The Box Set of Hauntings and Horrors Read online

  The Box Set of Hauntings and Horrors

  Jeff DeGordick

  Contents

  Foreword

  The Witch of Halloween House

  1. Blaze

  2. Night Flight

  3. Gingerbread

  4. The Carving in the Tree

  5. A Hundred Smiling Pumpkins

  6. Jail Talk

  7. Inferno

  8. A Tasty Gift

  9. Black Out

  10. Clues in the Dark

  11. Menagerie

  12. Sit-Down

  13. Back-Alley Spat

  14. Road Trip

  15. Special Delivery

  16. In Transit

  17. The Tunnels

  18. Jail Talk Redux

  19. Pumpkin Patch

  20. Rounded Up

  21. Into the Witch's Snare

  22. Brawl

  23. Crossing the Gauntlet

  24. Sentinel

  25. Descent

  26. Witch's Brew

  27. The Spell Shattered

  The Winterlake Haunting

  1. Taillights

  2. Deadline

  3. Rude Awakening

  4. Moving In

  5. Attic

  6. Fresh Air

  7. Blackout

  8. The Butcher

  9. Digging In

  10. Bad News

  11. Grocery Shopping

  12. Visitors

  13. The Lake

  14. Broken Down

  15. The Study

  16. Decorating

  17. Cubbyhole

  18. Spooked

  19. A Drink in Good Company

  20. The Blood-Stained Past

  21. Bath Time

  22. The Nurse

  23. Bartender

  24. Escape

  25. Repercussions

  26. Trapped in a Small Space

  27. Hell

  28. Quiet Confessions

  29. Exodus

  30. Broken Taillights

  31. Initiation

  32. Pilgrimage

  33. Purgatory

  The Ghosts of Jasper Bayou

  1. Siege

  2. A Modest Proposal

  3. The Plan

  4. The Drive

  5. Jasper Estate

  6. Boomer

  7. Cards

  8. Ancient History

  9. Shadows in the Night

  10. Treasure Hunt

  11. Footsteps

  12. Mist on the Bayou

  13. Pow Wow

  14. If Walls Could Talk

  15. Dead and Buried

  16. Mirror, Mirror

  17. Coming to Blows

  18. Possessed

  19. Who You Gonna Call?

  20. A Grave Situation

  21. Sparks Fly

  22. The Shadow Revealed

  23. Simon Says

  24. A Light in the Darkness

  25. The Ecstasy of Gold

  26. Taken

  27. Reunion

  28. Separate Ways

  29. Washed Up

  30. Hide and Seek

  31. Lost and Found

  32. Fish out of Water

  33. The Patriarch Returned

  34. Duel

  35. The Curse Lifted

  36. Picking up the Pieces

  The Haunting of Ironwood

  1. Job Interview

  2. Those Dreaded Words

  3. The News

  4. From Bad to Worse

  5. Stumbling in the Dark

  6. Ironwood

  7. Pictures

  8. New Hire

  9. Settling In

  10. Lights Out

  11. The Chained Door

  12. Bedtime

  13. Bad Omen

  14. Tail

  15. Prying Eyes

  16. Decisions

  17. Voices in the Night

  18. Caged

  19. Instructions

  20. Rat in a Cage

  21. Window of Opportunity

  22. Dress Up

  23. Breaking Her In

  24. Dinner

  25. No Place to Hide

  26. Prisoner's Blues

  27. To the Rescue

  28. The Axeman Cometh

  29. Coming and Going

  30. In the Dark

  31. A Friend in Need

  32. Where There's Smoke, There's Fire

  33. Breaking Out

  34. Open Sesame

  35. Show and Tell

  36. Ace up Her Sleeve

  37. Bad Dreams

  38. Breaking and Entering

  39. Katie's Choice

  40. Dizzy

  41. A Real Mouthful

  42. The Old Flames

  43. System Shock

  44. The Truth

  45. Reintegrating

  Afterword

  About the Author

  Copyright © 2017-2019 by Jeff DeGordick

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical or otherwise, without written permission from the author.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Cover images copyright © Shutterstock

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  Also by Jeff DeGordick:

  The Haunting of Bloodmoon House

  A Haunting at Hollow's Cove

  Ghosthunter

  Get the sequel to The Witch of Halloween House:

  The Witches of Halloween Haven

  Blaze

  By the time the police chief arrived on the scene, word of the child's disappearance spread like wildfire through the town, creating a panic.

  Chief Robert Miller pulled the cruiser to a stop in the parking lot at the edge of the woods and opened the door. Stepping out into the crisp October air, he squinted his eyes at the wind, peering through the night. He already saw his deputy up ahead standing at the edge of the woods next to Lorraine Basham.

  Don gave him a concerned glance. "It doesn't look good, Boss," he said. His words were barely audible as Mrs. Basham started up on Robert as he approached.

