As I'm sure everybody has guessed, I am retired. I struggled to transition to voice dictation, but I simply never got the knack of it. Yet in that time, I did manage to write one last story. It took me over a year to do it, but I thought it did deserve to be read. Its 10,000 words long, so it was too long to be sold to an anthology. Therefore, I'm making it free here. Due to its length, I knew it would be an uncomfortably long read for this format so I interspersed a few pieces of artwork to break up the read. Yes, it is AI artwork... and I know how some of you feel about it, and I usually feel the same...but it's for a free story that isn't AI, and the pictures were prompted and curated by the author, an author who always did his own artwork anyway. So please be forgiving on that matter. Anyways, Here's the story...
Legal Tender
June
1985
“Okay guys, be honest,” Jenny
scanned the darkness warily, “are there alligators out here?”
Dennis ignored the question,
because she had already asked it twice before. Besides, she was Cade's
girlfriend, and Dennis felt that fielding her questions at this point fell on
him.
“Nah,” Cade's voice came from the back
of the boat, “and if there are any, they wouldn't be more than three feet long.
This swamp just aint big enough to have any boss gators. Not enough game.”
Dennis reckoned this was true.
Milner Swamp was only about 10 miles long and four miles wide. It followed the
path of the San Lupe River before it emptied into Lake Hallisboro. It wasn't
even a natural swamp, but had formed on this end of the San Lupe a long time
ago when the dam had turned the other end into the lake. Yet when you were out
in the middle of it, like they were now, it seemed to stretch out into forever.
Especially at night.
The moonlight was bright enough
that Cade had extinguished all but one small lantern on their boat as it glided
through the waterways. And they only needed that when the trees crowded close
overhead. The soft putter of their engine didn't disturb the wildlife as the
song of frogs and crickets surrounded them. The very darkness felt alive,
accented by the occasional splash out in the night.
“This is nuts,” Jenny muttered.
“Who builds a house out in a swamp anyways? Especially a big one?”
“Like I said,” Cade responded,
“there wasn't a swamp when they built it. The state misjudged how far the water
would back up when they built the dam, assuming they bothered to do a real
study on it at all. Then the Carvers moved out when things started to get soggy
around them. After that, it sat empty until Lacey Simmons moved in her girls
and gaming tables a few years later. That's when we get to the part that starts
concerning us. There was...”
Something grunted out in the
blackness, causing both Dennis and Jenny to jump. It was followed by a crash in
the brush and the fading sound of hooves splashing.
“Easy, you two,” Cade chuckled.
“That was just a wild hog. There are a few of them around here.”
Dennis had already figured that
out, and the fact he reacted the same as Jenny irritated him. Her fretting was
starting to get on his nerves, which he chose to blame for making him jumpy
too. Why the hell had Cade even brought her along?
“The things I do for a little
money,” he grumbled.
Apparently Jenny wasn't mollified
either.
“I thought wild hogs counted as
game,” she grouched at the same time. “You know, the type that big gators eat?”
“Oh, good grief,” Cade groaned,
“Jenny, I promise you are not going to get eaten by a giant gator tonight, or a
wild hog...”
“... or murdered by Lacey's ghost.”
Dennis added, still feeling a little mean after letting Jenny’s case of nerves
bleed over into him.
He regretted it as soon as the
words left his mouth.
“Wait, wha...?!” The girl twisted
around to look at him in alarm.
“Goddammit, Dennis!” Cade snapped.
“Shut up!”
But it was too late.
“Oh, no you don’t, Cade Parker!”
Jenny whirled back to face the other man. “You're not telling me something. I
want the whole story, and this time without any inconvenient parts left out.”
Cade glared across the boat at
Dennis, who couldn't really bring himself to care all that much. As far as he
was concerned, Cade shouldn't have allowed the high-strung girl to tag along in
the first place. Yeah, she was super hot, but hardly the risk-taking type. He
was slightly surprised she even wanted to come. Maybe she suspected that if
they found the money she would never see them again. After all, she probably
knew that men with enough money in their pockets could find even hotter girls
who weren't basket cases.
“It's only bullshit,” Cade sighed,
“and exactly the type of crap that you wouldn't thank me for telling you. Just
let it go.”
Dennis knew a lot of girls who
would see the wisdom in that and not make it harder on themselves in this type
of situation. Hell, it was simple common sense. But then there were the ones
who just had to know. Even though they were already creeped out, they would
insist on hearing every hair-raising detail.
Somehow, it didn’t surprise him in
the least when Jenny placed herself among the latter.
“Tell me,” she demanded.
Cade shot another dark look at Dennis
but then shrugged his shoulders in resignation.
“So be it,” he sighed. “Anyways,
Lacey and her girls move in after a few years, along with this huge Swede and a
couple other guys for security. It wasn’t a big operation, but I guess it
brought in enough to make it work. And all this time the swamp keeps growing up
around them. It got most of its booze from moonshiners and mainly served locals.
It was a dry county back then, so the booze was an attraction all by itself.
The girls and gambling were an added bonus. Best of all, nobody messed with
them. Being back in the swamp like it was, there was no way for the sheriff to
make a raid without them seeing it coming from a mile away.”
“You sound sorry you missed it.”
“Not really,” Cade chuckled. “My
grandpa said he went a couple of times and it was nothing to write home about.
He said the liquor was terrible, and the best that could be said about the girls
were they probably wouldn’t break a mirror if they didn’t look in it too long.”
“Nice,” Jenny offered
sarcastically.
“You asked.”
“Whatever. Go on…”
“Right. So things go on like this
for a few years. Lacey’s becomes a county fixture, with them keeping a low
profile and the law pretending they don’t exist. It was a situation everyone
seemed content with. But that’s when the Quaid gang enters the picture…”
“Who?”
“Bad Bobby Quaid, Ronald Loftlin, and
the two Brewer brothers... Eli and Jim. A group of small time hoods who
stumbled into the big time. They mainly knocked over liquor stores and small
Mom and Pop operations up near Oklahoma City. But then they got lucky. They just
so happened to hit a gas station at exactly the same time as an armored truck
was fueling up, and they scored huge. They got away with somewhere between
250,000 and 300,000 dollars.”
“Wow!”
“Yeah, they had hit it big.” A
match flared where Cade lit a cigarette. He took a deep drag, studied the
glowing ember, and then continued, “But now they had a problem. They were
suddenly on everybody’s radar, and things got hot fast. Really hot. They needed
to disappear quick, so they drove down here to Texas. Allegedly, one of the
Brewer brothers knew about Lacey’s outfit, and Bobby decided that would be a
great place to lay low.”
