Out There: A Rural Horror Story

by Cademon Bishop

  Harvey walked inside the old house; the floor’s plastic tiles squished with each step. He rubbed his finger against a framed photo in the shell of a living room. They were reunited. Behind Abe were two elderly men holding each other. Every photo along the hall had the three of them. He slid the photo from the frame and trekked through the woods back to his car.

  He drove slower than usual as he got off Huff Ridge Road and entered East Broadway. For the first time since he arrived, there was traffic. He watched the neon skeleton sign of Wild Rye Dinner drift past him. He didn’t know what to feel as he cruised by the Beaumont Lodge. Hate? Remorse? Guilt? He let his mind wander as he drove down the highway. His thoughts rippled with the hills and the lines of black fences that encased them. He didn’t bother turning the radio on, the blare of wind and his thoughts filled any quiet space.

  In three hours, Harvey was in Cincinnati.

  Liner Notes

  The two of them stood in the liminal space. A land that was once Joselean Springs. It was like standing in a prism; the horizon shimmered with slices of the town, in brilliant hues. A kaleidoscope of what once was. The blackened forest floor sparkled. Frail burnt trees shifted in and out of place as the prismatic points of view spun around them. It was a space beyond touch, a place they haven’t seen each other in over 200 years. He thought she was dead; she thought he was banished.

  “You’re still here?” Cassiel asked, hovering closer. The charred, chromatic ground swam around his feet.

  “You let me stay,” Althea smirked. Her aged face watched the land flick in and out as her eyes moved. “It’s all done, I solved my end of the puzzle while I was living, and you solved yours. We can stop running.”

  “Althea, you didn’t have to stay,” Cassiel’s looked away. “You could have transcended further; your own enlightenment is at a snap of your fingertips.”

  “I already reached enlightenment,” she calmed her need to cry as she looked into Cassiel’s concerned eyes. “I stayed so you can reach yours.” She watched a shard of their reality take on a blue hue, then flick back to a pale white, “You can stop your running.”

  Cassiel glanced at the world. For the first time in his existence, he fought himself. Twisting the tangles of his conciseness.

  His face relaxed, and it was over.

  Side C Track 16

  Fade Away

  “Everything fine, dear?” she asked under the white light above the sink.

  He sat his suitcase down and held his head in his hands, “Yeah, yeah, it’s okay. It’s just.”

  “Just what?”

  “I thought this was gonna be our big break…” He covered his face in his hands and sighed.

  “Awe, Harv!” she came to his side and held him. “Is being Mr. FBI not good enough for ya? We’re doing fine there’s food on the table.”

  “I know, I know,” Harvey gripped his wife’s hands. “Catherine, I just want just want us more, secure, more—” His words were muffled as she kissed him.

  “Believe in what we got,” Catherine rubbed her thumb in his cheek. It was that radiant smile he always recognized, a smile that emitted some mystical warmth he couldn’t define. He watched her walk back towards the sink, “You’re going to find some break if you keep on pushing… Harvey, I know you. No matter what you do, you always find some way to be heard… It hasn't been that long; you can bank off it as a hot topic.”

  “All a hot topic does is turn heads,” Harvey slid to her side and pulled a tin of peanuts out of a cupboard. “All I get is the attention from some stuck-up Mothers who says something along the lines of ‘oh look Jody ain’t that neat’ to her girlfriend and walks off.” Harvey snacked on a palm-full of peanuts, “I tried book signings, but I all get are dumb-ass conspiracy theorists trying to prove it was all a hoax.”

  “At least you got an audience.”

  “Yeah,” Harvey chewed, “one who doesn't give a shit about the book.”

  “Give it time and faith. It’ll do alright. Even if you don’t do much, I sure as hell enjoyed it, and I know you loathed to write it so be content with that… Speaking of book people are your friends coming over soon?”

  “Ah, shit. That’s today?” Harvey scratched his beard.

