The Sunset Rule: A Southern Horror Story

Chapter 1

1931

Forsyth County, Georgia

The bright rays of the sun couldn’t pierce the leafy canopy that shrouded Dead Man’s Alley. The creatures that called this length of road home thrived in the steamy surroundings. The dank atmosphere preserved the animals and strange plant life that relied on the somber darkness and dread that kept most people out.

Portly trees and thick vines suckled on the hazy brume that hung in the air and lent a sense of foreboding to the path named by superstitious locals.

Dumbass!

The toe of her shoe was dusty and scuffed from the rock she had kicked along the way. The last and hardest kick sailed it into the weeds.

Stupid girl!

Walked all this way for nothing. Now I gotta make it home by supper.

It would be chicken and dumplings, her favorite. She smiled and sucked her thumb to soothe her nerves. Emma Lee had told Mama she was going to see Sarah’s new colt, but she had already seen it last week, brown with a snow-white bib standing next to its mama on wobbly stick legs. It was so cute.

Why’d he even tell me to come? she muttered.

Emma Lee thought about the boy she had met in town that morning. He’d been standing outside the hardware store when she came out and sat in one of the rockers. Daddy was still inside bickering with the Jew.

What’s your name? he’d asked.

He was older, probably sixteen or even seventeen, handsome as all get-out and she couldn’t believe he was talking to her.

She’d turned her head away, her thoughts tumbling every whichaway. She didn’t know him. He was a stranger; he had some nerve talking right at her like that.

You gonna tell me your name? I ain’t got all day.

Emma Lee. Dang it! It had just fallen out of her mouth. She hadn’t meant to tell him.

He’d looked straight at her. She’d felt his eyes moving over her hair, taking in her face, her body. She squirmed in the rocker, cheeks burning, and peeked at him from under a forehead of frizzy bangs.

I’m Cory, he said.

Cory. What kind of name is that?

It’s the name my mama gave me. You got a problem with it?

Emma Lee twisted the hem of her dress around one finger. If she smiled she might giggle and older girls didn’t giggle, but it was hard looking at him looking at her with those grown-man eyes.

How old are you? he asked.

Fifteen.

Girl, you ain’t fifteen. Thirteen, I bet.

Wrong! I’ll be fourteen next month.

Why you lie?

How old are you?

Seventeen.

He was deeply tanned from laboring under the hot sun. A tattered straw hat sat back on his head. Wheat-colored strands rested on his neck. His eyes were ocean-blue, severe, piercing, and mysterious.

I bet you’re a daddy’s girl.

She’d wanted to suck her thumb so bad, a nervous habit from forever. Instead, she stuck her hand into the pocket of her yellow gingham, her favorite dress. It had a keyhole opening at the neck that showed the locket Daddy had given her for her birthday last year. Her lips folded inward, and she smoothed the sunflowers on her skirt and wished Mama hadn’t put pigtails in her hair.

You live around here? she asked.

Naw, working as a farmhand for a few weeks.

Where?

Miller farm.

Out near Dead Man’s Alley?

Yup.

My daddy knows Mr. Miller. Do you go to school?

Not anymore, he said. You got a boyfriend?

A boyfriend?

I guess that’s a no, he chuckled.

She’d giggled and to resist the urge to suck her thumb held her hand tightly in her lap.

Ever been courted by a boy?

No.

If your daddy approves, I’d like to keep company with you. Do you think he’d be agreeable?

Her thoughts danced a little jig. What would Sarah say when she told her a seventeen-year-old boy wanted her company? She couldn’t wait to tell Sarah.

I don’t know you.

You could get to know me.

How?

I have to go, but can you come out to Miller’s later so we can talk some more? Then your daddy might let me take you to a picture show. I’ll even come to your house and ask him.

A picture show? Emma Lee’s heart skipped. Oh, God! Suppose he wanted to kiss her?

You know where the Miller farm is?

We pass it every time we come to town.

Can you meet me at five? I have something special I want you to see.

Something you want me to see? she asked, skeptically.

Yes, Emma Lee. But you gotta come if you wanna see it.

What is it?

Something real important to me.

Emma Lee’s eyes lit up with excitement. She slid off the rocker and stood against the wood post. I’m not sure.

Why? Your mama won’t let you?

