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  Back From The Dead

  J. F. Gonzalez

  Tim Gaines was the town pariah. Mocked and teased continuously since he was in the sixth grade, he approaches his senior year of high school with a sense of cautious trepidation. Years before, when he was in the sixth grade, a group of boys led by Scott Bradfield-a popular, well-liked kid from well-to-do parents-spread a vicious rumor that he was a devil-worshipper. The rumor stuck, and is believed by most of the students and even a few of the teachers and administrators. It's a rumor Tim can't beat, and one he sometimes feels he's brought on to himself due to his love of horror novels and movies. Now Tim has become friends with a loose-knit group of kids who have also become social outcasts thanks to other rumors spread about them by the student elite. With their mutual support, Tim has begun to come out of his shell. He's going out with them, being invited to parties, and even begins to have a romantic interest in a girl, something he never thought would happen to him in high school.

  But all that will change when Scott Bradfield and his friends set their sights on Tim again. Only this time, they need his help. Like most of the student body of Spring Valley High School, they sincerely believe Tim Gaines is a devil-worshipper. And they believe he has a dark power. Now they want to use him and that power for their own sinister plight…..To bring back the dead homeless man they'd kidnapped and brutally beaten to a pulp in the guesthouse that resides on the Bradfield residence. They want him brought back not because they're scared of getting caught for his murder, but so they can savagely beat and murder him again…..and again…

  BACK FROM THE DEAD

  J. F. Gonzalez

  To the memory of two dear friends

  who left this mortal coil way too soon

  Donald Beck

  and

  Buddy Martinez

  I miss you both

  Acknowledgements

  A number of people need to be thanked for their contributions (however small) to the writing of Back From the Dead.

  First and foremost, thanks to my corral of editors who bought other projects, coaxed this one into existence, and/or assisted me in various other book projects while this bad boy was being written: Don D'Auria, Shane Ryan Staley, Larry Roberts, David Marty, Steve Souza, Paul Goblirsch, Tom and Billie Moran, Bob Strauss, Jamie LaChance, and Tod Clark.

  Mike Lombardo gets credit for helping me bridge the generation gap.

  Friends and colleagues get a shout-out: Ken Atkins, Jeremiah Brown, Brian Keene, Cassi Keene, Bob Ford, Kelli Owen, Del and Sue Howison, Mike Hawthorne, Trish and Tim Chervenak, Jesus and Glenda Gonzalez, Mike Harrell, Chuck Preston, Bart & Leah Robley, Richard Christian Matheson, Michael Lansu, Tim Deal, Brian Yount, Gary Braunbeck, John Everson, Chet Williamson, Gary Zimmerman, Dori Miller, David Nordhaus, and a whole host of folks I can't remember right now.

  As usual, Cathy and Hannah Gonzalez get their own paragraph, because they're special.

  The town of Spring Valley, PA is a creation of the author’s imagination, but the area and county it resides in is very much real. More disturbing, and very much real, are the pervading prejudices and attitudes held by many residents of such towns toward those perceived as “different.” The characters in this novel were inspired by these small-minded attitudes. It is very likely that those who hold such views will never read this novel, but that’s okay. But if they do read this novel, and find themselves offended, well, too bad. What, you gonna cry now? Complain? Tell me I’m a big meanie? Tell all my neighbors I’m a crazed Satanist? I hope you do. I’ll actually like that.

  Prologue

  June 7, 1971

  When they dragged the young couple out of the car, Tom Bradfield was panting with excitement. Harry Eckman had slugged the guy a few times in the face to make him shut up so Victor Beck could get some quality time with the hippie’s girlfriend, and now Tom was primed and ready to go. He grabbed a fistful of the hippie’s long blonde hair and hauled him out of the backseat of the Chevy Nova. “Get your stinkin’ ass out!”

  The girl’s screaming had dwindled to moaning sobs. Victor was laughing drunkenly in the backseat. “Look at them titties! Man I got to have me some of that!”

