By Harold A. Bascom(Brent Holder and two policemen visit the abandoned Jonestown settlement, where they find the remnants of the container in which Jim Jones had missed his deadly brew; the same container that four young men had found…) “So how it reach back in here?” the sergeant said. “This is real-real jombie story… Pure jombie story.” He showed his bare, burly forearms to Brent and the other policeman. “Look how mih fickin pores raise up!” “We have to bury this thing!” Brent said firmly, taking control. “We have to make sure that nobody coming here after we—don’t find that thing and touch it.”“I have a small shovel on my ATV—always carry it with me—lemme get it!”As they waited for the sergeant to return with his shovel, the corporal said to Brent. “I always knew them guys death was strange—but I didn’t say anything.” He shrugged. “You know—nobody don’t want to sound like they—you know … full of superstition and things like that.”The sergeant returned, and he began to dig into the soil a foot away from the rusted thing. Brent and the Indian cop took turns until there was a pit close to four feet deep.Afterwards, the sergeant used a long stick to push and then tip the metal vat into the hole.? The three men filled it in afterwards, leveled it, and then camouflaged it with bushes.And that was when Brent Holder heard a sound like a suck-teeth in the windless stillness, and felt like a sharp slap to his face—and reacted.“What happen, Town-man?” the corporal said.“Something hit—sting me on my face!—Jeeze!”“Lemme see,” said the corporal. The man pried Brentnol’s palm away from his cheek, and saw what looked like fingerprints quickly fading from ‘town-man’s skin.“Is a sting?” Brentnol asked.“No-No!” the cop said quickly, and then turned to his colleague. “Budday—is time we get outa dis place!”The newspaper columnist was sure he sensed a tremor—a panic in the man’s voice.When Brent Holder returned to the guest house, his sister was out. She was with the Regional Chairman at the closest thing to a night spot in the mining township. The cook served him dinner; but he was too filled with anxiety to eat. There was so much material in his mind. He knew he could not write about the truth behind the suicides. It would be a truth that would, indeed, be stranger than fiction. But then he thought, I’ll write a novel—this can be material for that supernatural novel I know that’s in me!He put his dinner in the refrigerator, then retired to his room that was over from his sister’s He locked his door, and then—like an afterthought, unlocked it. He felt grimy from the trip to Jonestown, and took another shower. He just pulled on shorts afterwards —just in case he fell asleep and his sister should come into his room; he always slept butt naked. He took his laptop from off the vanity, and flopped onto the huge bed.He stacked pillows behind him for a comfortable seat as the huge generator that lit the guest house hummed. Like the night before, there was yet another power outage. As Brent Holder typed, he heard the muted voice of the surveyor who had flown up the gold-mining township with him. The man’s voice, nasal and snarling, came through the walls to his modestly furnished room with one window that overlooked the main street, and another that opened up to the foot of a forested hill that was beautiful to behold through the morning mist.Brent stopped typing. Maybe, I shouldn’t type just yet.? Maybe …I should just think—relive everything I learned today—I shouldn’t rush to write things down. I should just let what I learned today become a deeper part of me.And he found himself thinking of the remnants of the suicide vat he had led the cops to bury. How could it have gotten back into Jonestown after Chauncey Timmerman said that he, Sean Lacruz and the others had brought it out? Did Mr. Timmerman himself take it back? Brent sighed. His grandmother always said that there was more in the mortar than the pestle.Maybe I should sleep on all this! Brent thought. He was, however, no stranger to insomnia. Vonny was leaving tomorrow. Maybe he ought to leave too. Even for him, deep down, he knew this place was creepy.And in the silence of his room, the muted sound of the generator came through.? He put the laptop aside, and thought of Fiona … Fiona … the only woman he ever loved, but whom he had calmly talked out of a lasting relationship with him. He had told her that he had found a ‘truth’ after myriad experiences with ‘women’: That all relationships are destined to fail.He shook him head. How could he have hurt her like that?Carnally, however, he couldn’t get enough of her. With her, he surprised himself every time at the intensity of his abandon. He sighed… yawned. My kingdom for a magic wand to make Fiona appear—poof—next to me.Then there was that sharp, momentary pain—like a burning slap on his left cheek, that he had experienced in Jonestown, and immediately after, Brent Holder fell asleep—but did he?? When he awoke, however, his roo