“Allegedly?” Jenny asked.
“Well from here on out, the story
is mainly based on a secondhand account from a couple of moonshiners who heard
it from a dying man, who didn’t speak good English. Let’s just say that leaves
a lot of wiggle room when it comes to the exact details of what happened. Over
the years a lot of people have come to believe the whole story is bullshit… but
the Quaid gang did exist, they did steal that money, and then came down to
Texas and vanished, never to be seen again.”
A coyote yipped somewhere out in
the darkness, but this time nobody reacted. Cade now had their entire attention
on the story.
“So one day, Lacey puts out the
word that some of her girls have come down sick. She said she was going to
close the place down for a few days to let them recover, and maybe put in a few
repairs around the place. Nobody thought anything of it. According to the
story, it was really because Bobby Quaid had shown up looking for privacy, but
we’ll get back to that later. A few days pass and then a moonshiner named Ed
Sanders takes a boat out there to deliver a shipment of hooch. That delivery
didn’t go as planned.”
Dennis grinned at that, having
heard different versions of this story before. This was one of the points that
the different versions agreed on.
“As Ed pulled his boat in toward
the house he saw something was definitely wrong. The two boats belonging to
Lacey had been pulled out of the water and their contents strewn around. In
addition to that, somebody had been digging holes in the earth around the
house. He didn’t know what to make of it. So he secures his boat, grabs up his
old shotgun and heads for the house. The front door is open so he carefully eases
inside. That’s when he discovers that things are even worse than he thought.”
Cade paused to take a long drag of
his cigarette, the brightened cherry illuminating his face in the darkness. Dennis
felt sure he was doing it for effect.
“The front hallway had blood stains on the
floor, and empty suitcases lay scattered at the bottom of the stairs as if they
had been thrown down in a mad frenzy. He could also see into the parlor where
furniture had been overturned or pulled away from the walls. It was a scene
straight out of a madhouse.
That’s when Lacey appeared in the
rear door of the parlor and the madness really began.
Let’s just say she wasn’t looking
so good. She was filthy, her hair looked like a fright wig, her makeup was
smeared across her face, and her dress was stained from the waist down as if
she’d been wading in the swamp. Whatever had happened, things were definitely
not going well in Laceyland.
They stare at each other for a long
second, after which Lacey suddenly screams like a banshee and whips out a pistol
and shoots. She misses by a mile, but scares Ed so badly that he jerks the
trigger of his shotgun and blows a hole in the floor. So she takes another shot…
and she misses again. Meanwhile, it occurs to Ed that he should probably be
doing something other than standing around waiting for her aim to improve. Knowing
that his single-shot 12 gauge is now empty, he makes a break for it. He races
back to his boat, ducking bullets, and motors the hell out of there. He doesn’t
stop until he’s completely out of the swamp and reaches his uncle’s house
upriver.”
Cade paused to take another drag as
their craft slipped quietly onwards through the black waters. He looked up to where
the overhanging branches slid past the full moon, as if debating how to
continue.
“So she just went crazy?” Jenny prompted.
“Oh, it gets a lot darker than that,”
Dennis cheerfully interjected, earning himself a worried look from Jenny and a
scowl from Cade. He knew he was making things worse… but she had asked for it,
and he couldn’t help himself.
“Anyways,” Cade pressed on, “Ed
rounds up a bunch of his cousins and they head back out there. This time
they’re loaded for bear. Yet once they get there it turns out they don’t need
it. No gunfire greets them, and a quick search of the place reveals no sign of
Lacey. Both of her boats were still there so she must have wandered off into
the swamp. They widen their search area and still don’t find her, but they
didn’t end up empty handed.
They found the big Swede.
He had pulled himself up onto an
island about 150 yards from the house, and now lay dying under a bush. He had
been gut shot. To make matters worse, he had waded through the swamp’s filthy
water to get to his current location. He must have known he wasn’t long for the
world because he managed to tell them, despite his broken English, that he
would let them know what happened in exchange for a proper burial. They agreed.
Satisfied, the Swede told his story.
Apparently, Bobby Quaid showed up
and convinced Lacey to shut down for a few days so they could lay low. He gave
her a couple of grand to make it worth her while, but in the process of doing
that he must have let Lacey know how much money he had actually stolen. That
turned out to be a mistake. A lethal mistake.”
Cade paused and
looked back at the other two.
“The funny thing
is,” he said as an aside, “is that it later became obvious that while the Swede
was telling them all this, he did not tell the Sanders men how much actual
money was involved. You have to remember that back then a quarter million
dollars was a huge amount of money. Heck, it ain’t chump change now, or we
wouldn’t be out here.”
Then he took a
last drag off of his cigarette, before flicking the butt out into the dark
waters and resuming his tale.
“Anyways, the Quaid
gang were small time for a reason, mainly because they weren’t the sharpest
tools in the shed. They proved that the second night they were out there. They
had themselves a party. The music played and the liquor flowed, and then Lacey’s
girls managed to get each of them off alone… which made them easy pickings for
the Swede and his two men.
By 10 PM they
were all dead.
So the Swede and
his men drag what’s left of the Quaid gang out to one of Lacey’s boats. Then
they load them up and take them out into the swamp, where they cut them open
and stuff them full of rocks before sinking them.”
“Ew…” Jenny
protested.
“Standard swamp
body disposal,” Cade explained, “and I doubt those four guys were the Swede’s
first. They certainly weren’t his last. Because as soon as they sunk the last
one, he promptly shot both of his henchmen and did the same thing to them.
Meanwhile, back
the house, Lacey and the girls are celebrating their good fortune and
anticipated retirement. But just like the Swede’s henchman, Lacey’s girls
discovered that their retirement was going to be of the permanent sort. Late
into the party they started dropping. Apparently, none of them noticed that
Lacy was drinking from a different bottle than them.
But unlike the
Swede’s henchman, they had suspected treachery, even though they hadn’t expected
it to be murder.
As the last girl
lay gasping on the floor, she looked at Lacey and started laughing. With her final
words, she cackled that she had taken the money and moved it to a different
suitcase, and then hidden it where Lacey would never find it. I suppose it was
to make sure that Lacey didn’t take the money and run, leaving them behind. Regardless,
the girl dies and Lacey discovers that her evil little plan has now gone
sideways.
