America: The Cremator

Chapter 123 Half a Finger!

Watercom County produces nearly 60% of the nation's raspberries, making it a crucial player in the American agricultural landscape.

The area surrounding Castel is a renowned hub for blueberries and organic farms, primarily producing blueberries, strawberries, raspberries, and organic vegetables.

Looking out the window at the barren fields rushing by, Su Long couldn't help but feel a sense of感慨 (gan3kai3, a complex emotion encompassing both emotion and feeling). Blueberry farming was the economic lifeline of this small town.

It's hard to imagine what kind of terrifying supernatural event could have forced the residents here to completely abandon these fields that sustain their livelihoods, leaving them to rot in the thick fog.

Three minutes later, the vehicle followed closely behind the off-road motorcycle to the entrance of the town.

At this moment, a thick defensive fortification has been built around the town, with towering barbed wire fences tightly arranged and the top wrapped with several spiral barbed wires with sharp spikes.

The surface of these wire meshes gleamed with the original luster of metal, with almost no trace of rust, indicating that they were recently installed in an emergency to completely isolate the entire residential area from the surrounding farmland.

Cole stopped his motorcycle ahead and gestured to a middle-aged man holding a shotgun inside the barbed wire fence. With a heavy metallic scraping sound, the two heavy barbed wire gates slowly slid open to the sides.

After the vehicle entered the town, the thick fog seemed to thin out a bit, and a few pale rays of sunlight occasionally pierced through the gaps in the thick clouds, weakly shining on the empty streets.

Looking out the car window at the scene on both sides of the street, Su Long found that the atmosphere in the town was terribly desolate, with no pedestrians in sight.

Every house along the roadside resembled a fully armed fortress, with all the windows sealed shut by thick wooden strips crisscrossing each other. Huge wooden barricades stood on either side of the gate, covered with sharp, long nails, some of which still had faint reddish-brown stains on their tips, indistinguishable as either paint or dried blood.

The vehicle passed by a supermarket called "Castel Department Store". The originally transparent glass curtain wall was completely covered by two huge wooden panels, which were nailed with long nails of different sizes.

The supermarket door was left with only a narrow gap for one person to pass through. A cashier in a dark blue uniform stood behind the counter carrying a Remington shotgun. There were very few items left on the shelves.

Finally, Cole's motorcycle stopped in front of a three-story wooden house in the Victorian style.

Surong and Hannah got out of the car and stood in front of the old house, looking around. They noticed that the windows were also boarded up and a barbed barricade mounted on a metal rail was installed at the entrance.

This type of chevaux-de-frise can only be slid left and right by releasing the locking pin; it cannot be pushed from the front, effectively preventing head-on collisions with large creatures.

Cole parked his motorcycle, strode over, unlocked the locking pin on the rail, forcefully pushed the heavy barricade to one side, and then began to introduce himself to the two men.

"This is the mayor's house. He and the deputy sheriff received Miss Dania here. It's not advisable to go out today due to the heavy fog, so they should still be inside discussing their options."

As he spoke, he stepped forward and rhythmically knocked on the heavy oak door, calling out loudly, "Dale, Jesse, I've brought Miss Dania's friend."

A series of heavy footsteps came from inside the door, accompanied by the crisp sound of a metal lock turning, and the door was slowly pulled open a crack.

A tall, lean, and wiry middle-aged man carrying an M870 shotgun appeared at the door. He had neat, light brown short hair, a layer of unkempt light blue stubble on his chin, and his eyes were full of vigilance and fatigue.

He was wearing a faded brown police uniform, with a holster, a Glock pistol, and an old walkie-talkie with a badly worn casing hanging from his tactical belt.

The man sized up Suron and Hannah, then stepped aside to make way, saying, "I'm Jesse, the town's deputy sheriff. You must be the reinforcements Miss Dania mentioned? You've moved quickly. Come in, don't linger outside."

As soon as Su Long entered the house, he smelled the old wood and faint aroma of jam in the air.

Jesse quickly relocked the door and tightened the safety bolt, then led Suron and Hannah through the dark corridor to the second floor.

The living room on the second floor is very large, with a huge handmade wooden table in the center, on which is a satellite map of Castel town marked with many red circles.

Dania was sitting at the table, gesturing with a pen in her hand. Opposite her sat an old man of about sixty years old, with gray hair and a haggard face, but his back was still very straight.

Hearing footsteps, Dania looked up and saw Suron and Hannah. Her eyes lit up, and she put down her pen. "Wow! You guys got here much faster than I expected!"

Su Long pulled up a chair and sat down, casually brushing the dust off his legs. He complained, "If it weren't for that inexplicable thick fog on the road, we could have gone another half hour faster."

The old man sitting opposite sighed and said in a hoarse voice, "That's not some accidental natural phenomenon. Ever since that thing arrived, this fog has never dissipated. It's like a dome, trapping our entire town inside."

Dania pointed to the old man and introduced him, "This is Dale Hargrove, the mayor of Caster Town."

She then pointed to Suron and Hannah and introduced them to Dale: "These two are the professional exorcists I just mentioned, Suron and Hannah."

Old Mayor Dale stood up, politely extending his age-spotted hand, and said with a wry smile, "Welcome to this place forgotten by God. It's ironic to say 'welcome' at a time like this, but we desperately need someone to solve these damn problems."

Just then, the wooden door to the kitchen in the distance was pushed open, and an elderly white woman wearing a floral apron came out carrying a steaming metal baking pan.

