Episode 21: A Worthy Grave

Blurb
The truth comes out about the hard death of Frank Tilley and Sheriff Andy Hodge has a tough choice to make.

Content Warnings

 * Descriptions and depictions of physical and emotional domestic violence
 * Monster violence
 * Gore
 * Disfigurement
 * Dismemberment
 * Religious trauma

Plot Synopsis
Georgie Tripplet and Esther Campbell approach Cora Lee Tilley one Sunday to ask if she wants to join them in their missionary work. Cora Lee declines and states her husband would refuse to allow it, but Georgie offers to ask for her. She persuades Frank to let her go with them by flirting and implying he might be able to get some labor out of the men of the camp.

The following Saturday, Cora Lee rides up to the camp with the ladies. They cook breakfast in the morning, and then have church. Speaker Timothy preaches as usual, and Cora Lee takes an interest in what he says about the Good Mother punishing those who hurt women and the weak. Georgie gets up to testify, telling the story of how her stepfather had mistreated her mother until her death, how she had prayed to the Good Mother, and her prayers had been answered. Privately, Georgie tells Cora Lee the Good Mother can deliver her, too.

Cora Lee speaks of this encounter with DL Walker in the sheriff’s station, in the course of telling her story to the attorney. She says she prayed daily for the Good Mother to come, and sobs in guilt at the idea that she actually did.

After three months of prayer, Frank comes home in a foul temper on the night Bonnie Ward pointed her shotgun at him and turns his rage on Cora Lee. She runs from him and flees into the woods, knowing he’s too afraid to follow her into the pines. She hides inside a hollow tree and falls asleep.

When she wakes, she finds the woods dead silent. She listens for any sign of Frank, and finds none. Thinking it should be safe enough to go home, she steps from the tree and sees a pale, dark-haired woman holding an infant; the Good Mother. Cora Lee recalls all her worst memories, and the next thing she knows, she’s following the Good Mother through the pines.

She finds herself unable to turn away, following regardless of cuts and scratches sustained from walking unprotected through the trees. They stop at the edge of a set of railroad tracks where men, including Frank, are doing their clandestine work. Cora Lee realizes that her deliverance has come. Unable to look away or run, she watches as the ground cracks and creatures that look like large, deformed rats come forth and attack the men. Vines pull them down into the cracks in the earth, leaving Frank’s body.

He has the appearance of having been half-devoured by the creatures, and tries to struggle to his knees as the Good Mother approaches him and rips his head from his body. The vines pull his body into the Dark Earth, leaving his head.

The Good Mother looks at Cora Lee, coming to stand before her and delivering Frank’s head into her hands. Cora Lee screams and throws the head away from her, suddenly able to move. She runs through the woods toward her house, and by the time she reaches it, it is nearly dawn and the sheriff and deputy await her.

Exhausted, Cora Lee slumps into her chair. DL moves to comfort her and tell her she’s safe. Cora Lee repeats her fear that no one will believe her, and says she thought she was praying to an angel. DL assures her what happened isn’t her fault.

Speaking with the Sheriff, DL states he’s holding an innocent woman without charge, possibly to divert attention from his sister Bonnie, who pulled the shotgun on Frank earlier on the night of his murder. He lets Cora Lee go, and DL and Melvin take her home before DL goes to Marcie’s to tell her what the Dead Queen did.