  “Mm-hmm. Right here, see.” She talked with a rhythmic, mocking chime, “Saturday, April the 11th, Catherine don’t forget to write that down.”

  “I, I didn’t grab anything for them. Shit, do we have chips?” Harvey scoured the cabinets as if there were a bomb hidden behind one of their wooden doors.

  “Six p.m. Catherine,” she continued in a poor imitation of his voice. “It’s a, uh, very important date for me, I’ve talked to you about them before.”

  “Ha, ha Hun,” Harvey muttered, his head tucked into a bottom cabinet, breathing in the sweet, dry smell of the house. “What’s the time now?”

  “Five fifty-six,”

  “Five, what?” the doorbell rang. Harvey smacked his head on the shelf as he tried to get out. Catherine poured the peanuts into a glass bowl and moved a vegetable tray from the refrigerator.

  “Here!” She kissed him once more before patting his butt towards the door.

  Michael and Dian stood in the doorway, both dressed in semi formal attire. Harvey stuttered as he gestured them in, trying to ignore the fact they hadn’t seen each other in five years. A flurry of greetings went by before they finally sat at the table in front of the kitchen.

  Dian noticed a stone dog statue on the dining room table, “Nice house ya got here.”

  “Best we could afford near the great lakes,” Cathrine grabbed another carrot from the center bowl. “Harv tell me more about how you met these two?”

  “Met Michael when things started, and Dian when I revisited, Dian was a friend of Lara’s.”

  “Is that so?” Cathrine smiled and turned towards Dian, “It’s a pleasure to meet ya. I’ve practicality lived in the town through Harvey’s retelling. So, what are you up to these days?”

  “Been dating someone for the past two years.”

  “Awe, what’s his name,” Cathrine said as she dipped a carrot into a bowl of ranch.

  Dian looked away as she had forgotten the name. “Her name’s Rachel. We met back at one of Michaels Christmas things.”

  Cathrine placed folded hands together, “Awe, isn’t that sweet.”

  Harvey snatched a carrot and waved it at Michael, “What have you been up to?”

  “Well,” Michael pushed up his round-rimmed glasses and cleared his throat, “I’m a pastor now, over in Cynthiana.”

  Harvey’s eyebrows rose at Michael’s remark, “Oh! We got a pastor. Hell didn’t scare the Jesus out of ya?”

  “No, in fact, it made things concrete.”

  “As long as you’re happy, that’s alright,” Harvey popped the carrot into his mouth. “Married?”

  Michael kept his eyes on the peanut Bowl, “No.”

  Harvey nodded at both of them, “I’m just happy you both are doing well.”

  Harvey, Michael, and Dian sat on the back porch and watched the sunset across the great lake.

  “I’ve read the book,” Dian said, captivated by the sun. “How’s it all coming along at the stores and stuff?”

  “Shit sales so far.”

  “I’m sure you got it,” Michael said, his glass of coke rested on the balcony.

  “Thanks,” Harvey grabbed a cigarette out of his jacket pocket, “Smoke?”

  “Nah, I’m fine,” Michael said as he looked towards the golden glow of the horizon.

  “You?” Harvey tilted a cigar in his fingers.

  Dian smirked. She and Harvey’s lit a cigarette and leaned on the balcony railing.

  “You still worried about your health?” Harvey rose his glass of bourbon towards Michael.

  “Ya know it. I ain’t ever wanna go back to the way I was,” Michael took in one last waft of the lake air before a thin smog of smoke flooded in.

  “Well, my body-” Harvey blew out smoke as he spoke
, “Is all mine to destroy.”

  Dian gave a puzzled look as she watched smoke drift into the air, “You know there is somethin’ I always was confused about in your book.”

  “Lay it on me.”

  “Where did Lara go? All you said was she disappeared in a blue burst. Heaven and hell didn’t want her, right? So, where would she go?”

  “She’s probably just gone…” Michael added, “Or in her own space.” Without warning, Michael poured a glass of bourbon. “I just pray she’s somewhere…” Then he sipped.