She said gently to the old mayor, "Dale, let's not talk about those troublesome things for now. Now that the guests are here, let them have something to eat."

Dania winked at Suron and introduced, "This is Mrs. Susan. I knew you hadn't had lunch, so Mrs. Susan specially prepared some authentic Castor specialties."

Dale rolled up the map on the table, and Mrs. Susan placed the baking tray in the center of the wooden table.

The baking tray held cubed blueberry tortillas, accompanied by several dishes of homemade pickles, a plate of white bread and a small bowl of blueberry jam, and two bowls of richly aromatic potato and onion soup.

Surong noticed that there was no meat on the entire table, not even a piece of bacon.

Dale seemed to sense Sulong's confusion and explained somewhat helplessly, "I'm sorry, everyone, almost all the meat in town's reserves has been used to feed that guy. In addition, the blueberry fields have been abandoned, and the town's income has plummeted. We really can't offer anything better to entertain him."

Hannah shook her head, picked up the soup, took a sip, and smiled, "It's alright, it's already very nice to have a bowl of hot soup in this kind of weather."

Surong picked up a tortilla, chewing on the coarse grain with its sweet and sour blueberry flavor, and asked, "Mayor, how many people have died so far due to this supernatural event? Do you have accurate statistics?"

Dale hesitated for a moment, then his expression turned serious: "There isn't a 100% accurate number, because the missing persons include a large number of passersby and backpackers, and we can't verify everyone's identity."

"But according to the information we have now, the number of missing people has reached fifty, and none of them have come back alive."

Surong put down his tortilla and frowned. "Fifty people missing? That's no small number. Doesn't the Mysterious Support Bureau care?"

Dell gave a bitter smile, leaned back in his chair and said, "We're too far from the city center, and we're also on the periphery of the administrative divisions. After we reported the case, the Support Bureau did send two investigation teams over."

"But after circling the nearby hills several times, they found nothing except some torn animal carcasses. They ultimately classified these incidents as disappearances caused by large predators," left a safety advisory, and departed, ignoring our pleas for help.

Looking out the window at the sealed wooden planks, Su Long scoffed inwardly. This was America: resources were always prioritized for the bustling city center, while small places like Castor were often deemed unworthy of being given a large number of elite troops in the eyes of the bureaucracy.

Just as Su Long was about to ask for more details, the old walkie-talkie that had been hanging on Jesse's waist suddenly emitted a piercing electrical sound.

A woman's anxious, slightly frightened voice came through the walkie-talkie: "Hey, Jesse, can you hear me? Buddy, who's been missing for three whole days, is back. I think—I think you'd better come over right away. He looks very strange."

Upon hearing this news, the room fell silent.

Surong put down the chipped blueberry tortilla in his hand and looked calmly at Jesse: "Who is Buddy?"

""

Jesse gripped the walkie-talkie tightly and replied in a low voice, "It's my Border Collie, the only police dog in town. It's very intelligent and knows better than most townspeople how to avoid danger in the woods."

"Three days ago, we organized a small team to patrol Beilin, hoping to find the lair of 'that thing.' While passing an abandoned mine, Buddy suddenly seemed to be extremely frightened and rushed into the shaft like a madman. The mine was too deep and dark, its structure as complex as a maze. We chased it for a while, but the beam of our flashlights couldn't reach the bottom, so we had to retreat."

"I never expected it to come back alive."

Surong stood up, stuffed the remaining half of a tortilla into his mouth, and mumbled, "Let's go see this survivor."

The group walked out of the mayor's oppressive wooden house, with Jesse leading the way. They quickly crossed the empty streets and arrived at the edge of the town.

Jesse's house is a detached log cabin with a low fence surrounding the yard.

Jesse pushed open the gate, her voice trembling, and said, "Buddy!"

In the center of the yard, on the grass, the once sleek Border Collie was sticking its rear end up, burying its entire head in a large metal basin.

Its movements were extremely violent, its body swaying wildly with the rhythm of swallowing, as if it wanted to swallow the whole basin whole.

A young white woman was squatting next to it; she appeared to be Jesse's wife.

Seeing Jesse return, she gave a smile that looked more like a grimace: "Buddy went crazy looking for food as soon as he got back; he must have been starving."

Surong looked the Border Collie over in; it was filthy, its long black and white fur now matted together, covered with dried mud and blackened blood.

"Buddy—" Jesse called out tentatively, slowly reaching out to pat its back as usual.

The Border Collie suddenly turned its head, staring intently at Jesse. It made a strange whimpering sound in its throat, then lunged forward and pounced on Jesse's legs, nearly knocking him over.

"It's alright, kid." Jesse breathed a sigh of relief, squatted down, and gently stroked the dog's dry, rough fur.

However, instead of licking its owner's hand as usual, Buddy suddenly froze, its whole body began to convulse violently, its limbs braced on the ground, its back arched high, and a sickening gagging sound came from its throat.

"Did it choke because it ate too fast?" Jesse patted its back worriedly.

The next second, Buddy opened his mouth wide, and a stream of extremely foul-smelling slime gushed out.

The first thing it vomited was undigested dog food mixed with a lot of water, but then the vomit turned dark red and black.

"vomit-

""

Buddy's body suddenly lunged forward, and a large clump of rotting flesh was squeezed out of its stomach, landing with a "thud" in front of Jesse's boots.

And inside that minced meat, there was also half a human finger.

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