Dudleytown

  Dudleytown

  A Cornwall Novella

  Copyright (c) 2015 by L.B. Gregg, LLC

  Cover Art by LC Chase

  All rights reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from L.B. Gregg, LLC.

  ISBN: 978-0-9863132-1-9

  Printed in the United States of America

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Dudleytown

  A Cornwall Novella

  By L.B. Gregg

  Author’s Note

  Every day, I drive the twisted roads of Northwestern Connecticut. From high on Mohawk Mountain and down along the valley through Cornwall Bridge, I head to the higher elevations in Kent. New England’s changing seasons unfold before me. The budding red-tipped forests in spring; the dappled sunlight reflecting on the Housatonic River in summer; the famously vibrant colors of autumn leaves; and the stark snow and bitter winds blowing in winter—the world in that thirty-minute drive, hundreds of days a year, becomes a feast for my eyes and a playground for my mind.

  For a couple hundred years, the tiny area known as Dudleytown scraped a meager existence above Furnace Brook Road. My husband hiked the trails from Mohawk State Forest to Dudleytown and then over to Connecticut’s sliver of the Appalachian Trail when those pathways were still accessible to the public, back when he was a teenager and the world was a far friendlier place. His description of the cool mountain roads which always lie in shadow and the empty spaces where houses once stood—as well as my morning commute and personal knowledge of this amazing landscape—inspired my short story Dudleytown. I hope that you enjoy it.

  Happy Halloween.

  LB Gregg, October 2010

  Chapter One

  The Jeep whipped along the twisted blacktop at a knuckle-whitening clip, and I knew—way before that cop showed, or we went airborne off Dark Entry Road, or any of the other creepy shit that went down in Dudleytown—that tonight I was going to get royally screwed.

  “Flirtin’ With Disaster” crackled through the broken speakers, the song weirdly prophetic, but Ricky didn’t notice. He just hunched over the steering wheel and searched the desolate hillside for what he called his “secret shortcut.”

  A shortcut.

  Right. He must be smoking something special tonight, because there wasn’t a house or streetlight—even the stars were hiding. With the closed state park on one side of the road and the Housatonic River hugging the other, we had nowhere to go but forward on Route Seven. Every shop was closed, not that there were many lining this dead road. The one gas station was shut tight. Kent Falls loomed black as tar when we shot past doing fifty-five in a thirty. The only cut here was going to be the extended cut.

  Ricky said, “It’s somewhere on the right. Keep your eye out.”

  “I’m keeping my eye out. All I see is a lot of trees.” Shannon’s low voice rumbled from deep inside his sweatshirt. The sound made my mouth dry. He’d pulled his hood over his head and slouched against the passenger door, looking as energetic as an overgrown garden gnome. “You remember that I have no clue where we are, right O’Leary? I’m from Pennsylvania.”

  I piped in, “It’s not like knowledge of the area helps.” I’d lived two towns over from this stretch of road since fifth grade, and I still didn’t know where Ricky thought we were going. Unless the Jeep could fly, the quickest way from Cornwall Bridge (where we were), to Goshen (where we were headed) was to stay the course. Point A to point B kind of thing. Only a moron would try to cut through the hills. Those roads were dead ends, driveways, or closed to the public. There weren’t any shortcuts. Period.

  “Keep looking, Alex. It’s on the right.”

  I chugged my beer and squinted at the hillside. It was wicked dark out there. “I’m looking, but I’m not seeing anything.”

  Besides, I had my own shit to do. Like downing a third Bud Light and opening a fourth. Since we’d crossed the state line into Connecticut from New York half an hour ago, getting drunk and staying hammered until Monday became my new goal. I’d walked in on my roommate earlier today (the overgrown gnome in the front seat) getting sucked off by his curvy little study-buddy, and since then—man—I’d been pissed. The image of Shannon with his hazel eyes glazed, his jeans spread wide, and his cock at full mast had tattooed itself to the inside of my eyelids.