  The three of them watched the sunset over the lake. The pine trees stood silent on the hillside below them. In the quiet, they could hear the hushed churn slap of water along the ridge. That sound carried their conversation.

  The notion that all things float, drift, and sail.

  Still souls guided to their shores.

  That lack of control in tides,

  A horror to the lost, and a gift to the found.

  In all motions,

  Underneath the faithless,

  And looming the self-aware,

  Is current that governs the tides.

  Side A Track 16

  Tides

  Her eyes opened. White light rippled below her from the wake. She was floating upside down. Lara knew she was underwater but couldn’t feel gravity, time, or space. She hovered like words on a page.

  This was the final dream.

  She looked down and saw her arms, wrist, and legs. She was one. A black shadow loomed in the distance, Lara shuffled closer, beginning to walk on the waters skin. Rippling lines from the surface lit the undersides of her arms. The shadow gained features as it drifted closer.

  It was Lucy, her red hair flowed in the void. Black ink stained the water around her body. Lara wrapped an arm around her neck and held her. Lucy woke up. She clung back. Lara felt the surface of the water leave her feet. Lucy caused them to dip into the dark depths opposite of the water’s surface. Lara tried to cling on but felt a tug towards the surface. They paused, frozen in equilibrium. Lucy held onto Lara’s hand and let go of her side. They hung in like a traipse artist, standing on top of each other by just a hand.

  They let go.

  Lara watched Lucy fade into the darkness, hand still outstretched. She felt a soothing warmth as her foot floated through the water’s surface. The warm air climbed up her calf as she rose upside down. She looked down and watched the ocean ripple around her hips. The sky below was dove-white. Her head lulled back as the water’s surface lulled up her neck. She kept her eyes on Lucy, fading into the black depths.

  Lara emerged from the surface; hand still outstretched. The rippled on the water’s skin hid Lucy. She noted at her reflection. It was flouting out of the water, as if her gravity was backwards. Her wrist slid out of the water, then her finger left the surface.

  In the white, the warm clear white, she felt herself sail to a new shore.

  January 1st, 2020—March 15th, 2021

  Thanks for reading!

  Please toss a review on Amazon and let me know how your trip to Joselean Springs went!

  Reviews are extremely helpful to authors. I appreciate you taking your time to support my work. I would love to answer any questions from though email at cademon.author@gmail.com

  If you loved your time though Joselean Springs then post it on social media with the hashtag, #outthere so I can see it.

  Authors Note:

  “Whatever might have been be the basis for this dubious book, it must have been a question of the utmost importance and charm, as well as a deeply personal one at the time” - Friedrich Nietzsche, The Birth of Tragedy

  Dear Reader,

  I wish I had the amount of guts I had coming into this book. This story was a concoction of many ideas and years all molded into one tale. My biggest inspiration was from a grade given in my senior year of high school. We were supposed to interpret a religious painting, and I did just that, breaking things down and reflecting on the piece. It comes back a week later with fat C and a note, “Please keep your religious views out of your papers.” I am in no way religious and I wouldn't think about this quote till after writing, where I realized I did exactly that with this book. This bizarre, flawed journey. I thoroughly appreciate anyone who took the time to read this, and I hope it has affected you in some positive way. Despite reading this four times, I still find new things that I still need to learn. Lessons that will probably take years to fully kick in. My next book hits different, I leaned less on the light philosophies and more on crafting a journey. (You know, what a book is supposed to do.) I can’t wait to revisit that world and I hope you all find a little taste of it as well in the little preview.

  Till tomorrow,

  Cademon Bishop

  Want a little more?

  Here’s the first chapter for my next book:

  Junipers Daydreams

  — The Boys Make a Break —

  They awoke him, on that winter night, with one simple action, one fatal foot fall on an unmarked grave.

