Velvet Rain - A Dark Thriller Read Online Free Page B

when the disaster occurred, claiming they had witnessed it all. According to them, a white, powdery substance had covered their vehicle, and they had experienced an eerie silence, as if they had suddenly gone deaf. Their pickup stalled. Both claimed to have smelled something in the air; Paul Laplaunte described it as “a kind of burning smell.” His brother said the hair on his skin stood on end. The policeman who had responded to their call found a working crew and a bridge intact, no bus and no bodies, yet despite the charges of mischief laid against them, the Laplaunte brothers had asked for, and received, a polygraph test. Both passed. None of the workers could corroborate their story, although two had agreed they had felt a deep static charge all around them. One of them, the foreman, had described it as “a creepy electrical storm.” Two of the crewmen had endured violent bouts of vomiting, and one had complained of a headache. But perhaps the most peculiar report had been of some long-haired crazy who had thrown himself at the foot of the southern ramp, jumping and screaming, waving his hands in the air, stopping the bus and refusing to get out of its way until the oncoming rig left the bridge; after a brief search of the area, police had been unable to locate the individual for questioning. Curiously, the bridge collapsed three days later in the early morning hours, in a mudslide during a thunderstorm.
    The Miami Herald, July 18, 1960
    SHARK? WHAT SHARK?
    Crazed Woman Starts Wave Of Panic At Public Beach
    Todd Boldt of Carol Springs, Florida, had been swimming in Biscayne Bay when he began to scream. The eight-year-old had been less than twenty yards from shore when a six-foot blacktip devoured his right arm. Bea Boldt had hit the water screaming Shark, only to find herself, in the next breath, lying under her umbrella reading her book. Fearing the worst but not knowing why, she had run in again and had led her child to safety, his arm fully attached and quite fine. She had asked several others if they had seen a shark—not a soul had—and her agitation had sent scores screeching from the water. A reporter who had been covering a waterskiing event had interviewed her. The woman insisted she had felt a “wall of electricity” around her, and also insisted she wasn’t crazy, as some of the gathered had called her. Lifeguards at the scene agreed they had neither seen, nor received reports of, any sharks in the area.
    ~
    Miami.
    He had been that close.
    The Doctor finished his cigarette. The clippings had stirred him, had reignited his fire for the chase. But the last article had tempered his passion. It had angered him, had made him guarded and fearful.
    And yet—there was this.
    He slid the package before him. Inside was a newspaper from four weeks ago to the day. Most of these leads were months cold, but this held the promise of gold. And when he took one of those sharpened nails to the envelope and splayed it open as easily as he had the Australian’s throat, it did not take him long to mine its precious secrets.
    ~
    West Plains Daily Quill, October 29, 1961
    WILLOW SPRINGS MAN MEETS FATHER TIME
    Claims Pool-Playing Drifter “ Turned back the clock ”
    He read the article twice, the words driving him. Ronald Jacobsen, a self-employed truck driver out of Willow Springs, Missouri, had called police after an incident in a local tavern. According to Jacobsen, the man he described as a “long-haired freak” had hustled him at pool, but how the man had done it was nothing short of astonishing: he had turned back time. Turned it— rewound it, like a recording tape, according to Jacobsen—so he could make the shots he had missed the first time. Others present could not substantiate this laughable but extraordinary claim, but all had agreed they had seen Jacobsen playing pool with the man he had accused. Strangely, a good number had reported an unusual smell that seemed to come and go during the evening, a