  Harry was standing near the hood of the Chevy. He took a swig of beer, crushed the can and dropped it on the ground. Tom barked at him. “Pick that up! What the hell’s wrong with you?”

  Harry grinned. “That commercial about littering finally getting to you, Tom?”

  Tom bristled and turned away. They’d talked about the television commercial for days; it was the one that showed an American Indian man looking out at a vast, smog-filled city, litter at his feet. As the Indian turns to the camera, a tear is seen rolling down his cheek.

  The hippie was getting to his feet. His shoulder-length blonde hair fell across his bloodied face. He was wearing a T-shirt with the words Grand Funk Railroad — 1971 US Tour emblazoned on it. He was wearing bell-bottom blue jeans and scruffy tennis shoes. He looked at Harry and Tom with a sense of wariness as he stood up and Tom could tell he was going to bolt the minute he had a chance.

  “Not so fast,” Tom said, striding forward. He shoved the hippie back to the ground and Harry kicked him in the small of the back. The hippie screamed, head lolling back.

  “Shut up!” Harry yelled and kicked him again, harder.

  From the car, Victor: “Come on baby, let me see that bush of yours, come on — ” The hippie girl screamed and cried. There was the sound of a slap, then muffled sobbing as Victor moaned, “Oh yeah!” and then the car began to rock.

  They’d found the hippies in Reading. They were cruising around, drinking beer, looking for some fun, and they’d come across the hippies at a hamburger joint off Route 272. The hippies had been seated in a corner booth talking quietly when Tom and his friends walked in to order French fries and burgers, which they’d taken outside to the car. They were finishing up when the hippies exited the building and stood near an old Ford Mustang, arms around each other’s waists. Star-struck lovers.

  Tom still had no idea why they’d abducted the couple.

  Call it something to do. Call it anger at them and their kind, for all the bullshit going on in the world — the flag-burning, the war protests, their communist politics, their whole love-and-peace bullshit which was such a goddamn farce thanks to that other hippie freak from California, Charles Manson. It was all of that. It had all hit Tom suddenly and he’d mentioned something to Harry, who never needed persuading when it came to kicking somebody’s ass.

  Luckily it had been late and there was nobody in the parking lot at that time of night. They’d filed out of the car and rushed the couple, subduing them easily with several blows and minor scuffling. And then, as if the whole thing was pre-planned, they’d dragged them to Tom’s car, shoved them in the backseat, and took off.

  And now they were here, in the thick woods behind Zuck’s Farm about two miles off Route 772. Undeveloped land.

  Where it was peaceful.

  Quiet.

  Victor had started in on the girl the moment her boyfriend was knocked unconscious. Tom could tell she was good looking — pretty face framed by straight, long brown hair. She had a nice body, too. Those hippies wore some tight, revealing clothing. Still, it had made him sick watching them kiss and embrace in that parking lot. Looked like a couple of lezbo queers.

  What was the goddamned world coming to?

  The rocking of the car stopped and Victor climbed out, buttoning his jeans. The girl in the back seat and still sobbing.

  Tom looked at Harry. They’d driven a good half a mile down a dirt road to find a place as secluded as possible. This was as secluded as it would get. “Well?” Tom asked. Truth be told, with the alcohol buzz starting to wear off, he was starting to
get a little nervous about how things had gone down so far.

  “She’s ready for you guys,” Victor said.

  “Hell yeah, I want a piece of that action!” Harry started shucking his jeans down. He was a tall, lanky guy and was on the Spring Valley High School track team. Victor and Tom were on varsity football. The three of them had graduated from high school three days ago.

  As Harry started toward the car, the hippie guy seemed to leap from the ground, covering an amazing amount of distance. He threw himself at Harry’s legs, sending him crashing to the ground. Harry hit the dirt with a startled “oooff!” The hippie yelled: “Leave her alone!”

  Tom reacted. He rushed forward and, as if he was performing the opening kickoff during a game, he got a good start and brought his right foot out in a hard straight-forward kick. The toe of his sneaker caught the hippie on the bridge of the nose, rocking his head back with a heavy force. The sound of foot striking face was like that of a watermelon hitting the floor and cracking.

