The Splendor of Fear Read online

  The Splendor of Fear

  Ambrose Ibsen

  Copyright © 2018 by Ambrose Ibsen

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses and events are the product of the author's imagination or are used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

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  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Thank you for reading!

  About the Author

  One

  “You are going to go, right?”

  I looked to the kitchen counter, where I'd gathered my supplies for the trip. I'd arranged a brand new sleeping bag, a duffel full of clothing, a backpack stuffed with toiletries and other odds and ends there in a neat pile. With one hand on my brow and the other pressing the phone to my ear, I grunted. “I went out and bought the supplies, didn't I?” Picking at the sales tag on the sleeping bag—which I hadn't trimmed away yet in the hopes that I might return it and recoup my investment—I added, “It's only for two nights and he won't shut up about it. My hands are tied.”

  Diana laughed—cackled. “Penny, you're being a real brat. If my boyfriend planned a romantic weekend getaway with me, I'd be hella excited. Especially if I thought he might use it as an excuse to propose! Keep acting like this and you're gonna break Jared's heart.”

  “Easy for you to say. I seem to remember your boyfriend proposed to you at a resort in Cabo. Or am I misremembering? Jared—if he's going to pop the question at all—is going to drag me into the woods for two nights of fishing. I don't even eat fish, Di. It's going to be hell.” I paced into the living room and took a glance out the window. Jared had been gone almost an hour, picking up some last minute gear for our trip, and a careful search up and down the road showed no signs of his return. The sun was bowing out for the day and a weak breeze set the curtains rustling as I dropped onto the sofa. “And say he does propose...”

  “You are going to say yes, aren't you?” Diana was quick to ask. “You and Jared are perfect. You've been together for, what, five years now?”

  “Six.”

  “Right. Don't you think it's time to...” She paused, chuckling, and then resumed with evident amusement. “Settle down? Tie the knot? You're not getting any younger, girl.”

  I groaned like I'd been punched in the stomach. “Gee, thanks. You sound like my damn mother, you know that? 'If you don't marry him soon he's going to find someone younger. Marry and pop out some kids before your ovaries shrivel up, or else start hoarding cats!' I'm twenty-six, Di. Hardly geriatric. And, you know, I think we're both perfectly happy with how things are going right now. We're comfortable. Marriage and... kids... all that domestic stuff... I don't know if we're there yet.”

  I could practically hear Diana rolling her eyes as she sighed into the phone. “Just go and try to have fun. I mean, what would you do otherwise? Sit around in your pajamas binging Netflix? This will be good for you. You might even like it.”

  “There's nothing wrong with watching Netflix all day. They've got all of Friends on there again. That show is a national treasure.”

  “Maybe your mother is right,” countered Diana.

  “What about?”

  “If you get a start now, you could manage a pretty respectable collection of cats.” She laughed to herself. “Call me when you get back, OK? Let me know how it went. And if you do get a ring, I want pictures!”

  “Yeah, will do.”

  The call ended, and where usually I'd have been happy to kvetch with Diana late into the night, the new silence proved far more relaxing than her inquisition had been. Pitching my heels up onto the edge of the ottoman, I turned once again to the window and peered into the dusk for my boyfriend's headlights. No sign of the Jeep.

  It was at this time of night that I usually plucked a pint of Haagen-Dazs from the freezer and pared down the remaining episodes of The Office waiting on my Netflix queue, but as I eyed the TV remote I couldn't bring myself to do it. There were other things on my mind.

  Are you really going to go on this stupid trip?

  Well, sure I was. What choice did I have? If I pulled out at the last minute, I'd be forced to deal with Jared's sulking. What's more, if he really was planning to propose to me on this trip, then I'd run the risk of ruining everything by staying home.

  You do want him to propose, don't you?

  The question just hung there.

  Jared and I had been together for six years—our best years, I supposed—and we liked each other pretty well. He knew what kind of cereal I liked and was pretty good about getting his dirty socks in the hamper. I'd convinced him to ditch the crappy body sprays of his youth and to wear proper cologne during our weekly date nights. I was content to let him go hiking or fishing with his friends now and then, and during my periodic Pride and Prejudice jags, he'd sit patiently beside me on the couch and listen to me wax poetic about how Colin Firth was truly the best Mr. Darcy.

  Marriage was the next logical step, right?

  We'd started dating during our sophomore year at Moorlake University, and from the very start, people in our social circles had remarked on how simpatico we were. When we moved in together after graduation, renting a little one-story ranch-style in Moorlake for six-hundred a month, those same friends made a very big deal about it and even started a betting pool to see how long it would take us to tie the knot.