I don’t need permission. I go where I want.

You sure?

What time did you say?

Around five, when I get off.

She teased a pebble with the tip of her shoe and mashed it into a crack in the wood.

Oh, come on! It’ll be worth it. I promise.

Maybe.

Cory reached over and tugged one of her pigtails, Okay, pretty girl, maybe I’ll see you, maybe I won’t. He winked, and strode down the sidewalk, thumbs hooked in his belt loops, his boots cracked against the wood walkway. He looked back, his eyes sparkling as he touched his hat.

See ya at five.

Cory hadn’t been at the Miller farm when Emma Lee arrived. She had waited at the gate for as long as she could, and now she walked back through the gloominess of Dead Man’s Alley, alone.

The alley was shaded by a dismal horde of fat tree limbs that reached across and around one another in dizzying twists and turns. With every generous breeze, a shower of leaves fluttered down, and Emma Lee waded through the ankle-deep foliage. In the distance, a smidgen of bright light winked at her, and she picked up her pace anxious to leave this gloomy tunnel behind and feel the warm sun on her face.

As she walked along, she heard the sparrows bickering and the woeful call of a lonely owl from somewhere in the darkness. Tree shadows reached like spooky fingers all around her and fear quickened her heartbeat. She had made a mistake coming all this way alone to meet a boy she didn’t even know. She continued her way up the dark path; her thumb jammed in her mouth like a bottle stopper and her eyes focused on the light ahead.

Emma Lee.

She stopped and looked around.

Cory appeared beside a huge Magnolia tree, its limbs hanging heavy with cabbage-sized blossoms. The sparrows continued to fuss at one another from behind a leafy screen.

You came. He said, surprised but clearly elated.

His long legs quickly crossed the road and then he stood directly in front of her. She smiled and opened her mouth, but before she could utter one word a rock crashed into her face knocking out her front teeth and crushing one eye into a bloody pulp. He hit her again, cracking her forehead. She felt herself falling, but then she was floating and he was carrying her. Cory dropped Emma Lee into a nest of pinecones and minty weeds. The strong scent of woods drifted through the broken cavity in her face. Her thoughts tumbled amidst a flurry of pain. Hundreds of scenes flashed forward like the reel on a picture show. The new film Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was showing in Cumming. She wondered if Daddy would let her go. Then she saw the baby deer standing up next to its mama, it vanished when pain clenched her brain in its unrelenting grip leaking tears from her one good eye.

Emma Lee thought about Mama and she remembered it was suppertime. A slim essence of simmering onions drifted past her nose and the savory aroma of Mama’s chicken and dumplings emerged, and it was wonderful. This had to be more than a memory, she thought. There was a thickness in her mouth that must be the gravy. It leaked over her lips and drizzled down her chin, but something wasn’t right a bitter taste scoured her tongue. Where was the spicy chicken flavor Mama was famous for?

More chicken broth, Mama.

Twilight glazed the forest with a golden patina and the air was filled with the drowsy, earthy fragrance of pinecones and dried leaves that seeped into the hole in Emma Lee’s face. Her remaining eyeball shifted and followed the dizzying surge of a stately pine until the treetop poked a drifting cloud with its crown. She wondered how a tree could grow so high.

Cory loomed over her; his blue eyes vacant as he ripped her favorite dress down the front. She winced when he tore her petticoat and his dirty fingernails sliced into her small breasts. He was awkward and frantic as he struggled to remove her underclothes.

Shit!

There were several more tugs and now she was naked. He hauled her body toward his. Her cries gurgled blood in her throat causing it to seep over her lips like an overfilled sink, and then she saw Cory’s face. But instead of the handsome boy she’d met in town, his mouth was twisted into an angry sneer and his eyes were as lifeless as a broken doll.

When Emma Lee tried to lift her head, shards of pain raked her forehead like barbwire and pushed her back down into the weeds. She peered through one eye at Cory’s grinning face as her body battled against the heavy weight of sleep that wanted to take her to another place. But her heart was pumping a mile a minute and her senses were not yet willing to let go. Thoughts of escape were a whisper that her arms and legs ignored. Latched firmly to the ground, her limbs were as weak as a newborn kitten.

