Windkill

The reporter was tall and slim through the viewfinder, his chiseled features strong with Nordic blood and a voice deep with the echo of authority. He stood backed by overgrown devastation as he muttered to himself, then looked at the camera with piercing blue eyes under a widow’s peak of blond hair.

“Let’s try it again,” he nodded as the voice of the director confirmed his decision. Taking a pose, he touched a finger to the receiver in his ear, then smiled as if he was just now seeing the camera. “Tonight, we bring you the scare of a lifetime. Live in an unprecedented attempt, we send a family through one of the country’s most haunted locations.”

The cameraman shifted his focus to the remains of a bridge behind the reporter; three sections of inclined concrete on pylons surrounded by lush greenery grown during years of abandonment.

“We are here at Deutshwerk Wisconsin, the onetime munitions facility that exploded near the end of the Second World War, taking the lives of nearly a thousand people. Local legend has it a wind blew out of this isolated valley that toppled homes and trees as far as a mile away. They call it Windkill, and they stay away from this valley.”

Walking gracefully despite the undergrowth, the reporter moved to the base of a concrete pillar. “We are standing half a mile from the epicenter of the explosion, a force so incredible it toppled the rest of this viaduct and etched its memory into the surface of the remains.”

The camera focused on the eaten side of the pillar where exposed steel reinforcements rusted in a chemical imitation of blood, the concrete pitted and cracked with large pieces missing.

“Viaduct?” The director asked into his microphone.

On the monitor, the reporter looked back at the camera with a grimace. “Yeah. Viaduct.”

“You don’t think that’s a little too much?” the director smirked.

“What? You think they’re idiots?”

The assistant director, a petite brunette, leaned over the director’s shoulder and spoke into the microphone. “Brock, what’s a viaduct?” Her sweet tone did nothing to hide the sarcasm.

“It’s a Roman…thing.” Brock spoke with frustration and a wave of his hand.

The director covered the microphone with his hand until the laughter in the trailer died down. “Let’s try it again, only this time use the word bridge. Remember Brock, most of our viewers are teenagers.”

“You’ve got to admit how pillar worn away is spooky,” Melissa Koyle, the assistant director, observed as the reporter and cameraman moved to their initial positions. “It looks like it’s bleeding.”

“This whole place is bleeding,” Anthony Markum, the effects supervisor, spoke from the far corner of the trailer. His English background was clear in his accent. “Bleeding insanity.”

“Go,” the reporter obligingly repeated his broadcast. He watched the reporter’s progress with a smile. “I think this is our best location to date. It is spooky. Better than that insane asylum last year.”

“Like that place was haunted.” Scoffed Anthony.

“We all appreciate your good work, Anthony,” the director leaned towards the screen. “Paulie, check your camera. We’re getting a little washout to the left. It looks like you’re catching the sun.”

“What sun?” the cameraman touched the controls of his equipment. “I don’t see what you’re talking about.”

In the booth, the white cloud drifting to the left of the screen dissipated.

“It’s gone,” the director told the cameraman through an ear receiver. With a roll of his eyes, Paulie returned his attention to the reporter.

“It is here that we will bring the Ottinger family. It is here, in this valley of death, that they will come up against their greatest fears.” The reporter said in his most ominous voice, then looked directly into the camera, which obligingly pulled in to a closeup. “I’m Brock Wood. Welcome to ‘Scared to Death’.”

The woods seemed to lean in towards the two men as they pursued the correct take, as if the trees wanted to know what the intruders were doing, why they were violating the sanctity of this valley.

The sun, beckoned by the conversation, made a brief appearance from behind the low cloud cover and flashed the rim of the valley in a deep gold. A mile southwest of the bridge, a large man turned his face to the west and watched the only ray of light in the day’s proceedings. Acne had scared his features as a youth, leaving a face that wore time badly, yet the eyes under heavy lids told of an inner man who touched by the brief respite. The eyes spoke of a man who saw more than most, a man who gazed into the shadows for a living.

He drank in the sight until the sun was once again a memory, banking the beauty for use during the darkest hour of the night when anything could happen.

Looking down from the guard tower, he could see the trailers housing the recording staff, a generator, and a satellite dish for the live feed. Like settlers, in anticipation of an attack by restless natives, they gathered around a stone fire pit. Here the populus held at bay by black suited security guards with the show’s name stenciled on the back of their coats.

Most of the guards were by the rusted fence and gates to the Deutshwerk compound. The second of the two massive gates had fallen years ago, leaving only cracked tar and iron rails leading into the valley of death. An outer fence and gate still stood, despite the effects of time and the accumulation of rust. The fire pit was an informal park established by the local youths and commandeered by the director of ‘Scared to Death’

Graffiti marred the concrete towers to either side of the second fenced gate. A few hundred feet into the draw leading to the valley, the old road and rail network ran side by side, forced into proximity by the stone bluffs. He could almost imagine the steam locomotives and trucks passing in and out of this gate as the facility fed the needs of a war.

Dolan Seratine looked at the dark skin of his hand, imagining he felt the tower tremble, then ducked as a vague plume of steam jutted into the evening sky and passed him on its way into the complex. The vision was gone as soon as it appeared, a brief glimpse into the past, but it was enough. He jerked away from the parapet and hurried to the steps leading down. How many black men had died in this place? They had to be here. Most of the stevedores used during the war years were black. He recognized the odd thought as a mental path to connecting with the tragedy of this place and forced his mind away from the exercise. As he exited the tower and hurried to the recording trailer, he decided it was not a good idea to find a connection to the dead infesting the valley.

