Nathanial’s Window:
The Wrath of Jesse Eades
By
Peazy Monellon
Also by Peazy Monellon
‘Meany’
Six year old Jenny Barnes wakes up from night terrors only to find out that ghosts are real and there’s no such thing as safe.
She lives in a two hundred year old farmhouse with her large family, but they’re not alone. There’s a malevolent presence up in the attic and the forest surrounding the farm is alive with folks who just won’t stay dead. Worse is the fact that the cattle have developed a taste for murder and are killing everything in sight. Well… that and the fact that her own father is trying to kill her.
All Jenny wants is a childhood—a few moments playing in the sunny yard with her sisters. All she'll have to do to get one is survive.
And as Eddie, the one farmhand who’s on her side notes, “this old place is going over.”
Will anyone get out of there alive?
Meany is a shocking tale of abuse and horror, hailed by reviewers as ‘scary, creepy, wonderful and impossible to put down’.
This novel is a work of fiction. Any similarity to persons either alive or deceased is purely coincidental.
Cover photo by Andrey Valerevich. Cover art (including modification of original photo with the addition of special effects and text) by Ashraf E. Shalaby
Copyright 2013 Peazy Monellon
All rights reserved.
Published by Brother Maynard Publications
Dedication page:
This story was conceived through a FB thread with some of my best pals from ‘home.’ We all come from somewhere. I want to dedicate the story to those who grew up with me in Oxford. I come, at least, in part, from you.
PROLOGUE: 1865
Jesse Eades read the truth in old Doc Baker’s eyes the moment the old man stepped out of his son’s bedchamber. Outside, the wind howled like a predator, blowing snow into head-high, icy drifts. He pulled his threadbare jacket closer and wrapped his arms around himself. He could no more quell his trembling than the worrisome wind.
He’d pretty much known the truth before Doc went in but there had been hope then.
“Are you sure, Doc? Nothing else you can do?” This last came out as barely a squeak and he realized he’d been holding his breath. He searched the doctor’s face for any sign.
“I’m sorry, Jesse,’ Doc answered, fidgeting with his battered, black hat. “The medicine’s just not working.”
“I see.”
“I’ve made him as comfortable as I can,” Doc Baker said. “I’ve given him some laudanum to keep him quiet and help with the pain.”
“Yes, comfortable,” Jesse answered. “We should try to make him comfortable. Will you leave the bottle?” He was hard-pressed to hide the trembling now, though he tried.
“Of course I will. You might take a bit yourself. It’ll help you rest.”
Doc rooted in his worn, leather bag for a moment and produced a small glass bottle stoppered with a cork.
“Rest?” Confusion clouded Jesse’s eyes. “Rest now? How long does he have?”
“Jesse,” Doc answered weakly. “You have to take care of yourself—”
“I’ll stay with him,” Jesse said. He couldn’t bring himself to say the words “til the end.”
“Jesse—”
“Get the hell out of here,” Jesse commanded. “Now.” His voice was tight, his mouth dry. “Take the black and white pig on your way out. I reckon that will settle my debt.”
Doc had been out here half a dozen times in a fort-night. Little Lucy had been the first to come down with consumption. Baby Lucy lingered for days before she passed. He’d come twice more to see Jesse’s wife, Caroline, who was half-mad with grief already and succumbed quickly. And now Nathanial.
Jesse stared straight ahead while the doctor gathered his belongings and saw himself to the front door.
Why? Why them and not me? Jesse wondered. They’d all had such high hopes when they’d rolled into town a year ago in a wagon piled high with their personal belongings, the milk cow tied to the back. Goshen was a new town, teeming with excitement—a fresh start. If he’d only stayed in Massachusetts they might still be alive now. If he hadn’t been blinded by the chance to own more land, make more money… If only he could take all of this back, he’d give anything. Anything at all.
Alone again, he did the only thing he knew how to do at this point. He got down on his knees and prayed to holy God above to spare his son. He prayed and he pleaded and he begged. He offered up himself and all his worldly goods. He repented every sinful thing he had ever done and every errant thought he’d ever had. Jesse Eades prayed like there was no tomorrow. And the entire time he prayed, he knew that he was wasting his time. Tomorrow wasn’t going to happen for Nathanial.
He never intended to go to sleep, but his God had other plans. Hours later, the fire mere embers now in the hearth, he awoke to the sound of his young son’s raspy screams. Bolting upright, he realized he’d not been there to light the lantern. Nathanial had always been unbearably afraid of the dark.
“It’s okay, Son,” he shouted. “Papa’s coming!”
“Papa?” Nathanial cried. “It’s dark, Papa. I’m scared.” His voice crackled like thin, dry paper as he struggled to push the sound out of his fever-burnt throat.