  Tom almost fell against the car from his forward momentum, and as he backed away to rain down more kicks, Harry squirmed out of the hippie’s grip. “Motherfucker,” he growled. “I’m gonna smash his fucking face. I’m gonna fuck him up!”

  Tom stomped the hippie about the face and neck. Harry was about to join him just as Victor ran up. “Stop!”

  Harry got one good kick in but Victor held him back. “Stop! He’s dead!”

  Tom stopped. Looked down at the hippie.

  The hippie was lying on the ground, not moving.

  A very large bloodstain was pooling around the hippie’s head.

  “Oh man!” Tom said. In hindsight he would not remember saying that. In the years that passed when he sometimes thought of the incident, he would remember feeling a sense of extreme fright. Killing the hippie had not been part of the evening’s plan. Kicking his ass, yes. Beating the shit out of him and his girlfriend, of course. Raping his girlfriend…not really. Victor’s sexual assault toward the girl would open Tom’s eyes to Victor’s nature, and it would affect their friendship from that point forward. But really, slapping them around a little had been the only thing on his mind that evening.

  They certainly hadn’t meant to kill them.

  “Are you sure?” Harry asked. He looked as shocked as Tom felt. He was standing over the hippie, eyes wide, face panicked.

  Victor took a step forward. He looked freaked out. “I don’t think he’s breathing. And look at his head!”

  The hippie’s girlfriend started screaming from the backseat of the Nova. “You killed Billy! You killed him! You killed him!”

  “Oh shit!” Harry said. He seemed paralyzed with fear.

  It was Tom who sprang into action. He lunged toward the car, got the back door open and grabbed the girl. Her screams became shrill. “Let me go! Let me go!”

  Harry and Victor could only stand and watch as Tom dragged the hippie girl out of the car. Once he pulled her out, she tried to fight him, but he had at least a foot on her in height and a good seventy pounds over her. He drove her to the ground, kneed her in the stomach and locked his hands around her throat.

  Victor and Harry watched as Tom strangled her.

  That was another thing Tom tried to unsuccessfully erase from his memory over the next twenty-six years: his hands around the hippie girl’s throat as he strangled her.

  They never even learned her name until after the Missing Persons posters went up a week later.

  Behind him, Victor was freaking out. “Oh my God, man, he’s killing her!” His tone of voice seemed to suggest they should do something about this. As in, stop Tom from killing her.

  Any other time, Tom would have agreed. But this was not any other time. If this chick lived, all three of them would be brought up on murder charges based on her testimony.

  She had to die.

  And because she had to die, Harry and Victor did nothing to stop Tom from strangling the hippie chick to death.

  * * *

  Two hours later.

  There was a brief period where Tom thought Harry would leave them there, grow a conscience and head straight to the police, lead them over here to the woods where Tom and Victor waited near the corpses of the two dead hippies. He even voiced this to Victor, who shook his head. “Naw, Harry won’t do that. It’s only gonna take him forty minutes to grab a shovel and he’ll be right back. He won’t let us down, man.”

  And he didn’t.

  Tom felt a tremendous sense of relief the minute he saw the headlights of his Nova appear in the distance. Even so, for a moment he thought it was somebody else — a cop perhaps, some wayward traveler, a couple kids maybe looking for a secluded spot to neck. A few seconds later Tom heard the unmistakable sound of the Nova’s engine and felt the weight come off his shoulders.

  As the Nova pulled up, he and Victor got to their feet. They’d been talking and already had the plan in action. For now it would wait until the two hippies were buried.

  Harry got out of the Nova and tossed the keys to Tom, who went to the trunk, unlocked and opened it. Three shovels lay in the dark recess. “I even got that kiddie shovel I used to help my dad with when I was eight,” Harry said.

  “A shovel’s a shovel,” Victor said, grabbing one and heading to do the work they had to do.

