The Bones of Hillside Read online

  The Bones of Hillside

  The Bones of Hillside

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  The Bones of Hillside

  This story was originally published in A Shadow of Autumn: An Anthology of Fall and Halloween Tales.

  All rights reserved.

  © Lee A. Forman

  All characters and events appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  The Bones of Hillside

  by Lee A. Forman

  The hatch remained hidden and locked in the cellar. Rusty chains and an iron padlock held it down, kept the thing inside from escaping. For years, Robin feared it would break through the rotten wood planks and wondered why it never did. But he gave up thinking about it long ago; all that mattered was that it worked.

  He opened the shed to get a rake but gazed past it at the Halloween costume hung on a nail—a black cloak and devil mask. He stared into the empty holes where the eyes of a child would be; emptiness stared back.

  He leaned to get the tool, wrapped his fingers around its splintered handle, and retreated, slamming the shed doors behind him. Sweat ran down his brow, and he wiped it with his sleeve. Icicles stabbing at his spine made every part of him shudder. The shed was not a place he favored visiting.

  Attempting to clear fallen leaves from the grounds of an entire graveyard with a rake would have been insane, more ludicrous than what his job already entailed. He had a riding mower with a leaf vacuum attachment as well as a leaf blower. But he raked them from graves the old fashioned way. He did it with care and gently brushed the grass in fine strokes. He couldn’t just ride the tractor over their resting places or use the noisy leaf blower. It didn’t matter the coffins contained no remains; he had to respect their memories.

  The crunching of leaves diverted Robin’s attention, and he looked to see a blue uniform approaching. Cops always rattled his nerves. The thought that they’d find out what he’d been doing repeated itself daily. Handcuffs and a free ride in a police car were never far from his thoughts.

  “Good morning,” the woman said. “I’m Officer Gabel.”

  Robin smiled. “Morning. Robin Thomas. What can I do for you?”

  “Well, with Halloween coming up I just wanted to check in. You know how the kids are around here.”

  He let out a forced laugh. “Yeah, I’ve had to chase them out of here at night many times.”

  “I know what you mean. It’s a busy night for us too. Just be careful and call if you need. We’ll be running extra patrols near the cemetery tomorrow night because of what happened last Halloween.”

  Great, Robin thought. That’s all I need. Cops snooping around here.

  “Thank you, much appreciated,” he said. “They did some real damage to the headstones last year.”

  “They sure did. What kind of person desecrates a grave like that? It makes you wonder…Well, good luck to you. And happy Halloween.”

  “You too.”

  He waited until the uniform went out of sight before going inside to retrieve a beer from the refrigerator. He popped it open and drank quickly, opening another as soon as he emptied the first. With his hand to his chest, he breathed deeply in an attempt to curb the oncoming tremors. He wanted to run, get away from the nightmare, but his conscience tied him there with a tight noose.

  After finishing off a six pack, he felt okay enough to go back outside. He peeked through the curtains to ensure no more police had come. He despised the paranoia, but being arrested and locked away seemed insignificant to the consequences that would surely take place after. That’s what really terrified him—not jail, not losing his freedom, but the fact that his imprisonment would endanger the lives of innocents.

  Moving out into the field of the dead he started the grim task of choosing which grave to take from. He rubbed his chin and scanned the area, keeping note of which graves he’d already exhumed, so he didn’t waste his time digging up an empty coffin. Autumn always entailed extra work—more digging, more bodies, and of course leaving no trace of his extracurricular activities.

  The beast’s appetite always grew ravenous in October. Something about Halloween riled up the thing living in the hatch, and it took additional meals to keep it satiated. Robin never believed in superstition, but after fifteen years, his outlook on the matter changed. Maybe Halloween was more than just a children’s holiday. Maybe it really did have some supernatural significance. Either way, it certainly did in the cursed place he’d been stuck tending to.

  “Albert Combs,” he read on the headstone. “1935 to 1974. Poor bastard didn’t live long.” It made him consider his own mortality. Hell, he was nearly pushing 40 already. But he suspected he’d live a long life, cursed to continue on until he joined the ranks he cared for.

  Will someone dig me up someday? Will I end up as a meal for that horrible thing?

  He waited until nightfall, grudgingly opened the doors to the shed, tried not to look at the devil mask, and retrieved the shovel. He carried it to his chosen site.

  “Sorry about this Albert, but it has to be done.”

  He stuck the shovel’s point into the soft earth and stomped with his boot until it sank in. He pried up the dirt and repeated the process until it felt as though his back would break. The moon waltzed along the sky, and by the time he’d reached bottom, it was nearly dawn. He wiped the last layer of dirt away by hand and stood over the coffin a long time, dreading its opening even though he’d done it countless times before.

  “Hey there, Albert. Sorry I have to disturb you like this. But think of the good you’ll do. It’s an honorable cause.” Robin sighed and pried open the lid. “Hope you lived a good life, pal.” He tied a rope around Albert’s waist and climbed out of the grave. With both feet firmly planted, he hoisted old Albert out and carefully placed him in a wheelbarrow. “Come on. Let’s go for a little ride.”

