They’d all heard about it as kids. Nothing much went on in the little village. They were starved for excitement. 

The Hessner farm sat about a quarter mile back from Township Highway 211, Tooms Rd. The road went nowhere; it stretched into, and ended in, a small wooded area less than a mile from its beginning. When Nate was young there was Old Man Hessner, his wife, and their son. Hessner’s wife came from McConnelsville, and, though much was never said or seen of her, she was a round, pudgy thing: quite homely. They kept their son, Courtney, out of school (the rumors why: that he had a chromosome abnormality, that his nature was too violent, that his face was too dreadful, etc.). Nobody made much fuss about the boy not attending school. In the 1970’s, people could get away with stuff like that: especially in a small village.

The Hessner house was a common farm house. It faced the road unthreateningly. Behind it was a big red dilapidated pole barn, usually with an old Chevy van parked in front of it. Farm machinery, most of it defunct, stood gloomily, quietly. Behind the barn was a corn field about the size of two football fields, half as wide.

Grotesque Old Man Hessner, Wes, tall and corpulent, had a face a mother couldn’t even love, accented by an edentulous, open-mouthed expression, which he seemed to perpetually display. Hair covered every exposed part of his body except the top of his head where only a large wart sprouted. Purple veins ran like tiny tree roots along his bulky nose. The sclera of his eyes was yellow, and one could not tell where his dark irises ended and his pupils began.

He’d visit Main St. sometimes to buy and sell at the market. People in the village avoided him if they could. If his outward appearance contributed to the fantastic nature of the rumors about him, his personality didn’t help either.

Nate, six years old at the time, walked in Duke’s Restaurant with his mother for lunch one winter’s day. Duke’s was a typical small town restaurant. A counter sat four; two booths and two round tables accounted for the rest of the seating. Francine Moore and her daughter, Katherine, sat and ate in a booth. The special was chicken and noodles. The smell was inviting: boiled vegetables, cloves, sage, garlic, and—of course—the chicken and noodles with cream soup.