95102_RAA_Hasselberger2024_R1_PROOF

6 7

“You boys keep your voices down. People are looking for me as it is. I swear though… it wasn’t me that put those terrible things in the church… or did that to the pastor. I swear! It wasn’t me!” “My brother swears on a stack of bibles that old man Oglesby has a fortune in gold buried somewhere out back of his cabin. His daddy and his daddy’ daddy had it too… goin’ all the way before the civil war. The Satterwaite boys went lookin’ for it and they found ‘em drowned out in the marsh. Terrible way to die, you ask me.”

“Yep. They canceled the parade. Said something about a gas leak but my cousin’s wife who works for dispatch says different. Said some boys found a bricked up entrance to some old bootleggin’ tunnels out back of Cunningham’s Feed & Farm. Supposed to stretch all the way beneath Crawford and Main. Police dogs won’t go near it.” “When’s the last time you were up by the old Gardner place? My little brother and his friends broke in there but got scared and took off quick. He swore up and down to me that the mirrors hanging up in the ole place show weird reflections and grin back at you… but if I’m being honest, he was probably off huffing paint again. What a dumbass.” ‘My neighbor - bless her heart - swears that her husband’s new toupee is haunted. Says he doesn’t act like himself when he’s wearing it. I know… funny, right? Thing is… he has been acting kind of strange… and I don’t like the way he looks at me from across the yard.”

8

9

10

24