Dumping Grounds (Joshua Stokes Mysteries Book 1) Read Free Page A

of her Aunt Hannah having practically gone through the same situation six years earlier ran through her mind.
    Autry Reston had murdered Emma’s uncle Willie, and then when Hannah and Lacy were searching for the absentee Willie, Reston had ambushed them at the river.
    He shot and killed Willie’s wife, Lacey and tried to shoot Hannah. Hannah escaped by running through the woods along the river to the main highway where she flagged down a trucker who helped her.
    Emma heard her pursuer’s footsteps, somewhere in the woods behind her. She ducked deeper into the cavity under the rotted tree.
    The difference between her and her Aunt Hannah’s situation was that Hannah had known who was trying to kill her. Emma did not know who these two maniacs were that was after her, just that they killed those two campers.
    It all began when Emma had awakened during the night, hearing grunting and moaning noises, along with several muffled thumps that seemed to shake the ground beneath her tent.
    Her family had camped there for years and had never experienced anything like that before. However, it was the first time Emma had ever gone camping alone and it had been several years since she was at the campground with her family.
    Maybe it’s nothing, Emma thought to herself as she lay there. Then she wished she were home, in her own bed.
    The only reason she was camping was because she wanted to get away from all the drama at home. Her brother and sister were driving her nuts, and she was sure her mother was whoring around again, drinking too. She was never home at night anymore.
    Emma heard and felt the thumping again. Is someone chopping wood this time of night, Emma wondered? This time though, it seemed as if the sounds were coming from the left of her tent somewhere.
    Emma knew that further upriver, was a place where folks gathered, built bond fires, drank, and listened to music, but that was near the highway. She did not think the noise they made traveled this far down river.
    After hearing several more thumps and then moans, Emma unzipped her sleeping bag. She decided to go see for herself what was going on.
    The campground was not very big. There were probably only ten primitive sites at the location. In its heyday, back in the fifties and early sixties, it was good enough for the local folks who wanted a cooler place to go to get away from the heat of the Deep South summers.
    When Emma crawled out of her tent, she saw firelight flickering through the trees from a neighboring campsite. She heard more of the low, moaning noises, along with grunts. An eerie, almost foreboding feeling, caused Emma to return to her sleeping bag, but after several more minutes, her curiosity was stronger than her fear was.
    As she slowly eased her way toward the other campsite, Emma’s curiosity intensified. She could see figures moving around in the fire’s shadowy light. Hoping to get a better view of what they were doing, Emma peeked around a large loblolly pine just as she heard another thump. Something wet, splattered across her face, causing her to flinch. She stifled a gasp at the unexpected sensation and drew back.
    Emma repositioned herself so she could peek around the tree again. This time, she could not contain the gasp that exploded from her lips at the sight before her.
    A dark figure, stood straddle-legged over something holding an axe, and another figure stood behind him, encouraging him, and whispering, “Do it, Do it!” The expression on both their faces was one of pure ecstasy. They were both grinning from ear to ear and both were covered in blood. Emma could not help but to look down to see what they were looking at.
    When she did, she let out a scream. The young naked couple sprawled face up on the ground, was unrecognizable as the hippie couple she had seen there earlier that afternoon. Both were bloody lumps of flesh and bone.
    Completely severed, the man’s head had rolled several feet away from his body, and the woman had