The Swede
returns to find a parlor full of dead women, with Lacey screaming and kicking
their bodies. She has already started to lose it. So he calms her down and gets
her to focus on searching the house again. After that, he spends the rest of
the night hauling dead hookers out into the swamp and sinking them too.
When morning
comes, he’s exhausted. Therefore, being the practical guy he was, he simply
pulls his boat up to the nearest hummock and spends most of the day asleep in
that. Then he heads back to the house that afternoon to see if Lacey had found
the money, or at least calmed down.
As it turned
out, she had done neither. Not even close.
The Swede pulls
in to find a half-crazed Lacey digging holes in the yard. She’s bawling and
swearing and randomly tossing dirt around with her shovel. It was also pretty
obvious she hadn’t slept a wink since he had left her. He could see right away
that it was time for an intervention.
And that’s where
he screwed up.
He pulls his
boat up on shore, and then starts heading her way. But when she sees him, she
lets out a shriek and starts running away. He certainly didn’t expect that.
Confused, the Swede chases after her and around the house, where he finally
catches her in the back. That doesn’t work out so well either. He grabs her by
the shoulders and yells at her to calm down…
…while at the
same time, she snatches the gun he had stuffed in his pants and blasts him in
the stomach with it. Twice.”
“And he was
surprised?” Jennifer blurted out. “What with everybody killing each other,
didn’t it occur to him that chasing a woman down and getting grabby with her
might not be a good idea? Especially if she’s already having some kind of
breakdown?”
Dennis couldn’t
help but respond to that one.
“Classic example
of female logic,” he snorted. “The poor guy gets murdered in the act of
comforting her, and somehow it’s all his fault.”
“Really?”
Jennifer turned to fix him with a narrow eye. “Well, here’s another piece of
female logic for you, Einstein. That little statement is a classic
example of why you’re going to grow old wondering why you went through life as
a sidekick.”
Ouch!
Dennis didn’t
have a ready response for that one, so he silently fumed in the dark as other
man continued his tale.
“You two…,” Cade
groaned. “Anyways, fortunately for him, the Swede had used the other four
bullets shooting his henchmen and hadn’t reloaded the gun yet. So she was out. But
that still left him sitting on the ground, clutching his gut while she screamed
at him that she wasn’t about to let him murder her and keep all the money for
himself. Then she took off running back around the house.
It only took him
a couple of seconds to realize she was probably heading for the boats to get
more ammunition so she could finish him off. That’s when he understood he was
properly screwed. He was badly hurt, unarmed, and alone on an island with a
madwoman who would be back any minute to finish him off. He only had one option
left. So he staggers over to the water and then wades off into the swamp to
hide. That’s where his part in this story comes to an end, and where the
Sanders boys found him later.
Anyways he dies
after relating this story, and depending on who you want to believe, the
Sanders boys either buried him or simply sunk him in the swamp like the others.
Since they had time to search the house afterward, I’m betting on the latter.”
“Ugh,” Jennifer grumbled.
“Were there any good guys at all in this story? Even one?”
“You have to
remember,” Cade shrugged, “everybody involved was already a criminal to one
degree or another. You weren’t gonna find any Boy Scouts in this crowd. But
this story does end with a bit of irony. When they searched the house, they did
find about $5000 that must have been Lacey’s earnings from her business. That
was also a pretty decent chunk of change back then, and since the Swede didn’t
tell them how much the Quaid gang managed to get in their heist, they just
assumed that was the money he had been talking about. So they ransacked the
place for anything they liked, went home happy and that was pretty much all
there was to it.”
“But what about
Lacey? What happened to her?”
“Nobody knows.
She was never seen again.”
“That’s it? She
was just gone?”
“Pretty much. Some
people think she found the money and moved somewhere else, but I don’t think
so.”
“Why not?”
“Because,” Cade
replied, “both boats were still at the house when the Sanders boys arrived, and
they took them both back home with them to carry their spoils. If she was still
alive, then she must have been hiding somewhere nearby and that would have left
her with no alternative but to try and wade all the way out of the swamp. She
would’ve never made it. And that’s assuming that the Sanders didn’t actually
find and murder her too, then simply failed to mention that part of the story. Either
way, I’m pretty sure she ended up feeding the fishes. So that’s the whole tale.
Everybody died except the Sanders, who lived happily ever after. The end.”
Dennis knew the
story didn’t really end there. Yet even though her wisecrack about him being a
lifelong sidekick still rankled, he choked down the temptation to torment her further.
Scaring her would only make her harder to deal with, and Cade was obviously
hoping that ending the story here would satisfy her curiosity.
But it wasn’t to
be.
“Uh huh, now
what aren’t you telling me,” Jenny persisted. “Your fanboy back here made it
pretty clear there’s more.”
Fanboy?! Seriously?
Okay, forget her
feelings. Now she was asking for it.
“Well, the truth
is,” Dennis drawled while ignoring the glare he knew Cade must be shooting his
way, “saying that Lacey was never seen again isn’t quite accurate. ‘Seen alive’
would be closer to the truth.”
This time Jenny
turned around to face him completely in the boat.
“What does that
mean?” she demanded.
“What that
means,” Dennis smirked,“ is about four months later Ed Sander’s cousin, Gus, is
about to get hitched and he realizes his single bed just ain’t gonna cut it no
more. But then he has a little brainstorm. He remembers that there were queen
sized beds at Lacey’s old house in the girl’s rooms, and he figures if one of
those were left it would make an excellent present for his new bride… well, as
long as she never found out how many people had actually been in it.”
“Oh my God,
gross!”
“Like Cade said,
none of these guys would pass as high society. So Gus hops in his boat and
motors his way out here to the swamp. Once he gets to the house, he ties off
his boat and heads straight in. The place is a wreck but that was the way they
left it last time, so he isn’t surprised. Then he heads upstairs and starts
searching the rooms. And after some hunting and comparing, he finally settles
on a bed that looks like it might have had less than 1000 different people use
it.”
“Seriously,
that’s really gross.”
Dennis grinned
wickedly, then continued.
“ So Gus does a
quick examination of the bid frame to get an idea of how the thing was put
together. Having done that, it was time to get to work. It was already starting
to get late. He ripped the old quilt and sheets off, and threw them in a corner
because those were beyond reuse. Then he wrestled the old mattress off the bed
frame and leaned it against the wall behind him. But when he turned around
that’s when he discovered that things had gone off the rails… because there she
was.
