Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
HUFF BEND HELLHOUSE
Jeremy Simons
Huff Bend Hell House, Copyright 2017 Jeremy Simons
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No portion of this work may be reproduced by any means whatsoever without the explicit written consent of the author and the author's publisher. This work contains people who have been used in a fictionalized setting for the purpose of historical reference. Any resemblance to persons living or deceased is used strictly for the embellishment of the story to lend creditable influence to the fictionalized work. The copyright laws of 1988, namely the Berne Convention Copyright Laws of 1988, and the Digital Millennium Copy Right Act of 1998, enacted by Congress protect this work from piracy and any transmission, trade, or sale through means electronic, printed, shared, or otherwise is strictly prohibited and will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
Formatting and Cover art by Dark Water Arts Designs
Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 1
The door burst open the minute Ronnie started undressing Kelly. She half-expected it to be her father, or maybe one of Ronnie’s obnoxious friends with a video camera. Neither would have surprised her much.
However, it was neither of the above.
A man—or at least what she thought to be a man appeared- his face and hands concealed. For all she knew, he didn’t have either. He could have been a ghost. After all, this was supposedly a haunted house. A long, glistening object inhabited the darkness where one of his hands should have been.
She held on to the notion that his appearance was nothing more than a cruel joke, an elaborate hoax orchestrated by none other than Ronnie himself. She thought it might be his way of adding a little extra spice to their love life...an audience, and not just one of his friends wanting to get their rocks off, too. She would not have minded that at all.
But the situation unraveled so quickly. In the blink of an eye, it escalated from bad to worse.
The man wasn’t satisfied with just watching like Ronnie’s buddies had been fond of doing (even one of them whipping out their junk and jerking it right in front of her had not been uncommon). Instead, he walked slowly, but with purpose, closer and closer to where they lay fornicating. A part of her imagined he wanted to join in. Why not? She had always been fond of the idea of having two men at once, but Ronnie would never even entertain the idea. That idea dissipated as quickly as it came when she realized that he did have hands. A pair of leather gloves concealed them. And the object she noticed was a knife of some sort...too large to be any pocket knife. He moved closer still, and there was no mistaking the butcher knife now.
Kelly’s feeling of complete and utter ecstasy subsided, but the fear transgressed. She tried to make Ronnie stop and turn around, but he wouldn’t listen. What man would when he was so close to busting his load? He had one thing and one thing only on his mind.
The man grabbed Ronnie by the collar of his navy blue Polo shirt and tossed him aside with relative ease. She felt she was about to be raped at knifepoint while her boyfriend helplessly watched. Again, it wasn’t the worst idea. Every woman had her fetishes.
Ronnie leapt to his feet in an attempt to fight back, to defend his fiancé, but it was too late.
The man had already shoved the butcher knife through her chest. “Run, Ronnie!” Kelly screamed at the top of her lungs. She tried desperately to say more, but by then, she had already heard the knife rip through her insides, exit through her back and stick into the floor beneath her body. The coppery taste filled the back of her throat. Small puddles of blood formed in her jaws like vomit she was trying not to let spew. It hurt to breathe. It hurt to do anything other than lay perfectly still.
For a brief moment as she remained pinned to the floor, she imagined that it would give Ronnie ample time to escape. However, the man did not remain compromised for long. He ripped the knife from her petite body just as easily as it had entered before leaving her side to take pursuit after Ronnie, who had wisely fled from the room when she screamed.
Kelly lay there, fully conscious, for what seemed like at least five minutes and had not heard anything other than the sounds of her own raspy and exasperated breaths. Her injury had turned from a form of excruciating, nearly unbearable pain in the beginning to just numbness throughout her entire body now. Maybe Ronnie got away, she thought. She prayed for it but somehow knew the truth.
Her hunch proved correct just moments later when the door swung open a second time. The man hurled Ronnie back into the bedroom; his body landed with a THUD next to her. His limp and lifeless body lay unmoving, his face bludgeoned and dismembered beyond recognition. The face staring back at her was no longer the face of Ronnie Wilkerson...her boyfriend...the guy she lost her virginity to...the only guy she had ever been sexual with...the guy she had someday planned to marry and bear children with.
This is a stranger.
The man flashed the butcher knife into her line of sight. Her body tensed, her fake nails digging into the hardwood floor beneath; she wanted to scream but could not. The knife moved quickly towards her. She lay motionless before it even entered back into her body. The man pushed the knife deep into her left eye socket; a gut-wrenching PLOP sounded off as the tip of the blade ripped through her eyeball, pushing the retina deeper into her skull, before exiting through the back of her head and sticking into the floor beneath her yet again.
The face that now stared expressionlessly up at the ceiling was no longer Kelly Turner...former beauty pageant winner...former prom queen...future Mrs. Ronnie Wilkerson.
