1924


"It's a damn mess up there, I tell you! Must've been six, maybe seven of 'em, just lyin' there, blood everywhere," Martin Allen, a local woodcutter, said in a panic to the sheriff.


"Sounds like it could be bears," the sheriff replied, unenthused. "Even the bears are hungry these days."


"Look, Sherriff, I know ain't nobody care about a bunch of hobos and moonshiners, but I'm telling you, ain't no bear did that!" Martin gestured emphatically in the direction of the mountains. "Can we get a posse together and go up there? I'll lead the goddamn way!"


"Allen, I don't have enough men for that, but I'll tell you what. You got your rifle handy?" The sheriff stood.


"I always carry it."


"Good. Then you and Deputy Jones can go up there in the truck," the sheriff walked into the next room, where a bored-looking deputy sat on a chair facing a solitary jail cell that was housing a sleeping drunk.


"Jones, I got a job for ya. Get in here."


Jones hopped up excited for something new. He was getting tired of listening to the old bum snore.


"You and Allen here are going to take the truck up to that hobo jungle on the mountain. He says he saw a bunch of them just laying dead," the sheriff rolled his eyes. "You sure you don't need to get in there with ol' Cyrus?" He gestured toward the holding cell.


"Sir, I don't touch the stuff and I never will," Allen said proudly. "I saw what I saw."


"Okay then," he walked over to a peg on the wall that was holding several sets of keys. He grabbed a set and threw them to the deputy.


"You'd better drive, Jones. No matter what Allen here says, he's talking like he's been throwing back some bathtub gin since dawn's first light." He chuckled as Jones fumbled for the keys.


--


Five hours later


"God dammit, I ain't got the manpower to take on this many stiffs!" Walton Edwards, the Undertaker said as Allen, Jones, and the Sherriff brought in the last of the corpses. "Bob, what in God's name happened up there?"


The Sherriff, still pale as a ghost, sat down on the floor, against the wall of the local morgue. It was too small for this amount of dead folk.


"I-I don't know," he began, trembling. "I ain't never seen anything like it." He put his face into his hands.


"Edwards? Sherriff?" Jones entered the tiny room.


"Yes, son?" The Sherriff, much more humble now, replied.


"Father Hendricks is here. Should I bring him in?"


"Yes, son. Please." The Sheriff stood to greet the priest.


Jones stepped out but immediately came back with a young man in a priest's collar.


"Thank you for coming, Father." The Sheriff greeted the priest. "I'm sorry to have to bring you in for something like this."


"It's what I'm here for, Bob," the priest replied with familiarity. "What can I help you with?"


"This," Walton pulled back the sheet on one of the bodies, revealing a mangled corpse.


"Lord Jesus!" Father Hendricks recoiled, crossing himself. "Does anyone know what happened...to his head?"


The four men stood in silence as they stared down at the poor unfortunate soul who no longer had a head, but rather just a garish jagged opening, that was dripping blood onto the wooden floor under their feet.