Standing right
across the bed frame from him was a dead woman. Very dead. He later said the
thing had been dead so long that the only way he knew it was a woman was
because of the rotted dress barely visible under the shrouds of moss that
covered the whole thing. He had no idea how she had gotten so close without him
noticing, but there were wet footprints leading into the room so he must have
just been so occupied with the mattress he hadn’t seen her.”
“This is
bullshit,” Jenny interjected in a decidedly unhappy tone.
“ Poor old Gus
sure wished it was,” Dennis pushed onwards, “because as soon as he had seen the
thing it started coming around the bed towards him. He said it barely made a
sound as it moved. Just a soft wet slither. But it moved alright, and it was
coming his way. The fact it was already between him and the door made the
situation even worse. He locked up. He could do nothing but stare as the horrible
thing approached.
But then,
finally, Gus got control of himself just as the thing was about to reach him. With
no other escape route available, he turned and jumped out the window. That
house has tall ceilings, so he knew it was going to be a long fall. But he
jumped without thinking twice. And he didn’t even realize he had broken his arm
until he had gotten up, run to his boat, and had motored halfway out of the
swamp.”
“This is bullshit,”
Jenny insisted.
“Maybe,” Dennis
shrugged, “but it was real enough that Gus packed up and moved clear across the
county so he would never have to be near Milner swamp again. That much is
proven fact.”
“So what?” Cade
snorted from the front of the boat, “Gus was a moonshiner and probably partook
liberally from his own hooch. There’s no telling what he really saw, if he saw
anything at all.”
Dennis knew he
should probably drop it here, but he was on a roll and couldn’t help himself.
“Oh yeah?” he
shot back, “What about Sam Barnaby? He wasn’t a drunk.”
“Who was Sam
Barnaby?” Jenny asked warily.
“Dammit, Dennis…”
“Sam owned the
hardware store over in Collinsdale. Texas had a blue law back then that said most
stores had to close on Sundays, so he always took the opportunity to either go
hunting or fishing. Needless to say, one Saturday evening he decided to do his
hunting in Milner Swamp. He was hunting coon, and you do that at night. But
unfortunately for him, he wasn’t out there too long before it started raining.
That ended the hunt damn quick.
The rain started
strengthening into a downpour and his little boat offered no type of shelter. Sam
started looking for a tree big enough to take cover under, and that’s when he
saw the Carver mansion in a flash of lightning. He figured his problems were
solved. He had heard about Gus and his story, but he didn’t take it seriously and
the house offered a lot more sensible shelter than a tree when lightning was
about. It would even give him a chance to dry off while waiting out the rain.
So Sam pulls
this boat up on shore, grabs his flashlight, and slogs his way over to the
house. He is now thoroughly soaked. He stumps up onto the porch and then
wrestles with the door because it’s probably gotten warped with age and stuck
shut. It finally gives way and he stumbles into the darkness beyond. Now at
least he’s out of the storm. But now that he’s inside, he remembers Gus
Sanders’ story and start shining his flashlight around to see what’s up.
As it turned
out, he was going to have even less time than Gus did to get out of there.
She was just
taking the last step down the stairs that were straight ahead of him and starting
his way. And she was just the way that Gus had described her… deader than hell,
rotten, and draped in moss.
To Sam’s credit,
he didn’t freeze up like Gus did. He spun around and charged straight back out
into the rain. Then he hopped into his boat and got the hell out of there.
Afterward, he didn’t move away like Gus did, but he didn’t do any more hunting
in Milner swamp.
Put those two
incidents together, along with a couple other things, and the story took hold
that Lacey Simmons is still hanging around the Carver mansion hunting for that
hidden money”
Nobody commented
right away as Dennis wrapped up his story.
The night sounds
of the swamp reasserted themselves as the boat slid through the gloom. The
three rode in silence and Dennis began to wonder if maybe he had pushed things
too far. He suspected he had. Yes, Jenny had annoyed him, but she was Cade’s
girl and he really didn’t want to get on Cade’s bad side.
Fortunately, it
was Cade himself who lightened the mood.
“ Ok, you two,”
he announced, “Now that we got the campfire ghost story nonsense out of the
way, I think it’s time to explain why we’ve got a great chance of finding that
money and we’re out here tonight.”
That caused both
Jenny and Dennis to perk up since Kade had been slightly vague about the
details, other than to insist that he had just learned where they could pick up
around $300,000 of lost money that nobody else had found.
“Earlier this
week,” he continued, “my boss sent me to work on her renovation job for the County
Historical Society. It was the Tarlington mansion in Collinsdale. That’s where
I made an interesting discovery. While I was working on one of the fireplaces,
I discovered it had a false back and opened into a small area. Nothing too big,
maybe one average-sized person could squeeze in there, but it was a cool
discovery and the members of the historical society were excited when I found
it. One of them pointed out that the Pritchard House in Pritchard Hill also had
one of these, and they had both been built by an architect named Archibald
Smoot. They wondered if it was some kind of calling card of his.
But while they
were wondering that, it occurred to me that there are three mansions remaining
in Cole County, and they are all really old. So after I got off work I ran over
to the county courthouse and did some digging. Take a wild guess who the
architect was for the Carver Mansion…”
“ Archibald
Smoot?” Dennis exclaimed with rising excitement.
“Archibald
Smoot,” Cade confirmed, “and that space would easily hold a suitcase full of
money.”
“And that would
explain,” Jenny chipped in, “why Lacy couldn’t find the money! One of her girls
must have found that secret compartment and kept the secret to herself. Then
she hid the money in it so Lacey wouldn’t run away with it!”
“Exactly!” Cade
beamed. “And I wanted to get out here fast before one of those eggheads at the
historical society put two and two together and mounted their own expedition.
Remember, all bullshit aside, that money was a historical fact and it has never
turned up. It is real.”
Now the three
fell silent again, but this time the silence was not uncomfortable. Even the
song of frogs and crickets seemed more comforting in gloom. Dennis watched the
trunks of trees slide by in the darkness, while imagining what he would do with
his cut of the money. Who knows? Maybe he could land a girl as hot as Jenny
with a little cash in his pocket.
And a sports car.
Oh yes, a red sports car. Those things were chick magnets, and he could already
picture himself driving around town with a cute blonde in the seat by side him.
Heck, with a car like that he could probably get a little action on the side
too.