And then, as blood pooled in her throat she gagged and coughed so violently, it racked her brittle body and splattered Cory with crimson globs, startling him from a state of psychotic sloth.

Cory’s hand flew to his face and wiping her blood with disgust, he said, Fucking bitch! Enraged, he slapped Emma Lee, a blow so savage it dislodged what was left of her broken eye. He watched humorously as her eyeball slipped out of its socket and dangled on a thin cord of flesh.

You ain’t a pretty girl no more, he sneered.

Cory fumbled in his trousers; he removed himself and then snatched Emma Lee’s legs apart stealing her virginity with brute force. Her body jolted against the pain that seared her tender skin like burning hot liquid and she cried out for Mama. Where’s Mama? She was always right there when Emma Lee was hurting.

The only witnesses to the assault were the frightened animals hiding in the brush and the startled birds hopping from branch to branch screeching in protest. Emma Lee heard the little birds crying out. She wanted to find them and tell them to fly away but she was growing very tired.

After savoring his pleasurable release Cory rose from his knees and with a contented sigh he pulled up his trousers and tucked his shirttail in. As he fed his belt through the loops and synched his waistband tight he gazed up at the clouds drifting past the treetops with a satisfied smirk. Using Emma’s dress, he cleaned the blood from his hands, tossed it into the weeds and smoothed his thick blond hair back from his forehead. When he raised his arms stretching the kink in his back, another gratified moan escaped from his perfectly formed mouth. Cory’s blue eyes sparkled when he breathed the crisp country air and he couldn’t help but smile. However, when he looked down at the fitful rise and fall of Emma Lee’s chest, his smile vanished as fear slithered like a putrid slug into his consciousness.

She was still alive. With quickness, Cory searched the surrounding bushes kicking rocks along the way and then plucked one from the ground. He tested the rock’s weight by shifting it from hand to hand.

This should do it, he muttered. He raised the rock high over his head and brought it down with such brute force it smashed what was left of Emma Lee’s face into a tomb.

When Emma Lee didn’t come home for supper, her daddy, Beasley Taggart, went to her best friend Sarah’s house. He was certain they were yakking the way girls did, and she’d probably forgotten all about suppertime. He planned on giving her a stern talking-to about being late. But when Emma Lee wasn’t at Sarah’s, an alarm sounded inside Beasley’s head. He checked a couple more places that she would likely go, and then the daylight faded and he knew he needed help.

He stopped by his wife’s cousin Donny Anderson’s house, who left his own supper table to join Beasley in the search. Donny took the wheel of Beasley’s Ford Model A work truck, so Beasley could jump out right quick at the houses of Emma’s friends. They also checked inside the stables and barns along the way. They came upon little Henry Hayes walking on the road with two mangy dogs, one heavy with pups.

I seen Emma Lee walking up the road. I hollered out ‘Hey’ and she waved.

Which way was she headed?

Thataway, he said, pointing north. But ain’t nothin’ up that road but Dead Man’s Alley.

Beasley and Donny exchanged anxious glances and Donny mashed the gas pedal to the floor. Dirt and rocks shot up from under the wheels as the truck skidded and took off.

The setting sun had surrendered to nightfall as they drove into the dark stretch of road that was Dead Man’s Alley. Pull over there, said Beasley; nodding at the right side of the road and Donny pulled the truck to a stop. As the men stepped out of the truck they were taken by the silence hanging over the Alley. Only an occasional flutter of leaves revealed the creatures hiding in the trees watching mutely from a safe distance. The light was sparse; even the brightness of a full moon couldn’t defeat the shroud that covered Dead Man’s Alley, so Beasley and Donny each walked by the light of a lantern. They searched all night, from the start of the alley through the dense trees and brush, over piles and piles of fallen leaves. The forest remained still throughout the search, not a peep from the critters that dwelled there as though they sat in silent regard of another mortal tragedy.