  Well, years had passed, and now we had the ironic distinction of being the only paring in our circle that remained unmarried. That's right: His friends were all married now, and so were mine. A few of them had started having kids, buying houses, moving far away from our little college town and embarking on very adult-sounding adventures, whereas Jared and I kept haunting the same downtown bars we'd patronized as undergrads.

  In all the years we'd been together, we'd barely spoken about marriage. When the subject had come up, it had always been in reference to someone else's news. “Diana and John are getting married!” or “It looks like someone's having a wedding reception at the botanical garden today—we should put on fancy clothes and sneak in for some free drinks!” On those occasions when we had discussed the possibility of marriage between the two of us—which were exceedingly rare—we'd always just had a laugh, as if to say, “Marriage. Wouldn't that be something?”

  I'd always looked at the matter this way: Marriage was something that would happen naturally when the time came and it finally felt right, or else the two of us weren't suited for it and we'd just live out the rest of our days as loving roommates with benefits.

  Recent developments had brought the subject to the fore of my mind, though.

  I'd heard through the grapevine that Jared had been talking with friends of his abou
t their marriages, about financing wedding rings, and that he'd even asked one of them for advice on finding a good jeweler. Furthermore, Jared wasn't much in the habit of arranging trips for the two of us to go on, and certainly he wouldn't think to drag his homebody of a girlfriend into the wilderness without good reason. His recent chats with friends had me thinking that this trip was a put-on; that he'd lately begun to consider the marriage question and wanted to do something romantic and memorable as a prelude to proposing.

  That was my theory, anyhow. Because of this, I'd decided to put my big-girl pants on and go, despite my reservations.

  Waiting for Jared to get back, I began playing around on my phone, Googled our destination. It was a park in Kentucky—Swan Creek State Park—whose titular creek offered some of the best fishing in the State according to my boyfriend, and which was home to well-maintained hiking trails for novices and expert outdoorsmen alike. The reviews on social media sites for this place were through the roof, but I took the five-star ratings with a grain of salt knowing that they'd been written by people who had an affinity for shitting in the woods.

  I sought out the park's website in the hopes of finding a list of amenities or nearby landmarks I could get hyped about, and found it embarrassingly lo-fi. Every section of the site was haunted by a drab green background, and the contents were rendered in nigh-illegible white and blue text. Before I'd even finished reading a blurb about the park's resident birds I could feel a migraine coming on.

  Buried deep in the website's “History” section was something I found interesting, though. Apparently, the vast park was home to an abandoned mill town called Newsom's Landing, whose last residents had moseyed on in the 1880's. There was a crappy photo of a crumbling building with stone walls for reference, and mention of many such relics scattered throughout the woods, far from the established trails.

  That wasn't the interesting part, however. We had plenty of rundown buildings in Moorlake to gawk at. No, the history of the town and its subsequent abandonment were what caught my eye as I scrolled. Newsom's Landing, it turned out, was the site of a well-documented witch trial in the summer of 1881—that of Ellie Pomeroy—arguably the last such trial ever conducted in the United States.

  “Ellie Pomeroy.”

  It wasn't the last time I'd encounter that name.

  Outside, the Jeep's tires bit into the driveway. Shortly thereafter, Jared's plodding footfalls sounded up the patio steps as he brought in his new haul. Several shopping bags in hand, he fumbled with the door and, when it was finally open, stuck his head through the threshold to peek at me.

  I stood, eyeing the bags. “That looks expensive.”

  He shuffled inside, setting the stuff down on an empty chair. “Hey, it pays to be prepared. I'd hate for us to get out into the field only to realize we forgot something.” Kicking off his sneakers and giving the waistband of his blue basketball shorts a yank, he began unpacking his recent purchases. “I know how you are about worms, but I decided to go ahead and buy some bait ahead of time.” He pulled a white, puck-shaped container from one of the bags and gave it a shake. “Gotta store them in the fridge.”

  I bristled at the very suggestion. “You're putting what in my fridge?”

  “They'll only be there overnight! Just pretend it's a container of cottage cheese or something.”

  “But they are there. And they're going to be, like... writhing near the yogurt!”

  He returned a few moments later, unpacking a plastic tackle box and several sleeves of fishing hooks. “Babe, I know this isn't your sort of thing, but I really think you're going to enjoy it. We can cook over a fire, watch the stars, do some good fishing—maybe even a little swimming!” He grinned and gave me a wink. “And, you know, if all else fails I'm sure we can think of something fun to do in the tent...”

  One might say that I looked unconvinced as I paced the living room and glanced over the assortment of dead-eyed lures on display. “Yeah, I'm sure it'll be great.”

  Jared arched a brow. “Look, I'll take off these scrubby clothes and put on a little flannel. How's that? I'll march you into the woods looking like the Brawny man.” He stroked at his chin, which was coated in dark brown stubble. “The beard's coming along just fine. I'm a regular lumberjack. Hell, before this trip is done I might even catch you a fish with my teeth, like a grizzly bear.”