It was while he
still lingered in this fantasy that Cade’s voice broke his reverie.
“We’re here.”
***
Dennis looked up
as the trees parted before their boat, and the derelict hulk of the Carver
Mansion loomed into view.
He almost forgot
to breathe at the sight of the thing. First of all, it was enormous. Secondly,
it was easily the most frightening house he had ever seen in his life. Its age
blackened spires, chimneys, and high peaked rooftops seemed to claw at the moon-washed
sky. Dark, vacant windows gaped in all directions, while old fashioned shutters
hung at crazy angles from warped hinges. And then there was the moss. Great
shredded curtains of Spanish moss hung from all the eaves and windowsills, as
if the structure were slowly becoming part of the swamp itself. It was a
decaying Victorian monstrosity straight out of a Poe induced nightmare.
And he wasn’t
the only one impressed.
“Oh, my God,” Jenny
groaned beside him, all traces of her brief former enthusiasm gone. “This is
nuts. Just look at that place.”
“It’s just a
house,” Cade replied as he angled the boat towards shore. He brought the craft
in and parked it in the darkness under a willow tree. Then, after tying the
boat to a root, he pulled a crowbar from under the seat, hopped ashore, and
motioned for them to follow.
And, of course,
that’s when Jenny first balked.
“Nope,” she
shook her head in negation, “Forget it. I’m not going up there. That place is
evil. I can feel it from here.”
“Jenny…” Cade sighed.
“I’m serious.
Can’t you feel that?!”
Dennis knew an
impending standoff when he saw one coming, but he had an idea on how to nip
this one in the bud.
“It’s cool, Cade,”
he shrugged. “She can stay here alone and guard the boat from that big gator we
promised her doesn’t exist. She’ll be fine.”
As he expected,
that went over like a lead balloon. But It was worth it because it quickly
became obvious that his strategy had worked. Jenny slowly stepped off the boat
while glaring absolute daggers at him.
With that
settled, the three trudged over the 60 feet of marshy ground separating them
from the house. Each step made an audible squish. Cade led the way with Jenny
tightly clutching his arm, and Dennis cautiously bringing up the rear.
The air grew
heavier as they climbed the steps of the mansion’s sagging porch, the boards
creaking ominously under Cade’s boots. Jenny clung tighter to his arm, her
breath coming in short, sharp gasps. Dennis, trailing behind, swept his
flashlight across the facade, its beam catching glints of broken glass in the
windows and the eerie sway of moss in the breeze.
“Stay close,”
Cade whispered, hefting the crowbar in preparation to putting it to use. The
front door, warped by years of swamp humidity, groaned as he wedged the tool
into the frame. With a sharp crack, it gave way, revealing a yawning darkness
within. The smell of mildew and rot hit them like a physical force.
Jenny froze.
“Cade, I’m not kidding. This is a bad idea.”
“Come on, Jen,”
he said, his voice low but firm. “We’re this close. You want to wait out here
alone?”
Her eyes darted
to Dennis, who raised an eyebrow, mildly enjoying her discomfort… and seeing
that even Cade had his limits.
“Fine,” she
muttered, stepping forward but staying as close to her boyfriend as possible.
Inside, the
flashlight beams danced across a ruined interior. The grand hallway, once
elegant, was now a graveyard of splintered furniture and peeling wallpaper. Overturned chairs lay scattered like bones, their
upholstery rotted to threads. A cracked mirror hung crookedly on one wall,
reflecting their flashlight beams in jagged slivers. The air was thick, almost
suffocating, and every step stirred up clouds of dust. Dennis aimed his light
at the staircase, its banister leaning like a drunkard.
“If it’s like
the other two houses, the fireplace we want will be upstairs,” Cade said,
nodding toward the warped flight of steps. “It will be set in an interior wall,
because that gave them room to add the secret space. Now let’s move.”
Jen looked like
she intended to object again but apparently bit it off. This time Dennis wasn’t
sure he blamed her. The condition of those stairs didn’t inspire confidence.
Yet $300,000 was
$300,000, and they had come too far to stop now.
Dennis gritted
his teeth and fought to ignore the creaks and groans as they carefully ascended
toward the second floor. It wasn’t easy. His heart almost stopped on two
different occasions when a step gave more beneath his weight than it should. Every
second he feared hearing the loud snap that would send him plunging into the
darkness below the stairs.
It was with a
sigh of relief that he reached the 2nd floor in one piece.
The second floor
of the Carver Mansion was a labyrinth of decay, the air thick with the stench
of mold and something sharper, almost metallic. Cade’s flashlight swept across
the hallway, revealing sagging floorboards and doorways that gaped like open
wounds. Shadows clung to the corners, shifting as their beams moved. Dennis
felt a chill crawl up his spine, not from the cold but from the oppressive
weight of the house itself. Being in this old hulk felt strangely like being
buried alive.
“Stay sharp,”
Cade said, his voice steady but quieter now.
He led the way,
crowbar in one hand, flashlight in the other, while Jenny pressed so close to
him she was practically stepping on his heels. Dennis continued to bring up the
rear, his own flashlight darting nervously to the sides.
They moved past
a series of closed doors, their warped frames suggesting rooms untouched for
decades. Cade ignored them, heading straight for the end of the hall where a
larger doorway opened into what must have been the master suite. The room was
vast, its high ceiling sagging under the weight of time and water damage. Dark
moldering piles of what had once been furniture lay scattered around the
chamber. And finally, a massive fireplace dominated the wall to their left. Its
stone was blackened by soot and age, the hearth cold and choked with debris.
“There,” Cade
said, pointing. “Interior wall… and in the master bedroom, no less. That’s
gotta be it.”
“Oh, my God,” Dennis
whispered, “If the money turns out to be in here, that means those girls hid it
from Lacey in her own room.”
“If it’s there,”
Jenny breathed. “Please let it be there. I want to get out of this place.”
“Then let’s get
on with it,” Cade knelt by the fireplace, running his hand along the stonework.
“The Tarlington and Pritchard houses had a false panel in the back, usually
triggered by a loose brick or a hidden latch. Help me look.”
Dennis handed
his flashlight to Jenny and joined him, scanning the interior of the hearth.
Jenny hovered behind them, the flashlight shaking in her grip. The fireplace
was deep, its interior coated in grime. Dennis brushed away layers of soot,
coughing as the dust filled his lungs. His fingers grazed a brick that felt
slightly off—protruding just enough to notice.
