Black Water

by Jon Fore

  Black Water

  Jon Fore

  Black Water, a small comfortable town nestled in the shadow of Black Water Mountain, whispers dark legends—stories of a secret colonial-era military prison hidden somewhere within the landscape. Other tales depict the torturous conversion and burning of witches just before the Civil War. They speak of a brutal prison warden and a cruel priest, who even today haunt the wood of the mountain side.

  Legends are what they have always been, that is until visitors arrive at the Heart House—a homestead on the very top of the mountain and one-time stop on the Underground Railroad. These students, intent on documenting the historical house, stumble upon the root of these terrible legends and the unspeakable horrors of its antiquity.

  Now this evil stirs, emanating from its sanctuary and seeking revenge against the trespassers and the sleepy town of Black Water below.

  Review

  Review by:

  David A on Aug. 25, 2011:

  Black Water is a vivid gruesome depiction of violence even avid horror fans can find daunting. I myself am not a huge fan of horror, but I found myself unable tear my eyes away as my worst dreams were described to me in a level of detail that left no solace for my imagination. It starts and ends in the standard teen slasher fare, but it's the meat in the middle that will hook you. The nightmare reaches out to you personally as Jon Fore describes each character’s fearful reaction to their situations. It's a great read that you should lose yourself in if you're not the squeamish type.

  * * *

  WARNING: The contents of this book are intended for mature audiences 18 years of age and older. Language, violence, and sexual situations may apply.

  Jon Fore

  BLACK WATER

  To Lisa: for being a rich man’s playground in a poor man’s house

  PROLOGUE

  Three days they had gone by foot, walking, sometimes running, always further north along the path. There was no road or trail, nothing but the sky to indicate where they should go—that, and the promise of the North, the liberation of their family, and a freedom they had never known. Keep the sun to the right early, to the left later, and stop when they could not tell the difference: those were their only instructions given them at the last house with a bit of food and a jug of water. It was more than most would have given a family of escaped slaves, even those so close to the end.

  It was getting on to dark, but the father would not give rest to the worn or tired, the young or the old. The mountain that stood in defiance of their crossing now lay mostly under them, and he knew that the house they sought was close, always just beyond the next clutch of trees or over the large boulders scattered amongst them. Even in the failing light, his will was forged iron. To his death, he would bring this family to salvation, his children to the freedom of the North, even if it meant without him.

  He could hear the feet of his children dragging solemnly through the fallen leaves, the whimpers of unspoken complaints from the youngest of them. His father urged them onward and upward, gently but insistently. He knew that his long-dead mother was watching over them, giving strength through their memory of her. This had been a long dream of hers, a lost hope of his father, and a promise he had made to his children. They would not stop now, not before they were safe in the Heart House atop the mountain.

  Trappers still worked the mountain this late in the season, and deer were about their rutting. Hunters plagued them like flies, flies with no remorse at killing the African man or woman, or even child for that matter. His family would be just a sport to them, one more diabolically enjoyable than the white tails haunting this wood. There would be no rest for them until they were safe inside, in the cellar of the Heart House, huddled close in their exhaustion. He longed to see the lantern, the hitching post alight with hope, the indication that here lives a family of white persons willing to help, to aid their escape, and see them off safely.

  From somewhere, hounds took to their baying, distant but threatening, drawing the wicked men to them. The fear of his family became a smothering mist around him, his heart pounding against the harder parts of his chest. Even with the sweat dripping from his sun-baked brow, he felt a chill race through him, loosening his gut and weakening his legs. He knew they were hours away, these yelping hounds, but they rarely let up and would eventually bring those they sought.

  “Hurry on now. William, you lay hands on them younguns and keep ’um close.”

  “I got ’um, Pa,” the boy said, such a good, brave boy. He was near being a man, but not near enough, not for this night.

  “Keep ’um movin’, and don’t let up. Get ’um to the top, quick now.”

  The boy trudged past him, dragging two younger but mostly silent children. His wife came after, trying to nurse the baby without slowing. She was a tough woman, one he was glad to have, even if he had not had the choice of it. Then his father, old before his time but not without his own gumption, pulled himself up the mountainside using the saplings spread about.

  The patriarch, the one responsible for their flight and their safety followed, certain the hounds would not reach them for many hours, hopeful they would abandon their attempts in the dark of night, and wary to his very core.

  After the sun had set and many hours of listening to the hounds, each howling cry he would have sworn blood was closer than the last, the ground finally leveled off. It pitched itself forward in a lazy fashion but still completely given over to the forest around them. For the first time in days, he felt hope. Atop this hill sat the Heart estate, friend of the slaves escaping the South, and solitary in its mountaintop post.

  It worried him the dogs had come to the foot of the mountain. The last safe house had warned them not to take the path most traveled. The Hearts would be glad to take them in, or so they said, but not the normal stop north for those of his predicament. They must have been wrong or perhaps betrayed by someone in the small village. It did not matter now, for he could just make out light ahead.