Jesse had been lying on the cold floor for a long time and as he rose, the muscles in his thigh seized up. He bit down hard on his upper lip and half dragged the useless leg across the floor. It took him only a moment to cross the room, his heart thundering in his chest, but that moment seemed to take forever. How could he have forgotten? How could he have fallen asleep?
He fumbled for the matches and the lantern on the chest beside the bed. And then he knew. The absence of sound roared through his head. Nathanial wasn’t wheezing. His chest, which for days had labored intensely to draw minute breaths of air through heavy, fluid-soaked lungs, lay still. Nathanial’s eyes lay wide open, unshed tears puddling in them like dew on the windows of his newly-gone soul.
Jesse cried out in anger and frustration, cursing the god that had abandoned him.
Seven days later, Jesse buried his last reason for living. He’d special-ordered the tomb from the stonemason south of Goshen. It had cost him the cow and one of the horses from his team, but he didn’t care. If that was the price for installing a glass pane into the rock casing, then so be it.
There was no funeral, no formal goodbye. Who’d have come? Consumption is contagious; far better to be alone in this. He knelt before his son’s final resting place and made a solemn promise.
“You’ll never have to be in the dark again, son. Ever. You have my word on that.” He’d have to trust to the moon and stars to help out in this, but the window would allow for some light at all times. Plus, it was facing east, so every morning when the sun rose, it would shine for his Nathanial. He kissed his own hand and laid his fingers against the thick glass. Then, sighing, he rose and mounted his horse.
Jesse made one final stop on his way out of town. Reining his horse in, he dismounted and climbed the steps to the homestead. As he wandered from room to room (he was in no particular hurry—there was no place specific that he wanted to go), he straightened the bedclothes and opened all the curtains. Caroline would have liked that.
Dusk was fast approaching as Jesse lit the lantern in Nathanial’s room. Damn the darkness! He dashed the lantern against the chest, breaking the glass, and tossed the flaming thing onto Nathanial’s coverlet. Without prejudice, the hungry fire consumed both the bedding that Caroline had stitched by hand and the hateful sickness
that had stole the reason behind it.
And then Jesse Eades walked calmly out of the house, mounted his horse and left town: no family, no wagon piled high, no cow tied behind. He’d lost everything, not the least of which was hope.
CHAPTER ONE: 1977
Tommy Cooper had been in love with Beth Riley for as long as he could remember—at least since Beth’s seventh birthday party when he’d accidentally hit her in the face with a snowball, knocking one of her molars out and making her cry. He owned those tears and he’d made a promise to himself right then and there that he was never, ever going to make her cry again.
And later, after he’d apologized for the millionth time, she’d forgiven him and presented him with the tooth, figuring he could use the tooth fairy money way more than she could. Besides, she added, the tooth had been loose anyways.
His pride was hurt a little bit. It was no secret that Mr. Riley was doing much better financially than Mr. Cooper who had problems keeping a job. The dining room table in the Riley house held a mountain of brightly-wrapped birthday gifts to prove it. The realization that Beth was aware of this disparity, made him feel small.
But the tooth was a part of her and she’d given it to him. He’d taken it home later that day and wrapped it in a hanky, stowing it in his top dresser drawer. He carefully weighed the option of placing it under his pillow that evening and finding a dime underneath in the morning. There were lots of things he’d like to have and that dime would buy one of them. Ten pieces of penny candy—Mr. Adams, who owned the little market on the corner downtown, never charged tax when selling to children (as he said, “The goddamned Great State of New York will get their hands on ‘em soon enough”).
Or maybe some bubblegum with a baseball card inside. Baseball was okay, he guessed, and he could sure use a few more cards to put in his bicycle spokes. His best friend Nicky Freeman had lots of them and they made the coolest sound when he rode by. But Beth had a way of making him laugh no matter how badly he felt sometimes.
In the end, he’d kept the tooth. And in the eleven years that had passed since then, he hadn’t regretted that decision even for a moment.
Beth was late today. They’d agreed to meet in the cemetery beside her house at four p.m. and he’d walked the two miles up the road in the August heat, arriving at what he figured was a few minutes early. That gave him just enough time to hide around the west side of the large sepulcher, mid-way through the grounds. From this vantage point, he could peek through the shrubbery and around the corner, and get a clear view of the path beyond. This was a prank he pulled on Beth, on a regular basis, and he marveled at the fact that she fell for it every time.
The cemetery was Beth’s habit, not his. He didn’t understand her fascination with the dearly departed, but that was Beth for you. That dark head of hers was filled with the craziest notions! He wasn’t much of a believer himself, though here in the shadows, behind the cold, stone tomb, it was beginning to feel creepy.
No sooner did this thought enter his head than the nerve-endings on the back of his neck began to prickle. He suddenly knew he was being watched. Hot sweat turned icy cold on his back, and chill-bumps ran a marathon up his spine. Instinct told him to run, but his legs disagreed, turning to jelly instead. Whatever it was, it was watching him from behind. He could feel the sentient consciousness of it like a cool hand caressing his back.
