Covenant by John Everson Read Free Book Online

was an auto dealer from Georgia. And on May 22, 2000, it was a local kid named Bob O’Grady. Eighteen years old.
    On October 31, 1999, it was a transient man from California. A John Doe.
    But the death toll for May 22, 1999 was again zero.
    Three more Halloweens were followed by obituaries, but the Mays were clean. Apparently Bob O’Grady had signaled the start of the May killings.
    Joe could think of them now only as killings. This wasn’t a case of copycat kids toying with suicide, or the occasional lonely wanderer dropping off the edge into the blessed, churning peace of the ocean.
    But now another question nagged at Joe’s mind.
    If the May murders had started just five years ago, how long had the Halloween killings gone on?
    He ran out of microfilm in 1985, and hadn’t missed a Halloween death yet. Joe packed up all the film and closed his notebook. Maybe there was another room with older film. He went to find Mrs. Malone.
    “Oh, no, I’m sorry, young man. The library started putting things on fiche back in 1985. That’s when we got the grant to get the machine, you know. We never got around to putting all the old stuff on it, but we haven’t missed an issue of the paper since.”
    “So there’s no way to find older copies of the Terrel Daily Times than 1985?”
    “Sure there is.” Mrs. Malone laughed out loud at his discomfiture, and then abruptly silenced herself, looking around to make sure she hadn’t disturbed any of the patrons. “We have some bound copies of the paper in a back room. We don’t leave them out, because the kids get too rough on them. We have copies of the paper dating back almost as old as the town itself. Although I don’t know that you’ll be able to read many of those papers. The older issues pretty much crumble apart if you do much more than look at ’em. But if you’re careful, I’ll let you see what you can see.”
    “I’d sure appreciate it,” he mumbled, but Mrs. Malone was already motioning him to follow her behind the librarian’s desk.
    She opened a door and turned the corner, and suddenly they were in a different building.
    Gone were the white foam ceilings and bright cream walls of the main library. They walked down echoing cement steps to a gloomy room lit by two bare bulbs. The walls were bare brick, the air chilled.
    “It ain’t much of a study carrel, but we’ve only got so much space upstairs.” Mrs. Malone shrugged, gesturing toward a lonely spot in the corner. “Here’s what you’re looking for.”
    She motioned to a rack against the far wall. It was filled with twenty-inch-tall binders. Joe scanned the dates, marked in pen on the spines. Terrel Daily Times 1984, read the closest one. His eyes slid down the row, noting 1980…1974…1958…1930.
    “You can use that desk over there to read, if you like,” Mrs. Malone said. “Or, if you know what year you’re looking for, you can just bring the book upstairs.”
    “Actually, I’d like to skim through a bunch of years, if I may,” he answered. “So I guess I’ll stay here for a while.”
    “Suit yourself,” she said, crossing her arms and shiveringslightly. “Please be careful handling them, and put them back in order. When you’re finished, just come on back upstairs.”
    Her steps click-clacked quickly up the stairs and Joe was left alone in the library basement.
    Pulling out a sampling of years, he walked over to the desk the librarian had indicated. It was old and wooden, and its legs wobbled when he set the stack down. He pulled up the chair and began to read.
    And the death toll mounted.
    In 1980, an apparent gang execution had taken place. One Ricardo Hijuana, twenty-two, of Key West, was found wedged among the rocks at the base of Terrel’s Peak. His wrists were tied together behind his back. Twine bound his ankles together and stretched from his feet up his spine to connect to the gag that was lodged in Hijuana’s mouth. It was a very ruthless Halloween trick.
    In 1976, another