Let the fun continue.! This is the 67th installment of a continuing fictional story. Before each new segment, the last paragraph from the prior edition will be shown in quotations. “I bent over and attempted to pull my self together. After a couple of minutes, I began jogging toward town. I quickly moved up to a full sprint and ran straight to the sheriff’s office. Letters was not there and I asked to use the phone while catching my breath.”

By C.L. Harmon

The lone deputy directed me to a desk behind the counter where there was a phone. I dialed Letter’s number and mustered all my energy to stay calm when he answered. “Elden, I found Dobson. He’s dead.” Without even taking a breath, he told me to stay put and he would be there in twenty minutes. He made it in fifteen. Upon arriving, he asked where Dobson’s body was. The deputy perked up and walked over to the desk where we were standing. I told him the location and about the lightning strike and he directly turned his attention to the deputy. “Mike I need you to get on the horn and get the other deputy’s out to Jack Steppford’s property; the edge of his land where he stores that old oil field equipment.” He then phoned Izzy Lancaster, who owned the funeral home in town, and told him he had a body and the location. He and I then left and headed toward Steppford’s property where Dobson was. “What the hell were you doing out there anyway,” Letters asked as we drove through the night. I watched another flash of lightning in the distance as he asked. I told him about going to Polk’s house and the book and how I didn’t intend to go there. I said I just ended up there while walking and thinking about things. “Blake, you need to stay away from him! He is not stable and God only knows what he is fully capable of. Look at all the damage he has already done in this community with those damn henchmen he’s got doing his bidding. For God sakes son, people have died because of his actions!” He was very stern, but not angry…at least not at me. Dobson was dead and he felt responsible. It was another death that we both knew was senseless. When we arrived on scene, one of his deputies had already made it on scene. He was kneeling down over the body shining a flashlight at it when we got out of the car. “Sheriff, there’s something not right about him.” His voice carried a slight hesitancy with it . Letters joined the deputy kneeling down as well. “Have you ever seen any thing like that in your life Sheriff?” Dobson’s face was contorted and it remained frozen and lifeless in an expression of fright. Whatever it was that his eyes gazed upon for the last time, I think literally killed him. But that was not the face I had seen when I found him. He looked as though he had been beaten to a pulp. Now though, he looked as though there wasn’t a mark on his face…just that horrible expression that was haunting. “Sheriff, there is something else. When I got here, there were three coyotes a few feet from the body. They wouldn’t get close to it. It’s like they were scared of it. Even when I walked up and began throwing rocks at them, they stayed put. You know as well as me that coyotes don’t act like that. When I finally pumped my shotgun they ran off. But you can see for yourself they never touched that body and they could have been here for a while before I arrived. Another lightning strike accompanied by gusts of winds moved around us as angry ghosts while others who had been called began to arrive. Letters saw Izzy Lancaster get out of his hearse and informed that his services wouldn’t be neccesary since there was no apparent cause of death, he would have county emergency services transport the body to Tulsa for an autopsy.