The Black Heart Crypt

Randy Lawson was driving home on State Route 13.

It had been a long day. Sales calls in Waterbury and Danbury. Dinner with a client. Now he was traveling the empty backcountry roads through Connecticut to Massachusetts.

He had just passed the imposing iron gates leading into somebody’s grand estate when a massive fireball, like a tanker truck exploding, erupted in the middle of the highway.

He stomped on the brakes.

His car came to a tire-screeching stop ten feet in front of the roiling inferno as it belched out thick clouds of curling black smoke. Someone had tossed two kerosene lanterns onto the asphalt!

Fortunately, Randy Lawson wasn’t hurt. The seat belt had done its job. The air bags had not deployed.

But now his heart started racing even faster.

A masked man, dressed all in black, who looked like a walking jack-o’-lantern in a three-cornered hat, came striding out of the thicket at the side of the road.

He carried a pistol.

“Take me to Saint Barnabas church in Great Barrington,” croaked the masked man. “Or die!”