Scarecrow Field: Horror Suspense (Damianos Series #3)

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  Thank You

  Booklist

  Scarecrow Field

  (Horror Suspense novella)

  John Stone

  Mystery Thriller Suspense Publications House

  Scarecrow Field(Horror Suspense novella)

  Copyright 2015 John Stone, Mystery Thriller Suspense Publications House

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  CHAPTER ONE

  Birds were always so interesting to watch. Their wings cutting through the sky, flying completely free from all restrictions—not beholden by having their feet on the ground.

  Honestly, Rose and Darla were jealous.

  When it came down to it, that's why they enjoyed bird-watching so much. It was being able to vicariously live through those creatures—to go wherever they wanted to go—to soar higher than they could ever imagine. It must have been so satisfying to drift with the winds and to leave your troubles down below.

  One weekend a month, Rose and her friend Darla would take a road trip upstate to be an audience to the wonders of the sky. They were on their way back from one such trip, having had a great, relaxing time away from San Diego.

  It didn't seem like the bird-watching was quite done yet, though.

  It was a black bird that immediately caught Rose's eye, a crow, gliding just over the wheat field they were passing. Its dark wings seemed to be begging for her attention, practically flying parallel to the car. She followed its trajectory above the wheat to a scarecrow perched on a comb gibbet.

  The scarecrow seemed rather terrible at its job. Over a dozen crows swarmed around its head, some even resting on its arms or pecking at its face. They certainly didn't seem to fear it.

  “That's weird,” Rose said with an amused smile. “Darla, do you mind slowing down for a minute? Something strange is going on. Want to be able to get a closer look.”

  While Rose pulled out the binoculars she always brought on the weekend trips, Darla brought the car to a complete step at the top of the tractor path that led into and around the field. Rose raised her binoculars and peered through them, getting a closer look at the murder of crows.

  What she saw was far stranger than the crows' behavior.

  Rose put her binoculars down, shook her head in disbelief. She had to be seeing things; a trick of the light, perhaps. She had to be sure, so raised the binoculars up to her eyes once more.

  Yet, there was the same horrifying image in the lens.

  “Darla...” She said, only managing a shaky whisper. “Darla, please tell me you don't see this. Please.”

  Rose wearily handed over the binoculars to her friend and Darla had a look for herself. When she lowered the binoculars, her pale face affirmed that she had seen exactly what Rose had.

  “What should we do?” Darla asked, her entire body trembling.

  “...drive closer...see if there's anything we can do to help him.”

  When they pulled up to the scarecrow—they discovered that there was no help they could have given.

  The poor man was strung up on the post like a scarecrow, whatever life he had had was long gone. The crows seemed to take turns eating away at his exposed skin. Half of his face had already been consumed by the feathered scavengers.

  Both women were paralyzed by the sight. They knew the man—Lamont Duffield.

  After a few minutes, Rose composed herself enough to get out of the car and walk toward the comb gibbet over which Duffield had been attached. With each step, his appearance grew more and more mangled.

  The crows seemed to fear her as little as the “scarecrow” and remained picking away at the man, as if given supreme confidence by the feast. They glared down at the woman, as if she was interrupting their lunch.

  Rose didn't want to get any closer. The crows were unsettling enough but it was the gruesome corpse that she would never forget. Besides being picked apart by birds, there was another very memorable image—his chest had been impaled by a pitchfork.

  If Rose looked at him any longer, her body would give way to the woozy feeling that was beginning to spin her surroundings. She had to get away, had to find help. There was nothing she could do for the poor soul but it had to be reported. Rose turned back toward the car, seeing Darla's petrified expression in the driver's seat.

  Luckily, Rose knew exactly who to call—her nephew at the San Diego Police Station, Detective Andre Russell.

  **

  Detective Andre Russell—known more widely as Damianos, the tamer—was initially happy to hear his aunt's voice on the phone. It was a nice to hear a friendly and innocent voice, to step away, even for a moment, from the nickname that had been attributed to his efficient and relentless detective work.

  Damianos listened to his aunt's story with amusement at first. The old dear had obviously been watching way too many horror movies when she wasn't watching birds out of her friends' gardens. It wasn't until she mentioned that she knew the “scarecrow”, that Damianos realized it was more than just an old woman's imagination playing tricks.

  “You knew him?” Damianos straightened in his chair.

  “Yes, yes, Lamont Duffield!” The name meant nothing to Damianos but the fact she knew him definitely meant something. “Poor young man, poor young man. Stabbed with a pitchfork. I've never seen anything like it!” She said, her voice hoarse with fear. “It was like he might as well have been made of straw, the way it went through him! Does it always look like that, Andre!?”

  Damianos couldn't stand to hear his aunt in such terror. Growing up, she had always seemed so calm and happy with life, a great comfort to a young boy. It was always nice having her around during the holidays. It wasn't right that a woman who had always been so carefree now seemed to have an entire mountain on her back.