  She threw herself into his arms, bleating against him like a miserable and dying goat. "My son!" she cried. "My son!"

  Robert held her at arm's length and regarded her carefully. "What happened, Mrs. Basham?" His voice was calm and smooth as stone; it was something he had built up in the face of pressure after years on the job.

  "My David!" Mrs. Basham wailed. "He's gone!" She waved her arms around them, and Robert followed her gestures, trying to put the pieces together where her words couldn't. "I-I-I went to the store to get some butter," she said, pointing at the small mart by the parking lot. "I just went in to get some butter, and when I came out he was gone!" She spun around in a circle, gazing out at the woods, as if searching its perimeter for the thirtieth time would make him reappear.

  Robert planted his hands firmly on her shoulders and looked her square in the eye. "Was there
anyone else around? Did you see anyone?"

  She shook her head in tears.

  "Boss, there's something else you gotta see," his deputy said. There was an uneasiness in his eyes that revealed bad news. Robert knew that one, too.

  He followed Don to the start of the woods as Mrs. Basham clung to them like a shadow, tightly kneading her hands together. When he stopped suddenly and turned, Robert looked down and saw exactly what he meant to show him.

  There was a small shoe that looked to be the right size for a young boy, and sitting next to it, a few feet away, was a half-eaten gingerbread man. Robert bent down.

  "Mrs. Basham said he got the cookie from home," Don commented. His eyes flicked over to the shoe, telling Robert that that was the pertinent piece of evidence.

  Robert glanced over at it and pulled a plastic glove out, sliding it over his hand. He carefully picked up the shoe and turned it over, shining a flashlight on it. Around one side of the shoe that he hadn't seen so far, as well as the sole, a thin layer of sticky red blood coated it.

  "Ah jeez," Robert said, immediately feeling the rest of his words hike up in his throat. He wished he hadn't said it; he always kept himself composed in front of relatives of victims, but this was a sight that he never got used to.

  The first specks of rain came from the cloudy night sky overhead and fell on his arm. Robert glanced up at it, then he looked over at his deputy. "Bag this up quickly. Then get the rest of the guys here, pronto. I want this area scoured before the rain comes in."

  Don nodded. "You got it, Boss." He set off.

  "I'll get a search party," Robert added, and Don nodded again. He stood up and faced Mrs. Basham, who was still just as beside herself as when he arrived. Consoling people was the other part of the job that he never got used to.

  As the night went on, the rain broke out fully and came down hard. The search teams were organized and sweeping the woods with flashlights and police dogs. Any other complements that the local townspeople could help out with was more than welcomed. It was a small town, and everybody knew each other. The best perk of that was that everybody helped each other, too, and had a strong community mindset. But no matter how much they searched the woods, tearing it inside and out from one end to the other, they just couldn't find the boy, and their hearts collectively sank.

  But there was one outlier to their community. A single house sat atop a hill deep in those woods. There were no roads going to it, and nobody ever went close, save for the old woman who lived there.

  She rarely was spotted in public, mostly living as a recluse. She never interacted with anyone, and her mysterious nature caused rumors to spread over the years. Most of the kids thought she was an honest to goodness witch; the adults were merely wary of her.

  But now that little David had been missing and became a public concern, eyes and attention quickly turned to the lonely house on the hill and the frail and secretive woman who occupied it.

  Their search parties turned up nothing, and the townsfolk quickly demanded that Robert search the house. He was reluctant at first, wanting to leave things like that well enough alone if he could, but he got a warrant and went up the next night—two nights before Halloween—and served it on her.

  He rapped on the door loudly.

  "Think she'll answer?" Don asked.

  Robert made a sound as if to laughingly dismiss such an absurd idea. He knocked again.

  They could both hear her shuffling inside, and even the woman's footsteps weren't normal; they had a strange, uneven rhythm that seemed more like an animal dragging its claws across the floor.

  "Ma'am, we have a search warrant!" Robert announced. He banged on the door with his fist. When he didn't get an answer, he turned to Don and rolled his eyes, grabbing the doorknob.

  Don tensed up, his hand gliding across his hip to his gun.

  Robert jiggled the handle, but it wouldn't open.

  More shuffling inside.

  The darkness bore down on them from all around. It wasn't raining, but it was ice cold. The chill imparted a strong uneasiness that both of them felt, though Robert did a better job of hiding it. They were apprehensive enough standing before such a strange looking house; it was modest in size, but peculiar in appearance. Everything about its construction just looked off, like someone took the blueprints to a normal home and skewed it every fourth step. The roof was lopsided, some of the shingles drooped over the edge, the framing of the door and windows were slanted.

  "Ma'am, we're coming in!" Robert said in a booming voice. He took a step back then kicked in the door. The flimsy wood didn't stand a chance against the force and it slammed into the wall inside, emitting a loud crack throughout the interior.

