Southern House Read online

  The Southern House

  By

  Mark Deloy

  A HellBound Books LLC

  Publication

  Copyright © 2018 by HellBound Books Publishing LLC

  All Rights Reserved

  Cover and art design HellBound Books LLC

  Photography by Rebecca Narron

  No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without written permission from the author

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are entirely fictitious or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is purely coincidental.

  www.hellboundbookspublishing.com

  Dedication:

  I’d like to dedicate this book to my parents, Richard and Brenda Manginelli. You both support me in everything I do, especially writing. I love you both.

  Acknowledgements:

  I’d like to thank Becky Narron and James Longmore for pulling me into the amazing world of Hellbound Books. I’d also like to thank the best editor I’ve ever worked with, Brandy Yassa, for her patience and professionalism. Thank you to James Matthew Byers for the read through, suggestions and amazing interior illustrations.

  Lance Fling also did a read through and gave me some terrific suggestions and observations. Thanks to my parents and family for keeping me on track by asking me when my novel would be released.

  And finally I’d like to thank my wife, Christi for being patient when I put off honey-do projects to write.

  Edited by Brandy Yassa

  The Southern House

  Prologue

  With no streetlights along the unpaved road, the house sat hunched in darkness, surrounded by ancient elms, maples and oak trees. The car’s headlights splashed light across the porch and shone back from the windows. The house was not particularly old, nor was it brand new, but it was home for Ellen Grimble. The land on the farm was much more valuable than the house, or so her late husband had always said. Now he was gone and she was alone. The farm was her burden, her curse, and her legacy, as well as his. It was why Ellen hadn’t sold any of the land after his death, and hired some of the Mennonite boys to keep it up. That stopped last year, though, when some of the boys saw some strange animals while plowing in the back field. She pushed the memory aside. It didn’t matter — what’s done is done. Now the fields were growing up, turning to scrubland, and that was just fine with her.

  The church service had been especially moving this evening. Pastor Jim preached about Job and the wager God and Satan made for his life. It was always one of Ellen’s favorite stories, even though it was slightly depressing. One passage struck her as especially disturbing, and even though she’d read it before, there was something about how the pastor voiced it that unnerved her tonight. It was when God asked Satan where he had come from, and Satan answered, From roaming throughout the Earth, going back and forth on it. The thought of Satan here, just wandering around, doing what he wanted, looking for the next person to bother, gave Ellen the willies.

  She eased down the driveway and around to the side. The garage door obediently rose as she pressed the button clipped to her visor. Ellen drove her sedan inside and the door rattled closed behind it. The overhead lights had a motion sensor and came on as soon as she pulled in. She thanked the Lord for modern conveniences. She’d always hated the basement/garage and spent as little time down here as she could. But with all the pollen in the air, if she didn’t put the car inside every night, it would be coated yellow with the stuff the next morning.

  Ellen got out of the car, and climbed the narrow, splintery steps to the door that led into her kitchen. She was careful to keep a good grip on the railing. If she took a fall down these steps to the hard concrete below, she probably wouldn’t get up. If she did happen to survive, it would be a long, painful climb back up to the kitchen to use the phone to call for help. Her grandson, Hickory, had tried to get her one of those “I’ve fallen and I can’t get up” buttons, but she had balked and told him the good Lord watched over her, and if it was her time to go, then she would go willingly.

  The kitchen was blessedly cool. This summer had been particularly humid—which was normal for Tennessee-but this year it had been like a sauna since late May. She’d grown up without air conditioning. When she was a girl, the thought of central air, let alone air conditioning, would have been like science fiction.

  Ellen filled the teakettle and set it to boil and went upstairs to change out of her church clothes and put on her nightgown. When she finished changing, she shut off the lamp near her bed and glanced out the window. Movement in the field caught her eye.

  A tall, thin shape glided slowly across the moonlit clearing, like a wraith. It was man sized, but it didn’t move like a man. It seemed to be floating, rather than walking. She cupped her hands against the window to guard against any reflection and put her face closer to the glass. Now she could see it was indeed slightly taller than a man and covered in something, a black shroud, or a cape. The cloak trailed after it like a black wedding train. She couldn’t imagine what it could be if it wasn’t a man. It was too tall to be any animal that lived in this area. She’d remembered hearing about moonshiners using the land on large farms to set up their stills and decided she’d better call the police.

  There was a dial tone when she picked up the phone near her bed, but when she started punching the buttons they didn’t beep in her ear as they usually did, and the call never connected. She didn’t have cell service at the house and would have to get back in her car and drive up to the top of the next hill to be able to get a signal on her cell phone. There was always something wrong with anything technological on the farm. Gadgets just didn’t work right here. It was something they had simply accepted over the years.

