The Evil Returned

by Richard Raven

  The Evil Returned

  Richard Raven

  The Evil Returned

  Copyright © 2019 by Richard Raven

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission of the author.

  ISBN 978-1-950259-20-5

  For my mother and father…

  The first who believed I had it in me and could do it, and they supported and encouraged me until the day of their respective deaths. Only my mother lived to see me published, and she told me before she died that she was proud. I love and miss you both.

  Acknowledgments

  While it may not be noteworthy to some, the series of events that led to this book in your hands (or in front of you on your Kindle or tablet or phone) is important to me and worth mentioning. It began with an anthology from another publisher back in late-2017. In this anthology, I was TOC mates with a gentleman named Patrick Harrison—PC3 as he is known to those of us in the Indie Community. I was impressed with his story in this anthology and, as I learned later, the feeling was mutual. He even left a very favorable review of my story on my Facebook page.

  Jump ahead several months to the point in time in which PC3 and his friend, Jarod Barbee, formed Death’s Head Press and were busy putting together their first anthology, And Hell Followed. I was asked to write a story for this anthology because, to borrow PC3’s words as close as I can remember them, “I can’t get that other story of yours out of my head.” This was an honor of the first order, both the compliment and the invitation, and I became part of an Amazon Best-Selling anthology. This, in turn, led me to ask PC3 if he and Jarod would be interested in reissuing my first novel.

  And the rest, as the old saying goes, is history.

  So, thanks and gratitude are due in massive amounts to PC3 and Jarod Barbee and everyone at Death’s Head Press for breathing new life into The Evil Returned. Thanks are also due to my friends and family who still answer the myriad of questions that arise when writing, who proofreads what I write (praise me if warranted or rip me a new one if I deserve that), and who attempt to keep me grounded from time to time when I need it. You may never know how truly grateful I am to each and every one of you.

  I would also like to thank you, the reader. If you have read some of my other books and stories, I’m flattered and couldn’t be happier that you have returned for more of what I drag (usually kicking and screaming) from the depths of my imagination. If you’re a new reader, welcome to my darkness and may we enjoy many shivers together.

  And with that, I leave you to begin the journey that awaits you.

  —Richard Raven, September 2019

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter One

  The woman was crying as she sat huddled in the cool dirt in the old deserted shed.

  “Damn you,” she murmured, tears cutting tracks down her dirty cheeks. “Look at what I’ve become…and all because of you. But you wouldn’t think you were to blame, would you, Robert?” She sniffed and wiped at one cheek, smearing the dirt. “You were never to blame for anything. Even when we all lost our homes and it was up to you to take care of us and look out for us.”

  At the woman’s feet an old kerosene lantern glowed faintly. She had found the lantern on a dusty and cobwebbed shelf just after sunset. It had amazed her when she shook the lantern and heard the slosh of fuel. Still, she had begun to think that it was never going to light. It took all but the last one from her book of matches to finally get a flame. The dancing shadows it threw across the walls and the roof of the old shed seemed to further wither her misery laden face.

  At forty-four, she wasn’t an old woman, yet she looked ancient. Her hair, once long and beautiful and a glossy raven black, was dirty and matted and shot with gray. She wore a long and faded brown dress that reached her ankles and a frayed red sweater. She had salvaged both from a pile of discarded clothes left on a curb. The only other clothing she had—and precious little it was—lay wrapped in a tight bundle in the dirt beside her. On her feet was a pair of heavily worn men’s work boots that were too big for her. The boots had rubbed her bare feet raw, every step she took pure agony. Every line and crease in her weathered face betrayed the hard life she had lived on the streets. The life forced on her when her husband of sixteen years left her five years before.

  As far as she knew, the man had never pursued a divorce. He simply deserted her, taking her life, dignity and almost everything else, leaving her with few options for survival. He even took the ring from her finger saying, “It’s worth a lot of money and I need it more than you do. Hell, just spread your legs and you’ll get by. It’s worked well enough with me all the time I’ve supported your worthless ass.”

  Fresh tears ran down her cheeks. That’s all I ever was to you, Robert. Not your wife…but your whore. A whore who never said no to you, no matter what you wanted me to do. Well, I never whored myself for another man. Not once! I’ve got that much to be proud of. God forgive me, but I hope you get your just reward someday...and I hope it hurts like hell.

  The bitter thoughts faded from her mind as she looked around at her surroundings.

  It had once been a feed and tool shed; also a place to shelter sick or pregnant animals when needed. Built with heavy creosoted oak timbers, it was a simple square structure, each side about twenty-five feet in length, with a sloping roof that was higher on one side. Outside, anchored to the west wall and running its entire length, was a pole corral; along the opposite inside wall was a second, smaller pen. In the center of each of the other two walls was a sturdy door, each fashioned from the same oak timbers and held together with iron bands. A thick square beam, one end buried deep in the ground, stood in the center of the interior. The beam supported the roof, along with two attached crossbeams, each of the four ends mounted into one of the walls. It was weatherproof and tight. An old musty smell of animals, creosote and disuse hung heavily in the place.