Tommy listened hard, reaching for the hint of a sound from the tree-line thirty yards behind him. Somewhere off in the distance, a gentle breeze kicked up the lonely tinkle of wind chimes. He was no longer sure from which direction the threat came, and he searched the manicured lawn for any sign of movement. To his left, row upon row of neatly scribed, granite headstones. To his right, only the mottled gray stone of the crypt. Behind him—
Suddenly the air filled with the whap-whap of hundreds of wings as a flock of swallows rocketed out of the trees and took to the air.
“Gak!” he gasped, nearly wetting himself in the second it took for realization to set in. “Shit! You scared the hell outta me!”
Breathing again, he watched while the twittering birds made for the forest on the other side of the cemetery. And then chuckling to himself, he began walking back towards the path. He’d had enough of this scary crap for the day. He’d get Beth next time.
Huff came a noise… from behind him again. Huff-huff! It was the sound of ragged breathing—the breathy sound of something monstrously large and in charge running at top speed straight for him—something closing the distance fast.
Huff-huff, huff-huff, huff-huff…hufffff!
All reason left him as his legs took over and he ran. He felt the claws hit his back first and then fist-sized paws as he was knocked to the ground and pinned there. Every muscle in his body constricted at once, steeling him for whatever was to come.
“Topo!”
That was Beth’s voice.
“Topo Gigio! Let him up!” She was laughing now, God damn it!
“Gah!” he hollered, rolling over and pushing the rambunctious dog aside. “Only you would name a St. Bernard after a mouse!” She’d had the dog for years, and had named it after a mouse puppet that they had used to watch on television back then.
Topo crouched as if making ready to lunge again. His tail wagged wildly back and forth.
“Don’t. You. Dare,” Tommy said, pointing one thin finger at the amused animal. “Damn it, Beth, don’t you own a leash, for God’s sake?”
“Sit, Topo, sit,” Beth commanded dropping lightly to the ground beside Tommy.
Topo responded by running excited circles around them, stopping to bark and pounce along the route.
They laughed about it later. That was after they’d torn off their jeans and tees and made love on the grass beside the swimming hole nearby. Topo belonged to Beth and that was good enough for Tommy. If she loved Topo Gigio, then he loved him too.
***
Tommy was in a high humor an hour later when he stepped into the kitchen at home, letting the screen door slam behind him.
“Whoa,that smells good! How ya feelin’ today, Ma?”
It was good to see her up and around. Laura Cooper had recently been diagnosed with Lymphoma, a form of cancer of the lymphatic cells. And whatever that was (Tommy didn’t understand all the medical mumbo-jumbo), it was aggressive. She was tired a lot now, and because of the chemotherapy, she spent long hours in her room, sicking up the chemical cocktail into a bucket. Tommy stayed close to home those days, feeding her ice chips and dabbing her head with a cool cloth. She was growing thin and looked haggard, but today she was up and that was a good thing.
“Oh, I feel a lot better today. How was your day, Honey?”
Tommy immediately went to her and placed a gentle kiss on her cheek.
“Awww, c’mon, Tommy. Give your momma a hug. You’re not gonna break me, ya know.”
Laughing, Tommy picked her up and spun her around. It felt like old times. Her arms around his neck felt good,felt like home.
“You’re getting fat, Ma,” he joked. “Must be all those ice chips I’ve been feeding you.”
If Beth was the love of Tommy’s life, Laura Cooper was the light. Besides, the kitchen smelled like ham,and that was his favorite. His mother had a way in the kitchen.
Too late, he noticed John Cooper standing in the doorway, glaring, the requisite can of Miller in his hand.
“Where ya been, boy? I coulda used your help in the shop today.”
John wasn’t Tommy’s biological father. His real father had been killed in a car accident when he was just a baby. He had only the vaguest memory of a fair-haired man, with laughing eyes, presenting his mother with a gift the Christmas before the accident. Laura had looked happy then, but her name had been Seifert, not Cooper.
John Cooper had arrived on the scene roughly three years later and had adopted Tommy in an effort to erase the past. Genetics will out though, and Tommy’s long, blonde, curly hair and blue eyes were a daily reminder and a stark contr
ast to John’s own dark hair and brown eyes.
Lately, John had been doing mechanical work out of his garage. Nothing major, really, just simple things like changing the oil and tuning up engines. He hadn’t the equipment to do the big stuff. And since most of the men in town did these things for themselves, his clients were limited to the big wigs, bankers and insurance salesman and such, who had no mechanical ability whatsoever, and only came to him because he was a good bit less expensive than Smith’s Garage on Riverview. John generally thought of them as idiots (“any man who can’t change his own goddamned oil…”) but then again, these were the same men who wouldn’t think of inviting John Cooper to play in their golf league or attend their secretive meetings down at the Elk’s Lodge.
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