Beavers Creek Chapter 2

The Opening Act: November 1997

Beavers Creek lay in the darkening winter evening, nestled at the foot of the hills, at the edge of the pines, waiting for something to happen.

Beavers Creek (Pop: 7,256 - 1988) which could prove to be pretty crowded during the fishing and hunting season, was disclaimed by the Virginia tourist guides in a few lines as ‘A small town 35 miles off interstate 170 between D & N on the banks of Beaver creek nestled at the foot of the L hills - good for river fishing and duck shooting. Best time to visit August - September.’

However, Beavers Creek now lay in a white and silent icy shroud in early November in its quiet dark solitude, gradually stumbling along towards the deep stupor of long and dark winter nights. Somewhere behind the dark clouds, the edge of the earth progressively took a larger and larger bite of the sun as it sank to the other side of the world.

The winter clouds in November were a swirling mist blanketing the hills, constantly drawing a curtain of white - gray fog. Mist slithered down the hill slopes, and it seemed that if one were to walk up into the pines on the hill slope, one would disappear.

The moaning of the wind through the trees sounded like souls in constant, tortuous pain. The snow lay fallen, a thick carpet of powder giving a uniform blankness to the fields, a stark testimony to the bleakness of the winter.

The tourists were long gone and the trees along the streets were all gnarled, crooked and stripped of their autumn golden yellow leaves, which now lay black and rotting at the bottom of the snow carpet. Bordering the Eastern side of the town were the hills covered with pine, the fields abruptly ending at the forest line where in the falling dusk you could (maybe) make out the trunks of the first row of trees and a gloom and a kind of growing darkness which seemed some how thicker as you stared longer and deeper

into the thick deep darkness

and deeper till you could only see blackness and more blackness. Swirling tendrils of mists, higher up on the hills like beckoning seeking fingers

things, ( monsters, bogeymen )

caressing the trees and slithering wildly through the forest floor.

It was said that there had been wolves in the pines. The locals jokingly called the pines the Black Forest (but there was a kind of nervous, high strung quality to the joke). No one had actually seen wolves in recent years and the last time one had been killed was way back in the summer of 1978 when Jedd Johnson had one caught in his Beaver trap. The lean and hungry timber wolf which was a huge grey and black beast had been attracted by the bait and had howled in anger, rage and pain for the whole night till Jedd went and shot it early in the morning. The wolf had been lying on its side gasping when Jedd walked up to it cursing at the lost bait and the wolf had sprung up, surprising him. It fixed him in a baleful stare, its eyes seemingly red and silver at the same time and the wolf had snarled, strings of saliva drooling from its jaw, its lips curled up revealing its sharp white canines. Jedd shot it between the eyes, skinned the wolf and in the evening at Ron’s swore to all his buddies (after a few rounds of Buds) that he had seen some almost human quality in the hate filled eyes of the wolf. The story grew and grew and mothers in Beavers Creek would scare their children into submission with stories of The Wolf That Jedd Shot In The Black Forest.


The creek, which was more of a small river, ran silently, the dark waters swirling, whirling and gurgling. The Beavers had built a dam just a hundred yards downstream of the old mill and trappers had been coming for the beavers for years until beaver trapping was prohibited by legislation. Tourists would walk down the path between the pines and the creek, past the old mill and watch the Beavers and take photographs of the dam and the beavers (who had become sort of used to human company) with their Japanese cameras. The children would laugh excitedly at the sight of the beavers and their parents would make them stand near

Not too near! Sport, Honey

the bank of the creek and catch them with the dam in the background. If they were lucky they would get a couple of beavers may be, standing on their hind legs, balanced by their broad tails looking not unlike the town mascot, Beavis who proclaimed from the T-shirts the tourists wore -“I Love Beavers Creek - VA”.

Beaver lake would freeze over in mid December. On the brighter days the kids could be found skating on the lake and the old timers would watch the children with a mild concern born of the worrying that only old people could do. They had their memories of ‘67 when the Mackenzie kids - Anne, Dave and George ages 9, 8, and 6 were drowned (more likely died of the shock of plunging into sub zero waters) when the ice broke (good hard ice, perfect for skating) swallowing up the kids into a dark, watery and icy grave. Ed and Mary Mackenzies’ kids had been temporarily a choo choo train with Anne as the engine , being the eldest and George as the little red caboose - only because he had been crying and behaving like a general snotty brat.