  Shannon and I’d been roommates for two months, so I’d seen him naked before, but I’d never seen him like that. The two of them sprawled on top of my bed while she mouthed his huge dick, his big hand guiding the back of her skinny neck like a porn king. His nostrils flared, his perfect teeth sank into his bottom lip, and his chest heaved on every breath.

  My own personal straight version of College Dorm Suck-Off 2—staring Shannon Murray—played right in front of me. Even so, those sweet hips lifting off my clean goddamn comforter sort of killed me.

  I mean, why was he in my bed?

  It had been weird and terrible and nauseating, and instead of kicking them out, or bolting like a good roomie should—silently shutting the door and retreating to the common room to tweet all our friends—I stood nailed in place, eyeing them like some kind of freak. Shannon having sex with his forgettable biology classmate had riveted me, and my dumb dick responded with a schwing.

  Worse, what I wanted most in the entire world was to switch places with her. Dijon or Bijion or whatever was living out my deepest, darkest college roommate fantasy—in my bed. It should be me sucking Shannon. Me buried in that brown bush of hair. Me dragging those noises from his mouth.

  At least, in my dreams.

  When I finally managed to move my feet, I was so turned on I spent the rest of the afternoon hiding in the bathroom until it was time for us to leave.

  Trapped in Ricky’s shitty car, I wondered how the fuck I’d survive an entire weekend with Shannon. He lay flopped in the front seat, immobile and uncharacteristically lazy. His fists were buried in the pocket of his sweatshirt, and his head lolled against the headrest. He must be recuperating from his earlier exploits.

  I finished my beer and chucked the can into the back of the Jeep. I wanted to whip it at my roomie’s thick skull, but he’d have no clue why. I barely understood that urge myself, because, honest to God, I knew better. And even if I didn’t have a firm rule about screwing around with straight guys ever again, he’d never look twice at a puny sophomore fag like me. No way.

  A blast of light came from nowhere, and dazzling blue streaked the back window of the Jeep.

  “Shit.” Ricky smacked the steering wheel with his palm and hit the brakes in a belated effort to drive the posted speed limit. “Fucking cop.”

  I took a look, and blue light fried my retinas. “Where the hell did he come from?”

  Shannon checked the rearview mirror. His rich voice shot all the way to my groin. “Hide the beer, Allie.”

  Allie. Worst. Nickname. Ever. When the geniuses at Residential Life first placed the two of us in the girls’ dorm—Welcome to Lakewood Dorm, Shannon and Allie!—I thought the mix-up was another way to humiliate the gay kid. Once Shannon set them straight, they apologized with a free mini-fridge, and he’d saddled me with that stupid name.

  I toed the six-pack under his seat with my sneaker. “Bend over and I’ll hide it up your ass.”

  He snorted and snapped the music off as Ricky steered into
a deserted picnic area. The headlights illuminated a stand of nude trees and silhouetted a crooked line of lonely picnic tables. The woods were eerily still. Milky fog climbed the banks of the Housatonic and crawled along the leaf-covered ground.

  I threw my sweatshirt over the empties as the cop parked behind us.

  Shannon finally yanked his hood down, and his tawny hair poked in clumps around his head. Older and wiser, he wasted no time bossing me around. “Just don’t say anything.”

  “What am I going to say? I thought I’d just offer him a beer.”

  “And don’t breathe on him.”

  “Shut it, both of you.” Ricky wiped his forehead as the cop knocked on the glass. The window cranked, cold air blasted in, and the hair on my arm stood straight and tall. A beam of light swept the interior, stopping only when it pointed directly in my eyes. I squinted, trying like hell to look twenty-one, but I probably wouldn’t achieve that feat until I turned thirty. I was a baby-faced towheaded boy. Slim, short, and perfect boy-band material. Bye, bye, bye. Since my hair hadn’t been cut since July, I looked sixteen instead of twenty.

  Almost twenty. Next week.

  Ricky fished for his license and calmly handed it to the cop. “Is there a problem, Officer?”

