Backwoods Noire

Backwoods Noire

• That one old owl that has hung out by that abandoned barn for more years than is really possible. Every local has seen it, No one talks about it. No one is sure exactly what species it is. Its feathers seem too tattered to fly. Its beak is cracked. It is never seen hunting and the mice run rampant in its territory. No other owls live near. There is a picture in the barn of a boy holding up a baby owl  and a headstone in the woods nearby. The names are the same. 
• That one tree in the orchard that never grows right. The fruit is sour. The branches are twisted. The bark is black and smells of something...not alive. The farmer cut it down years back and replanted. The new tree was the same. 
• That one sandy patch down at the creek where none of the river critters step. It ain't much, just a about a square yard or two of river silt with no paw prints on it. No raccoon hand-prints, no fine lines of bird tracks, no tiny musk-rat claws. Curious digging finds that the usual worms and insects that fill the surrounding soil do not seem to like the area either.  Dogs that follow their people down to the river resist crossing the patch and try to drag small children out of it. 
• That one little valley up in the hills where the mist never seems to clear. Even in deep summer drought. the temperature never rises above chilly. There is no signal there, radio, cell phone, or satellite. 
• That one path where footsteps follow walkers at night. They pause and hasten on at random. As if they are not following or reacting to the walker, but they are following and reacting to someone. 
• An old covered bridge that on bright spring mornings sometimes resonates with the sounds of dozens of footsteps slightly out of step and the cheers of a small crowd. No one is sure why the only thought they have is that there are not nearly enough footsteps. 
• That stone along the riding path where every horse stops dead and twitches for just a moment. 
• That one pasture where a sheep is found occasionally dead, torn to pieces, with no tracks around it. Not even the bravest herd dog will go near the dead bodies. A professor from some big far off university took some away for analysis once and promised to tell them what did it.  He never got back to them and word was he was found in his lab, torn to pieces.