The Monster of Creasy's Hollow (Defenders of the Rift Book 1) Read online

  The Monster of Creasy's Hollow

  Copyright © 2014

  N.C. Reed

  All rights are reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters and locales in this story are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or deceased, or actual places of business, in entirely co-incidence.

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One6

  Chapter Two17

  Chapter Three28

  Chapter Four37

  Chapter Five52

  Chapter Six66

  Chapter Seven81

  Chapter Eight104

  Chapter One

  “Are you sure this is gonna work?”

  Alvin’s question was a good one, but no one in the group knew the answer.

  “Look, I found this old book in my dad’s closet,” Chip said, holding up the cracked leather tome. “He’s always been into that occult type stuff. And there’s a page in here about re-animation. I think it’s more for people than dogs, but if it’ll work on people, why can’t it work on Waldo?”

  The five teens looked down at the body of poor Waldo, a mixture of no telling how many breeds of dog. The mutt had been the neighborhood dog, always friendly, tail wagging, hoping for a treat. Never bothered a soul, never offered to bite anyone. Not even the mail man.

  Yesterday, Waldo have been hit by a car that had ran up on the sidewalk near Chip’s house. The car never slowed down. It could just as easily have been one of the gang.

  The ‘gang’ consisted of five teens who lived in the same two block area and attended the same school. Alvin Thomas, who’s parents owned the hardware store. Chip Douglas, the son of the local insurance agent most everyone in town used. Angie Harold, her mother owned the ‘Creasy Spoon’ restaurant, and Donny and Donna Craig, brother and sister twins, who lived with their mother and step-dad. Their father had died in Iraq when they were still very small.

  The five of them were almost always together, somewhere. Doing something. Usually something that would get them in trouble.

  Not serious trouble, of course. They weren’t hoodlums or anything. Just curious, rambunctious kids who prowled and prodded, always looking for something to lighten up the day. The five of them had been friends all their lives, their parents all good friends who visited all the time, having the occasional party. Always adult parties, of course. These ‘parties’ always resulted in a ‘sleep over’ for the teens at another home, with a babysitter.

  Waldo had been ‘their’ dog. And they were all heartbroken when he’d been run over. The boys had carried Waldo into Mister Jamison's backyard, since Mister Jamison was in the nursing home and no one was staying at his house at the moment.

  Now, the five stood around the dog’s body, already beginning to swell, looking at Chip.

  “Look, what have we go to lose?” the fourteen year old said. “If it works, we get Waldo back. If it doesn’t, then. . .well, we haven’t lost anything else. But if you guys don’t wanna. . . .” he trailed off, shrugging.

  “I say we try it,” Donny shrugged. “Can’t hurt. And if it works, we can use it on other stuff.”

  “I don’t know, man,” Alvin scratched the back of his neck. “Pastor Samuels says stuff like this happens for a reason. Maybe we should just bury him and be done with it.”

  “Pastor Samuels says a lotta things,” Donna’s tone was sharper than she meant it to be, but Angie snorted in agreement. Both had caught ‘Pastor’ Samuels giving them a more detailed look than a man of the cloth should be giving a teen-aged girl in his ‘flock’.

  “Well, it’s all or nothin’, cause the book says we need all five of us,” Chip pointed out.

  “Well, let’s put it to a vote, then,” Donny suggested. “All in favor of trying to get Waldo back, raise your hand.” He raised his own as he spoke. Chip was a close second, followed by Angie, and then Donna. They all looked at Alvin. He sighed.

  “Yeah, okay. What the hell,” he half-raised his arm.

  “Cool,” Chip nodded, opening the book. “Okay, we got all the ingredients, and we’ve got a bowl,” he pointed to the box of ‘ingredients’, including one of his mother’s favorite mixing bowls. “Now, all we have to do is make a circle around us with the salt, combine the stuff, mix it up, and hit it with the match, and presto! Waldo’s back.”

  “I got the salt,” Alvin volunteered, taking the large box of rock salt. “How big a circle?”

  “Well, it’s gotta be big enough for all of us to fit in,” Chip said. “I guess just make it wide enough around Waldo that we can all stand inside it.” Alvin nodded, and started spreading the rock salt on the ground.

  “Donna, Angie, you guys wanna start adding the ingredients as I call’em out?” Chip asked. The girls nodded, and knelt down to take the bowl from the box, and started organizing the ingredients.

  “What you want me to do?” Donny asked.

  “Well, someone needs to be a look-out, I guess,” Chip admitted. “I mean, we’d probably get in a lot of trouble if we got caught.”

  “You mention this now?” Donny asked, eye-brow raised.

  “Look, all we’re trying to do is get our dog back,” Chip pointed out. “But how do you think this is gonna look to anyone else who sees it?”

  “Like a satanic ritual,” Alvin said from where he was spreading the salt. All eyes turned to him.

  “What?” he asked. “You know it’s true. Heck, for all we know, it is one.”

  “Chip, is this some kind of satanic thing?” Donna asked, now leery.

  “I don’t think so,” Chip shrugged. “There no pentagram or anything on the book,” he pointed to the cover.