  “Listen, Aunt Rose. I'm on my way. Where is the field?” Damianos asked.

  When she finally composed herself long enough to give him a general location, Damianos did his best to keep her calm.

  “Aunt Rose—Rose—please, listen. I need you to take your friend and get home. Pour yourself a glass of wine, or a cup of tea, anything to help relax. I know that seems impossible right now but it's the only thing you can do for now. Everything will be handled. Just get home and keep as calm as possible.” Damianos had never expected to have to comfort his aunt. How times had changed from when she'd help tuck him in to bed. “I'll come and see you later, I promise.”

  Just as Damianos hung up the phone, his partner John Avers, came storming up, well dressed and looking as rigid as ever. His face was especially stern which was never a good sign. It meant that he was focused on something, usually a case.

  “We have just received a call from someone saying that there's a dead person strung up like a scarecrow in a cornfield.”

  Damianos couldn't believe his partner's words.

  “Really?” Damianos peered down at his phone. “I just got a call from my aunt...with a very similar story.”

  Avers had his notepad out and at the ready before Damianos even had a chance to proceed. He recounted what his aunt
had told him and John readily transferred the story into writing. Once he had written everything down, they compared those notes with the once John had taken when he had received the call. They were remarkably similar, and even in close vicinity to one another.

  “Definitely not a coincidence.” John said, in his usual no-nonsense manner.

  “Gee, John, you think?” Damianos chuckled. “I thought corpses being strung up like scarecrows was just another day at the office. Now, what do you say we go get our own look at these sites?”

  The cornfield, John's call, was the first stop on the way. It wasn't long before they found the “scarecrow” and it was hard to believe it was once a real person. It's face was torn apart to the point of being almost unrecognizable. The victim's mother wouldn't even be able to identity her son.

  Crows hovered above the cornfield, cawing in anticipation to get another bite of their meal.

  Once their initial examination had been finished, they moved on to the wheat field up the road where his Aunt Rose had been. While on the way, Damianos phoned his associates Dr. James Darby, the medical examiner, and Alan Davros, the Crime Lab Chief Examiner. Both would be essential in any further study of the bodies. They would be at the first site in the corn field within the hour—hopefully before the crows devoured too much more of the body.

  Pulling up to the wheat field, they were greeted by a crow flying overhead and dropping what looked like a human finger onto the windshield as it did.

  Off to a great start. Damianos thought.

  John pulled the car to a stop and nudged Damianos. They turned to find a sheriff's car pulled up behind them. The sheriff stepped out of his car, having a particularly straight posture and looking very serious in his expression as he approached.

  “Friend of yours?” Damianos asked John with a smirk.

  “Never. Looks way too stuck up.” John said.

  “...I think you guys would get along wonderfully...” Damianos said under his breath.

  The partners nodded to each other before getting out of the car to greet the sheriff.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “We've been made aware of the two human scarecrows. They're drawing a lot of attention.” Sheriff Lynn Anderson said.

  “Right?” Damianos said. “It's like every crow on the planet decided it was time to pack up their things and migrate here.”

  The sheriff and John Avers both looked identically unamused.

  “I was just wondering if there was anything me and my men could do to help.” Sheriff Anderson said.

  Damianos is tempted to say “no”. Throughout his career, he's tended to butt heads with other badges more than worked well with them. However, he didn't want to completely alienate the sheriffs. It was too early to determine just what they were dealing with and if it was as bad as it seemed, they would need all of the help they could get. He at least knew one job that the sheriff could deal with.

  “Lamont Duffield is the name of this victim. It would be a great help if you could inform his family of what happened.” Damianos said.

  “Understood,” Sheriff Anderson said. “While we're at it, I'll also inform Eric Bosch's family of their son's death.”

  “You know the other victim?” John Avers asked, visibly impressed.

  Sheriff Anderson nodded grimly.

  “Eric's a local boy...was going to USC in the fall.”

  According to the sheriff, the two “scarecrows” had both been young men.

  Damianos shook his head in silence, looking over at the victim.

  The two boys that had been killed in such a horrid fashion didn't deserve it. They didn't deserve the further disgrace of having their arms strung over a comb gibbet. They didn't deserve to have their bodies being eaten by the very birds their effigies were supposed to scare off.

  Nobody deserved such a death.

  **

  Damianos and John both walked back to the car and couldn't help but feel absolute disgust. It was very rare to see such sadism in the cases they worked. The murders were visceral—raw—and they needed to end before anymore were mutilated and eaten by crows.

  While the partners sat in the car and John turned the keys, Damianos felt convinced that whoever was killing so violently was only beginning. The excessive brutality seemed to be saying only one thing—it was a rampage.

  “Whatever sicko is doing this...they're going to kill again.”