This was a stranger.
CHAPTER 2
“Have you ever seen a real ghost?” Eric Richardson—self-proclaimed spiritual expert—muttered aloud.
His best friend and partner in crime (the latter according to Eric’s parents), John Parker chuckled. The question, though it came out of nowhere, did not surprise John in the slightest. He hadn’t intended on discussing this today, but yet here it was, lacking any and all subtlety.
The boys bantered many times through many sleepless nights about the authenticity of ghosts. They shared countless stories—most were stories they had ripped from other people—about their so-called endeavors with the paranormal. Of course, what few stories they had not stolen from other people were only exaggerations. Neither of them had an authentic encounter with anything pertaining to the supernatural to retell, and they both knew it. An occ
asional bump in the night...the board at the top of the staircase creaking shrilly during the night, with no one there to step on it...lights flickering on and off for no apparent reason...cold spots in houses...these were the gist of their encounters; all fairly common occurrences, and all had reasonable explanations.
Nevertheless, they were infatuated with the thought of ghosts, Eric much more than John. Therefore, they tended to use any inexplicable incident as the basis for their next story or conversation.
“I’m serious, John,” he said through clenched teeth.
“Not today, E.” John glanced out Eric's second story bedroom window across the driveway. Empty. “I’d like to go just one day of my teenage years without mentioning ghosts.” A red Ford Taurus crept into the driveway. “There’s my mom, man. I gotta go.”
John spun around on one of the two beds in the room. He had never understood why Eric, an only child, needed two beds. They had been bunk beds when the boys were younger. This only aroused his curiosity even more, but he had never asked why. He grabbed the pair of tattered and torn Nikes from beside the nightstand and smiled when Eric let out a long, triumphant sigh. We’re not finished here was what that sigh implied. Two more in rapid succession, and John, growing somewhat angry, finally spoke up. “What, Eric? What is so important?”
“Nothing,” Eric replied. “I’ll tell you later.”
John shook his head. “If you got something you need to say, then say it, E.”
“I got a little adventure for us. There’s a—”
The horn of the Taurus blew three times in succession. John and Eric popped up from their respective bed and glared out the window as if some other car other than the Taurus parked in the middle of the driveway had been honking. The bleating of the horn sounded off twice more whilst they stared.
“Johnny?” Eric's mom shouted from downstairs. “Your mom is outside, honey.”
“Yeah, honey,” Eric mocked.
“Shut up, man!”
“Dude, she looks pissed.” Eric continued staring at the car while John collected his belongings.
“I know. I really gotta go.” He jogged towards the bedroom door stopping only to add, “I’ll call you later, and you can tell me about this little adventure of yours.”
Although Eric had grown somewhat skeptical of going into any further detail with John about it, he nodded approvingly anyways.
The horn sounded off twice more before John made it down the staircase. Impatient woman, Eric thought as he watched his friend emerge from the bulk of shadows cast off by the house itself. He smiled as he recognized the scowl on Mrs. Parker’s face; even from this distance, that look was undeniable. It radiated even more as John neared the Taurus.
Once the shiny, red droplet of fiberglass disappeared out of sight, Eric flopped backwards aimlessly on to the bed, John’s bed. He wondered if he had made the right decision. Should he have even mentioned the adventure or just kept it to himself? He knew it didn’t matter anymore. Despite the fact John had not seemed enthused or in the least bit enticed by the idea of an adventure, what had been said could not be unsaid. John would not forget about it; he also knew John wouldn’t leave him alone about it until he eventually explained everything.
All Eric could do now was think, weigh the pros and cons of each scenario carefully and contemplate whether he should tell John the truth or make up a phony list of their usual Halloween agenda (egging houses, toilet-papering lawns, and yes, even trick-or-treating). Luckily, John’s little sister, Alyssa, gave them a logical reason to do the latter so they would not just be two creepy teenagers trying to get free candy.
Think; think; think.
*****
Approximately four hours later, the sun had disappeared quite some time ago, but Eric was still waiting on the phone call. He had been waiting rather impatiently since the second the Taurus disappeared from sight. Waiting; anticipating; thinking. Nothing had happened yet, though. In fact, it hadn’t rang all day, at least that he could remember, which was an odd occurrence in the Richardson household. Then again, the phone never seemed to ring when you were expecting an important phone call.
He had made his decision not long after John’s departure. Just tell him. And why not? Surely, he would change his mind when Eric mentioned the Cahills. And if not…then oh well, no harm done. But now with every passing moment, as his bedtime approached and he felt like whatever interest John might have had in it was long gone, he questioned his decision.
He peeked over at the digital clock on the nightstand across the room next to his bed. 7:30 p.m., it read in bright green letters. He drifted lazily back into the video game he had been playing just to pass the time. He played for what seemed like an hour before striking the pause button and gazing over at the clock once more. 7:45.