  “Pentagrams aren’t satanic,” Donny replied. This time everyone looked at him.

  “I learned that on Supernatural. Don’t any of you watch TV?”

  “I got better things to do,” Alvin shrugged, finishing the salt circle.

  “Like play Call of Valor,” Angie snorted.

  “Call of Duty,” Alvin corrected. “And yeah, I consider that better than watching TV. I’m done,” he added, setting the salt aside.

  “Okay, good,” Chip nodded. “Let’s get started.” He began calling out the ingredients, and the girls dutifully added them to the bowl. Some of them were strange, and Angie’s curiosity finally got the better of her.

  “Chip, where did you get something like a chicken’s foot?” she asked.

  “My mom cooked chicken for supper the other night, so I got it out of the garbage,” he told them.

  “Ewww,” the girls both said at the same time.

  “Oh, stop bellyaching, you already got it in there,” Chip snorted. “All right, that’s all of it. Give it a good stir, while I get the candles. Donny, give me a hand, will you?” The two boys took five candles from the box and set them at five different points around Waldo’s corpse.

  “Why five?” Alvin asked.

  “One for each of us,” Chip shrugged. “All I can guess. Okay, let’s see,” he looked again at the book. “We need to get into position around Waldo, inside the salt circle. . .no, wait. Outside.” Everyone moved to their spots. Chip looked at their places and nodded his approval.

  “All we need now is a little flash powder.”

  “What’s that?” Donny asked.

  “Stuff magicians use to make smoke and fire,” Chip replied, opening a small packet and pouring the contents into the bowl. “It’ll make the stuff work.”

  “How?” Alvin wanted to know.

  “I dunno,” Chip shrugged. “Just will. Okay, everybody take your spots.” The five teen
s all moved to different spots around Waldo’s body, each taking the candle sitting there. Chip made the rounds, lighting each candle. Once he was done, he took his own spot, his candle already burning. He also had a long kitchen match held in his hand.

  “That for the bowl?” Angie asked, pointing to the match.

  “Yeah. Once we get done with the chant, I have to throw it into the bowl, and then we’ll see what happens.”

  “See what happens?” Donna asked skeptically. “I thought Waldo comes back to life, that’s what happens.”

  “That’s what we hope happens,” Chip corrected. “Like I said, the way this reads, it’s more for people than dogs. I’m just hoping it works.”

  “I don’t know about this, Chip,” Alvin said, suddenly concerned. “What if something goes wrong?”

  “We did everything according to the book,” Chip shook his head. “It’ll work.”

  “What if it don’t?” Angie challenged, also uneasy now.

  “Then Waldo is gone, and we’ll bury him,” Chip sighed in exasperation. “Now, it’s time we do this. Sun will be down soon. I’m gonna call out each line, and you guys repeat it. We only get one chance to get Waldo back, so don’t mess up, okay?” The others nodded, though none of them looked as confident as they had just five minutes ago.

  Chip began the incantation, speaking slowly as the words were in some foreign language he didn’t know. Each time he managed to get a line out he nodded, and the others stumbled through the repetition. It seemed to take forever, though in reality it was only about five minutes. Finally, Chip touched the match to his candle, lighting it, and spoke the final words. As the others repeated them, he dropped the match into the bowl.

  There was a flash of fire, but the only sound was a slight sizzling. Each teen backed up a step at the flash, but no one ran away.

  “Nothing’s happening,” Donny said. Then, before anyone could agree or disagree, there was a loud whoosh, the ground seemed to thump beneath their feet, and a blue light shot out from the bowl along the ground in all directions. All five teenagers were swept off their feet, knocked flat by either the shaking beneath them or the light shooting through where they were standing.

  For a second no one spoke or moved. As they stirred from their places on the ground, Chip shook his head.

  “Wow,” he said softly. “I didn’t see that coming’.”

  “What the heck was that?” Donna demanded, getting to her feet, dusting herself off. She turned to help Angie up, then checked on her brother.

  “I guess we did it right!” Chip enthused, grinning broadly. “How ‘bout that!”

  “Uh, guys?” Alvin’s tone brought everyone’s attention to him. He was staring at the ground between them.

  “Guys,” he repeated. “Where’s Waldo?”

  Everyone looked to the ground.

  Waldo’s body was gone.

  *****

  “Okay, let’s not panic,” Chip said, his voice a little shaky.

  “No one’s panicking,” Angie pointed out. “We’re wondering what happened to Waldo.”

  “I dunno,” Chip admitted. “According to this, he should have come back to life.”

  “I think re-animated was the term you used before,” Donna pointed out, eyes narrowing. “Now that I think about it, that doesn’t exactly mean ‘come back to life’, now does it?”

  “You mention this now?” Donny asked, looking at his sister sideways. “Where was that little tidbit before we did this crap?”

  “I just thought about it,” Donna admitted, shrugging.

  “It’s a good question, though,” Alvin voiced. “And we still don’t know what happened to Waldo.”

  “Maybe he got up and ran off while we were on the ground?” Chip said/asked hopefully.

  “And none of us saw him?” Angie scoffed.

