June held the door open and motioned me inside. She stepped in after me and pulled out a chair.

  The office was about twice the size of mine. A six-person meeting table dominated the center of the room. A small computer desk sat off to the side with a tangle of cables, and a ceiling-mounted projector pointed toward a pull-down screen on the opposite wall.

  I sat down and June sat at the corner next to me.

  “Ezra informed me that you may want to talk about the town’s past, is this correct?” she asked. I said, “the past, any rumors of the supernatural, or just just unusual happenings. I’ve had a few odd experiences here, or at the very least at the mall.” I watched for a reaction, June was very good at not reacting. She was very proper, sat up very straight, wore wire framed glasses and had her hair back in a very tight bun.

  “Mr. Walker, what are you really asking? I want to hear it, before I talk about any of this. I’ve been called a crackpot a few too many times by my contemporaries in the community, and just can’t handle opening that old wound again,” she said very firmly and frankly.

  I thought for a few seconds, I wasn’t sure how to word this, so I just started talking, “I have no ill intentions. I’ve had a lot of weird things happen in my life, and lately, it seems to be coming to a head. As Ezra probably told you I’m the new manager at the Plaza Mall.”

  She nodded her head.

  I continued, “I was attacked in the laundromat by something that possessed a bunch of towels. It burned me, I can show you the burns on my chest if you’d like.”

  She shook her head and said, “that won't be necessary.”

  I nodded and went back to the topic at hand, “it also burnt my cat,” June’s expression changed for a second, but I couldn’t tell what, “for most of my life I’ve had these dreams that seem way too real, and they usually have fire in them. I’ve survived 2 major fires where people died. The first when I was 9, and I lost my parents, the second when I was 20 and a fire destroyed my college dorm and 22 of my fellow students died. Both fires left me with scars, and Ezra, for some reason, thinks it could be connected to the Old Springs fire.”

  June sat there for a few minutes thinking, then made up her mind.

  She nodded, “okay Mr. Walker, I’ll tell you what I know, and what I think I know, and I’ll tell you why Ez thinks all of this connects to the Old Springs fire. I don’t know the full story, but I’ve put together some pieces over the years.”

  “Something to know first is that this land, and the land where the old Grimwood Springs is, was originally part of the Ute Mountain Reservation. Given to them in the late 1800s by the US government. They sold a large parcel of land to what was known at the time as, The Grimsby Locke and Walker Corporation. I’ve tried to talk to their Tribal chairmen about the deal over the years, and all I’d ever get out of them is that it was a ‘bad spring’ and that it was a ‘good deal’. Those men specifically wanted the spring, and they built the original Grimwood Springs around it.”

  She paused for a second, as if knowing I’d want to ask a question.

  “Walker? Like my last name? Any chance I’m related?” I asked.

  “Walker isn’t that uncommon of a name, but with how things work in Grimwood Springs, I’d say there’s a good chance. How much do you know about your family?”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  I thought for a second, “not as much as I’d like, my dad’s name was Robert, went by Bob, his dad was John, and I think the next in line was Ezekiel. I was only 9 when the fire took my parents, but Dad would talk about his ‘Grandpa Zeke’, saying he collected crystals. Dad was a big crystal hound, too. That’s about all I really know. Never really knew where we were from. Dad said that he’d move around a lot, from what I understand his father was in some branch of the military.”

  I trailed off, realizing I just went off on a tangent.

  June gave me a smile, “you’ve just given me another piece of the puzzle. Ezekiel Walker was the name of the third partner in the group of men who purchased Grimwood Springs. I have a partial journal of his, and in it he spoke of the beautiful crystals and gems he found around the spring.”

  She frowned, “I’m sorry to say there isn’t much more in the journal, it was recovered from the Old Springs fire, he was one of the casualties.”

  June smiled wistfully, “give me some time and I can collect his affects, we never had any idea if he had a next of kin. I’m confident that would be you.”

  I sat mildly shocked, I might actually have something from my family. Hell, beyond that, my great-grandfather found this weird ass town, and somehow I live in it. What are the chances?

  “That would be great. I don’t really have many items from my family. I lost everything in the first fire,” I trailed off again, “sorry, I’m, um, where were we in the story?”

  “Yes, let us get back to it. Each of the men had different interests in the spring, Walker was in it for the minerals, Grimsby was in it for the land. With access to the spring, plus easy access to several run off rivers, he was in it for the farmland and for cattle. Locke is a different story, however. Some say he was heavy into the occult. Not many people know, but at the time, in the early 1900’s the occult had a huge resurgence in the United States. I found several letters between Ebenezer Locke and Aleister Crowley, and he was a big fan of John Dee, if any of them ring a bell?”

  I thought for a second, “I’m not big into that stuff, all I remember about him is that he was an occultist. No idea who John Dee is or was.”

  June nodded, “it doesn’t surprise me, you’d have to have an interest to know these things. They were heavily interested in finding enlightenment, or power, via ceremonial magick, or any way possible, really. Ebenezer spent most of his life working on a grand ceremony to take power from beyond the veil. Ezekiel was tricked into helping. He had a good eye for gems that Ebenezer thought would help the ceremony. Ezekiel had also lost his wife in childbirth, and was easily swayed thinking that Ebenezer could bring her back.”

  “I don’t know the specifics, but Ebenezer and Ezekiel were both there the night of the fire. I have the testimony of Seraphina Blackwood. She was involved with the ceremony that Ebenezer attempted. She left when she realized what Ebenezer was really doing. He tried to rip a hole in the veil between realms. He let something into our world, and he tried to take its power. He used Ezekiel as a sacrifice. I believe he actually bound it to Ezekiel, but he couldn’t contain it and the spring exploded. Seraphina wasn’t there for the end, she ran, and as she did she was pushed into a pasture 20 feet away. Somehow unhurt. She then got to her feet and kept running, as a roaring blaze was set loose upon the town. It literally melted brick and cement, normal fire does not get that hot. From the south end of town it looked like a mushroom cloud, and the blast could be heard from many miles away. The fire fighters couldn’t get close enough to hose off the primary area. To this day I still don’t know how this wasn’t national news. Some people actually thought a nuclear weapon had gone off. However, there was no radiation. The state brought geologists in and said the springs were volcanically formed, and that enough pressure had built up that it went off like an actual volcano. Never explained the sounds, though. Sounded like a roaring lion, even from here,” she pointed to the desk.

  “You were here during it? This building doesn’t look that old, you don’t look that old,” I said.

  “Thank you for the compliment, but I am in my 80s, and this is the second library that’s been at this spot. Even this far away there was damage. Windows broken, whole buildings shifted off their foundations. It took well over a decade to get this town looking like it wasn’t the aftermath of a disaster film.”

  I sat stunned, “How long ago was this?”

  She quietly said, “49 years, and a few weeks ago, on Halloween night of 1956.”