  “Whoa, there.”

  He approached me, taking my hands in his. “It's only two nights. Two nights. That's it. I promise you're going to have some fun. It's a beautiful park with a great history. Just try to keep an open mind, OK? I know that this is my idea and that you're not into it, but it's important to me.”

  Short of telling him I didn't care, how the hell could I argue with that? “Sure,” I relented. “What's two nights?” Gulping, I thought to add a lie to the mix. “You know, I'm actually kind of looking forward to it. Getting away from... all this.” I motioned about the room.

  I wasn't sure if he believed me. He only smiled.

  Two

  The town of Newsom's Landing, Kentucky was established in 1792 by settlers from Pennsylvania and Virginia. Situated in a dense wilderness near Swan Creek, the pioneers grew up the small town from its initial population of fifty to nearly two-hundred within its first ten years.

  The town came to be known as a major hub in the Kentucky silk trade, and the craftsmen of Newsom's Landing produced handmade fishing twine that was considered by the fly fishermen of the day to be the finest in the Country. Swan Creek, itself a spring-fed tributary of the mighty Kentucky River, is home to dozens of species of fish. Black bears, bobcats and coyotes are known to live in the surrounding woods, though hunting and development throughout the State in the 19th and 20th centuries saw their numbers decline sharply.

  It was in the spring of 1880, after nearly a century of growth and success, that Newsom's Landing was rocked by a series of strange and horrific events. Within four years, the once-promising town would be completely abandoned and given over to the wilderness.

  The nightmare began when Elijah Hudson, a Civil War veteran and local fisherman, set out to the creek on the morning of May 4th, 1880. He was not seen again until the evening of May the 7th, when he returned—haggard, naked and confused—to the town center. Despite his intimate knowledge of the area and his relative closeness to the border of town, he'd wandered lost in the woods for three days, and along the way he'd lost all of his clothing and supplies. When asked where he'd been, how he'd gotten lost in these woods he knew so well, he could only cite a nebulous confusion. He mentioned, too, that he hadn't been alone—that there had been someone with him all that while, in the wilderness, though he could not say who, and to reflect too long on the subject saw him fall into a frightened stupor from which it would take hours for him to emerge.

  One week later on the 14th of May, after killing all of the pigs and sheep on her small farm, a widow by the name of Lucretia Chambers walked into a local chapel and set herself on fire. A Baptist minister and a handful of congregants witnessed the immolation, which had taken place at the tail end of their service. All of the witnesses claimed that Mrs. Chambers, laughing to herself, had taken a seat in one of the pews and set fire to her dress, which she had previously doused in kerosine. Despite the efforts of those gathered, the woman burned to death. Her motive was never learned, though the witnesses all attested to the fact that she had been acting strangely in the days leading up to the incident, and that even while she burned, she'd continued to chuckle, eyes blank, as though she were unaware of the reality of her actions.

  Ten days after the immolation of Lucretia Chambers, in the woods just outside of town, three men were found hanging from nooses made of vines. Seeing as how they were lifelong residents, with families, solid reputations and no known inclinations towards suicide, the deaths were considered suspicious and local authorities launched an investigation. The bodies were recovered and thoroughly examined by the town physician, but no signs of a struggle could be found on any of
them, leading the locals to believe that the three, upon entering the woods, had suffered a sudden mental break and chosen to kill themselves.

  It was revealed in the ensuing days that one of the three men had—just prior to the ill-fated hunting trip—been involved in something of a spat with a reclusive townswoman named Ellie Pomeroy. The exact nature of the argument has been lost to time, but a witness acquainted with one of the dead hunters gave some insight into the aftermath. The hunter, Thomas Prynn, had perhaps trespassed on Pomeroy's remote property, and allegedly the resulting confrontation had led him to utter a string of venomous insults. The woman had fielded these insults with an eerie calm, and she had issued a veiled threat, promising Prynn that he would soon get what was coming to him.

  Subsequently, Prynn's body and those of his fellows were found hanging less than a mile from Pomeroy's doorstep.

  Local authorities approached Pomeroy one afternoon in late May with a mind towards asking her what she'd seen. Three lawmen made the walk to her cabin on the 26th, and were met by its resident, which one account described as, “Sallow of face, thin as a corpse. Looked well-aged beyond what we presumed a woman of middle-years ought to.”

  Ellie Pomeroy was known to be a recluse. She had lived on the edge of Newsom's Landing for as long as anyone could remember, though none could guess at her parentage. She was ill-regarded for her strange appearance and secrecy—some speculated that she was a leper, the last of her colony—though the local gossip tended most often to address certain of her behavioral eccentricities.