The morning sun was burning through a murky cloud cover when Beasley spotted a pink sweater lying among the pinecones. As he stepped closer, he wanted so badly to dismiss what he saw as something else, a patch of wildflowers, anything. But his heart was thundering like the hoof beats of a wild herd, and he knew he was walking into his worst nightmare. Beasley fell to his knees and picked up the sweater, he buried his nose deep into the soft wool inhaling the sweet scent of rose toilet water that his daughter loved so much. Tears blurred his vision as he got to his feet and pressed on. He followed a trail of disturbed weeds and broken branches deep into the woods, and there, lying in a nest of burly weeds, he saw his daughter, Emma Lee. Her clothes had been ripped from her body and tossed aside. Her legs were splayed, thighs stained with dried blood. Beasley hurried to her side dropped down and covered her exposed body with the sweater, and then, he looked at what was left of her face. Beasley didn’t recognize the wail as something that could exist within him, but it did. The grisly sound sailed up from his gut past his lungs and leaped from his throat like a wounded animal shattering the silence and startling the birds into flight. Donny was so alarmed by the cry that he tripped and fell over a log but quickly got to his feet following Beasley’s choking sobs.

When Donny reached Beasley and the sickening scene, his face blanched with horror, and shock rooted him to the ground. Beasley was cradling Emma Lee’s head, his tears dripped onto her bloody face, and his eyes were fixed on the heart-shaped locket he had given her. A thin strand of light had found an opening in the leafage and the gold locket glinted under its touch. He thought of his daughter’s gap-toothed grin when she’d first opened the box. Her small arms had flown around his neck like tender vines and her kiss had been sticky jelly on his cheek. He willed himself to focus on the locket and not on what was left of Emma Lee’s face.

Finding some resolve, Donny stepped closer. Is she alive?

No, she’s gone. Beasley’s voice was barely a whisper.

He scooped his daughter from her wooded grave carrying her in his arms like a newborn. Donny followed closely and then hurried ahead and opened the passenger door.

Beasley got in the truck with Emma in his lap and Donny hurried around the truck and slid in behind the steering wheel. Beasley sat trembling, swatting the tears that kept coming. His voice cracked as he rocked his child in his arms. His face was cloaked with desperation when he looked at Donny. Her face, Donny. I can’t even recognize my baby girl.

Here, use this, Donny said, as he quickly removed his own shirt handing it to Beasley, and then watched as Beasley covered Emma’s slaughtered face.

With a dismal nod toward the road, Beasley uttered, Let’s go.

Donny’s hand shook as he turned the key and pushed the gearshift into first, his foot hit the gas and the truck lurched forward picking up speed, leaving Dead Man’s Alley to cling to its hidden skeletons.

In the daylight, they passed spacious fields and plantations that yielded hearty crops and were peppered by wildflowers, their colorful blooms a patchwork quilt that blanketed the ground. The morning air was chilly and dew teased the meadow with a first sip before the rising sun chased it to another day.

I know who done this, muttered Beasley.

Donny looked at him, and then at Emma’s blood seeping through his shirt.

Look over there, Beasley nodded at a vast cotton field where dozens of Negro workers were arriving for the day’s picking. I always said white girls ain’t safe in this county.

You think it was one of them?

No white person would do a white child like this. Niggers are savages!

Before the start of the Civil War, the Taggarts had been among the first settlers to break ground in Piney, Georgia. Beasley’s father, Samuel Taggart and his brother George had fought in the war and Beasley honored them by displaying the Dixie flag from his porch railing. Samuel often told his son that even after the war ended there was unrest. Some Union soldiers-turned-outlaw invaded the town, looting and ransacking homes already devastated by war and stealing what little there was left from starving families. Those who stood up to the soldiers were either beaten or in some cases shot. Beasley saw the pain in his father’s face when he spoke of his brother George standing up to the outlaw soldiers and being shot dead in front of his wife. Beasley, who wondered why freeing Niggers was worth his uncle’s life readily absorbed his father’s bitterness.

After Samuel’s death, Beasley left Piney when he was fourteen years old. He found work in the town of Cumming, the County Seat of Forsyth County, Georgia. It was there he met his wife Mary-Ann and their daughter Emma Lee was born. Over the years, Beasley’s hometown of Piney had become a working town of farmers with growing families, and Beasley moved his own family back to Piney. So remote was the small town, that officials in Cumming took their time appointing a Sheriff, which was fine with the citizens of Piney, who lived by their own set of rules, and were in no hurry to have a Sheriff enforcing laws.

As Beasley stood on his porch looking out over the growing town, two Negro men riding in a horse-drawn wagon passed his house. Both men nodded and touched their hats as they drove by. Beasley was shocked and so offended by their gesture, his jaw tightened and the veins in his neck bulged.