  Before Harry left to retrieve the shovels, they’d dragged the hippies about a hundred yards into the woods where they’d found a small clearing. Now they headed to where they’d left them, shovels slung over their shoulders. “You sure nobody knows about this place?” Tom asked again.

  “I’m certain,” Harry said. “Only time you’ll see anybody out here is during hunting season and the ground is frozen solid that time of year.”

  “And we’re digging these guys five feet down,” Victor said.

  Between the three of them, they dug a five foot by three foot hole that was about chest deep. It took them two hours. By the time they got that far down they were tired, sweaty, and dirty. Victor glanced at his watch during a break. “It’s gonna be daylight in a few hours. We should probably throw ‘em in now and start shoveling dirt over them, otherwise we’re likely to get caught.”

  The thought of getting caught was the decision maker. They dragged the hippies’ bodies to the hole, threw them in, and started shoveling the dirt over them. Filling the hole wasn’t as time consuming as digging it. By the time they reached the surface, sweat ran down their bodies in rivers. Harry shoveled the weeds and grass they’d dug up, tamping it down in the soft earth to give the appearance it wasn’t dug up. “That’s poison ivy, man!” Victor exclaimed.

  “Yeah, and I’d rather get a case of poison ivy than have somebody come through here and wonder what’s buried there,” Harry exclaimed. He was on his hands and knees, trying to place the torn up vegetation back into some semblance of normalcy. “The shit isn’t dead, we can plant it back here and the next few rains will…you know…make it all better.”

  It was a strange theory, but it worked. Because nobody ever found out where the missing hippies — whose names were Billy Thompson and Candace Drombowsky — were buried.

  When they were finished they paused for a rest by the Nova. “Whatever happens,” Tom said grimly, his voice and features stern as he made his intentions clear. “We say nothing about this. Not to future friends, not to chicks we eventually marry, not even to a goddamn priest or pastor if one of us decides to turn into a born-again Christian. You guys understand?”

  Harry and Victor nodded. Harry was leaning against the Nova. For the first time it looked like the trauma and horror of that night were making their presence known on his features. “Nothing to nobody,” he said. “Not even to ourselves.” He looked at Tom and Victor. “We shouldn’t even talk about it to ourselves.”

  Tom nodded. Victor said, “Yeah, I know what you mean.”

  “It’s settled then,” Tom said. “After tonight, this didn’t happen. If for some reason the cops question one of us, we know nothing. We tell
our parents we went out to the Jersey Shore.”

  “We’ll tell them we went to the fucking Pine Barrens,” Harry said.

  “Even better,” Tom agreed. “The fucking Pine Barrens. And we were never in Reading, never saw these two. We’ll shower up at Harry’s place by eight o’clock ‘cause his folks will be gone by then and that’ll be that. I’ll get the car washed. We’ll be done with it.”

  “Done with it,” Victor sighed.

  “Damn straight,” Harry said.

  And they were done with it by ten A.M. that morning. Nobody asked them about their whereabouts the previous night, nor did the police come inquiring about whether they’d run across Billy Thompson and Candace Drombowsky. Even when Missing Persons posters went up around Berks and Lancaster County with their faces and vital statistics, nobody asked Tom, Harry, or Victor about them. Tom was certain somebody had seen them at that hamburger joint off Route 272, but nobody came forward.

  After a few months went by it seemed they were in the free and clear.

  The only time the subject came up was during their first semester of college, during winter break. Tom mentioned to Harry and Victor during a drive to the movies one night that if they could see to it that the land those hippies were buried in was preserved somehow, their secret would be safe. After all, it was state game land. There was always the possibility the state could sell it to a real estate developer. Turn it into a housing development or something. It was something to think about.

  And they did. But they kept their thoughts, and their plans, to themselves, speaking only to each other about it in those rare times the subject came up.

  And the months turned into years.

  In time, the Missing Persons posters came down.

  And the speculation of whatever might have happened to Billy Thompson and Candace Drombowsky eventually faded from local memory.