  “Well, we were all a little shook up,” Chip defended. “I wasn’t looking at him. Were you?” Angie shook her head.

  “Anyone?” Chip asked, looking at the rest. Same result. No one had paid Waldo’s body any attention right after the light show. Not until Alvin had noted that it was gone.

  “Well, I don’t know, then,” Chip admitted defeat. “I really thought this would work.”

  “Well, I got homework,” Angie said finally. “And it’s laundry night, too.”

  “I’m supposed to be online at seven for a tourney,” Alvin agreed, looking at his watch.

  “I have to mow the lawn before dark,” Donny nodded.

  “Well, that’s that, then, I guess,” Chip sighed. “Will you guys help me get this stuff home?”

  “I will,” Donna volunteered.

  “Me too,” Alvin agreed, checking his watch again.

  “See you guys tomorrow,” Chip told Angie and Donny. With Alvin and Donna’s help, he got the ‘ingredients’ home without mishap, and the other two teens went their respective ways.

  Disappointed, Chip walked inside to do his own homework. He’d always had trouble with math.

  Chapter Two

  Across town, Charles ‘call me Chuck’ Douglas pulled himself off the floor using his desk as a prop, his face showing alarm. He knew what the blue light that had shot through town a bare minute before meant.

  Someone, somewhere in Creasy’s Hollow, had just performed a sacrifice of some kind. And it had worked. If it hadn’t, then there wouldn’t have been a power release. This had been a strong one if he was any judge. With his background, he was a pretty fair judge too. And right now, his instincts were screaming at him that something bad had just happened.

  He closed his office as quickly as he could, and started for home. He needed to study on this. Try and find out what had happened. And why.

  It took longer than normal to lock the door today. His hands were shaking.

  *****

  Albert and Valina Thomas had been closing their hardware store up when the light shot through the store, and them, knocking both to the floor. The two store owners got to their feet, each checking on the other, then looking at each other, asking the same question at the same time.

  “What was that?”

  Neither had an answer. Albert shook a little as a shiver went up his spine. As a practitioner of arcane arts, he knew what the blue light represented, but. . . .

  “There’s no way they could have done this without us,” Valina said, heading off his thoughts.

  “I never thought they would,” Alvin replied honestly. “But. . .that means someone, somewhere here in town probably judging from the strength of that spell, just did. We need to get everyone together and find out what the hell is going on, Val.”

  They hurriedly finished locking up their store, and headed for the Creasy Spoon.

  *****

  Kathryn Harold shook her head in a vain effort to clear the stars from her eyes left from hitting her head on the counter when the light had shot through. She had only a few customers at this time of day, and hurriedly checked to ensure they and her employees were all right. There were no injuries, but everyone was shaken.

  “Kat, what the hell was that?” Susie Orly, her waitress asked, still looking a bit shaken.

  “No idea,” Kat lied, shaking her head. “Maybe some kind of power surge?”

  “Don’t think so,” her cook, Damian Thomas was shaking his head, having walked out front. “If it was, it should have shorted out every appliance in the place. Everything in here is still running.” He pointed to the bubbling coffee maker and the ceiling lights as if to prove his theory.

  “Did it damage anything?” Kat asked, more to cover her own fear than anything else. She knew exactly what it had been, and to say she was concerned was an understatement.

  “No, we’re fine,” Damian shook his head.

  “I need to go and check on Angie,” Kat told the other two. “You two close up and go on home, if you don’t mind?”

  “We’ll take care of it,” Damian promised, and Susie nodded. Neither had children to check on.

  “Thanks
, both of you,” Kat managed to smile. “See you tomorrow.” I hope.

  She had scarcely stepped outside when the Thomas’ pulled into the parking lot, looking worried.

  “Kat, did you. . . .?” Alvin began.

  “Yes, I did. I’m on my way home to check on Angie, and then. . .we have to find out what happened.”

  “We’ll do the same. Meet you at Chuck’s?”

  “Works,” Kat nodded, hurrying to her car.

  Whatever had just happened, it could only be trouble. For all of them.

  *****

  Belinda Craig-Johnson had been leaving the local supermarket when the spell light had passed through her. She had managed to stay on her feet, but the chill ran completely through to her bones.

  Knowing immediately what had happened, or at least having a working theory about it, she had loaded her groceries in record time and was on her way home. She tried calling Chuck, but there was no answer. Not even voice mail, which was odd.

  Pulling into her drive, she was relieved to see Donny mowing, as he should have been. Donna came out when Belinda honked the car horn.

  “Hi, mom!” she waved.

  “Hi, sweetie,” she smiled despite her worry. “Have your brother help you unload the groceries, and put them away, please,” she asked, walking to her husband’s truck. “I have another errand I have to run, and then I’ll be home to fix supper.”

  “Sure, mom,” Donna agreed, waving for her brother. Belinda’s husband, Paul Johnson, was the kid’s step-father, and a long haul truck driver. The pay was good, and he had enough time in that he was home most weekends, including Fridays. He wouldn’t be home for two more days.

  Belinda forced herself to pull away from the house slowly, so as not to alarm her children. She had to see Chuck, right away.