The ice broke of in a jagged irregular maw and the kids went straight down and disappeared into the black water and the water sloshed sluggishly yet gleefully at the edges of that maw. It was Pete Gardner who was about 50 yards away cutting down a pine tree at the edge of the black forest and who came running as well as he could through the snow when heard the brief but piercing shrieks. He paused at the edge of the lake, his breath coming in heavy frosty gasps and hesitantly but courageously ventured onto the ice only to be much too late.

The lake was kept out of bounds for the next four years till the memories faded away and parents started talking about how the winter in 67 was really a mild winter and that the Mackenzie kids should never have really been alone on that fateful day and any way, if the kids stuck to the sides and didn’t really go into the middle it was pretty safe. The outcome of this was that kids were back to skating on Beaver Lake but generally parents made sure that there was somebody responsible to accompany them.

Beavers Creek naturally had a Beaver street where you could find Ron’s which was the local bar and meeting place. The men would meet there in the evenings (and of course you could find old Dick Smith, whom the kids called Dorky Dick, in perpetual communion with his old friend and confidante Jim Beam ). Ron’s was run by Ron ’The Ripper’ Radlow who used to be a professional wrestler till a bad fall left him with an injured back and the loss of the use of his left leg and a constant bad temper. Further down Beavers street on the way leading towards the forest was Abbot’s General store ( Est. 1922 - WE SELL ONLY THE BEST !- Hunting and Fishing equipment available at bargain prices !!!) which was where the people would buy most of their needs. Abbot’s had an old world atmosphere being largely unchanged since Tobias Abbot first set up shop. It had a dimly lit interior with narrow crowded aisles with hardly any place to move around and a wooden pine interior, hand built and crafted by Old Toby who had died at the ripe old age of 87 in 1968 of good old Angie P. Ralis . Phil Abbot who now ran the store supplied everything from safety pins to groceries to ammunition for your .36 and colorful baits for your fishing - in fact if you needed something you didn’t know where on the earth you’d find you’d probably find it at Abbot’s.



Abbot’s was next to the Marion’s Diner which had eight well furnished rooms attached which were rented out during the hunting season to the outsiders. Marion’s Diner was run by Marion Burns who was a pretty young divorcee, recently settled about a couple of years ago in Beavers Creek after a messy divorce with her ex-husband. George Beasley was a Trucker With A Temper and after two months of whirlwind courtship (they met at the YMCA ball) and after three years of not so blissful punching bag matrimony, Marion had had enough. Marion moved to Beavers Creek to stay with her Aunt Jennifer (she hated being called Jenny) who happened to be Ed Mackenzies sister, to find a sense of security in being in a small obscure back roads town .She made sure she was far away from where Georgie Boy (who’d kiss the girls and make them cry) could come looking for her despite a restraining order.

Come on friends, a guy who could beat his wife because he had forgotten to bring in his six pack from his truck while coming in couldn’t definitely be rational or logical or maybe sober enough to obey a shitty little court order. If he met up with the former Mrs. Marion George Beasley he would learn her, and she wouldn’t think of reporting her would she and if she tried well he would take his belt to the bitch .

Aunt Jennifer had lost her husband John Pape (Marion’s mothers older brother) in the Korean war and had been secretly glad when her niece turned up at her doorstep on a rainy September night with a battered suitcase. Marion had burst into tears and she had taken Marion in and after a long discussion it was decided that Marion would stay with Aunt Jennifer as long as she wanted. Marion had gradually settled down and had grown to love the town and had taken over the former Pops Diner (which had been closed for over 18 years) and had changed the name to Marion’s Diner when her Aunt insisted. Marion and Jennifer stayed in a small four room apartment over the diner.

The Grace Baptist Church was at the forest end of Beaver street, small but picture postcard perfect, very picturesque and quaint, where the tourists would take photographs and probably buy Grace Baptist Church mementos at Abbot’s. Rev. William Stuart looked after his flock at Beavers creek with religious fervor and devotion, being a kind of right wing (Bible Thumping) Christian and had been around at Beavers Creek Grace Baptist Church for around 20 years, so long that he had also kind of lost a bit of credibility with his flock. The reverend was due to retire in April of next year.