  Robert stepped in first and then Don. The inside of the house was just as peculiar as the outside, and it seemed to be the abode of a hoarder. Seemingly ancient pieces of furniture peeked out from underneath a mountain of garbage and junk. Strange trinkets littered the tiny room they were in, either hanging off crooked nails in the wall, sitting on crooked shelves, or strewn across the rest of the junk.

  A strong odor overwhelmed them, more pungent than anything they'd ever smelled. It was something akin to rotten onions or cabbage, but there was an exotic accent to it as well.

  A dingy light bulb loosely hanging from the ceiling cast the room in a sickly yellow glow. Robert glanced up at it and saw a moth flutter, gently battering itself against the glass. A cold draft blew through a doorway in front of them, and Don went on ahead, glancing over his shoulder at his chief. He apprehensively took another step for the darkness beyond. His heart rate quickened.

  The bizarre footsteps started up again from the blackness, rushing for him. He took a step back, and his hand tightened around his pistol.

  Wails echoed, loud and unintelligible, and the woman stormed into the room.

  Robert and Don backed up, both of their bodies tensing up, but not acting on their fright.

  The old woman was hunched over terribly at the waist with a large hump for a back. Tattered black rags hung over her deformed body like a dusty, spider-infested tablecloth in a haunted house. An odd black hat hung off the back of her head. Whatever shape it had originally been was indiscernible, because it had apparently been flattened and warped over the years. The only parts of her skin that were visible were her hands and her face. Her skin was old and tanned, filled with bumps and strange abrasions. Stringy white hair came out from under the hat and fell over top of the robes, damply clinging to the sides of her face. Her nose was long and crooked, and her eyes were sunk deep into her skull, yet they were wide and bulging. The whites of them seemed to have turned yellow, and Robert couldn't tell if she had a medical condition, or if it was just the effect of the old light bulb.

  The woman raised her hands in the air, but with her poor posture, they didn't go any higher than her shoulders. She took a few shuffling steps toward Robert, her tiny chin falling open as her toothless mouth hurled a series of objections that were somewhere between incomprehensible mutters and an exotic tongue.

  Robert took another step back, easing his hand off his gun. He held a hand up to her. "Ma'am. Ma'am!" he said forcefully, trying to cut through her cries. "We have a warrant to search your house!" He pulled it out and showed it to her. Her bulging eyes glanced at it for only a moment before she swiped it away and it fell to the floor. Don kept a keen eye on her as Robert calmly picked it up. "Ma'am, a young boy went missing in the woods near your house last night," he explained. "We need to search the premises to make sure he's not here."

  The old woman's nattering didn't skip a beat.

  "Ma'am, have you seen anyone in the woods around your house?" Don tried. But the woman didn't even look at him, much less understand him.

  The two men gave a defeated look to each other, shrugging and pushing forward.

  Robert shouldered his way past the unhelpful woman as he turned on a flashlight and moved deeper into the small home. He relied on Don to watch his back, knowing that the
deputy would be overwhelmingly paranoid anyway at the odd situation.

  They swept through the house, finding a set of stairs that went down to an even smaller basement. Everything was grimy and littered, and the basement was no exception. Robert's feet sank down into spongy floorboards when he got to the bottom of the stairs, and he thought how strange it was to have a wooden floor in a basement. The entire house was off in nearly every conceivable way, like the woman had hammered it together herself with mismatched scraps.

  Robert wore gloves as he dug through some of the junk, much to the continued protests of the woman. But after a while she settled down, eventually even falling silent and letting the two police officers carry out their search warrant. But as much as they dug and sifted through dirty piles, they came up with nothing. Furthermore, despite how funny the woman and her house were, neither officer even had the intuition that the boy was here.

  Regretfully, they apologized for disturbing the woman and left the house. When they stepped back out into the dark and cold woods, a voice carried through the trees.

  "Is he there?"

  Robert turned his head and saw Jim Falwell, a regular at the local bar. "What are you doing here, Jim?" Robert asked.

  "Well?" Jim asked, ignoring him. "Is he there?" Tears welled up in his eyes. "What did she do to him?"

  Robert's gaze fell on the hammer Jim clutched in his hand and was subtly hiding behind his leg. His eyes turned up to the man's face, silently telling him what he thought about doing something so stupid.

  Jim's stare fell.

  "Get out of here," Robert warned. "I don't want to see you back up here, you understand?" He rubbed a hand across his mustache and felt the stubble growing in on his chin. He knew he would have to make a statement to the townspeople soon to calm them down. The last thing he wanted was a witch hunt on his hands.

  But a statement late that night did no good. The townspeople were upset and angry. Their search parties turned up nothing, they still had no answers about what happened to little David Basham, and they feared the worst. The rumors circulated more viciously and tempers and paranoia flared, despite Robert's efforts to quell them.