“Here,” he said,
his voice tight with excitement. “This one’s loose.”
Cade leaned in,
shining his light on the brick. He wedged the crowbar into the gap and pried
gently. With a low grinding sound, the brick shifted, revealing a small lever
behind it. Cade glanced at Dennis, a grin breaking through his focus.
“Jackpot.”
He pulled the
lever, and a section of the fireplace’s back wall clicked, then swung inward
with a groan of rusted hinges. A narrow, dark opening yawned before them. Jenny
leaned forward with her flashlight, revealing a small space with a brick shelf in
the back.
On that shelf
sat a single, battered suitcase, its leather cracked and peeling.
“Holy shit, it’s
real,” Dennis murmured, then turned to the others with rising emotion. “It’s
real! We did it! We’re rich! Open it up, I want to see the money.”
“You got it,” Cade
repositioned himself and reached in for the suitcase. But as his fingers
brushed the handle, a new sound broke in on their celebration.
A muffled bang
echoed from the depths of the house somewhere below.
The trio froze, all
traces of their former elation suddenly gone. Not a one of them moved. Several
brittle seconds passed as they stared at each other, wide eyed, in the wan
light.
“What the hell was
that?” Dennis squeaked at last.
Cade frowned,
listening. “Probably just the house settling. Old places make noises.”
But Jenny’s
voice cut in, sharp and panicked. “Bullshit, Cade! That was a door slamming. Something
is down there!”
“Dammit, calm
down,” he ordered. “There’s nothing down there.”
“But…”
“And if there
is,” he spoke over her with uncharacteristic force, “it’s a goddam animal.
We’re in a swamp, remember. Now calm the hell down!”
Jenny drew back with
an expression of both surprise and anguish.
Startled himself,
Dennis looked from one to the other. He had the unhappy conviction that the
noise had sounded like a door slam as well. On the other hand, Cade’s fierce
assertion and pragmatism had a steadying effect on his nerves.
Yet any comfort
he took from his partner’s words vanished a second later.
“Mine…”
It was the worst
sound in the world. The word definitely came from downstairs, yet somehow
seemed to also emanate from the shadows around them. It was an unearthly, liquid
hiss that reeked of obsession and madness.
It echoed off
into the shadows, leaving the three gaping in a moment of stunned silence.
This time it was
Jenny who recovered first.
“Was THAT an
animal, Cade?” She wheeled on him, her eyes unnaturally wide and her face
drawn. “Did that sound like a goddamned raccoon to you?!”
Things were
spiraling out of control, and it was obvious that Jenny was descending into
hysterics. Dennis was so scared himself that he could barely think. That voice
still reverberated in his mind like every childhood nightmare come to life.
Something was in the house with them and he didn’t even want to think about
what that something could be. In desperation he fell back on old habits and
looked toward Cade for guidance.
Cade stared at
the floor as if lost in some internal struggle. Then, apparently coming to some
conclusion, he set his jaw and rose to his feet.
“Dennis, get the
money,” he ordered while hefting the crowbar. “We are leaving. Now. Jenny, stay
close.”
Dennis scrambled
to retrieve the suitcase, then hurried to follow the other two as they exited
the room. They moved quickly, somewhere between a walk and a run, skirting
debris as they made their way back the way they came. The shadows seemed to
crawl around them as they went. Through each door they passed it seemed the
darkness had come alive and weighed heavy with impending menace. Even the
sounds of the outside swamp had become magnified and now surrounded them.
“Mine…”
Ethereal.
Implacable. Unhinged.
“Cade!” Jenny
called out. “Be careful. Whatever that thing is, it’s downstairs waiting for
us.”
“And whatever it
is,” he growled, “we’re going to blow right past it.”
Dennis wasn’t so
sure about that plan, but he was too busy struggling with the weight of the
suitcase while trying to keep up for much in the way of second guessing. The old
piece of luggage was heavy! It took both of his hands on the handle, and he had
to concentrate on keeping it from unbalancing him. Besides, once Cade settled
on a course of action it took more debate than they had time for to change his
mind.
“Here we go,” Cade
yelled as he reached the top of the stairs and turned to charge downwards. “Don’t
slow down till we reach the boat!”
And that was
when disaster struck.
Due to his haste,
Cade’s foot hit the next to top step with entirely too much force, causing it
to give with a loud SNAP. His leg immediately plunged downward, but not past
the knee because his momentum carried him past that point. He gave a startled
cry as he fell forward and hit the next several steps with tremendous force. These
were just as rotten and he smashed through them upon impact. And just like that,
he was gone.
Meanwhile, Jenny
teetered on the edge of the second floor, her arms flailing for balance in an
effort to avoid falling in after him. But physics would not be denied. She had
her own momentum working against her, and gravity was not her friend.
She was just in
the process of falling forward when Dennis caught up and yanked her back from
the edge.
Yet the worst
was not over.
The sound of
cracking and splintering filled the air around them. The floor shuddered,
causing them to take another step back from the edge. Then, right before their
horrified eyes the entire staircase seemed to sag before collapsing inward with
a mighty crash. Then, just as they thought it was over, another groan echoed
throughout the house and the floor on that end of the grand hallway gave way,
sending the entire pile of shattered lumber into unknown depths below.
“Cade!” Jenny
shrieked and staggered back to the edge to shine her light down below.
Dennis joined
her and peered down to see the reflection of water glinting back up at them
from the hole. Broken boards and banister pieces poked up through the surface
from the submerged pile below.
“Oh crap,” he
wheezed from the dust in the air. “This place must have had a cellar and it got
flooded by the swamp.”
“Cade!” she
called again, although the tearful quality entering her voice it made was easy
to see she didn’t expect to receive an answer.
But receive one
she did.
“Mine…”
Jenny screamed
and swept her light around the room below. The result was confusion. Dust
occluded the beam, making it hard to pick out details. Her unsteady hand didn’t
help matters either. But just as Dennis was about to try to get her to slow
down, something must have caught her eye because she settled the beam on a doorway
about halfway down the hall… and its occupant
This time they
saw it, if only briefly.
The figure in
the doorway was already turning away when the light fell on it, and it immediately
lurched into the room beyond. But what little they saw was enough. The hanging
sheets of moss that shrouded its form. Patches of torn and stained pale cloth showing
through from underneath. A glimpse of gray flesh and bone. They didn’t really
need anything more to put the picture together.