  “You got a busted taillight,” the officer said around a toothpick. He leaned in, the better to see us, and rested a hand on the roof. He peered at Ricky’s freckled face before shining his light on the ID. In the shadows, the cop’s hooded eyes were bottomless pits. His gray hair was shorn military-style. Trooper Phelps his nametag read. He was thick as a tree stump, and his butch voice grated on my ears. “Goshen? You boys on your way there now?”

  Ricky answered easily, “We’re home for the long weekend from Tri State.”

  The cop didn’t seem impressed, but neither were my parents when I failed to get into Cornell.

  Lights flickered from behind us as a new set of blue lights whipped along the river road. This vehicle flew by without braking, and Trooper Phelps stood to watch it pass.

  Ricky tried again. “I saw lights earlier. Is the road closed ahead?”

  “Yup. You better find a different route. Cut back to Kent and head around Skiff Mountain, and fix that taillight before you take your vehicle back on the road. Not a good night to be in Cornwall.”

  The cop’s light searched the car again, and this time, he nailed Shannon right in the eyes. My roommate didn’t block the light with his hand or turn his head. As far as I could tell, he stared at the cop without flinching. His broad shoulders were stiff against the seat, and as usual, he didn’t take shit from anyone. Not even a dude with the gun.

  The toothpick twitched in the trooper’s mouth. He snapped the Maglite off and returned Ricky’s ID. “It’s all over the news—big accident. Prison transport versus tractor-trailer. The roads ahead are blocked—you notice there ain’t another car out here, right? It’s eight miles to bypass the Cornwall Bridge and then you can backtrack. You boys keep to the main roads, you hear me? Stay out of trouble. And get that taillight fixed.”

  “Yes, sir. Main roads. Absolutely.” Ricky answered, innocent as an altar boy. For once he didn’t reek of weed. The cop must have bought it, because Trooper Phelps trudged back to his car. Ricky waited until the cruiser pulled onto the pavement and vanished. Within seconds, he spun the Jeep around, and we zipped onto the road, headed back to Kent. “We were this close to getting home on time.” He checked the rearview mirror and made a sudden left—flinging me across the seat. “Shit, yeah! I’m ditching you bitches, because I have plans.”

  Apparently Ricky had found his shortcut.

  A sign flickered in the headlight beams as we entered a puny back road. I wasn’t surprised we missed this turn on our first pass because the freakin’ road looked like someone’s driveway. We climbed a sudden, steep incline, and the blacktop curved into a towering forest. I took a quick look behind us. “Did…did that sign say Dark Entry Road? What the hell kind of name is that?” It sounded pornographic—not that there’s anything wrong with that—but still, it was weird. “Ricky. That cop said to stick to the main roads.”

  Shannon added mildly, “And here I thought the words prison transport accident sounded like key information.”

  Ricky grinned, “Oh, fuck him. We’re only ten miles from town. I’m not driving all the way around the northwest corner just to avoid some on-the-lam jaywalker—this is Cornwall, not Brooklyn. And”—he drummed his hands on the steering wheel—“I’ve got a date. You ladies can play beer pong in Alex’s basement and suck each other’s dicks for all I care. I’m getting laid.”

  I’d like to get laid, too, but since that was unlikely, I kept my mouth shut.

  Shannon mumbled something indiscernible. It sounded like fuck you although it could easily have been good luck. Whatever. I was distracted by the sound of rocks pinging in the wheel wells as the narrow strip of tarred road changed over to gravel. The Jeep’s bald tires scrabbled for purchase, and even as we fishtailed, Ricky didn’t miss a beat. “If the road is closed, you have options. You can turn back, take the detour, or, you can cheat. Think of this as taking the road less traveled.”

  Turn back, I wanted to say. “I’d take the detour.”

  “That’s because you’re a pussy.” Ricky cranked that shitty southern rock again. “This is shorter. Chill. Have another beer.” His grabbing hand appeared over the seat. “I’ll have one too.”

  I didn’t hand him a beer. “The sign said dead end. This is just like that movie—the werewolf one where the dudes aren’t supposed to go out on the moors at night, and they do anyway. They wander around in the mist, and they don’t live long enough to regret it because some fucking monster jumps over a stone wall and eats them.”

