The Boylan House Trilogy

by Ripley, Ron

  Mason opened his mouth to respond when Boylan twitched suddenly on his deadwood throne. The thing looked down at itself as if surprised. Then it doubled over, vomiting black bile onto the dark grass.

  “What?” Boylan gasped, looking up at Mason.

  Mason really couldn’t answer. He stepped back, bringing the shotgun up and focusing it upon the thing on the throne. He scanned the trees, and about halfway around, he stopped. To the left, one of the pillars near Boylan was empty.

  The skull was gone.

  A soft step sounded beside Mason, and he looked down.

  A young boy wearing jeans and a sweater stood beside him. The boy had the classic nineteen forties hair cut.

  Boylan started vomiting again.

  Another pillar stood empty.

  Another youth appeared, and Mason knew exactly who it was.

  Kevin Peacock, wearing his Darth Vader costume and stepping up to stand upon Mason’s left.

  “Hello Kevin,” Mason said softly.

  Kevin looked up at him and smiled.

  Boylan threw up again and again.

  Soon most of the pillars were empty. Liam Boylan lay curled upon the forest floor, vomiting still, in the middle of a giant pool of black bile.

  Dozens of teenage boys stood around him, all of them staring at Boylan. All of them waiting to see what happened next.

  Mason looked at the pillars. They were all empty. None of them bore any skulls.

  Everyone whom Boylan had killed stood once more, staring dispassionately down upon their murderer.

  Mason walked up to Boylan, who shuddered amidst its own vomit. Mason looked down upon him and the thing that tormented Monson for centuries looked up at him.

  Sighting along the barrel of the shotgun Mason said, “I suppose that this will work now?”

  Boylan’s eyes widened with fear and rage.

  “Well,” Mason said, “that’s about as close to a yes as I’m going to get, isn’t it.”

  And he pulled the trigger.

  With the blast of the shotgun ringing in his ears, Mason barely heard the shrieks coming from what was left of Boylan’s mouth. Mason fired four more times. He reloaded with five more shells and fired all of those as well.

  The thing at his feet finally stopped shrieking.

  It stopped moving.

  It was nothing more than a smoking pile of clothes. Whatever Boylan had been, it was gone.

  Thirteen

  Harold, Julie, and the Zippo

  Julie put the skulls in the back of her car while Harold stood at the door to the Boylan House. He took a cigarette out, lit it, and took a long drag. Before taking the skulls out of the house, they had searched the structure from top to bottom. And that hadn’t been particularly hard since there were only two rooms and absolutely nothing in them.

  The two men were missing, and where they were, he had no idea.

  Mason and James were simply another pair of men who had vanished into the wilderness around the Boylan House.

  Just another pair of names to add to the long list which already existed.

  After a minute, Julie walked up to stand beside him. “Is everything okay?” she asked.

  “No,” Harold said. “I wish I knew where the two of them were.”

  “So do I,” she agreed. “What are we going to do about the house?”

  “What do you mean?” Harold asked, exhaling through his nose.

  “Do we tell anyone about the skulls?”

  He looked at her and then shook his head. “No, Julie, we’re not going to do that.”

  “Why not?” she asked.

  “Because no one would believe us,” Harold answered. “Even if we had a forensic artist work with the skulls and everyone of them matched a person they had a picture for, they would only think it was some sick, freak occurrence. They wouldn’t believe something like Liam Boylan could actually exist.”

  “Oh,” she said.

  “Just because we believe,” he added, “doesn’t mean anyone else will.”

  She nodded.

  “Now, since those two boys have disappeared,” Harold said, “I’m going to burn this son of a bitch to the ground.”

  “Do you think that you can?” she asked.

  “Of course,” Harold said. “It’s ready to burn.”

  “What?”

  “Look at it,” Harold said, pointing at the house with his cigarette held between his fingers. “When we walked in, you’d never know the place had been touched in over three hundred years. Now though, you can see how dry and ancient the wood is. There’s rust on the hinges. The Boylan House has aged since we arrived, entered, and exited. It’s ready to burn.”

  With Julie watching, Harold stepped over to the left window. He took his pack of Lucky’s out and tucked several of them against the now weathered and flammable wood. There was no wind for Harold to worry about, and he took his Zippo out of his pocket.

