The Curious Case of the Stalking Tables
I once had a curious case, that is, back when I was a rookie, of stalking tables.
Now, before you ask, yes, this really happened, and it happened in a small town called Livingston many years ago.
Livingston was full of carpenters back then, and for many a year, the people there made and sold the finest, wood-crafted furniture of all kinds. But what the woodsmiths of Livingston were most famous for, was its tables. Made from only the finest lumber, those tables were the best in the country.
In those days, I was a young sheriff about a year into my civic duty when one night a man covered in blood came into the station and reported a murder. Murders weren’t common back then; that is to say, they may have been common, but they were rarely reported. Most people preferred to take care of deeds like that under cover of night and hide it from the law.
I didn’t move too fast when ole Sam started telling me about the murder. He was going on and on about a “flock” of tables at the scene. When I asked what the hell he was talking about, he said the tables had killed the town hobo.
Looking back, I regret not taking Sam at his word, but I can’t help but think no one else would have either.
When we finally did arrive at the scene, sure enough, we found George the hobo lyin’ dead on the ground. It was pretty obvious he was beaten to death by something blunt, but since there were no weapons at the scene and a single witness with the victim’s blood all over him, we chalked it up to a heat of the moment murder and booked Sam on suspicion and called it a night.
Screw me sideways if we didn’t get a call early the next morning from Richard White, one of the town’s carpenters. He claimed someone had broken into his shop and vandalized some of his best tables.
I’m not sure if I was more excited because something big for a town so small was happening for the first time in years, or that it was happenin’ on my watch; probably both. I rounded up some deputies and we headed out to Richard’s shop and just like he said, nearly all of his newly built tables were smeared with blood. Some even had nicks and gashes along the legs and one had a tooth that was embedded almost completely into the wood.
I probably shouldn’t say I was happy, but I was. I was lookin’ at a mostly solved murder that would probably be wrapped up in a couple days. I just need to get the fingerprints off the tables. I was even pretty confident they would be Sam’s and then I’d have a solved murder case on my resume for when I shot for a spot on the force in the big city.
But, if the story wasn’t strange up till now, then this is where it gets that way. The first thing Richard said as I walked into his office to talk about the break-in was, “No one broke in, Bob.”
“Come again?”
“No one broke into my shop.”
“I saw the damage myself, Dick. Is this a joke?”
“Look again. No one broke in. Something broke
I didn’t take him seriously until I had a look for myself, and sure enough, the damage to the shop door was from the inside. It looked like someone had beat them until the latches broke.
“Well, maybe someone just hid inside until you closed up, took a few legs off the tables, and then beat the door open.”
“The legs can’t be taken off, Bob.”
“Say again?”
“The leg joints are carved from a solid piece and the only way to take them off is to disassemble the entire table.”
“What are you really saying here, Dick?”
“Only that the legs weren’t removed, Bob. They can’t have been.”
To make matters worse, there were no fingerprints on the tables among the blood, teeth, and many scratches and gouges. I knew whoever had gone to the trouble to do this couldn’t be working alone and must have considerable resources. Even so, I couldn’t think why anyone would go to so much trouble to murder a hobo.
Had I known where the story would lead, I would have packed my bags and left that day. Instead, I chased that case for two years.
Eventually, sightings became more common, and so did the murders. You always knew who was going to die next because tables would be seen outside their home just before they died. I was convinced it was a group of sick degenerates, but the longer it went on, the more people began to say things like, “The tables are stalking their prey.” It was like a weird dream and some days it was difficult to tell what was real.
Worse yet, there arose a sick fascination with the “stalking tables.” People seemed less concerned that it was happening and more concerned with Sunday groups were formed to analyze the murders and figure how the tables were killing people as all common sense evaporated and people started forming deadpools on who would die next.
Everything changed on Thanksgiving day, two years later. I stood with gas and lighter in hand before the abandoned shop once owned by Richard White. The tables were still inside as they always were. I felt like I was being watched as I poured the gas over the tables, but it wouldn’t stop me from taking one last chance to end the madness.
As everything began to burn that burn, I could have sworn I could hear… screaming.
No one seemed to notice when the murders stopped. In fact, no one seemed to remember anything at all.