  “Well, no one wants to eat you, Alex.” He laughed like he was a comedian, and Shannon punched his shoulder. Hilarious. “There’s a dirt road that cuts through the state park. It’s no big deal; I know these roads like the back of my hand.”

  “Yeah. We got that as soon as you couldn’t find the road,” Shannon said.

  “I found it, didn’t I?” Ricky nearly flung us into a ditch as the worming road cut sharply around the mountain and we skidded. “I love it up here. It’s great for climbing.”

  “You mean it’s a good place to get high.”

  “Oh, yeah. That too. Man, you are such a stick-in-the-mud, Strauss. I thought gay meant happy.” Ricky’s black Irish hair bobbled along as he drove without slowing over a log. “It’s really cool up here. It’s desolate and dark, and it stays, like, ten degrees colder than in town. All three mountains come together, so it’s always shady.”

  Shannon peered through the window. “Shady is right.”

  “Check this shit out. They clear-cut the forest a hundred years ago, so now the woods are full of sinkholes. Pretty sweet for hiking, right? Especially when you fall up to your ass in a cave.”

  I pulled my sweatshirt back on as Ricky downshifted like he was driving a dump truck. The grade increased, and we climbed into the impenetrable darkness.

  “This place has another name.” He drove flat over the No Trespassing sign, still attached to its fallen chain.

  “Are you kidding me?” Shannon peered into the rearview mirror like he expected the sign to get up and follow us.

  Ricky ignored him. “This road goes through Dudleytown—it’ll take us right through the heart of it and then down to the valley by Mohawk.”

  His words stopped me cold. “Are you shitting me?”

  I’d known Ricky for a single year. He was two years ahead of me, he and Shannon both, and he was a geology major. I swear to God all those rocks he collected were from inside his head. Goddamn ride share. Shannon and I should have taken a bus.

  “We’re fine.” Ricky insisted. “It’ll take us ten minutes. Maybe fifteen.”

  “This ride keeps getting longer.” Shannon’s smoky gaze found me fuming in the backseat. “What’s the deal with Dudleytown?”

  Ricky cut me
off before I could answer. “It’s just an old ghost town. There’s a story about the original settlers bringing a curse over on the Mayflower or something. They all went crazy and killed each other with axes. Some were hit by lightning or died under mysterious circumstances. You know, the kind of ghost stories we used to tell at Boy Scout camp, before we dared each other to come up here and spend the night. We used to scare the crap out of each other.”

  We did.

  I added, “I spent the night up here when I was twelve.” Which explains why I’m afraid of the dark and hate camping.

  Ricky nodded, “Me too, man. Everyone says that the curse will make you do crazy shit, but it’s just local folklore.”

  “You won’t think it’s folklore when they arrest you for trespassing.”

  “Arrest?” Shannon’s voice sharpened. “That’s not on my to-do list for this weekend, O’Leary. You better have this shortcut figured out, because I’m not risking my scholarship.”

  “Except when you buy your underage roommate beer, right? Don’t get your panties in a wad. Alex is a pussy. And it’s too late now, anyway. We’re already in Dudley. It’s just a bunch of old chimneys and foundations and footpaths. No big deal.”

  “Great.” I wasn’t happy. We were officially smack in the middle of flipping nowhere. Three miles in every direction to a house, a store, a phone.

  The road took a sharp left toward another steep grade—this one with no guardrails. We winded down the mountain road as fast as a runaway train. I proved how much of a pussy I was by saying, “Slow down.”

  Ricky hit every stick and piece of fallen debris that littered the glorified hiking trail. In the circle of headlights, a deep ditch, chock-full of boulders, snaked blackly along the uphill edge of the road. A cliff marked the downside slope. That sheer drop of Connecticut ledge disappeared into the staggered tips of a dense pine forest. I grabbed the roll bar, and before I could say fishtail or train wreck or slow the fuck down, something large hit the hood of the Jeep with a colossal whack.