  Leaning forward slightly, he rolled and snapped the lighter, the flame bursting into life. Harold moved the flame closer until he could light each cigarette in turn. The tobacco started to burn, and he stepped away, Julie taking him gently by the elbow. They turned their backs to the house and walked down to the road.

  When they reached Julie’s car, they turned and looked upon the Boylan House. Flames were already eating the first floor, moving quickly towards the second.

  And no smoke rose up from the wood, yet the house burned and burned and burned.

  Fourteen

  Trapped in the Forest of Liam Boylan

  Mason was fairly certain that the thing which had been Liam Boylan was dead.

  But he reloaded the shotgun anyway.

  It was then that he realized the boys were gone. He alone remained in the small clearing, standing in front of the deadwood throne. That was when he smelled the smoke.

  A faint whiff of it at first, and then a little stronger. The smell wasn’t one you would associate with a forest fire, or a campfire with a mixture of old and fresh wood.

  No, Mason thought. This smells like a house fire.

  Does it matter? Another voice demanded. There’s a fire somewhere, you dumbass.

  And that sane part of himself was absolutely correct.

  There was a fire somewhere in the forest that Mason happened to be in. He turned and started to run back down the path he had followed from the stream. By the time he reached the stream, there was thick smoke curling up and out of the slim spaces between the trees.

  Mason didn’t hesitate. He plunged into the stream, the water bitterly cold. He didn’t think of anything. He didn’t allow himself the memory of Father Alexander being ripped down into the water. Keeping the rifle above his chest he made it across the stream and was on the path once more.

  Gray smoke started to thicken, piling up on the path and causing Mason to cough. His eyes watered but still he pressed on.

  Mason needed to get out of the forest before he burned with it.

  He stumbled, almost fell and literally bounced off a tree. Mason’s body ached, but he managed to straighten himself and continue forward, running. He was out of shape, and he knew it. Within an exceptionally short time, a stitch had erupted in his side, and his breath was coming in great gasps.

  The air around him was beginning to get hotter.

  As the heat became nearly, unbearable Mason made it to the graveyard.

  James sat listlessly on the ground, beside the body of Father Moran.

  A twinge of pain raced through Mason’s heart as he looked at the priest. The man had given his all for his God.

  “James,” Mason called out.

  James looked up to him, surprised. Mason reached the young man and gasped for breath.

  “We need to leave,” Mason said, drawing in deep lungfuls of air.

  “Look at him,” James said softly.

  And Mason did so.

  Father Moran’s body was nearly one with the earth. The roots of grass had stretched up out of the earth, their small
white strands burying themselves into the flesh of Father Moran and the fabric of his vestments.

  “James,” Mason said, squatting down beside his young friend, “we need to leave now.”

  “We can’t take him,” James said.

  “No,” Mason agreed, “we can’t. But he and Father Alexander will help to purify whatever this place is.”

  James blinked and looked around, realizing for the first time, it seemed, that Father Alexander wasn’t standing beside Mason.

  “Oh shit,” James said, “Father Alexander is dead.”

  “Yes, and we will be, too,” Mason said, “if we don’t get our asses moving. Now get up.”

  James nodded, holding his shotgun as he stood.

  All around them, the smoke thickened and the heat continued to increase. Mason felt the sweat start to pour out of him.

  Together, the two men ran into the cornfield.

  But all too soon, the smoke was wrapping around them, choking them, forcing them first to a walk, and then to their knees. Mason held onto his shotgun, crawling forward. He focused on moving just a little bit at a time. Right hand, left knee. Left hand, right knee. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

  And then Mason heard James scream in outrage and fear. Before Mason could try to see what was happening, he felt hands upon him. On his legs, his back, and then on his arms.

  He roared in anger, yet even that expression of anger disappeared into the smothering smoke.

  Fifteen

  Harold and Julie and Meeting House Road

  Harold stood beside James’ truck while Julie stood beside him, her arms across her chest as they both watched the smokeless flames devouring the Boylan House.

  Even as the fire raged, the sounds of animal life were returning to Meeting House Road.

  Yet that was cold comfort to Harold and Julie.

  Mason and James had entered the Boylan House, of that Harold felt certain. Even if, by some unbelievable stroke of luck, the two men had gone into the forest and the swamps to hunt for Liam Boylan, they might well never emerge.

