Tales of Vollmer's Hollow. Book One


Tales of Vollmer’s Hollow, Book One
Foster, James W.
ISBN 13: 9781897381182
Paperback; perfect bound; 5.5 x 8.5


Sample Excerpt, © Rain Publishing Inc.

Some Hollow History

Hello dear reader. My name is.... , well, I guess it's really not important what my name is, and for good measure, I don't think I'll even let you know if I'm a man or a woman. Let's just say that I've been around Vollmer's Hollow for a long, long time.

The Hollow is a very strange place indeed. It's full of nasty little secrets and strange goings on. I've seen and heard of many of the events that have taken place here, and I see and hear more tales all the time. There are so many eerie stories sprouting from this quiet, little town that it would be impossible to remember them all, so I've begun to write them down.

My original intention was to keep these tales a secret, after all a secret is a wonderful thing. I suppose the ideal thing to do with a secret is to keep it, but what fun is that? I've kept secrets for far too long now and I'm just itching to tell someone about them. Of course, I should only share them with a few trusted, close friends now shouldn't I? Funny thing is; I don't have any, so I'm going to have to share them with all of you.

I guess a good way to start telling you these tales is by giving you some of the background of my little home town. It seems that something has always been amiss here, not only in the town itself, but in the surrounding area as well. So with no further ado, here we go.

Vollmer’s Hollow is set in a rather unlikely location. Isolated by the immense Sasquatch National Park, it is three hours away from the city of Tamarack which is the Hollow's nearest neighbor. Resting on the south shore of Lake Sasquatch, the major source of income to the town is its fishing industry, Lake Sasquatch is teeming with a variety of fish.

Although the land surrounding the Hollow is rugged and often breathtakingly beautiful, it is made up of mainly rocky terrain that isn't suitable for farming. There are a few scattered farms in pockets of clear land between Tamarack and the little town, but they are small and generally not very prosperous.
On the opposite side of the lake there is a long peninsula made entirely of rock. This peninsula is named, The Devil’s Finger. It got this name because of its odd shape. From an aerial view or on a map it resembles a long finger with oversized knuckles and a long hooked finger nail. This finger looks more like a claw than a finger and appears as though it is pointing directly at Vollmer’s Hollow.

Like many fishing towns, the Hollow has in its history, a lot of tales of fishing tugs and other vessels that have sunk during storms over the years. There are even stories of pirates attacking some of these boats and killing all on board.

Lake Sasquatch and Sasquatch National Park got their names from the first known residents of the land, the Sasquatch Indians. These people were named after the mythical monster also known as Bigfoot. Archaeological evidence shows that they revered the Sasquatch as a god.

It is theorized that these Indians had originated from another tribe, but for some reason or another had strayed and had formed a tribe of their own. Artifacts found in the area have been scientifically dated to go back more than one thousand years. As far as cultures go, it does not appear that their stay in the Hollow was overly long. The evidence suggests perhaps between one and two hundred years. Through these artifacts as well as paintings found in caves and on rocks scattered throughout the area, scientists have been able to piece together a rough history of these people.

Their first winter alone proved to be very trying for them. They hadn't yet made their way to the lake, so food was scarce, and as some of their tribe began dying of starvation, the others turned to cannibalism as a means of survival. By the end of that first winter, they had developed quite a taste for human flesh and began to include it as a part of their regular diet.

Somewhere along the line they met a strange little man who became their witch doctor. Most Indian tribes had witch doctors or shamans, but the Sasquatch Indians had a very unusual one. It appears that this shaman just wondered in from out of the woods one day and into their camp. No one knows where he came from. He was less than five feet tall, very muscular, and had a wild mass of hair on a head that was otherwise far too small even for his compact body.

The Sasquatch Indians were terrified of this little man. He had a huge impact on their day to day lives and enforced their laws. Not to adhere to these laws was often punishable by death. The witch doctor himself never executed any punishment, but he did act as a judge, and once a decision of guilt had been made, his instructions of what ought to be done to the offending party involved were always carried out to the letter by the chief of the tribe.

Some of these laws were unreasonably strict. For instance if a brave believed that his wife was cheating on him, she was given a short trial. Her guilt was always a forgone conclusion even before the trial began, and her punishment was horrid.

She was stripped completely naked, tied spread eagle to stakes in the ground, and then every brave in the tribe had a go at her, beginning with the chief and then on in accordance with each brave’s social standing within the tribe including any boys who desired to participate. This was often a Sasquatch brave’s first sexual experience.

Once each male in the tribe had his turn with her, any who wished a second or third turn were permitted to do so in no particular order. The witch doctor didn’t take part in the poor woman’s rape, but he did give enthusiastic encouragement to the others while he watched. When the braves were finished with her, the squaw was tied to a stake and roasted alive over a fire. Then she was eaten.

If the adulterous brave was also caught, his penis was cut off and he was taken deep into the forest and left there as an offering to the Sasquatch God of the forest.

Why the shaman thought that such an offering would appease any God, Sasquatch or otherwise is anyone's guess, but the doomed brave inevitably bled to death.

It’s needless to say, given the punishment, that a real case of adultery rarely ever actually took place within the tribe. It was more likely that the accusing brave simply had grown tired of his wife, and with the exception of the chief, the Sasquatch could only have one wife, and there was no such thing as divorce. The two were united until death did they part, there was no way around it. A charge of adultery against a wife was simply the best way to get rid of her…….




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