Chapter 1, endings

Hysterical with fright, Mrs. Shields cradled the infant in her arms as she ran for the idling car. The night was dark and damp; the kind of damp that follows one around like an unwelcome street urchin begging for money. Normally the dampness was just present as it was every summer where it topped eighty five to ninety percent more often than anyone bothered to track. But there was something else in this evening besides the damp. It was the fear and loathing that seemed to permeate the mugginess, rode with it, pressed upon the chest when one was out in it that night. It was born in the rustle of the birch and oak trees that lined the roadway. Even the crickets were silent this night.

With jittery fingers Mrs. Shields moved the gear shifter from park to drive and backed out of the parking lot to the chemical plant. The lights from the plant's windows glowed yellow and forlorne. The meeting had not gone well and Benton Shields pressed his wife to take Billie, thier infant, back to the hotel and pack up what things she could manage and leave town and Benton would follow soon.

Passing the front gate and guard shack and pulling onto Happy Valley Road, the woman tried to think of what she could possibly throw into the car and leave with. A sign by the side of the road read, "Welcome to Happy Valley". Mrs. Shields blanched and shook her head.

"What moron named this damned place!"

The urgency in Benton's voice and the frenetic activity in the plant that night didn't belie the danger that was present in the air. Angered words and flared tempers covering the serious to the petty had been flung about in the citizens meeting in the large board room. That meeting had broken up an hour earlier but the rancor had reached a fevered pitch that Benton had told her it would be wise to bundle up whatever they could and take little Billie to her grandmothers in Maryland.

The road ahead curved away from the valley and turned into a copse of trees that surrounded both sides of Muleshoe creek and the bridge that crossed it. The scene was normally that of a quaint back country fishing creek and shade tree lane where one often could picture little boys in ragamuffin garb playing hookey and having adventures in the shade of the trees. This night they were dark and the shade bode evil intent; absent was the quaintness and the good feeling one gets of the countryside bounded by wheat feilds and barbed wire fences where one could look from horizon to horizon and see little diference but the swaying of the wheat kernels on the stalk.

Mrs. Shields pressed the accelerator to escape the darkend lane and bridge as soon as she could. It was irrational that the peaceful copse should be anything but what it normally was. But something wasn't normal. What was normally moonscape and blue hued as the trees were left behind was darkened by storm clouds as if the weather had sensed what was in the air and attempted to hide it from view.

Billie lay bundled in her night clothes and a blanket in the backseat and began to fuss.

"Shhh sweety, momma's here, shhh little one, we're going on a little trip."

Billie struggled with the tightly wrapped blanket that held her arms and legs prisoner. Her vantage point was the ceiling and the windows, her little world always controled by some adult or other and this night instead of being held in her mothers arms she was laying on the backseat and unable to see much in the way of anything.

"Momma's gonna take you to see grandma, wouldn't you like that Billie, to go and see grandma?"

Cresting a hill the road way was lit with headlamps on both sides of the road and several police cars lay off to the side of the road with thier emergency lights flashing. There were several sets of double lamps that Mrs. Shields could count and her heart raced.

"What is going on? What are they doing?"

Mrs. Shields slowed the car down and and squinted through the glare of the lights pointing her direction. The glare masked the everything around and forward of her so that the figures standing near and behind the lamps looked like mere shadows instead of people. Pulling to a stop Mrs. Shields opened the her door.

"Billie, sweety, momma be back," Mrs. Shields said tentatively.

Stepping out of the car she peered into the brightness and discerned several men with rifles and others milling about behind the wall of lights.

"Mrs. Shields, get back into your car and go back to the plant," a voice called out.

"Sheriff, what is going on? I'm going back to our home, let me pass!"

"Just do as I say, we've got more to say to you folks there and will say it back at the plant."

"I don't know what you think you are doing, but I'm heading home and home is where I'm going."

"You'll do as I say, woman!"

"Don't you think you're taking this a little far, Sheriff?" Mrs. Shields trembled with fright and anger at the harshness of his voice and his demands. The conversation drew a multitude of forms that appeared in and around the cars blocking the road. There were at least thirty that she could quickly size up and all was hushed save for the barely audible murmering coming from the gathering.

"I'll do no such thing! Now let me by Sheriff!"

"I'm afraid we can't do that, Mrs. Shields, you'll have to turn around and go back to the plant."

"Damn you Sheriff, I'm going home if I have to plow right through you!" Mrs. Shields turned on her heels and strode back to the car. Slamming the door she sat a moment and gripped the steering wheel. The sudden jar set Billie to fright and she cried.

"Momma's here sweety, momma's here. We're going home sweety, we're going home."

Mrs. Sheilds put the car in reverse and backed a little ways down the road before setting it into drive once more. Gunning the engine, she shot the car forward once more, the peel of tires on the asphalt declared her intent. Ahead was just the glare of the headlamps and the multitude of hidden faces behind. She'd either scare them out of the way or turn into the side of the road beyond the parked squad cars and make her way around the blockage somehow.

Angling the car to the left took her off the road and onto the shoulder. In the moments, just moments as far as she could discern in the quickly moving events, rifle shots punctuated the sounds of her getaway. Turning the wheel quickly took her off the shoulder and into the fence of farmer ????'s field and through his barbed wire fence. The jolting sent little Billie crying out in loud and breathy shrieks. The fields were ripe with wheat and the stalks where tall, almost at shoulder level and she could see nothing in the midst of the crop. Then the car hit something hard and sharp that jolted Mrs. Shields hard into the steering wheel and the car came to a halt.

Mrs. Shields lay slumped over the steering wheel and Billie, jostled by the impact squawled in ever increasing pitch in the backseat. Mrs. Shields lifted her head from the steering wheel and felt the world twist and turn from side to side. A cut above her eye trickled blood down her nose and she tasted salty blood that driped from her upper lip. She gripped the steering wheel and regained her presence of mind. Catching movement from the corner of her eye she turned to the drivers side window and saw a man in a police uniform. It was Rich Tate and she looked at him numbly as he bent down and stared into her window. Realizing that she was not out of harms way she awoke to the danger. Her feet felt numb and heavy and she struggled to find the clutch as the car died after she had hit the dip in the field. The act of putting feet to clutch and accelerator and turning the key to start the car all in a few seconds time was more than Mrs. Shields could manage.

Her drivers side door opened as she had finally found the clutch and turned the ignition key and felt the hand that gripped the back of her head and slammed it back into the steering wheel. Mrs. Shields collapsed once again onto the steering collumn.

A crowd of faces gathered around the car as if drawn by the curiosity of the woman slummped over in the front. Rich Tate flung a torch into the front seat of the car and then slammed the drivers side door shut. Little Billie suddenly stopped her crying, the flicker of the flames that quickly consumed the vynel bucket seats of the ???? danced upon the cieling of the car. Then rough hands reached for her and drew her out of the quickening inferno that engulfed the front seat.