The Uninvited Read Free

creature’s eyes gleamed with maliciousness.
    Then both men began slapping at themselves, screaming and running across the field.
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    Baronne and Lapeer Parishes are mostly good, rich farm land, timber, and bayous. Good hunting, good fishing, good logging, and none of the stresses of city living. The combined populations of the two Parishes do not exceed twenty thousand. Lapeer Parish is the larger—land-wise—of the two. There are only five incorporated towns in the combined Parishes, the largest being Bonne Terre, population 8,000. Barnwell ran a close second—population, 7,491. Most agree it is a good place to raise a family.
    The racial mix, both Parishes included, is about two to one, with whites in the majority. While white and black do not embrace each other in passionate gestures of brotherly love, there have never been any really serious, violent clashes. There are hot-headed nincompoops, narrow-minded racists (on both sides of the color line), but most people in the two Parishes try to ignore the troublemakers and go their own way. There are several high schools, about a half dozen elementary schools, and one private academy in the two Parishes. There have been no riots, burning, or looting. Of course, neither Parish had ever experienced full-scale panic. Yet.
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    â€œI’m tellin’ you, sheriff,” the farmer said.Carl Fowler and Dick Harris is gone. Vanished! There is not one sign of either of ’em anywhere. I looked!”
    Sheriff Mike Grant of Baronne Parish looked across his desk and shook his head, thinking he really didn’t need this tale this early in the morning. “Jim, come on, now—two grown men just don’t suddenly disappear in the middle of a bean field.”
    â€œMike.” The farmer put his hands on the desk. “You tell me what happened to them. Now, I was there, you wasn’t. I found the trucks, both of ’em, parked by the side of the road. One door was open, driver’s side.”
    â€œWhich truck?”
    â€œCarl’s Ford.”
    â€œAnd you waited how long before coming here?”
    â€œHell! Half hour. Maybe forty-five minutes. I waited there by the trucks ‘cause I had some business to talk over with Dick. Then I went lookin’ for them. I prowled the left side, Dick’s field. Must have stomped through forty acres of beans, hollerin’ for them. Then I started over to Hampton’s field, on the other side of the road.” The farmer shut his mouth abruptly, as if he had said too much already.
    Sheriff Grant waited, looking at the man. Half a minute ticked by. “Well?” Mike urged.
    Well, what?” the farmer said defensively. He would not, for some reason, meet the sheriff’s eyes.
    Sheriff Grant sighed patiently as he drummed his fingertips on the desk. “What did you find in Hampton’s field, Jim? Hell, what else are we talking about?”
    â€œI didn’t go in there.” The man’s reply was sullen. He would not meet the sheriff’s eyes.
    This is worse than pulling teeth from a bull ’gator, Mike thought, and wondered, for the millionth time, why he ever got into law enforcement, more than twenty years back. “Jim? Did you see anything in Hampton’s field that made you suspicious?”
    The farmer said nothing for a few seconds. “Nope,” he finally replied. A short, sulky answer.
    Sheriff Grant took a sip of lukewarm coffee, then lit a cigarette. He remembered he had promised his wife he would quit smoking. That morning he had promised her he would try to quit. He decided to put it off for another day. Tomorrow, he would try again. “Why didn’t you go into Hampton’s field to look for Fowler and Harris?”
    The farmer shifted uncomfortably in the wooden chair. “’Cause of that damn clickin’!”
    â€œClicking? Clicking! Beg pardon, Jim? Did you say clicking?”
    â€œThat’s what