  It was the soft yellow light of a burning flame, the promised lantern he was certain, and his feet found a lighter pace, his family moving likewise. They were close to their rest, their safety, and the warm meal and kind hospitality of the Heart family.

  The forest finally yawned into a field; spat them out and into the open where before them stood the sprawling estate and the small carving of a black man holding a lantern near the foot of the front walk. It was to be their home for the next few days, and then off to Philadelphia where they would continue their journey into Canada.

  The house was mostly dark, something he had not expected. It was a large house, larger than the plantation he and his family had worked, but it was frightful in its cold darkness. The front door glowed warmly, the porch lit with two lanterns, but it did not much matter to the man; he would have gone to it had it been dark.

  He led his family around the side of the house, skirting the tree line until they could make for the front door while covering as little open ground as possible. There he stopped them all in the trees and brush. He could not understand why the house was so unsettling, so ominous to him, when within was the escape he so desperately sought for his family.

  The hound’s voices came over the side of the mountain to rush through the trees and spark a new bolt of terror in his heart. He started them toward the door; perhaps rushing them, keeping his eyes more behind than in front. Those wicked dogs had gotten too close now, and they had to make good their escape. The family reached the porch quickly, and the man knocked as politely as his building fear would allow.

  A large man, on a bit on in years but dressed richly, answered the door. “Ah, company! How splendid! Come, all and a one, come and have sup with me!” He hustled them in with all their stink and dirt of days on the run. “I bet y
ou are perfectly starved. Rachel!”

  “Thank you kindly, sir. The hounds are but a bit behind us.”

  “Worry not on them now. You are safe, and besides, they are my hounds!” the large man said warmly.

  “Your hounds, sir?”

  “Why, yes, of course. I knew you were coming, you see, but you were late. I sent my sons out looking for you.”

  A rotund woman came from the kitchen wrapped mostly in an apron, flour lightening her hair on one side. “What do we have here, husband? Oh, how many?”

  “Looks to be six and they are worn through. Some meat if we still have any.”

  “Yes, we have some. Does the babe need swaddling as well?”

  “That would be right kind of you, ma’am.” The man’s wife smiled at her, her teeth a stark white against the dirt covering her face.

  “Take them down to the safe rooms, won’t you? I’ll be right along with the swaddling, some bath water, and shortly after with the meals.”

  The man’s daughter began to sob lightly, sob for the tiredness etched into her frail body, for the kindness of white strangers, for the safety she found herself enjoying. William lifted her up and held her close, still looking fearful as though he may have to bolt.

  “This way. I have some nice beds for you, and a bath soon enough,” Mr. Heart said as he hoisted a lantern and started for a door behind the grand stairway gracing the entry. He vanished through, and the family followed quietly. “This house was built atop an old prison—used to hold British soldiers and traitors and the like, but now it gives us many hiding places. It is a bit dark and usually damp, but long forgotten, I assure you.”

  Mr. Heart made his way to the rear of a mostly square room cut from the living rock and lined with hand-carved bricks. There was a tunnel concealed behind a hanging curtain, one much more roughly cut and cumbersome for walking.

  “Down near the end here is the room you will use. Don’t let the darkness frighten you none; there are torches and the like, and nice soft beds just ahead.”

  He stopped suddenly and waved them onward. “There is the room, as I promised. Now the children can use this room, it is smaller but has more than enough cots. You three can go on in here.”

  The man’s wife entered cautiously, followed by his father and then himself. There was a resonant clanking sound, and the man turned to find a barred door closing quickly before him. He threw himself at it but fell back from the thing, smarting along his body. His daughter began to cry loudly from across the passage, but this time the sobs of horror.

  “All tucked in?” the wife’s voice asked from the darkness.

  “Yes, Mother, nice and safe.”

  Deep in the man’s heart, he felt a raving ache, a ravishing pain of failure and sudden loss, and his hope of many years turned suddenly brittle.

  “Now, all of you toss out all of your belongings, all of your clothing, everything,” the woman said sweetly, sickeningly like a mother to a young child.

  “They said you would help us…” the man’s wife wept.

  “Do we have some new guests?” a male voice asked from down the passage.”

  “Yes, Father, and there be a witch among them for sure—maybe two!” Mr. Heart’s voice sounded gleeful.

  “Excellent. We will begin the cleansing tomorrow. What have we for dinner, good Mrs. Heart?”

  The man, lost deep within his own failure, tormented by the sobbing of his children, loosed a mournful scream, not quite unlike the hounds that had pursued them, but with an endless pain that no dog would ever come to know.

  PART 1

  Chapter 1

  “In one hundred yards, turn left,” the Tom-Tom navigator announced with its artificial woman’s voice.

  “Almost there, I hope?” Ethan asked. He cut his dark hair short, but his eyes were always vibrant, deeply passionate and always intelligent. His slender build sheathed tightly in a Creed t-shirt, which was under a loose, threadbare flannel. This matched the over-worn, should-have-been-retired-long-ago button fly jeans.