Mary-Ann!

The screen door squealed when she pushed it open. His wife stood by his side wiping her hands on her apron. What, honey?

You see that, he said, scowling at the Negro’s in the wagon.

Uh huh.

You make sure you keep an eye on Emma Lee. You hear me?

She don’t go nowhere but to school and Sarah’s house!

Do as I say!

I will, she replied, calmly.

Seems like there’s more of them moving to Piney every day, he griped, glowering at the wagon as it disappeared up the road.

Mary-Ann’s hand touched her husband’s arm but his eyes had gone cold, his mouth a jagged crack. Resignedly, she went back into the house.

Now, his daughter was dead. The Taggart home was a place of mourning, with family and neighbors stopping in to sit with Mary-Ann who broke into fits of hysterics, screaming for Emma Lee and then collapsing into an anguished faint. This went on for days until Doc Perkins mixed a powder of phenobarbital with water to render her unconscious for the duration of the funeral. In the parlor, Emma Lee’s body lay in the pine coffin Beasley had assembled. She was dressed in her favorite Sunday frock, her body resting on a bed of rose petals that Donny’s wife Cora had pulled from her own garden. The coffin was carried to the church graveyard, and Beasley watched as they lowered his daughter into the ground. Even after everyone had gone, Beasley stood staring at the grave. Tears stung his eyes as anger swelled in his chest, his fists clenched so tightly his fingernails pierced his skin.

The Piney General Store provided supplies to the community and served as a meeting place for the Piney Men’s Association, a group of like-minded neighbors who gathered to discuss policies for the growing town. Since the County Seat had yet to appoint a Sheriff, the men leaned toward the most outspoken member for guidance, that member being Beasley Taggart.

A week after Emma Lee’s funeral, Beasley joined the men in the back of the general store. My baby is in the ground, and its time the killers were brought to justice, he said.

You know who done it? asked Buford Barnes, the owner of the general store.

There’s a plantation next to Dead Man’s Alley, replied Beasley.

Plenty of Nigger boys work that farm, added Buford.

It had to be a Nigger, maybe more than one, said Donny, nodding his head with certainty.

They musta drug her in that place; ain’t no way any girl would go in Dead Man’s Alley all alone, offered Buford.

I told ya’ll that Niggers were dangerous when they started settling in Piney, Beasley argued, But no one wanted to listen to what I had to say, and now, my daughter’s dead. What the hell ya’ll plan to do about it?

Deliberation among the men spurred Doc Perkins, the town physician, to speak up. Not sure what they done, but Gus Porter got some Niggers locked up in his barn. Let’s start with them.

The morning held a chill in the air for those who got out of bed early to witness justice for little Emma Lee. Under an ash-colored sky, Beasley Taggart and members of the Men’s Association stood silent amid a bank of placid oak trees. Three Negroes had been lynched. A woman in the crowd cried out when she recognized one of the bodies as a child. A little colored boy hung alongside the two men. His small body swayed more than the others. The ropes, taut with strain, had bloated their faces into hideous purple masks with eyes bulging out of the sockets, lips blackened, their tongues lagging from their mouths. The wind played tag with the bodies twisting them on the ropes and swinging them back and forth like grisly tree ornaments.

That’s a child! the woman screamed. She stumbled away from the trees and vomited into the dirt. Her husband guided her away from the sickening display. Angered by the woman’s cries, Beasley climbed into the back of his truck and stood up shouting at the onlookers. Emma Lee was a kid, too! My girl was thirteen years old. Me and my wife will never see her grow up and get married. In fact, my wife is so broken she don’t get out of bed no more. Niggers have torn my family apart. And you! he yelled, his angry eyes found the woman and his accusing finger pointed her out, You cry for a Nigger? Do you have a daughter? he asked. Then he spat at her.

If so, how do you, or any of you with girls, he scanned the crowd, plan to keep them from being raped and murdered by savages? Don’t think what happened to my family can’t happen to yours, not as long as Niggers live in Piney!

Beasley’s words hit deep, inciting fear and rage. The crowd surged forward, surrounding Beasley’s truck. Voices rose up in anger and fists pumped the air.