered as the flames spewed from the water faucets, igniting the white shirts draped on the side of the sink.

The pounding in the pipes drowned out her cries as Mary Rose closed her eyes in defeat. She saw the yawning chasm of eternity opening in the basement, and knew as she always did, she was powerless to stop what was coming.

Death was coming into the basement. She had been waiting for years, and it was finally here, exactly as she knew it would be. Mary Rose saw a vortex of light and colors stretching before her in a strangely comforting tableau of welcome.

Leslie was there and waiting with a brilliant smile of welcome. She felt Tom behind her, and Lucky nuzzled her as he always did. Mary Rose saw the Gate opening and reached out to her cousin gratefully.

Come on girl, it’s time, and it’s wonderful. Leslie smiled with beams of diamond sparkles.

Mary Rose knew her fear was finally gone, and she mercifully never felt the explosion that enveloped the white clapboard house, sending them all into the swirl of colors and warmth.

The blast sent a convulsive shudder through the evergreens leading up the back mountain. Hell came roaring through the trees, shattering the peaceful Pennsylvania night with a grinding, high-pitched scream of agony.

In an instant, she, Tom, and Lucky flowed through The Gate and were gone.

Kate Templeton slammed a hand down on her desk when the computer cursor froze on the last graph of the article due at the Tribune’s night desk in 20 minutes.

Damn it, not now! Brian, is the system down again?

Kate’s voice bounced off the silence. The Tribune newsroom was empty. Ten vacant desks lined up in two rows down the center.

The last blitz of staff cutbacks left five desks permanently empty, a chilling testament to the new owners’ thirst for profit. The remaining five desks were covered with newspapers, empty coffee cups and fear.

When the newsroom was racing toward deadline and reporters were chasing the truth, Kate loved the space. When the energy was gone, she hated it. She imagined at one point the cinder block walls had been painted a bright white.