“Get up and go back,” Loverboy said. “I promise I’ll quit being a wiseass. I’ll stop calling you Dickwheat and Milkswish and all those other things. I’ll be good from now on. I’ll even go celibate, just let me live.”
“Have we taken it far enough?” I asked Mister Milktoast.
“We can’t go back,” Mister Milktoast said. “We could never be sure about the Insider. It could be hiding in here, waiting. Maybe for years. When you let something in your heart, it’s supposed to be forever.”
“Good things are worth waiting for,” I said, shackled in the cold cardiac arrest of deepest winter and one of Beth’s lines that I should have trimmed from the manuscript before it came to this. I struggled to my feet.
“He who laughs last, right, Richard?” said Mister Milktoast. “Maybe you’re not a shellfish oyster after all.”
“Clam up, Shrimp.”
I reached the final ridge of Widow’s Peak where the trees were sparse and great gray boulders were strewn like the toys of petulant children. I could almost see the top of the mountain through the swirling snow.
“Hey, Fuckwit, turn back!” Loverboy screeched.
“Back to what?” I said. “A house with Beth and Mother in separate beds, where you could ping-pong back and forth all night, bedsprings squeaking and Oedipus rexing? Sorry, my lascivious friend, but that’s not my idea of a bright shining sequel.”
“Careful, Richard,” said Mister Milktoast. “Anger and hate might bring the Insider back from the basement.”
I stopped and stood swaying in the snow, the breeze whistling its fatal lullaby. The blind beauty of the world was, I now knew, a precious and brief gift.
“Hate? No, Mister Milktoast, I don’t hate. The past doesn’t bother me anymore. Because it’s almost over.”
Loverboy gave up, twitched and died, shriveled like a grape dropped into the sun of my love or maybe a raisin stirred in cinnamon bun batter in some cosmic mixing bowl.
“Good riddance,” said Mister Milktoast.
“No, Loverboy was part of us. Maybe not the best part, a part whose size he always exaggerated, but nobody’s perfect.”
“Let he who is without skin—”
“—cast the first snowball in hell.” I was game.
“The proof’s in the pudding.”
“And what the hell does that mean?”
“I don’t know. I’ve just always wanted to say it.”
“Your material sucks now that you’ve lost Bookworm.” I fought through the knee-deep snow, carrying the ghosts of everyone I had been. The Bone House was nearly vacant. I realized I was afraid to be alone.
“Mister Milktoast, you don’t suppose...”
“Yes, Richard?”
“...that the Coldiron Curse will live on? Or was that just one of the Insider’s little illusions? Make the protagonist suffer to ensure he’s sympathetic?”
“Who knows, old friend?”
“And all the Little People...even you, and maybe even me...all just made up for the Insider’s amusement?”
“Don’t talk yourself crazy, Richard.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it. Jung at heart. I’m going to miss you.”
I stepped into vast whiteness. “Coming?”
“Whither thou host,” Mister Milktoast said.
“Ouch. Must you always have the final word?” I whispered, but there was no answer, because my oldest and dearest invisible friend, my imaginary protector, my inner child, had risen through the Bone House chimney like smoke from a funeral pyre and joined the sky.
I would never reach the top of the mountain. My legs were failing and my spirit was drained dry by the Insider. I was numb to sadness, but I banked a small spark of joy for Beth, for Mother, for the child that would have half my genetic material and literary estate. Life was for the living and maybe this curse would end with me.
I fell for a final time, and the shadows of sleep rose. But the shadows cast no fear. During this sleep, no boots would walk.
I knew the rules. You couldn’t tell the story if you were dead, so something must live on.
A voice came from inside me, from that hot ball of love that kept expanding and swelling and pushing back the great dark universe.
“I am what you have made me,” a strange voice said, and I hoped the voice was mine and not the Insider’s.
Then I realized it belonged to neither. We were skins of a great ethereal onion, and acceptance was surrender was forgiveness was victory. The door closed and the serpent swallowed its own tale.
On the peaceful ridge of that frigid mountain, as the snow covered me like a blanket and oblivion tucked me in, all was forgiven.
I drifted off, dreaming of light: a painless light, a cleansing light, a light that had no end.
“Welcome to the Bone House, Richard,” said the Voice.
Omniscient narrators. They think they know everything. Fuck them.
I’m going to sleep.
THE END
Table of Contents
###
About the author:
I hope you enjoyed these tales. I’m author of more than 30 books, including Liquid Fear, Chronic Fear, Disintegration, and The Red Church. I collaborated with bestselling author J.R. Rain on Cursed, Bad Blood, and Ghost College. I’ve also written the children’s books If I Were Your Monster, Too Many Witches, and Duncan the Punkin, and created the graphic novels Dirt and Grave Conditions. Connect with me on Facebook, Goodreads, LibraryThing, Twitter, my blog, or my website.
If you enjoyed this book, please leave a short Amazon review in your own words, so that others might share your experience and join the fun. Feel free to drop me a line anytime at [email protected]. or at my Author Central page at Amazon. Thanks for reading me.