  The woman sat with her back against the main beam, facing one of the doors. How fitting is it that I end up where you kept most of your other animals at one time or another? The main house, a sprawling ranch-style, and the other smaller houses on the property had long ago been torn down, all the lumber and fixtures sold by the bank that had foreclosed on the debt owed to it. The entire family forced out of their homes and off the land. The only structure left—called the barn in better times—lay forgotten and left to rot away in its own time, as no one saw it as having any real value.

  Just as I was forgotten and left to rot…something worthless. I was cursed the day I married into that selfish and greedy family and I’ve carried that curse like a cross every day since. Well…no more for me. Someone e
lse can carry it from here on.

  The lantern at her feet flickered; its light dimming and a plume of oily smoke began leaking out of the top of it.

  So now it’s going out…going to desert me, too. Oh, well. I’ve been sitting here feeling sorry for myself long enough. Must be getting close to midnight by now. Better get started, I guess, while I can still see how to do it.

  With a dejected yet determined sigh, she reached for the bundle of clothing next to her and began pulling it open. She only hoped there was enough in the bundle and that it was still in good enough condition. It would have to do; it was all she had. Despite all the indignities she had endured, she wasn’t about to let anyone find her completely or even partially undressed. If anyone does find me…if anyone even bothers to look.

  Once she had finished tying and knotting together what she had, she studied the end results and decided it would work. She glanced up at the crossbeam that was right above her head. Where she sat the roof was at its lowest, the crossbeam no more than six or seven feet above the ground. With the stool she found in a corner soon after getting the lantern going, she figured she could manage it. She got to her feet, almost crying out in pain as the boots rubbed her raw flesh, and pulled the stool into the circle of fading lantern light. Her agony was even worse as she climbed carefully onto the stool.

  After that, though, the pain was of no consequence and the rest of it didn’t take long. No more than a couple of minutes after she kicked the stool from under her feet, her misery and her life were over. Marie Metcalf died with one thought in mind:

  At least my rope of old clothes didn’t fail me.

  Chapter Two

  About ten minutes later, the woman’s twitching right foot now stilled and her body slowly turning to the left, the door in the back end of the shed opened with a soft creak of old wood and rusty hinges.

  A lone figured crept inside, a dark shadow moving in blackness. The figure kept to the darkness, just out of the lantern’s ever fading light; wide and staring eyes riveted on the woman’s face as it slowly revolved into view. Her neck cocked a little to one side, her tongue protruding from between her parted lips.

  Her tongue looks blue. Damn, never seen anyone with a blue tongue like that before…and it’s almost like she’s staring at me with those open, dead eyes.

  One hand reached from out of the gloom, the slightly trembling fingers appearing in the circle of light. The fingers were almost close enough to lightly brush against one of the woman’s hands when the lantern flickered a final time and went out.

  The darkness rushed in, instant and complete.

  The hand withdrew from the woman and the figure backed away until bumping into one of the walls, eyes still on the spot in the darkness where the woman hung. The figure slid down the wall and settled on the ground. And there the figure waited.

  All night with the hanging dead woman.

  Chapter Three

  Friday, Late September: Twenty-one Years Later

  When Jeff Taylor arrived home that afternoon, it was well before sunset and the earliest he had made it home in over a month. He found his wife, Angela, curled on the sofa and watching TV. Both surprised and pleased to see him, and before he could close the door and cross the few steps through the small foyer into the living room, she was up from the sofa and hurrying to greet him, a huge smile on her face. Dirty though he was, despite his best efforts to clean up a little at the jobsite, Jeff gathered her up in a hug. As she was a tiny woman and he a man just over six feet, he had to bend a little at the waist in order to reach her. When he stood up straight, with her in his arms and hers around his neck, her feet were off the floor. He kissed her, a long and slow kiss. For a time his wife went with it, returning the kiss with equal feeling, before finally pulling back and giving him a look.

  A long, puzzled and questioning look.

  “Is everything okay?” she asked, a touch of wariness in her voice.

  “Couldn’t be better, sweetheart.”

  She eyed him closely, searching his face for clues. “I take it everything went good on the job today?”

  “Better than good,” he declared. “We finished it about two hours ago and, as luck would have it, Mr. Peterson showed up as we were loading up to leave and he paid me the balance on the job on the spot. I dropped all the paperwork and the check off with Janice at the office. That check had no more than hit her desk before she was on her way to the bank with it.” It was the biggest single job he had so far landed for his company, Evergreen Landscaping, since going out on his own not quite a year before; he and his crew had been working ten and twelve hour days for almost six weeks and had finished it a full week early.