Ever since they had arrived at Deutshwerk, he had been subject to little touches of the paranormal. In itself, that was not something to worry about. It happened every day as he walked the city streets, but in this place it was not a good omen. He could feel Windkill looming from the valley, waiting for the right moment to overflow the containment of the bluffs that surrounded the destroyed complex. The only word he could use to describe the feeling was anticipation.

That was bad, terrible.

Opening the trailer door, Dolan stepped into the semidarkness and watched the efforts of the staff before touching the director’s shoulder. “Mr. Goodwin, can we talk when you get the chance?”

The director held up a hand while watching the reporter complete his take. The reporter finished his dialogue and stood waiting with a grim smile. “That’s it, Brock. You and Paulie move to the next location,” he referenced a sheet of paper taped to the edge of the computer display, “the rail yard.”

“It’s good?” Brock enquired in comical relief.

“Yes Brock, that was a good take.” Mark Goodwin said patiently then knuckled his eyes. “I’m going outside for a few, people. Set up for the next report and find out where the victims are. Anthony, I want everything to work perfectly this time. All our butts are on the line with this live feed.”

He stood and stretched the kinks from his back and motioned Dolan to follow while the other people in the trailer set to their tasks. Outside, he walked to the fire pit and added a few large chunks of wood to the flames. “What’s up Dolan?”

“I know I’m a kind of fifth wheel on this project…” Dolan’s mellow tone stretched a little thin. Mark turned and inspected his paranormal advisor. The enormous man was nervous, shifting his feet and unable to find a satisfactory place to put his hands. It was not typical behavior from the man.

“You know I value your input,” Mark gestured Dolan to one of the camping chairs set around the pit. The evening air was cooling, enough that the fire was comfortable. He sat next to Dolan and watched the flames.

“What input? We never go anyplace that is haunted.” Dolan corrected himself. “Except here.”

“This place really is haunted?” Mark looked at Dolan in amazement.

“It’s worse than that.” Dolan shook his head. “That valley is a powder keg waiting for a match.”

“You’re saying we really are at a haunted locale?” Mark laughed. In the past two years of the show, they had never visited a location that was haunted. Anthony did most of the special effects that so electrified the audience. It was a joke among the staff that sites they claimed haunted grew in reputation after a show. People wanted haunted houses and such, they wanted to be scared to death. They wanted it so much they made places haunted by sheer will. The victims on the show never knew the difference and screamed their lungs out to the satisfaction of the viewing audience.

“All this time we’ve been lucky,” Dolan agreed in a low voice. “We had to find something eventually. I just thought it would be a little activity, not like what’s in that valley.”

“It’s worse than haunted?” Mark’s smile grew. The prospect of a real scare had him filled with imagination.

“We don’t want to put that family in there. They could die.”

Mark’s smile faded quickly. “No way. Ghosts don’t hurt people.”

Dolan silently pulled the sleeve of his shirt up to his elbow. A livid scar ran across the top of his left arm from the wrist to the crook of his elbow. “Yes, they do.”

“A ghost did that,” Mark looked closely at the scar. “I always wondered how it happened.”

Dolan rolled his sleeve down with a grunt of dissatisfaction. This was not going as well as he had hoped. “You don’t want to tangle with a ghost when it’s pissed off. The ghosts in that valley are beyond that. They want to hurt someone.”

“You’re serious,” Mark studied his project psychic with interest. “We can’t leave.”

“We have to,” Dolan’s eyes widening until the normally placid brown contained a hint of panic.

“People have filmed here dozens of times since the accident and reported nothing unusual.” Mark looked at the fire and tried to understand his own feelings. If they stayed, they might get hurt, but if they left, they would all be out of a job. The network was putting everything into this show. The advertisements alone mounted to a vast sum of money to be lost if they backed out of the production.

“I don’t know why it chose us,” Dolan grasped Mark’s arm, giving it a shake, “but it has.”

“If we leave…well, we won’t have jobs anymore. This is the night when people want to have the shit scared out of them, and believe me when I tell you, a lot of them have been looking forward to this show.”

“What do jobs matter when a life is at stake?”

“And we don’t have the time to scout another location,” Mark over-road Dolan’s voice. He used his free hand to pull Dolan from his arm and stood. “Look at the problem from my point of view. Genuine ghosts might inconvenience us, which we have yet to see one since the inception of this show, or we lose everything we have worked on for the past two years. What would you do?”

Dolan seemed to deflate. “I knew you would have a hard time believing me. To warn you. I need to warn the Ottinger family when they get here. Don’t have them say those stupid chants before they go into the valley. I’m sure that will piss off the ghosts even more. Let me teach them a safety prayer, off camera, something to give them hope if the shit hits the fan.”

“You really think there are ghosts in there?” Mark looked past the trailers at the second set of gates to the facility, hoping to see something he had never seen. The ghosts eluded him as he searched in vain.

“Not ten minutes ago, I watched a train pull through the gates. A steam locomotive puffing a trail of smoke.” Dolan looked up at his boss and shuddered. “I’m scared as hell.”

“Like when that happened?” Mark touched Dolan’s arm.

“Worse.”

“Okay. You teach them that prayer, but we do it on camera and the chant goes. If not, I have to keep the chant.”

Nodding his head, Dolan sighed. At least he had tried to convince Mark. On impulse, he added another clause to the deal. “You need to have an ambulance standing by.”

“That’s good.” Nodding, Mark hurried back to the trailer, talking as he walked. “Imagine how it will look on camera when we brief the Ottingers’ next to an ambulance.”

Slumping in the chair, Dolan looked up at the clouds slowly passing overhead, then closed his eyes. It was there, far below the noise of the crowd by the gate and the hum of the generator, a subtle whisper from the valley. If he listened hard enough, he might understand what they were saying, but not from this far outside the valley.

Standing and drawing himself to his full height, Dolan faced the valley and walked.