Tucker’s Grove Read Online Free

Clancy screamed and grabbed at him, but Mr. Deakin slapped him away. He pushed the second, lighter coffin just as its lid also began to give way. Thin fingers crept out.
    Desperate to get him to stop, Clancy yanked at Mr. Deakin ’ s jac k et, clawing at the throat and cutting off his air, but Mr. Deakin gave a last push and knocked the second coffin out of the wagon.
    “ We ’ ve got to turn around!” Clancy cried. “ Go back for them!”
    The second coffin crashed to the ground, tilted over, and the wooden sides splintered. Just then, a sheet of lightning illum i nated the sky from horizon to horizon, like an enormous concu s sion of flash powder used by a daguerreotype photographer.
    In that i nstant, Mr. Deakin saw the thin, twisted body rising from the shards of the broken coffin. Lumbering behind, already free of the first coffin, stood a taller corpse, shambling toward his wife. Then all fell black again as the lightning faded.
    Mr. Deakin wa nted to collapse and squeeze his eyes shut, but the horses continued to gallop wildly. He scrambled back to the seat and snatched up the reins.
    “ This weather is going to ruin them!” Clancy moaned. “ You have to go back, Mr. Deakin!”
    Mr. Deakin knew full wel l that he was abandoning a farm of his own in Tucker ’ s Grove, but the consequences of breaking his agreement with Clancy seemed more sane to him than staying here any longer. He snapped the reins and shouted at the horses to urge them to greater speed.
    Lig htning sent another picture of the two scarecrow corp s es — but they had their backs to the wagon. Walking side by side, Clancy Tucker ’ s dead parents struck off in the other direction. Back the way they had come.
    With a sudden, resigned look on his face, Clan cy Tucker swung both of his legs over the side of the wagon. “ I ’ ll get them m y self.”
    “ Clancy, wait!” Mr. Deakin shouted. “ They ’ re going the other way! They don ’ t want to come after all, can ’ t you see?”
    But Clancy ’ s voice remained determined. “ It doesn ’ t ma tter. I ’ ve got to take them anyway.” He ducked his head down and made ready to jump. “ A promise is a promise.”
    “ Sometimes breaking a promise is better than keeping it,” Mr. Deakin said.
    But Clancy let go of the wagon, tucking and rolling as he fell onto t he wet grass. He clambered to his feet and ran toward where he had last seen his parents.
    Mr. Deakin did not look back, but kept the horses running into the night. As he listened to the majestic storm, as he smelled the wet, fresh air with each breath he t ook, he realized that he still had more, much more, that he did not want to lose.
     

CHURCH SERVICES
    As his shouted prayer reached a crescendo, Jerome Tucker opened his eyes and watched the demon leave the young man.
    Inside the canvas revival tent, the b lasphemous thing emerged from the teenaged boy ’ s nostrils and throat like poisonous smoke mixed with a swarm of bees: crackling, buzzing, and writhing. Demonic whispers built to a scream. A trickle of blood followed the thing as it slid and tore its way o u t of the possessed boy.
    The demon had no choice but to obey. Jerome had co m manded it with the compulsion of God Himself.
    He had lost count over the weeks, but he had summoned and trapped at least a hundred demons on the slow wagon trek through the farmlan ds of Illinois, across muddy and rutted roads to the wilderness and new homesteads of Wisconsin Territory. In this barely settled land, there were many secrets, many buried shadows of times past. So many demons had been cast out in Biblical times, the evi l had to have gone somewhere. What better place to seek refuge than among the heathen in the New World? It made perfect sense.
    Inside the large tent crowded with farmers, their wives, their children, and a few shopkeepers from Bartonville (the closest thin g that could have been called a town), Jerome raised his hands. His full, rusty red beard stood out