The Jar of Nephren-Ka

Quitman

Quitman, Georgia: 1:08 PM, Sunday, June 10th, 1984

I sat in the parking lot of a sad little convenience store, perusing my Georgia map. I'd been here for ten minutes, and I still couldn't find Old Jones Place.

I tossed the map into the passenger seat, got out of the car, and marched into the store. The clerk, a pimple-faced kid of no older than twenty, was sitting behind the dirty counter, feet propped up on the window-sill, eyes glued to a little thirteen-inch black-and-white TV with some big black guy talking about 'I pity tha' fool!'

He didn't even glance over as I entered.

I walked straight up to the counter. The kid was still absorbed in the show, the big black guy arguing with some nerdy white dude about getting on a plane.

I cleared my throat.

The kid sighed and turned in my direction. When he did, his eyes widened comically and he drug himself out of his chair, rising to his full five-foot nine-inches. I stared down at him.

"You know where I can find Old Jones Place?"

The kid stared at me for a moment, then his face relaxed. "Uh, sure, mister. It's just down Empress road, off 221. On the left side, about a mile outside town."

"I couldn't find it on the map," I said.

"Oh, you won't," the kid said with some small amusement. "Used to be called Worn Lane. They changed the name after some rich guy bought and renovated the place, maybe two years ago. 

Who knows when they'll update the map for a dump like this."

I nodded and laid a couple of bucks on the counter. "Thanks for the help," I said, and left him to his TV show.

I hopped back in the cruiser and examined the map. I followed Empress road with my finger until it entered Florida, but saw neither a Worn Lane or an Old Jones Place.

'Fine,' I thought, 'I'll just follow the road for a mile or two and if I don't see the road, I'll head back here and really scare pimple-boy.'

I fired up the cruiser and pulled out of the lot.

***

A few minutes later, I pulled off of Empress onto Old Jones Place. It was a single-lane road, recently paved, leading through a thick wood of oak and hickory. Large, hoary limbs stretched across the road, providing a canopy and casting the road into shadow.

No houses were visible on either side of the road. The road stretched into the distance, rising and falling with the hills as I drove slowly along. Finally, I topped a rise, and the house appeared before me, perhaps a half mile in the distance.

The road dipped down into a long valley, and the forest gave way, save for a single line of black willows which hugged the road. Where the wood departed, the land was flat and neat, covered in a carpet of thick, green grass.

A half mile away, the road turned back on itself in a loop, and at the terminus there stood a sparkling white stone house, two-stories tall. I pulled out my binoculars.

Built in the style of the Greek revival, the house had a flattened hip roof supported by six massive stone columns. Sliding windows adorned the front at precise intervals. In the dead center of the first floor was an ornately carved stone arch, inside which nestled a broad and stately set of double-doors. Above the arch was a balcony, surrounded by antique iron railings, with a figured wooden door leading back into the abode.

A few enormous oak trees stood sentry over the house, and a well-landscaped collection of bushes and shrubs surrounded the structure. No one was visible, but there was a single white luxury sedan parked in the drive.