The Black Jury

Robin Delaney cursed at the phone.  “Seriously?!?!” She looked at the receiver as though it would somehow answer her unspoken questions.  She was an award winning reporter in her old marker and now she was stonewalled by some insignificant idiot clerk who won’t ever give her the time of day.

She looked down at the folder on her desk and wondered why the stall.  She had talked to the DA; they told her to talk to the Jail. She talked to them, they said look to the Clerk’s Office.

There was just a picture and some of her hand written notes.  The picture was of a white balding man of 35 named Peter McIntosh.  The face was of someone so removed from where he was at, you would have thought he was looking at the world through a telescope.  The face in the mug shot showed no feeling. 

“Delany, Where are we on the McIntosh thing!?!?!”  The booming baritone voice of Editor Harry Tanner shook her back into reality.

“I’m getting nothing from the courts buy I will have something soon.”

“You better”, he yelled

“Everyone down there is tight lipped about it.”

“Then go down there and talk to someone face to face.  That’s how they do it here.”

Robin gathered up her things and head for the door.  Outside, as she was groping for her keys she heard someone calling and running behind her.

I heard Tanner about McIntosh,” The redhead strained slightly out of breath, “So I guess no lunch what about drinks after.

“Sorry Indira, but yeah I meet you at”

“Here take this,” Indira handed Robin post-it note with a name and a number on it. “it’s a guy I know down there”

Robin looked the redhead up and down.

No!!! We are just friends.”

She looked at the slip it read, “Nick Garrett, Deputy Clerk”

Robin walked into the Clerk’s office. There were a couple of clerks waiting, looking at her .  A cold shiver crawled up her spine as she felt like a hundred spiders were watching the little fly that just walked into their web.  Only one did not make her feel as if she did meet up some checklist.  The dark-skinned man rose asked Robin if she needed any help.  She read the name across his chest and it said “N. Garrett”. Robin inwardly smiled.

She leaned on the counter and in her best “tired of running around” voice said, “I’m trying to find the indictment on Peter McIntosh”

If you have some information you probably need to go to the DA who gave it to you, and they are in the Grand Jury, we don’t have any information on that case here.

She left in a huff, looking for something to hit.  As she looked around she spied on the second floor the door to the Grand Jury room. 

She could hear something coming from the hallway.  She looked and there was light creeping in from the bottom of the door.

In the dim glow of the light coming from the sconces on the wall, she saw a group of people seated in a semicircle all in robes like judges except with hoods and two other individuals talking and gesturing over someone in a cage.  Delaney stared and it was McIntosh, or at least it looked like him.  When one of the people would point and speak to McIntosh his features would contort and become for lack of a better word…

Evil

The center robed figure pointed and said, “We find you guilty of crimes against humanity and it is the ruling of the group finding McIntosh writhed, jerked from side to side and screamed something that sounded like Latin.  Then a swirling cloud of darkness enveloped the man and in a flash McIntosh was gone.

Delaney stood astounded and still trying to understand what she just saw.  When a hand firmly gripped her shoulder and a voice the sounded like rocks in a cement mixer said, “Well missy I think there are a few people who would like to talk to you.”

Then the lights went out.

The Snow Slaughter Of Garth County

A friend of mine wrote this when I mentioned a thought today

By: Jack

The residents of Garth County awoke to light snow already in progress.  Snow, although common to the area, was unusual for such late February.  Undeterred by such light precipitation, everyone still reported to various schools, offices, shops, and even courthouses.  The court docket for that day was small, as there were only four prisoners in transport.  Two men for theft charges, one for vandalism, and then one for murder.  The defendant accused of murder was a most unusual person with a most unusual case.  He was abnormally tall, with long dark hair. 

His neck and arms were printed with woven pentagram tattoos and pictures of creatures not of the earth.  Reports said he was caught in a cornfield by a passing highway patrol.  The man was performing some bizarre ritual inside a human pentagram.  He massacred a farming family on the land and cut their limbs to make the ritualistic shape.  His horrendous crime was a shock tothe residents of Garth County, his arraignment was to expose him somewhat to the public andthe courts.  The snows were keeping most people home as the morning progressed.  The judgetook all petty citations first, and then started the arraignments, holding the murder case for last.

The snow intensified minute by minute.  Judge Tab called the man up, bound in cuffs and chains by two older bailiffs.  Snow pounded against the windows, Judge Tab read the facts, growing angry in the details.  The bizarre man started chanting and mumbling something unintelligible.  A clerk breaks the room to announce a blizzard has seized them and the courthouse doors are frozen over.  Suddenly the bizarre man breaks his chains and rips the throat of a bailiff out. 

The clerk, judge, bailiff, and three defendants run through the wall of the courtroom to the judge’s chambers. The remaining courtroom attendees are now hypnotized under the bizarre man’s chanting, turning into mindless killing slaves.  The harsh blizzard upon them, facing certainsupernatural death in the courthouse, these six unlikely people must band together to stay alive and fight off the most bizarre man in Garth County.