“Oh God, that
was her,” Jenny forced out in a horse whisper. “That was really her. We have to
get out of here!”
“Yeah… uh… right,”
Dennis stammered, desperately trying to think. Things were happening too fast.
Cade was dead, the stairs were gone, and they were trapped in a house with a
psychopathic dead woman.
“Dennis!”
“Uh… servant
stairs!” His mind snapped onto the idea, and he turned to head toward the back
of the house. “I think these big old houses had servant stairs, or back stairs,
or whatever they were called! We gotta find those.”
“NO, Dennis!” She
grabbed his arm as he started to move away. “That’s where she’ll be heading
right now. Do you really want to run into her in a dark stairwell?”
Horrified, he
realized she was right. He had been about to lead them straight into the gruesome
thing’s embrace.
Despair started
to set in as he returned to the edge of the second-floor landing. One look was
all it took to see that jumping was out of the question. It would have been a twelve-foot
drop before the stairs and floor collapsed. Now it was at least seventeen feet
down onto jagged spears of lumber. This avenue offered no escape, and death was
closing in.
But although the
option of jumping here was out, the idea made him realize that they actually still
had an option left. Not a great one, but all the great options were gone.
“C’mon,” he grunted,
and started lugging the suitcase down a side hallway. “This place has
balconies, and we need to get to one.”
If she were
starting to get an idea of his plan, she looked non too enthused about it. Yet
at the same time she quickly made it obvious she had other concerns.
“Can’t you move
faster? How heavy is that thing?”
“At least 70 or
80 pounds,” He puffed with exertion. “Why? You want to leave it behind?”
“Mine…!”
That had
definitely come from somewhere around the rear of the house, thus proving
Jenny’s earlier warning correct. Now she looked behind them, her face a mask of
terror and indecision, before turning back to him with agony in her eyes.
“No,” she
answered in an anguished voice.
“Good, because
that was never an option in the first place.”
“Just please try
to move faster!”
Dennis snarled
with effort as he reached the door at the end of the hallway. Not bothering to
set down the suitcase, he dealt it a single desperate kick. That was almost a
mistake. His foot punched through the rotten wood next to the door knob.
Fortunately, it knocked the knob and whole lock apparatus loose in one chunk, allowing
him to barely maintain his feet as the door flew open and he stumbled through
the opening.
He cursed
himself over such a stupid move so soon after Cade’s calamity, but then his
heart rose at the sight before him.
Moonlight
flooded in through a door hanging on its hinges.
There was no
time to waste. Dennis lugged the suitcase through the decaying room with Jenny
right behind him.
With exquisite
care he stepped out the exterior doorway, slowly putting his weight on the
balcony beyond. He hated every second of it. It was obviously decrepit, and
under any other circumstances he would never do this. Every creak and groan
added to his misgivings.
But fortune
smiled and the floor held beneath him. Dennis reached the edge and immediately
put the next step of his plan into action. Marshaling his strength, he slowly
lifted the heavy suitcase and gently set it on the railing without letting go.
“Jenny, come
here. I want you to keep this balanced on top of the railing until I tell you
otherwise.”
“Why? What are
you doing?”
“I’m keeping you
from having to try and lift that thing yourself. Now watch what I do because
you’re going to have to do the same thing in a few seconds.”
She quickly took
his place balancing the suitcase, and he hurried down the edge of the balcony
to a point where the railing was missing.
Once there, he
sat down with his feet hanging over the edge. Then he carefully twisted around
until his weight was supported by his hands and lowered himself over the side.
This ended with him hanging from the floor of the balcony by his hands.
“Dennis, it’s at
least fifteen feet down! Are you crazy?”
“Nope, I’m just
out of choices,” he gasped, and let go of the balcony.
The time falling
unnerved him, and then he landed hard. But he had been expecting that, so had made
sure to land with his knees bent. That, and fact the ground was soft, probably
prevented him from having any broken bones.
Yet pain still
flared through his knee as he landed and fell over backwards unto the wet
ground. It was all he could do not to clutch his knee and cry out. But he
simply had no time for that. Forcing down a whimper, he climbed to his feet and
limped over to where he stood beneath Jenny in the suitcase.
“Okay, Jenny. Just
push the suitcase off the rail, and I’ll catch it.”
“Don’t be stupid,”
she snapped. “It’s too heavy! There’s no way you can catch this thing! You’re
already hurt.”
“ I’m fine,” he
shot back. “But if that old suitcase hits the ground from that high it’s going
to bust open and we’ll lose the money. Now just push it off the rail so that I
can at least break its fall.”
“Fine,” she relented,
”but I’m starting to see a real problem with our recent decision making.”
She gave the
suitcase a shove.
And just as she
predicted, Dennis’s plan was a mistake.
The heavy bag
hit him square in the arms and chest, smashing him straight to the ground. This
time he knew he was hurt. His shoulder erupted in agony, while the air was
driven from his body by the impact.
“Shit!” he
choked out, trying to roll over on his side while attempting to squirm out from
under the suitcase. At least it hadn’t busted open. Unfortunately, he wasn’t
sure if the same was true of himself yet.
“Dennis,”
Jenny’s voice hissed from overhead, “get up! I’m going to need your help!”
He winced and
looked up to see her shining the flashlight down at him. That turned out to be
the opposite of helpful. He realized he was essentially one armed when even the
effort of raising his right hand to block the beam caused his shoulder to
scream.
“Quit shining it
in my eyes,” he gritted his teeth while struggling to push the suitcase off of
him with his left hand.
The soft marshy
soil he lay in made his effort to roll for extra leverage harder. It wasn’t
until his second try that he succeeded, and in doing so he rolled over onto his
injured shoulder which actually caused him to see stars from the pain. His only
recourse was to keep rolling so that he was now faced down on the ground.
“ Almost there,”
Dennis gasped. He knew he needed to keep going. Time was running out. It felt
like his entire being was a battlefield between fear and pain, with that
knowledge being the deciding factor. Setting his jaw, he pushed himself through
the one-armed effort of getting to his hands and knees.
Taking a few
deep breaths, he marshaled the energy to push himself to his feet…
…and that’s when
the flashlight landed on the ground beside him.
“Huh?” He gazed
stupidly at the light for a second. Then realization struck and he snatched it up
before spinning on his knees and shining it up towards the balcony.
The thing had
caught Jenny from behind and was already well into the process of killing her.