He had been transferred by Higher Authorities when his predecessor the late Rev. Wolfgang Preston (May his soul rest in eternal peace) left for his heavenly abode aided by a nylon rope, a footstool and a ceiling hook and a message he kept hearing in his head from God calling his Faithful Servant to His Glorious Service. He was found three days later on the 21st of September 1977 in a state of ripeness, rather like a bloated avocado gone rotten, hanging from a withered branch. His face was green, purple and black and his tongue bloated, hanging out of the corner of his mouth and it had not been an easy death.

Behind the church, if you traveled around half a mile down the gravel road you would come to the town cemetery, which was in a kind natural hollow and surrounded by silver birches. The cemetery was not very well maintained and was surrounded by a low stonewall, overgrown with moss. The wrought iron gates hung askew and eternally open, leading on to a narrow path overgrown with weeds. Several large trees dotted the cemetery. The caretaker, Abraham Isaacs lived in a small stone building near the entrance of the cemetery.

On the south side, there was the Grand Theatre - the doors and windows were boarded up with old wooden planks which were now rotten and split especially where the now rusty nails had been driven in. You could still find faded posters of the triple feature - A documentary on cowboys, the cartoons and the main feature ‘Alien attack from Mars !’- tacked to the green felt of the broken glass show case. Dozens of used prophylactics lay on the porch of the cinema where the tellers used to sell the tickets and now young horny couples would come for quickies. The whole cinema area was now a jungle of weeds and the whole area had a sense of desolation and loneliness as if a landscape from some lost forgotten planet had been accidentally transported to the corner of Beaver street and Lakeview Drive.

Beam down a piece of desolation Scotty,

If you drove down Lakeview drive you would cross the Pearson place, Ron Radlow’s house with colonial architecture and then the abandoned Beavers Creek Paper Mill which was behind a 10 foot high chain link fence on one side and the Pine forest on the other with a stout rusty padlock on the gate. The Paper mill which was a part of the America Paper Mill co. and also a tax shelter for this company, closed down about the same time that Marion Burns accepted the fateful invitation to the YMCA Ball that would send her into the domestic version of hell and would change her life forever.

After the paper mill the road came to an end and a small stone paved path led through the trees to the edge of Beaver Lake where the town council had made a futile attempt to make a kind of park with a few benches, three lamp posts and a bandstand and two large and now rusted signs which warned about the danger of weak ice and children being accompanied by adults. On the farther shore of the lake were several houses with boathouses which belonged to outsiders who would come between May and September to do some boating and maybe some fishing (now that the paper mill was closed down) on the lake and generally get away from the Hustle And Bustle Of The Big City.

Turning of Beavers street to the right at Marion’s while driving up towards the pines, you would find Dick the Dorks place on your left and a few scattered houses on either side of the road till you came to the White House (as the locals called it) where Teresa White the school headmistress lived with her husband Harold who was the town council headman.

After the White House you could travel past the Browns and the Smiths and after two miles or so you would come to Beaver fall just after the Burton place. This was not actually a water fall as one would think but actually a quarry which was generally out of bounds for all the town people but the children would venture out there occasionally which was wrong as it was really dangerous and which used to be accessed by another road from the other side when the quarry was in use. The quarry was deep and surrounded now by thorn bushes and full of water which seeped from Beavers creek through some underground prehistoric rock formation.

The town itself was not much; most of the people knew each other as they could only do in such a small place. The town had few stories to tell. There were sordid tales to be told at fireplaces or secrets that hummed across telephone lines. Lurid stories mainly about who was sleeping with whom and how Jane Mason Larry’s wife, would find her way to Joey Turnbull’s camper and indulge in free uninhibited sex, while Larry was away.

The gossips gleefully discussed how the Burton kid, Frank, had been copped on a drug charge in New York and his sister Geraldine danced at topless at the Paradise Alley club in L.A. (Her parents insisted she was making it big in Hollywood as an actress and Frank was working as an accountant with Jerome & Jerome booksellers.