Table of Contents
Try these other thrillers because they are good:
LIQUID FEAR
By Scott Nicholson
When Roland Doyle wakes up with a dead woman in his motel room, the only clue is a mysterious vial of pills bearing the label “Take one every 4 hrs or else.”
Ten years before, six people were involved in a secret pharmaceutical trial that left one of them murdered and five unable to remember what happened. Now the experiment is continuing, as Dr. Sebastian Briggs wants to finish his research into fear response and post-traumatic stress disorder. He’s backed by a major drug company and an ambitious U.S. Senator, but he also has a personal stake in the outcome.
Only by taking the mysterious pills can the survivors stave off the creeping phobias and madness that threaten to consume them. But the pills have an unexpected side effect—the survivors start remembering the terrible acts they perpetrated a decade ago. They are lured back to the Monkey House, the remote facility where the original trials took place, and Briggs has prepared it for their arrival.
Now they are trapped, they each have only one pill left, and cracks are forming in their civilized veneer.
After the pills are gone, there’s only one option. “Or else.”
Read about it at Haunted Computer or view it at Amazon US or Amazon UK
CHRONIC FEAR
By Scott Nicholson
Chronic Fear is the second installment of the chilling Fear series, which began with the harrowing Liquid Fear. The story picks up one year after the notorious Monkey House trials, from which the tiny handful of survivors have scattered in the wind. For while the unwitting human guinea pigs are still alive, the experimental drugs to which they were subjected continue to wreak havoc on their emotional stability. World-renowned neurobiologist Dr. Alexis Morgan knows first-hand the horrors of the sadistic experiment: her husband, Mark, was one its victims. As a result, he is plagued by unpredictable bouts of rage and paranoia. Dr. Morgan’s research into the drug leads her to suspect presidential candidate and U. S. Senator Daniel Burchfield of plotting to gain control of the drug for his own purposes, a power play that is sure to result in countless casualties unless she and three Monkey House survivors can o
utwit the shadowy figures behind the conspiracy—if they don’t lose their own sanity first.
Read the first chapter at Haunted Computer or view it at Amazon US or Amazon UK
TRANSPARENT LOVERS
By Scott Nicholson
Private investigator Richard Steele must solve his most difficult case ever—his own murder—while caught between women on both sides of the grave. In a race against time as his spirit slips away, Richard confronts his many, many failings and trusts in a power beyond his understanding—love. His only weapon is faith, and he's running out of bullets. It's going to be a hell of a showdown.
Learn more about Transparent Lovers or view it at Amazon US or Amazon UK
CREATIVE SPIRIT
By Scott Nicholson
After parapsychologist Anna Galloway is diagnosed with metastatic cancer, she has a recurring dream in which she sees her own ghost. The setting of her dream is the historic Korban Manor, which is now an artist’s retreat in the remote Appalachian Mountains. Drawn both by the ghost stories surrounding the manor and her own sense of destiny, Anna signs up for the retreat.
Sculptor Mason Jackson has come to Korban Manor to make a final, all-or-nothing attempt at success before giving up his dreams. When he becomes obsessed with carving Ephram Korban’s form out of wood, he questions his motivation but is swept up in a creative frenzy unlike any he has ever known.
The manor itself has secrets, with fires that blaze constantly in the hearths, portraits of Korban in every room, and deceptive mirrors on the walls. A mysterious woman in white calls to Anna from the forest, while Mason is driven by the whispers of an unseen critic. With an October blue moon looming, both the living and the dead learn the true power of their dreams. The author’s preferred edition of the 2004 U.S. paperback The Manor.
Learn more about the paranormal thriller Creative Spirit or view it at Amazon US or Amazon UK
Do you like movies? View the screenplay adaptation at Amazon US or Amazon UK
DISINTEGRATION
By Scott Nicholson
Careful what you wish for.
When a mysterious fire destroys his home and kills his young daughter, Jacob Wells is pulled into a downward spiral that draws him ever closer to the past he thought was dead and buried.
Now his twin brother Joshua is back in town, seeking to settle old scores and claim his half of the Wells birthright. Jacob’s wife Renee is struggling with her own guilt, because the couple lost an infant daughter several years before.
As Jacob and Joshua return to the twisted roles they adopted at the hands of cruel, demanding parents, they wage a war of pride, wealth, and passion. They share the poisonous love of a woman who would gladly ruin them both: Carlita, a provocative and manipulative Hispanic whose immigrant family helped build the Wells fortune.
If only Jacob can figure out which of them to blame. But the lines of identity are blurred, because Joshua and Jacob share much more than blood. And the childhood games have become deadly serious.
Learn more about the psychological thriller Disintegration or view it at Amazon or Amazon UK
DRUMMER BOY
Book II in the Sheriff Littlefield Series
By Scott Nicholson
On an Appalachian Mountain ridge, three boys hear the rattling of a snare drum deep inside a cave known as "The Jangling Hole," and the wind carries a whispered name.
It's the eve of a Civil War re-enactment, and the town of Titusville is preparing to host a staged battle. The weekend warriors aren’t aware they will soon be fighting an elusive army. A troop of Civil War deserters, trapped in the Hole by a long-ago avalanche, is rising from a long slumber, and the war is far from over.