One moss draped
arm encircled her from the rear, pinning her arms to her sides and pressing her
against the railing. The other withered clawlike hand clutched her throat,
crushing it closed while holding her stiffly upright. She couldn’t move. She
couldn't even make a squeak. Her eyes bulged in her discolored face while her
mouth gaped in a futile attempt to draw breath.
And over her
shoulder leered the face of horror itself.
Hanging moss and
dripping hair had parted to reveal the final visage of Lacey Simmons. The upper half
of her face was a tattered mask of rotting flesh, stretched thin like brittle
parchment, and framing two dark sockets from which shrunken eyes glared with insane
malice. But below the cheekbones the flesh ended. Bare jaws jutted out at the
world with a deaths-head smile. Her teeth, exposed and uneven, glowed white in the low light.
Nothing human
remained in a face that had become a ghastly mockery of humanity… something Lacey
had lost even before she died.
Worst of all,
there was nothing Dennis could do. Nothing. He could only watch helplessly as
the grinning obscenity choked the last remaining life out of the girl in its
grasp. A single tear gleamed in the flashlight’s beam as the last spark of
vitality left her eyes.
“Jenny…” He
called weakly, as much in apology as despair. But it was pointless.
She was gone.
.jpg)
Without further
pause, the horror viciously slung the girl’s body over the railing. It fell in
a sudden hushed silence before landing near the boy with a sodden crunch. There
it rested, crumpled in a twisted heap at his feet… silent... Jenny's dead eyes
staring at him as if in accusation from her dirt smeared face.
Unable to bear
that gaze, Dennis looked up to see the horrid wraith grasp the railing and lean
over to glare down at him.
“Mine,”
it snarled with single minded fixation, before turning and stalking back into
the house.
He didn’t think.
He didn’t breathe. He just moved. Scrambling to his feet, he grabbed the
suitcase’s handle with his good arm, ignoring the searing pain in his shoulder.
The heavy bag dragged through the mud as he stumbled backward, his eyes locked
on the balcony. The thing was gone.
But it would be
coming, and it wouldn’t take long. Right now it would be making its way through
the house to get to an outside door. He couldn’t be here when it did. He had to
get to that boat.
Dennis’s heart
pounded as he staggered through the marshy ground, the weight of the suitcase pulling
at his good arm while his injured shoulder screamed with every step. The
swamp’s night sounds—frogs, crickets, the occasional splash—now felt like a
mocking chorus. His flashlight beam bobbed wildly, cutting through the darkness
as he aimed for the willow tree where they’d tied the boat.
“Mine!”
He heard the
front door being ripped open behind him, and knew the race was truly on.
He didn’t dare
look back. His flashlight beam bobbed wildly, cutting through the darkness as
he aimed for the willow tree where they’d tied the boat. His only thought was
escape. Get to the boat, get out, get away.
Dennis reached
the water’s edge, his breath ragged, and shoved aside the overhanging branches.
That’s when his stomach plummeted down to a whole new level.
The boat was
gone.
“No!” he wailed,
his eyes locked on where the rope, frayed and severed, dangled uselessly from
the root where Cade had tied it. Where was it?! The evil bitch must have cut it
before heading to the house to kill them! He desperately shone the light around
in search of the vessel, knowing he had mere seconds left. As it turned out, he
spotted it right away.
The small craft spun
lazily, thirty feet away, caught in a slow eddy.
In any other
circumstances the idea of wading into the black water would have appalled him. But
not tonight. He plunged in without hesitation.
The chill of the
water barely registered as he struggled forward. The mud was another matter. His
feet sunk up to his ankles in the subsurface muck, making each step a test of
strength and balance. A test made even more unfair by the weight of the
suitcase and what that made him do. In a frantic effort to keep the suitcase
out of the water, he forced his injured limb into play. Dennis cried aloud as
he lifted the suitcase with both arms and held it up against his chest.
At the same
time, he knew this was taking too long. The water and the suitcase combined to
slow him too much. Each sloshing step was now its own laborious eternity. He
wasn’t going to make it. Any second he feared the grip of the horrid revenant
falling on his shoulder, and he could feel the scream building in his throat.
In despair, he looked over his shoulder to see how much time he had left…
…and stumbled to
a shocked halt.
Apparently, the
chase was over
The dead thing
stood twenty feet behind him, having come to a stop at the water’s edge. Now it
simply stood there, a pitch-black silhouette under the shadow of the willow
tree.
“What the hell?”
Dennis gasped, not trusting this for a second. He eased another step backward
while fighting to catch his breath.
The vile
phantasm neither moved nor spoke. It simply stood there, fixing him with an
obsessed stare that he could practically feel.
Dennis gazed
back in confusion, but then another idea intruded.
“You can’t go
any further, can you,” he realized aloud. “You only haunt the house and its
grounds!”
No response. The
thing stood silent, with only the song of frogs and crickets for an answer.
A surge of elation
ran through him as the implications of his own words settled in.
“And you know
what that means?” his voice started to rise. “Do you understand what that
means?!”
If it did, it
gave no sign.
“Mine!” he
yelled while rapping the suitcase with his fist. “MINE! You lose! You killed
all those people, then got your own evil ass killed, before coming back from
the dead and killing again… and you still lose! Chew on that in Hell, you
rotten bitch. You did it all for nothing, and I win. Me! The sidekick! Well,
not anymore. I win!”
The boy panted
with emotion as he stared at the unmoving shadow. Nothing in its ragged
silhouette gave any evidence of a reaction.
“Mine,” he
snarled, then turned away to leave.
But it wasn't to be.
That’s when he
heard the gentle slosh of water. That’s when he discovered what had drifted up
between him and the boat during his tirade. And that’s when he discovered that
he hadn’t won after all.
His eyes widened
at the sight of this last, lethal bit of irony.
“Aw hell,” he
groaned, “we were wrong about the big gator too.”
Two seconds
later his screams echoed through Milner Swamp.
***
Three days later
an abandoned boat was discovered floating at the west end of Hallisboro Lake. No
sign of its owners were ever found. But that story barely reached the
consciousness of the surrounding county due to another event that had people
flocking to the lake. Old paper money of different values were discovered
floating on the water. Fishermen were scooping it up into their boats, while
others collected what washed up on shore. Other than the irritation of having
to deal with the sudden influx of people, local police greeted the situation
with a shrug.
“Judging by the
dates on the bills,” Sheriff Patterson noted, “this money must have been lost a
long time ago. Legally, I guess, it’s finders keepers.”