And, how

(I saw it with my own eyes, the shameless slut! and her tits aren’t really as big as they seem so maybe she’s padding her bras)

Brad Smith and Cynthia Brown had gone skinny dipping in the lake on a moonlit night after parking his battered Chevy near the bandstand.

Don’t get it wrong folks, there’s not much to do in Hicksville - VA for the old ladies in town and what’s a little harmless truthful gossip, spread the Good News!

This little escapade ended with Cynthia realizing that she had a bun in her oven, two weeks later when she was late. After many tears and countless arguments between Brad

(how can you be sure its my baby said the unwise Brad)

they were finally married with Cynthia three months gone at the Grace Baptist Church on the 18th of August 1995. There were a lot of parental ‘We can’t believe you did this to us’ and threats of bodily harm (Cynthia’s elder brother Tony Brown who was on the football team promised Brad he would personally take him apart),

The Smiths (junior) lived off Maple Street next to the Webster’s who ran the hardware store on Beavers Street, in a three room house with one bathroom and a case of mildew and roach infestation.

Brad found it hard to keep a job and Cynthia did a part time job at the town library, in the evenings. Brad would look after Pitt (get the connection?) their son, though not very well. By the time Cynthia got back from the library she would invariably find Pitt in shitty diapers and shitty hands and maybe screaming his head off. Brad would be watching reruns of M*A*S*H* on cable TV, his feet on the couch a six pack, a pack of potato chips and an pack of Marlboro lights to keep him company.

But there were darker tales too, in Beavers Creek. Things unknown, shameful stories. Things which nobody wanted to know about and things which were never discussed.

The people would not even think, let alone talk of the hot day in July of 1993 when Jim, Chris & Catherine Foley’s eleven year old son was found. Next to the creek bank further downstream of Beavers dam at the edge of the pines, Jim lay in a state of catatonia, huddled in a small pitiful heap on a carpet of pine needles his arms were held rigidly next to his side and his feet curled up under him.

They were never able to get his hands and feet to relax, (despite a heavy dose of morphine). His hair had turned white and stuck straight out of his head, with more than half of his hair gone and his pale scalp gleaming through.

Jim was incapable of any speech except a low, keening. His eyes were pale and his normally brilliant blue iris’ had faded to a very pale shade as if they had been discolored by some strong form of radiation. Jim was taken to the Newcastle Health facilities and died two days later without coming out of his state of wide-eyed terror. Jim was buried in the cemetery after a brief and very tearful service.

Then there was the winter of ‘95 when Yvonne Firth was found in the premises of the Beavers Creek Paper mill, naked and nailed ten feet up to the hardwood wall of the manager’s office. Her legs were spread and she had been raped. There was no marks on her body except where she had been nailed to the wall, her body had been deathly pale which was later attributed to the fact that the Yvonne had not a drop of blood in her as if all the blood from her body had been evaporated. There was no trace of blood even on the hard packed snow below her. The autopsy ascertained that she had been alive when she had been nailed to the wall and she had been raped after that. Yvonne had been 14 years old.

There were the usual disappearances, people you wouldn’t generally miss, drifters who were assumed to have just wandered away and the occasional missing pet. Marion’s tom, Garfield didn’t turn up one evening and was missing ever since. But sometimes pets did turn up like Braveheart the massive Burton St. Bernard who was found near Beavers Fall, his massive throat slashed and most of the bones in his body broken and he had been gutted his viscera trailing 20 yards behind him.

The killing had been attributed to a bear. It had been particularly gruesome and Mrs. Burton who absolutely doted on Braveheart (Mr. Burton generally called him the dumb mutt) wasn’t allowed to see the remains.

So, friends here’s presenting Beavers Creek, small American hick town with its history and its secrets, in a state of inexorable decline moving towards nowhere.
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II

THINGS BEGIN TO HAPPEN

December 1997

The second week of December in Beavers Creek, definitely not the best of seasons even though the chilly winter sky was clear and with Christmas round the corner almost anything is bearable.

The second week of December in Beavers Creek when the moon was fat and cheesy, full and round and ugly, hanging low in the night sky.

The second week of December in Beavers Creek when things began to happen and evil made its presence known in town. Things began to go bad and things began to go bad and Hey Ho! ,Folks of Beavers Creek, everything’s definitely not going to be all right and in fact things are about to get much, much worse.