With a sigh, he pressed the pause button again. He played for what seemed like an eternity, fighting against his own free will to keep from looking at the clock. However, the fight did not last long. He struck the pause button once more and closed his eyes while muttering a quick, almost faithless prayer.
8:00.
You gotta be kidding me. He let out a disgruntled sigh as the Playstation remote clanged to the floor. His head fell frontward onto the stack of pillows at the foot of the bed. As his eyes closed and he began slipping away wistfully into Dreamland, he heard the ringing.
*****
Eric’s eyes popped open; his head shot up from the stack of pillows as he crossed his fingers and listened.
“Eric?” A small smile spread across his face as he heard his mother’s voice bellowing up the stairs and through the hallway. “Eric? Honey?”
“Yeah, mom?”
“Telephone. It’s Johnny, honey.”
“Be right down,” he shouted back, wishing his parents had just put a phone in his room as he had requested numerous times. Eric hopped up from the bed, sprinted to the door, being careful not to stumble over any piles of dirty laundry, and then out into the hallway. He rushed down the stairs, hopping two or three at a time, and hung a right at the bottom into the kitchen, and grabbed the cordless phone from its wall-mounted base.
“I got it, mom,” he shouted into the general direction of the living room. “Hang it up.”
Eric put his ear to the phone just in time to hear: “He’s coming, Johnny. I don’t know what’s taking him so long.”
Eric’s cheeks turned a slight shade of red, partly from anger but mostly embarrassment, as he spoke into the receiver. “I got it, mom,” he said again shyly, trying not to let his anger show. “You can hang up now.”
“Okay, honey,” she said. “Bye, Johnny.”
Both boys waited patiently to hear the click of the other phone hanging up before either one of them spoke. John’s laughter broke the silence. “Hi, honey,” he managed to spit out in between chuckles.
“Shut up, Johnny!” Eric said, putting enough childish emphasis on Johnny, to sound like an elementary school bully teasing some smaller, defenseless child by calling them some impeccable name.
Eric could hear John’s breaths rising. He despised anyone to call him Johnny. Eric’s mom was the only person who got away with it unscathed. Eric would call him this occasionally, mostly just to annoy him, or in this case, just to shut him up.
“Alright, E. What’s so important?”
“Not now, man. Mom or Dad might pick up anytime.”
“You made such a big deal about it earlier, and now you’re not even gonna tell me?” Eric can clearly hear the disappointment and frustration in his tone and thinks for a moment that he may have misjudged John’s enthusiasm earlier. “What the hell, man?”
“I will, John.” It came out barely above a whisper. “I promise.” In the midst of them talking, Eric had journeyed back up to his room. He flopped down onto the bed opposite of where he had been before and took a sip of warm coke from the half-empty can on his nightstand. “I’ll have to tell you tomorrow. It’s a—”
“Secret?” John finished.
“Sort of.”
“Either it is or it ain’t. There’s no in between.”
“It just has to stay between us,” Eric said. “You can’t tell anyone else.”
“I won’t.”
“You have to promise, man.”
“Alright, Eric. I promise.
“I’ll tell you everything tomorrow.”
The conversation ended shortly thereafter with not another word mentioned of the adventure.
CHAPTER 3
Monday, October 27th
The day passed by surprisingly fast, most of it is just a subconscious blur to Eric, snapping to when someone talked to him or a teacher called upon him in class. He and John had only seen each other in passing. None of these three particular meetings had been substantial enough to talk without eyes and ears surrounding them and potentially eavesdropping. Finally, during seventh period (shop), the two boys had a chance to talk.
“So what’s the deal, Eric?” John asked. He had grown strangely interested in the adventure (as Eric had put it) overnight and throughout the day.
“I have an adventure for us. You in or out?”
“I need some details, E.”
Eric peeked around slowly and almost casually to make sure no one was eavesdropping. When he saw no spies, he whispered: “The Cahill Manor.”
“That bullshit haunted house out in Huff Bend?”
“Yeah.”
John, fighting back laughter, struggled to speak. Eric seemed so intense mentioning that house that John almost hated to break his spirit. “What about it?” he asked with the straightest face that he can muster.
“We’re gonna go there, John,” he said, as if he already knew what John’s answer would be, and rightfully so. He felt John would eventually agree no matter what. “This weekend.”
John shook his head despairingly. “For what?”
“To stay, man.” Eric’s voice was full of excitement and glee. “To stay there Halloween night.”
John laughed aloud this time. He couldn’t hold it in any longer. “Why, Eric?” His laughter ceased as his tone changed. “A hundred people, probably more, have been there since it happened...and nothing. No ghosts. No accidents or incidents. Nothing.”
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