  Ellen looked out the window again, but whatever she had seen was now gone. She shifted her gaze over to the tree line at the edge of the field, but it was too dark to see anything moving there. The woods covering the majority of the farm were vast and thick, and went on for acres. The rocky hillsides were peppered with caves and fresh water springs. It was a moonshiner’s paradise. That had to be what she’d seen. An unusually tall bootlegger checking on his stills, using her fields as a shortcut. The teakettle suddenly whistled from downstairs, making her jump. Ellen felt her heart flip in her chest and was reminded she’d forgotten to take her Metoprolol this morning. The doctor said it would help her heart work better, but it sometimes made her dizzy, so she didn’t like to take it every day.

  She went back downstairs, locked all the doors, and decided against calling the police tonight. She was already in her nightclothes and if the bootlegger had a corn whiskey still set up in those woods it, probably wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Ellen made her tea, liberally dosed it with honey and set the cup on the table next to her easy chair. It used to be her husband’s easy chair and she always felt his spirit was close when she sat in it. The big chair seemed to swallow her up as she sank down into its soft leathery depths. She turned the television on, changed it to the Weather Channel and tried to forget about whoever might be using her land to brew a batch of illegal hooch.

  As she took her first sip of tea, the television blinked out and the light over the stove went dark. Power outage, she thought. That figures. But then her mind returned to the dark figure lurking outside somewhere. Had he done this? Messed with the phone? Cut her power? And was he now preparing to come in and rob her, or worse? Ellen’s heart leapt in her chest again, and she silently cursed herself again for not taking her medicine this morning.

  Something moved past the window to her right, momentarily blocking out the
moonlight. She’d only seen it out of the corner of her eye, but she could have sworn she saw that cape again, flowing past the window like giant bat wings.

  The front door knob rattled softly in the kitchen as if someone was testing it to see if it was locked. Ellen uttered a soft cry and pulled her legs up into the chair, trying to make herself both smaller and less visible. She listened, straining to hear anything. A soft scratching sound came from the kitchen like metal on glass.

  Mustering every ounce of courage she had, Ellen slowly lowered her feet to the floor, opened the end table drawer and took out the small flashlight she kept there. The scratching continued as she walked hesitantly toward the darkened room. When she reached the kitchen doorway she peered around the corner. The sound was coming from the big bay window set over the kitchen table so she turned the flashlight on and shined it directly at the window.

  A face moved close to the glass and glared in at her from the darkness. It was covered in a white membrane of some sort. She could see human features beneath the maggoty white skin, but no more than that. Ellen started to whimper, unable to move. Her heart was now hammering in her chest as she started to hyperventilate. Her hand not holding the light came up and covered her mouth. She felt herself shiver involuntarily. She knew she had to move, to run, to flee upstairs in the dark and get her husband’s gun safe open. But all she could do was stare at the sallow white face looking in at her.

  The masked head turned to one side, then the other, like a dog trying to understand a master’s command. Then its forehead bumped slightly into the glass and the flesh rippled unnaturally like a disturbed pond. A hand with the same maggot-like pallor as the face slid up the window. Yellow fingernails, ragged and broken, began to scratch against the glass, making only the slightest sound.

  Ellen’s mind refused to accept what she was seeing. She told herself it was a man with a latex mask, like in the movies, covering his face so she wouldn’t be able to identify him. As soon as she decided on this line of rational thinking, the face began to crack open along the edges, revealing a black void. The line spread until it had worked its way across the lower part of his face like a slow moving crack in a windshield. Then it split apart, opening wider than any human mouth ever could. Hundreds of needle-like teeth pressed against the glass, as if trying to chew through it. A thin tongue slid out like a viscous gray slug, leaving a trail of dark ichor on the window.

  Ellen began to scream. She felt a sudden tightness in her chest and back, rising to her neck like a fountain of pain. Both her arms began to ache and then cramp and she dropped the flashlight. It went spinning across the floor.

  Her breath hitched. She sobbed and felt her bladder let go. Her neck tightened and she clenched her jaw as her teeth clacked together. She reached for the wall and missed, hitting her shoulder and the side of her face on the doorway and then slid to her knees. She knew she was having a heart attack. The terror of dying now replaced the fear of the creature outside. She’d thought she was ready for death, but now that it was here for her, she wanted to fight, wanted to survive a little longer.

  Ellen crawled across the floor, away from the kitchen and whatever was trying to get in. She knew she had to get upstairs somehow to her husband’s guns. He’d showed her the basics and she thought maybe the basics would be all she’d need to survive this night.

  The front door rattled again. There was a soft knock, followed by a series of loud bangs as whatever was outside tried to get in. Ellen reached the stairs. Her legs were weak and numb, but she used them anyway to push herself forward. Her fingers dug into the carpet, pulling her along. She felt a fingernail snap off, adding to the symphony of pain already assaulting her body. She was sweating profusely now. It trickled into her eyes, stinging them and making her vision blurry. She felt an inrush of air on her back and bare legs, and heard the front door hit the counter as it flew open behind her.

  Ellen began to cry. She pushed herself over onto her back, and then sat on the second stair and leaned back. She was so tired. The pain in her chest and arms was immense, blocking out everything except the nightmare floating across the kitchen towards her. The flashlight had settled so it pointed in the thing’s direction.