  Now Angela was the one hugging and kissing him—and it didn’t stop with that. Her arms still around his neck, she pulled herself up and wrapped her legs around his waist, her lips pressed, first to his, then to each cheek. It not only delighted Jeff to no end when Angela climbed him this way, but it always filled him with joy to know he had pleased her.

  “Darling, that’s wonderful!” she raved, her legs still clamped around him like a vise, one hand brushing at his thick light brown hair and stroking the stubble on one cheek. “God knows we needed that money and you’ve worked so hard on this job—you and all the guys.”

  “And Janice,” Jeff reminded her, unable to resist the opportunity to needle her a little.

  “And Janice, of course,” she replied sweetly and with only a touch of venom.

  Though he wanted to and had to resist the urge, Jeff knew better than to laugh. His wife had never been too fond of his office manager, Janice Mills. Janice was a pretty woman, single, and something of a flirt. The latter, for the most part, was perfectly harmless; it was just the way she was. Not that it helped all that much in making the woman a favorite among the wives and girlfriends of most men, including the men on his crew. Yet without her, Jeff often thought, his business couldn’t function. He often wondered how he had managed without her or someone like her. Best of all, Janice was not only damned good at her job, but she had a strict policy: she didn’t mess around with the guys she worked with or married men. She made that clear the day he hired her. That, Jeff was convinced, was all that kept Angela and some of the other wives and girlfriends of his crew away from the woman’s throat.

  “If only she didn’t wear such short skirts,” Angela mouthed, her face etched with a disapproving scowl.

  “Angie,” Jeff began, but she wasn’t finished.

  “I mean it, Jeff. Those jeans she wears are bad enough, but some of those skirts she wears are so short that I bet you or anyone who happened to be in the office could see her underwear if she bent over the right way.” She paused, her scowl deepening, then added, “If she even wears underwear.”

  “Okay, Angie, I’m sorry I brought her up.” Jeff pressed his hands to the denim clad mounds of her rump, pulling her tighter against him. “If you’ll just pull your claws in for a second, I’ll tell you the rest of my news.”

  Her scowl vanished; now she looked curious. “What?”

  “Angie, we’re going out tonight.”

  Her face fell ever so slightly. “We are?” Her voice was a low monotone. “Where?”

  As soon as Jeff told her, her ankles unlocked in the small of his back. Her bare feet hit the living room carpet with a sharp thump. Her face, only a few minutes before bright and happy, now bore a troubled frown, her hazel eyes behind her glasses a little annoyed.

  “We can’t afford that,” she said simply, quietly.

  Jeff insisted they could. “Call it a little shameless celebrating,” he added. “Hell, we’ve earned it.”

  “But reservations at Anthony’s?” She pushed her glasses back up her nose in exasperation. “The most expensive place in town? My God, the cheapest thing on the menu for two will cost us at least hundred dollars, if not more.”

  “Even that much shouldn’t make that big a difference,” Jeff insisted.

  “It would be a lot cheaper if I m
ade supper for us. I was planning to peel some potatoes and I’ve already got some chicken thawing in the sink.”

  “So put it back in the freezer and save it for tomorrow night. Angie, this is one of the few times in the past several months that we can afford something nice.”

  She chewed her bottom lip pensively. “But there are so many other things we could and need to do with that money…things we need for the house.”

  “True,” Jeff admitted. “And one of those things we need is to spend an evening away from this house. We’ve been married…what, right at two years now? The last time we had a night out was right after we buried your aunt—almost a year ago—and then it was burgers and fries at Wendy’s and a movie at the dollar theater.” He moved to her, pulling her gently to him. He could feel nothing but resistance in her. “I know how you love Italian—and Anthony’s is the best. That’s what my wife deserves, the best.”

  Angela stood a tick over five-one and weighed, maybe, a hundred and five pounds when fully dressed and with purse and jewelry. Since the top of her head missed reaching his chin by several inches, she had to tilt her head back to look up at him. Jeff could tell by the set of her face that she still didn’t like the idea. Yet he could feel it in the warm body in his arms that some of her resistance was beginning to melt away.

  Jeff didn’t like having to twist her arm. Angela was right; they were hurting for money and had been since she lost her job as a secretary with a downtown law firm a few months before due to downsizing. They were covering their bills, barely. What with the mortgage payment on the house they bought shortly after their wedding, the monthly payment on the truck he needed for work and what he had to put back into his business, it was a strain. Angela had let her beloved screaming red Camaro go back—her “girl-power-in-you-face-ride,” as she had called it—when she lost her job. She had picked out a five year old Mazda compact that wasn’t nearly as expensive on gas and insurance. Jeff was indeed working some long hours in his business; she was drawing unemployment and pounding the bricks and doing a lot of nail-biting.