  The three boys crept out of their houses and gathered near the snowy front yard of the ghost house on Polaris Court. That grave of a home. One crept out of the streetlight’s safety and dipped into the house’s shadow. Snowflakes fell across the front lawn. Faint indents of Christmas lights danced across their backs.

  They had kept an eye on the house for the past month. Man leaves, 12/6 11:38am. There was a husky Hispanic man who would drive up to the house with an armful of groceries once or twice a week. The man never spent the night, and his leaving couldn't explain the second figure that always remained: the one which the boys knew haunted the white painted building; “The Ghost House”.

  The ghost kept the TVs on. Non-stop. Even now, the flickering, multi-colored glare of the TVs seemed to spew from every window, making it look like some bizarre holiday attraction.

  Wade Clark, from his spot on the right of the ghost house, only saw the flicker of a light in a kitchen window and the glow of a TV on a living room’s walls.

  Hewey Martinel, from his home across the street, saw the ghost stumble to its dining room and the man stand there as it hobbled. Thing moves, 12/13 8:12pm.

  Darnell Barrett, with his view from the left of the house, could see it shuffle down the hall and back. What gave him the heebie-jeebies was that every day it would slow, look, then stampede across the hall, slamming a door shut behind it.

  The boys were neighbors, almost next-door, if not for the ghost house between them.

  “Hewey, what did you pack?” Wade asked as he tried to get a closer look into the house’s side windows. They stood within the shadows.

  “Matches, a knife, a camera, and my mom’s hair pin.”

  Wade snickered, “Why a hair pin?”

  Hewey smacked Wade’s leg with the back of his hand, “so we can pick the front door. What did you bring?”

  “A stick, a rock, and my binoculars.”

  “Why did you pack a rock?” Darnell asked.

  “I dunno, I'm sorry my family can’t afford a dumb-ass Scooby-Doo flashlight and a Game Boy.”

  “How did you know I packed the Game Boy?”

  “It’s pokin’ out your back pocket like a can of dip.”

  Hewey snapped at the two of them. Darnell jumped at the sound. “Quit y’alls bickering,” he whispered as loud as he could. They huddled closer towards the ghost house and tried to listen in. All they could hear was the murmur of a TV behind a living room window and the wail of winter wind. They stood for what felt like forever, just listening.

  “Can we go back?” Darnell pleaded, “I gotta go to the bathroom.”

  “We just got here.” Hewey unzipped his little red backpack and pulled out the hair pin. “What’ve we been planing for for the past few nights? You can hide if you want, your house is an ass crack away from here.”

  “I ain't scared, I just really gotta go.”

  Hewey noticed the way Darnell's pant leg shivered. “Fine, we’ll make it quick. Why d
on't you piss outside while we sneak in?”

  Darnell elbowed his side. “We don't wanna leave any evidence, and… Oh, crap!”

  “Oh crap what?” Wade asked, grabbing his rock.

  Darnell forced the other two further into the dark and into a dying bush, “Hide! Hide!”

  “Darnell, what the-” Wade saw it.

  A car crept down the street.

  “What the hell is he doing here so late?” Wade whispered.

  Hewey shoved him.

  The three sat there, the icy wind louder and colder than ever. They heard the engine sputter off and the man sat in his car for a while. The bitter gusts bit at the tip of their noses and their balled-up fists. It swam through the small bit of land across the street, causing some tree limbs to scrape against each other. It occasionally had enough strength to push the rusty porch swing in front of the ghost house, producing a bone chilling creaking sound—Ehhhh err.

  “See! I told y’all this was a bad idea.”

  “Shhhhh," Wade and Hewey hushed in unison.

  The car door slammed. They heard the rhythmic brush of plastic bags as the man stumbled onto the porch. Cans and bottles clinked together as he dropped the bags to open the front door. He jangled his keys, then froze. A white light shot from the side of the house then flicked off.

  The Scooby-Doo flashlight had flicked on as it slipped out of Darnell's back pocket. Wade snatched it and flicked it off. The three glanced at each other in the dark. Alright guys, is it fight or flight?