  The creature was gliding six inches off the floor and had to hunch over to keep from hitting the kitchen ceiling, then ducked beneath the doorway and hovered across the living room. Its feet were wrapped in some sort of fabric and its shroud spread out behind it like membranous gray wings. It reached for Ellen with its long spider-like hands. They clutched the air and its bones crackled like popping corn. Insects crawled over the desiccated flesh of the creature’s forearms, but then retreated back into the cloak when the light hit them.

  The demon’s tooth-filled head slowly came fully unhinged like a snake. It was as if it planned to swallow her whole. But something told Ellen there was a reason the creature had so many teeth. It planned to chew her up, and she would feel every grinding, puncturing wound as he devoured her one mouthful at a time.

  Ellen’s vision began to darken, but then in a flash it became vivid and crystal clear. She no longer felt any fear. It was replaced with soft warmth, which spread through her whole body. She was blanketed with a feeling of total peace, even as the most terrifying thing she’d ever seen in her long life came for her.

  Death delivered Ellen Grimble into God’s hands just before the ancient creature reached her. It was a reprieve God wouldn’t grant so easily to others in Centerville, Tennessee that summer.

  1

  June 30th 2016 – Centerville, Tennessee

  In life, we seldom choose what will happen to us. We can make choices of course, which guide our destinies, but mostly, I think, life just happens and we have to deal with the consequences.

  I wasn’t expecting my elderly grandmother, ‘Granny’ to me, to pass on during the summer of 2016, even though she was in her eighties and had previous heart problems. I also wasn’t expecting for her to leave me the thousand plus acres of land her and my grandfather had gathered up like squirrels gathering nuts over the course of their lifetimes. I was their only grandchild, so I guess it was inevitable, but I hadn’t given it much thought until I got the phone call from their lawyer. The news of her death and my inheritance couldn’t have come at a more tumultuous time in my life. My marriage was ending, and I had been let go of a decent job due to health-related attendance issues, but more on that later.

  I could have told my soon-to-be-ex-wife of my good fortune, but we were separated and I didn’t see the point. One of two things would happen if I had. Either she would all of a sudden want to reconcile, or she would be quicker to file for divorce. Either way, she would see dollar signs, and strangely enough, I didn’t want either of those things to happen— at least not yet.

  So, I just took off. No one from my current life knew where I was or when I’d be back. It was, I suppose, a rare occurrence for a forty-year-old man in this technology driven modern world to just get out from under and disappear, but that’s what I did. I didn’t tweet about it, I didn’t post my status on Facebook, I didn’t Instagram a picture of myself from the road. I just left.

  Luckily, I had enough money left over from my 401K cash out to get gas and food for the road. I’d be depending on my grandmother’s generosity in the form of cash from the inheritance once I got down to the Southern House. I still had no idea what or how much I had inherited, other than the land and the house. Both had been paid for since roughly nineteen ninety. The only things my grandparent’s lawyer, Martin Hayes, had told me over the phone, was I was the sole heir, and all the taxes and his fees had already been pain in full. He would disclose the rest when I arrived in person for the reading of the will.

  Grandpa Hickory Grimble, after whom I am named, did not believe in debt and paid cash whenever possible. He’d owned several construction companies and invested wisely over the years. He would buy cheap land in the area, build a house or two on it, and resell it later. He’d done that hundreds of times and had a
t one time owned much of the land in the county at one time or another.

  The trip down from Massena, New York, where I lived along the Canadian border to Centerville, Tennessee was uneventful. I stopped a few times to stretch my old aching back, grab something to eat—not out of hunger, but so I could pop a couple of pills—and go to the bathroom. My back is what got me in the unemployed, separated situation I was in. I’d gotten in a bad car accident a couple years ago. Everything had healed except for my back, which most days felt like it was filled with broken glass. The doctor had prescribed first Neurontin, with no relief, then Naproxen, with even less, and finally, Percocet, which was like heaven after nearly a month of constant pain.

  “We’ve tried several things, Hick,” my doctor had said. “This isn’t a permanent solution, but it’ll get you by until you decide you’ve had enough and opt for surgery.”

  I didn’t want to take the time off from work for the operation to fix my herniated discs. So instead, I took one Oxy when I woke up, several more throughout the day and two more right before I went to bed. When my primary care physician stopped prescribing the Oxycodone four months ago, I found another doctor who would, then another. I always found a way to get a hold of them. I stopped caring about my job as a mid-level manager in a corporate conglomerate, and then stopped showing up. They let me go two months prior to my grandmother’s death. My wife was less than supportive. She was well aware of my habit, and losing my job was the last straw. She moved in with her best friend and all I was worried about was I was down to my last three pills. I told myself I was going to use this as an opportunity for a new start, to quit cold turkey. At the same time, I was thinking about how I could scam a local doctor into getting more, without contacting my previous doctors, or how I could find a dealer who would help me part with my newly inherited money. Neither scenario was logical. Addiction is a bitch.