  The first question that needed to be answered was why the boys were being chosen in particular. Why were they being put to death and then displayed for everyone to see? What could they have in common that ignited such a fury in the killer? It was far from a normal murder. Most would put a bullet or a blade in someone and then make a run for it...not take the time to string up body. It was clearly about more than just a kill.

  Aunt Rose had told him that she knew the boy in the wheat field, Lamont Duffield, so she was probably a good place to start.

  Rose Russell was a not-so-elderly woman who always kept an impeccable house. She had always been one of Dominos’ favorite relatives. She was easy-going and even a little bit eccentric, always fun to talk to when he was a kid.

  Stepping up to her house, it was clear to Damianos that she had remained just as odd and her house just as nice.

  “Andre!” She said, strolling into Dominos’ arms. “You have no idea how good it is to see you!” She was understandably trembling and her words were laced with a contradictory mix of fear and relief. “Please, have a seat, have a seat.”

  “Aunt Rose, this is my partner, Detective John Avers.” Damianos said warmly.

  “Thank you! Thank you!” Rose said, with tears in her eyes. “Have a seat! Please have a seat! What a day it's been. What a day...!”

  The two detectives sat down in her living room while Aunt Rose busied herself by getting a strong coffee ready for them. A few minutes later, they were sipping on an excellent brew while they listened to Aunt Rose's story.

  Sitting down listening to his aunt's stories, Damianos almost felt like a kid again...if it weren't for the very adult subject matter.

  “Lamont Duffield...poor Lamont...he was an extraordinary child! Truly. He was extraordinary. Always so gifted...he used to be so bored with school because he learned more in a month than all of his friends would in a year. Did you know he finished high school at fourteen?”

  Damianos shook his head. Honestly, her story so far was all he really knew about the victim.

  “Very large IQ, from what I heard. A very smart boy. He was planning on going to USC next fall to get a degree in applied mathematics. Can you believe it!? Like I said, extraordinary.”

  Extraordinary, indeed. There it was. The connection between the two human scarecrows. They were both going to the university in the fall—but that was hardly reason to kill them.

  “Did you know the other victim? Eric Bosch?” John asked.

  “Oh yes, Eric was a lot like Lamont,” Rose said. “They were both so smart. So young.”

  Damianos suddenly had a thought.

  “Aunt Rose, is there anyone else you know who is kind of like Eric and Lamont? Smart, young, maybe going to the university?”

  “Oh yes, Peter Barrow! He's also extremely intelligent for his age. Lives in town, though...one of the suburbs, I believe.”

  “You seem to know everything,” Damianos laughed. “How is it you seem to know so much about these boys?”

  “I always find myself interested in local prodigies like them. So I know them all in different ways, well, Peter wants to become an ornithologist,” Rose explained. “He comes to our bird watching weekends whenever he can get away for a day. Darla—that's my friend—and I take him with us and bring him home. A nice boy, that one.”

  Damianos glanced over to John who nodded in understanding. They didn't want to alarm Aunt Rose but they needed to find Peter Barrow as soon and as quickly as possible.

  Aunt Rose was happy to give them Peter's address, wanting to be able to help in any way she could. That was t
he aunt Damianos remembered—always helping out.

  “Andre, if Peter needs to hide from this maniac, he's welcome to stay with me. Please let him know that. It will be a very scary time for him.”

  “I'll pass it along, Aunt Rose. Thank you for all of your help.”

  “Nice to meet you, ma'am.” John said with a bow of his head.

  “Anytime, hun. Anytime.” She said with a wink.

  With that, Damianos and John Avers took leave of Rose Russell's house and Damianos felt the first cracks in the mystery of the case begin to open.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “Quite a feisty lady, your aunt.” John said while they returned to the car.

  It was getting late in the day but Damianos refused to call it a night before making sure that Peter Barrow was safe and sound. They followed the address that Aunt Rose had given them but when they arrived at the address, they stumbled across two worried faces.

  “Peter! Peter!” They yelled repeatedly.

  “His parents?” John asked from the driver's seat.

  “Seems so,” Damianos nodded. “Let's check, shall we?”

  They rushed to park the car by the curb and then ran to the worried parents.

  “Mr. and Mrs. Barrow?” John asked, pulling out his badge, which was greeted by two nods. “I'm Detective John Avers. This is Detective Andrew Russell. We were here to have a word with your son.”

  “Well as you have probably noticed, we can't find Peter.” Mr. Barrow said, rubbing sweat off of his forehead.

  “Peter was just dropping the garbage out and then going to the all-night market to pick up some milk...it wasn't supposed to be a long wait. It's not that far. He's sixteen—tall for his age—he can be distracted at times.” Mrs. Barrow said, holding back her tears.

  “That was an hour ago...he still hasn't come back.” Mr. Barrow added.

  “It's too early to file a missing person's report...but I'll tell you what, Detective Avers and I will comb the neighborhood to see if Peter might have stopped anywhere or if anyone's seen him. That's where we have to start...best we can do right now.” Damianos explained.