Rattlesnake Knob, A horror Novella

Excerpt From Rattlesnake Knob

Chapter 1
Going camping

Two eighteen wheel trucks are traveling east on US 20 across Indiana at six in the morning. The driver in the second truck gets on the CB and says, "Better slow down, pumpkin truck (a trucker term used for Schneider trucks because the truck and trailer are bright orange). There is a sharp curve just ahead and an Amish buggy half way in your lane."
After the trucks get around the curve and clear of the Amish buggy, the Pumpkin truck calls back on the CB, "Thanks driver. If it hadn't been for you I would have just ran that buggy down. How did you know he was there anyway? I'm in front and I didn't see him."
"I drive this road a lot," the second driver replies. "The Amish are always traveling this part of the road."

That driver of the second truck is me. Truth is, I know things.
I know things before they happen.
I'm forty five now and I drive truck for a living (if you want to call it a living). This ol' truck is my home and the Hi-way is my doorstep. I gotta keep moving, stop for a few hours, and drive a lot more hours. If the D.O.T. ever caught me fudging my logs as much as I do they would never let me drive again.
The Department of Transportation says I have to stop for ten hours after every eleven hours of driving, or fourteen hours of work, but not me- I sleep three or four hours and drive twenty hours.
Like I said, I gotta keep moving.
I feel like if I stop for too long he will find me. All it would take is one mistake.
Thirty years have passed since it happened. It seems like forever, but at the same time it seems like yesterday.

It was Wednesday, June 6th of 1973, and I was fifteen years old when it started. No one could have ever thought it could happen, but it did, it happened, and no one would ever believe it could be true.
It was in Ohio County, Kentucky, in a little place called Arnold. Our old house sat under Rattlesnake Knob a quarter mile off the road. We were a half-mile from our nearest neighbors and the nearest town was Horse Branch, about seven miles away.
Horse Branch had about two hundred and fifty people, a post office, a school, and two small grocery stores which sold gas and pot-bellied stoves.
One store even sold ice cream by the scoop, the store keeper would dip the scoop in an old, dirty pail of water and then dip you a big one or two scoops of any of three flavors you liked into a stale cone. We had a choice of chocolate, vanilla, or strawberry.

Horse Branch started out as a booming railroad town back in the 1800's, but as the railroads downsized, Horse Branch followed in suit. It still had a railroad relay station, but only one person manned it now, and he spent most of his time sleeping and telling stories of the good ol' days to us youngsters when we stopped in to see him.
It was 8 am on Wednesday, June 6th, 1973, and old Mrs. Funk was watering her houseplants when she heard a knock on the door. She opened the door to greet a tall, slim man who was wearing hiking boots, old blue jeans, and red T-shirt that read "Here Come Da Judge" with a blue jean jacket over it.
He had long, wavy brown hair and he looked vaguely familiar, but she couldn't place when or where she had ever seen him.
No matter who he was, she could not stop looking at his black eyes.
Eyes as black as death, she thought as she choked on her words, feebly trying to ask him what he wanted and who he was. But she could not speak, not a single word.
"I am Lucas Black, Mrs. Funk. Your husband told me to say hello and that he will be seeing you today," the man informed her. His voice was frost-bite cold, the kind of tone that gave you chills along your spine and made the hairs on the back of your neck bristle.
"My husband is dead," Mrs. Funk uttered weakly. "Who the hell are you?"
"I told you my name, Betty. Your husband is in hell and he is waiting for you. It's time you paid the price for killing the unborn child you conceived from another man after you and Joe were married."
"How could you know that? I never told anyone!" She cried in disbelief.
"The Judge knows," Lucas responded coolly. "And now it's payday!"
Mrs. Funk wanted to close the door and run, but she could not move, all she could do was look into the black eyes- those awful black eyes!
She felt the breath being taken from her body and it felt like her blood was on fire, as if every nerve in her body was burning. Her muscles tensed and twisted painfully, and it seemed as though her bones were splintering by their on accord. She never imagined anyone could feel so much pain. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head and she made a strange gurgling sound, foamy spittle escaping her lips to run down her chin.
To her it felt like hours, but Mrs. Funk was dead in ten seconds. She uttered a last pleading choke as her dried and lifeless body reduced to a heap on the floor with a thud.
Lucas Black let out a satisfied moan as he looked down at Mrs. Funk's dead body lying at his feet.
"Thank you, Betty," he said, a strange sense of sincerity in his voice, "I now know the names of every person you have ever met, and in six days one hundred and eleven of them will die."