  So many hadn’t.

  “What the hell is going on?” Julie asked suddenly.

  Harold looked back to the Boylan House and his breath caught in this throat.

  He could see shapes in the windows.

  Not Mason or James, the shapes he saw were far too small for that.

  “Is that them?” Julie gasped. “Oh Christ, did we burn them alive?”

  “No,” Harold whispered. “No, we didn’t.”

  And then the door to the Boylan House flew off of its hinges, becoming almost horizontal as it was launched away from the house. In the haze of the fire that shimmered in the now door-less doorway, Harold saw both James and Mason. The men hung between the arms of young teenagers and boys.

  The boys moved forward. First with James, and then Mason, dumping them unceremoniously upon the grass before sending them rolling down the slight hill where the men came to a tangled mess at the side of the road.

  Yet Harold barely noticed this.

  In the doorway, standing clear and strong and vibrant was his son, Michael.

  The boy smiled at him and waved.

  Harold waved back, barely noticing that he wept as he did so.

  “Is that your son?” Julie whispered.

  “Yes,” Harold said. “Yes. That’s my boy.”

  And a fist wrapped itself around his heart, squeezing suddenly, and Harold smiled even as he slid down the truck to sit hard on the pavement.

  Julie got down on her knees, worry on her face. “Harold?” she asked, and her voice had a hollow, almost distant sound.

  He smiled at her.

  “Dying,” he managed to hiss. “Dying. Finally. I’m dying.”

  Blackness wrapped around the edges of his vision and gradually moved in towards the center.

  Harold closed his eyes and waited to see if he would see his son again.

  Sixteen

  8:00 AM, December 8th, 2015, Mason Philips’ Home

  Mason poured Julie a fresh cup of coffee before sitting down at the table across from her. She looked up from the morning paper and smiled at him.

  “Thank you,” she said, picking up the cup and taking a sip.

  “You’re welcome,” he answered. “Anything exciting in the Globe today?”

  “Something curious,” she said. “It looks like a certain law firm burned to the ground last night.”

  “Really?” Mason asked innocently. “Well, that certainly is curious.”

  She looked over the top of the paper at him. “It is, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” he said, “yes it is.”

  “There’s also another article attached to it,” Julie said. “It looks as though two of the three partners in the firm are still missing. No one is sure exactly where they went or what they were supposed to do. Their Lincoln Navigator was just discovered in the long term parking at Logan Airport.”

  “Well,” Mason said, drinking his own coffee, “that is undeniably curious. The firm’s offices burn down, and two of the partners are missing?”

  Julie lowered the paper and looked at him. “There’s also another article here, about the firm’s third partner.”

  “And what’s that one about?” Mason asked. “Do they think that the fire is an insurance scam or something?”

  “No,” Julie said, drinking her coffee and looking at him. “They found the third partner in his black Mercedes at the Gold Club, a place for exotic dancers, in Bedford, New Hampshire.”

  “Did they catch him with an entertainer?”

  “They found him dead,” she said. “Apparently from a heroin overdose.”

  “Ah.”

  “The strange thing is,” Julie continued, “is that he had no history of drug abuse. No history whatsoever.”

  “Well, that’s definitely strange,” Mason said. He yawned and rubbed his eyes.

  “It is strange,” she agreed.

  For a minute, Mason ate in silence while Julie drank her coffee and looked at Mason.

  “Mason,” she said.

  “Yes?” he asked, looking at her.

  “What did you and James do last night?” she asked.

  “What did we do?” Mason asked. “Well, that’s both easy and hard to say. Your brother and I took care of some unfinished business. And it is finished.”

  “Good,” Julie said, picking her paper up again and smiling at him. “I don’t like going to bed without you.”

  Mason smiled at her. Tonight would be a momentous occasion. They were going up to Concord for their first dinner together. Mason’s smile broadened. Julie looked up and returned the smile. And the two of them drank their coffee in comfortable silence.

  * * *

  FREE Bonus Scene!

  Wow, I hope you enjoyed this book as much as I did writing it! If you enjoyed the book, please leave a review on Amazon. Your reviews inspire me to continue writing about the world of spooky and untold horrors!

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  Ron Ripley

 

 

 
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