  “It says another eighteen point six miles,” Abby replied. She shared Ethan’s eye color, but had changed the color of her hair some time ago, so much so she was almost certain she had been born blond. Ethan was one of the very few people on campus that knew the truth, or so she thought, but certainly, the only person presented with any pubic evidence.

  “Can we stop and get some food?” Madison asked from the back seat, her body pretty much just a hand rest for Chris, her current hump buddy and beer guzzler extraordinaire. She was small of frame but ample in the curves and bumps that make a woman feminine. She was an eye-catcher, constantly sought after by the rest of the male student population. Madison enjoyed this attention, and like now, always wore clothing that hid no ripened curve or slender, delicate feature. Even dressed for hiking as she was, she radiated sex like a fire does heat.

  “I got something you can eat…” Chris retorted comically. He was dressed much like Ethan, but with expensive Oakley sunglasses on his face and an appreciable ponytail tucked beneath a worn leather bomber jacket.

  “Yeah, Chris, right—but I want something I can, you know, swallow.”

  Chris just beamed a larger smile at her, showing off his near-perfect white teeth.

  Ethan chuckled lightly.

  “Not while I am in the car, please,” Abby replied dryly, unsure if it would happen with her in the car or not.

  “Turn left,” Tom-Tom said.

  Abby heaved the extra-large steering wheel over, bringing the rusted Nova into a squealing turn.

  Chris began to laugh. “Alignment, baby; save you on tires. Listen to this old bitch squeal!”

  “When I can afford it, Mr. Manny, Moe, and Jack, or whichever one you are.”

  Chris smiled at her in the rear view mirror. “Take it over to the high school. The Auto Shop Class will do it free. That’s what I do.” He was an Economics major and the most effective tightwad on campus. Many of the student body came to him for money saving tips when they were running low, which was rather frequent.

  “When we get back, I guess.”

  “I’ll take you,” Ethan offered.

  “I’ll give you the number for the school, Ethan; don’t let me forget when we get back.”

  “Thanks, Chris.”

  The turn revealed more endless farm fields stretching down either side of the car and the entire length of the unpainted blacktop road for as far as any of them could see. The fields were now barren, harvested well before the late November weekend, tilled and turned, and nothing but disinteresting dirt.

  “What’s the name of this guy we are supposed to meet with when we get there?” Abby asked, her eyes searching the road for some traffic sign or unique characteristic. She was sure now with the little Tom-Tom navigator suction-cupped to the dirty windshield that she knew what it was like for a pilot to “fly by instruments” during a particularly cloudy day.

  Ethan drew out a small handheld computer, a college going-away present his parents had gotten him as he pursued his degree in Computer Science. After a few short taps followed by a few short beeps, Ethan said, “Mr. Thomas Brighton, Curator of the Heart House and Underground Railroad Museum.”

  “A museum? No one said anything about going to a museum!” Chris complained loudly. “I thought we were going to an old house or something, do a little hiking…”

  “We are. This is the guy we have to see before we can go to the house. He has the key and map and everything,” Abby offered.

  Madison patted Chris on the crotch gently, as a mother would a child’s shoulder. “Now calm down, stallion. You won’t learn anything, I promise.”

  Chris hiked his hips forward on the old duct tape-covered bench seat. “Are you still hungry?”

  Madison smiled up at him, “Soon, horn-dog, soon.”

  “How much further do you—” Chris began.

  “In one thousand yards, you will have reached your destination,” Tom-Tom answered without waiting for him to
finish his question.

  Abby looked at Chris, his face a large question mark, and then they both scanned the road ahead. With the exception of the large mountain that had grown from the horizon as they drove, both sides of the street held nothing but turned soil and vagrant weed.

  “We should be able to see it…” Chris trailed off.

  “There’s a farm house or something over there,” Madison said, pointing to the right of the car.

  In the distance in the midst of a field sat a squat, little white house, battered with age and disrepair. It was more weathered wood than white, but the remaining paint was the only color not the same as the soil surrounding it.

  “Could that be it?” Abby asked no one in particular.

  “In five hundred yards, you will have reached your destination,” Tom-Tom said.

  “Could someone actually live there?” Madison asked, disgusted.

  “I suppose. It is the first building we’ve seen in almost an hour. I wonder if an ambulance would even try to make it here in time…” Chris wondered aloud.

  “In one hundred yards, you will have reached your destination.”

  “This is so northeastern backwoods Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” Madison said through a smile. She was a horror film aficionado.

  “In fifty yards, you will have reached your destination.”

  Abby instinctively eased up on the old Chevy’s gas petal, but not entirely. “Well, now I’m creeped out.”

  Madison giggled in reply and Chris tossed out another of his dazzling smiles.

  “Well, we are going to stop, right? We didn’t come all the way out here to get creeped out and go back, did we?” Chris asked.

  “No, I need these pictures for my project.”

  “You have reached your destination.”

  Abby brought the Nova to a stop next to a battered mailbox fixed to the top of a weathered length of wood. Next to this was a dirt path leading toward the house. It was puck-marked with scattered puddles and lined with nothing. Everyone in the car sat silently for a moment, considering the house some hundred yards down the dirty trail.