And one misfit kid is all that stands between the town and the cold mouth of hell…
Learn more about Drummer Boy and the Appalachian legend that inspired the novel or view it at Amazon or Amazon UK
SPEED DATING WITH THE DEAD
By Scott Nicholson
A paranormal conference at the most haunted hotel in the Southern Appalachian mountains…a man’s promise to his late wife that he’d summon her spirit…a daughter whose imagination goes to dark places…and demonic evil lurking in the remote hotel’s basement, just waiting to be awoken.
When Digger Wilson brings his paranormal team to the White Horse Inn, he is sceptical that his dead wife will keep her half of the bargain. He doesn’t believe in ghosts. But when one of the conference guests channels a mysterious presence and an Ouija board spells out a pet phrase known only to Digger and his wife, his convictions are challenged. And when people start to disappear, Digger and his daughter Kendra must face the circle of demons that view the hotel as their personal playground. Because soon the inn will be closing for good, angels can’t be trusted, and demons don’t like to play alone….
Learn more about Speed Dating with the Dead and the 2008 paranormal conference and inn that inspired the novel or view it at Amazon or Amazon UK
OCTOBER GIRLS
By Scott Nicholson
Five days until Halloween and all hell is about to break loose.
And it’s all Crystal’s fault.
Momma warned her not to consort with the dead and tried to teach her the magic spells that would close the portal to the afterlife. But Crystal doesn’t want to be a trailer-trash witch like Momma. Her best friend Bone is only too happy to escape the afterlife and help Crystal break the rules. Bone died too young, and she’ll do whatever it takes to remain among the living.
Then a young movie maker comes to Parson’s Ford, and he has a very special project in mind: a horror movie starring a real ghost. The movie is rolling, the creatures are stirring, and the brainwashed teenagers are ready to welcome a new star from the other side of the grave.
Crystal and Bone must overcome drama queens, coffin cuties, and mangled magic if they want to remain best friends forever—but at this rate, forever may not last much longer.
Learn more about the paranormal romance series October Girls or view it for Kindle at Amazon or Amazon UK
CURSED
By J.R. Rain and Scott Nicholson
Albert Shipway is an ordinary guy, an insurance negotiator who likes booze and women and never having to say he’s sorry.
And he thinks this is just another day, another lunch, another order of kung pao chicken. Little does he know that he’s about to meet a little old lady who knows his greatest fear. A little old lady who knows what’s hiding in his heart.
In just a matter of minutes, Albert’s life turns upside down and he enters a world where magic and evil lurk beneath the fabric of Southern California. And all his choices have brewed a perfect storm of broken hearts, broken promises, shattered families, and a couple of tiny problems. Namely, killer mice and a baby.
Albert Shipway is finally getting a chance to right some wrongs. That is, if it's not too late.
Learn more about the urban fantasy Cursed or view it for Kindle at Amazon or Amazon UK
THE VAMPIRE CLUB
By J.R. Rain & Scott Nicholson
A group of college students pursue their passion for vampires, but when they discover the real thing, one of them must make the ultimate sacrifice in order to preserve the undead kind. A new vampire series by the author of the Samantha Moon series and the Liquid Fear series.
View it at Amazon US or Amazon UK and look for the next book Second Sips!
BAD BLOOD
By J.R. Rain, Scott Nicholson, and H.T. Night
People call him Spider. And people come to him when they have a problem. So when teenager Parker Cole approaches Spider at night school, he figures she's just another problem waiting to happen. But then she tells him about her father, who runs a cult called Cloudland based at the foot of mystical Mount Shasta, California. And then she tells Spider about her best friend, who is now dead, her body completely drained of blood. Spider wonders if the death is the work of a fellow vampire...or if he's now the target of a sinister game designed to lure him to Cloudland, where
darker mysteries await.
View Bad Blood for Kindle at Amazon US or Amazon UK
THE HARVEST
By Scott Nicholson
It falls from the heavens and crashes to earth in the remote southern Appalachian Mountains.
The alien roots creep into the forest, drawn by the intoxicating cellular activity of the humus and loam. The creature feeds on the surrounding organisms, exploring, assimilating, and altering the life forms it encounters. Plants wilt from the contact, trees wither, animals become deformed monstrosities, and people become something both more and less than human.
A telepathic psychology professor, a moonshine-swilling dirt farmer, a wealthy developer, and a bitter recluse team up to take on the otherwordly force that is infecting their town. The author’s preferred edition of the 2003 paperback release The Harvest.
Learn more about the science fiction thriller The Harvest or view it at Amazon or Amazon UK
CRIME BEAT
A novella by Scott Nicholson
Crime doesn't pay...but neither does journalism. When John Moretz takes a job as a reporter in the Appalachian town of Sycamore Shade, a crime spree erupts and circulation increases. Then the first murder victim is found, and soon a serial killer is grabbing headlines. Moretz comes under suspicion, but he stays one step ahead of the police, his fellow reporters, and seemingly even the killer.
Learn about Crime Beat or view it for Kindle at Amazon US or Amazon UK
BURIAL TO FOLLOW
A Novella by Scott Nicholson
Scott Nicholson Library Vol 1 Page 92
