Mr. Offner sent her an email detailing everything she could dig up on one of the oldest places on record in the county. Of course, land surveys that old, along with police reports, newspaper articles, deeds, and sales records were nowhere she could easily access them.
After wasting hours at both the court house and municipal building, Fergie had been directed to the second public library. Apparently anything over a hundred years old was filed away in the godforsaken place. She’d been shocked to find an entire room filled with musty old archives. And wouldn’t you know it, there was no cell service and no internet access. Plus, their phone lines were down. She’d had to photograph each page using her cell. When she got home later, she would send those photos like a fax to her boss along with her spreadsheet. If she could manage that before collapsing into bed.
Boy, was she tired! She should’ve gone home ages ago, but Fergie was no quitter. Only once did she skip out of the library to grab a venti mocha latte with skim. She so loved curbside delivery!
Then she’d headed back over to the Second Free Public Library down on Paterson Plank Road. Properly caffeinated, she’d hunkered down and got to doing more of the work she was being paid to do.
Why the old building was called the second library was a mystery to her. One she didn’t really care about, so, whatever.
Her job was to gather all the info she could on some old, currently vacant, piece of land formerly owned by Abel Smith. Mr. Offner, and therefore L-Corp, wanted every scrap of info she could muster up on the land which included a burial plot that had its own creepy folklore surrounding it.
Not her concern, she told herself though some of the stories made the hair on the back of her neck stand on end. The land was bisected by Secaucus road and was actually not too far from the very library where she now found herself.
Fergie stopped walking and scolded herself for behaving like a schoolgirl. She was a professional adult woman for Pete’s sake! Her dedication to finding out miniscule details had earned her a GPA of 3.96 in college, and she’d taken that work ethic and experience with her wherever she went after graduating.
Fairy tales and campfire stories aside, she would give all the information to Mr. Offner tomorrow. She might not have the job of her dreams, but at least she could pay her bills. For now, she’d settle for that.
“Two hours to find the musty old ledger,” she mumbled aloud while digging for the keys.
It was dark out and she was alone. That always made her nervous. Talking out loud helped calm her irrational fears. Adult or not, nobody liked being alone in a dark, creepy parking lot in the middle of the night. At least, Fergie didn’t.
She’d prefer being back inside that horrible little room, reading the small handwritten columns in those old ledgers. And that had been no picnic either. After begging the nerdy little clerk to let her stay late, promising to lock up, she’d spent a total of six hours in the awful place. It was a wonder her eyes still worked.
She blew out a breath. Where the heck were the truck keys? She grabbed her cell phone. Of course, she still had zero bars, so no service, but oh well, at least she could use it as a flashlight. Just what she wanted from a nine-hundred dollar smart phone. Thank God they had monthly payment plans.
“Stupid piece of junk,” Fergie blew out a breath and rummaged through her purse.
It was already after ten, she could probably wait till morning to bring her computer back to the office. She didn’t use it anyway. All her info was on her phone. Besides, right then, all she wanted was sleep.
Fergie dropped the phone back in her bag. She’d located the keys and hummed to herself as she headed towards her borrowed truck. Her new scanning app was really something. She would use it as soon as she woke up and email her boss.
Mr. Offner was sure to be impressed with it. The software allowed her to convert images, like the ones she took of the ledgers and hand-drawn maps, into readable and printable PDFs. She wanted to make a good impression, and who knows, maybe she could land a promotion that would get her out of all this scut work.
One thing she knew for certain, Fergie could live the whole rest of her life and never step foot in that creepy ass parking lot or the old second library again. Who thought it was a good idea to put this place all the way on the edge of town?
There wasn’t a drive thru or gas station anywhere in the vicinity. Just an old patch of marshland, which now that she thought of it, meant tons of creepy crawlies. Fergie loved animals, but not the kind that lived there. Rats, snakes, spiders, and bird-sized mosquitos.
Ew. She shivered and picked up the pace. It had been hot all day, and the local vegetation stunk something awful. She swatted away one huge bloodsucking fiend of an insect and crinkled her nose.
How Fergie could still smell the stink of the swamp with her allergies was beyond her? Speaking of which, it was past time she took her meds. She stopped walking again and started to dig through her pocketbook for her regularly prescribed allergy meds. If she didn’t take them at the same time every night, they didn’t work. A noise brought her head up and she turned around fast.
“Hello, anyone there?” she questioned the dimly lit parking lot, feeling a tad foolish for doing so.
Too many scary movies, she scolded herself. She bent her head to check for the pills once more when the sound returned. Except this time it was directly behind her, making her jump.
Fergie whirled around and came face to face with three monstrously tall men. Her would-be assailants were all huge compared to her, even with heels on. She couldn’t really make out their faces in the dim streetlights, but what she could see made her shudder.
Was it possible for three men to all have the same scale-like scars on their skin? Wait, was their skin green?
“Hello yourself,” one of the men said, “what’sssss in the bag?”
“Holy shit,” Fergie gasped in horror.
The speaker opened his mouth, and she could swear she saw a row of needlelike teeth and a long, forked tongue poking out.
What the fucking fuck? Fergie swallowed. Hard.
Chapter 2
Before she could think to run or move at all, the strange-looking man ripped her purse right out of her hands and tossed it on the ground behind him.
Shit. Her keys were still inside the bag. Sure she knew there was always a chance of violence happening to a woman alone at night, she’d even read about an increase in muggings in town, but she’d never imagined it could happen to her.
She straightened her back, Fergie wasn’t about to play the victim. Not for anyone. Cupping her hand around the lipstick tube she’d managed to grab, she addressed the would-be muggers as she’d been taught in her self-defense class back when she was still in school.
“Look, just take the bag, and leave me alone,” she said in a firm voice.
“Well, now boys, we got ourssssselves a feisssssty one,” the largest attacker hissed his words.
Fergie’s eyes darted from one to the next. This was so not going to end in her favor. She squeezed the tube of lipstick, holding it as if it were a lifeline. Fergie was in trouble and she knew it.
Oh well, she thought, might as well go down swinging. Fergie lifted her hand around the tube of lipstick in a defensive position.
“Stand back! I’ve got pepper spray!” she lied, and the three of them laughed.