  He wheeled Albert’s decimated remains home and brought him inside. With the body over his shoulder, he took him to the cellar and placed him next to the hatch. It shook violently and the chains clanged against the wood planks. Robin gritted his teeth. He hated what lived in there. He hated that it got excited when it came time to feed. He hated everything about it. Sometimes at night, when he’d be quietly in bed, he thought he could hear it breathing—a raspy, broken rattle that drove him to insomnia.

  The hatch had its own smaller one that Robin opened to feed the beast. It didn’t have a lock, only a small anchor that held it shut. The creature could never fit through the opening—its sole purpose was for feeding the wretched thing.

  “You know, Al? Sometimes I wonder about this thing. Where did it come from? How long has it been here? Probably better not to know.”

  He gripped his hatchet and got to work separating the bones, starting with the arms and legs, then the torso and spine. Once he’d chopped a nice pile, he started dropping them down the hole one by one. Growls and the crunching of teeth resonated in the dank cellar. The only thing he never sent down was the skull. He figured it best to leave at least some remains intact. Once the feeding ended, he’d write the names and dates of the sacrificed on the skull in permanent marker. He’d accumulated quite a collection over the years. They covered two entire walls, nearly to the ceiling.

  “Welcome to your new home, Al.”

  He placed the skull atop the multitude of others, closed the feeding door on the hatch, and went back outside to fill Albert’s grave. By the time he finished, light peeked over the horizon and rose in lines, filtered by the tall pine trees that lined the eastern side of the cemetery. He sat and watched the sun, simultaneously menacing and serene. The morning of Halloween eve had come.

  His routine consisted of dry toast to calm the stomach, a cup of coffee, and the cleaning of his shotgun. His hands always shook when loading the shells, frightened that he might have to use them. He shot the bastard once, fifteen years ago. It injured the beast but only long enough for him to drag it back to the hatch and lock it away again.

  He looked up at the wall of skulls. “Wish me luck tonight.”

  When night fell, Robin sat waiting on the porch, gun across his lap. He’d be damned if he were going to let anything happen. Children’s laughter sounded from the streets. He watched the kids pass by in their multitude of costumes. They were all risks. They were all in danger.

  The banging started as a muffled knock from beneath the house. It grew louder and louder until the chains rattled and the giant padlock slammed against the wood. It’s all riled up, he thought. Please don’t let it get out tonight.

  It hadn’t for fourteen years but it was a fear that never weakened. It always struck him hard, year after year. The truth of what happened could not be forgotten or ignored.

  His grip tightened around the gun when three kids made their way up the front path. They all wore masks. One had a hockey mask, the second a werewolf, and the last a skull. He always left the porch light off and never put up decorations to keep kids from coming to his door, but they didn’t seem to care.

  “Sorry, kids. Don’t have any candy left.”

  They kept walking toward him.

  “Did you hear what I said? No candy here.”

  The maddening racket in the basement continued.

  As they got closer, Robin noticed one of them carried a baseball bat. He swung it around in his hand as any kid would, but in the dark, on Halloween eve, the motion appeared threatening.

  “Get the hell off my property!” Robin stood up, but left th
e gun on his chair.

  “Fuck you, old man,” the kid with the baseball bat said.

  Robin stepped down to confront the teenagers when the one with the bat swung a home run on his knee. It landed with a hard crack and sent him to the ground

  “What’s all that noise in your house?”

  Robin couldn’t respond through the screams of his shattered knee.

  “Come on, let’s go inside and see what he’s got.”

  “Probably nothing good. An old VCR maybe.”

  “Who cares? Let’s just see. If he doesn’t have anything, we can just wreck up the place.”

  “Wait,” the werewolf said. “What’s this around his neck?” The boy grabbed the chain necklace, on which hung a key.

  “A key! He must have a safe or something. Take it.”

  The boy ripped the chain from his neck without mercy, and tiny silver links scattered in the yard.

  “No,” Robin grumbled. “Leave it alone.”

  “Shut up!” The boy wearing a skull mask kicked Robin in the chest.

  They left Robin in the grass, his hands wrapped around his injury. He struggled against the pain, gritted his teeth, and tried to stand, but faltered and ended up on his back. Glass shattered in the house, accompanied by what he could only assume was furniture being knocked around. The kids made as much noise as the thing in the basement.

  Robin crawled to the porch and grabbed his shotgun. He used it like a cane to hold himself up and painfully made his way inside. He hobbled past the destruction and came to find the cellar door open, silence rising from the staircase. Distinct and unmistakable, the lock clicked open, and the chains slid away from the hatch.

  He hobbled down the stairs on one foot as fast as he could. He had to get there in time. He had to stop it.

  When he reached the bottom, only one of the boys was still intact. He had his back against the wall of skulls, feet in a pool of blood. The hockey mask shook as his body trembled. A dark patch formed on his jeans and travelled halfway down his leg. He dropped the baseball bat and removed his mask. His eyes widened and bulged from their sockets, the inky black of the pupils blanketing over the surrounding white. Robin knew that look. He’d seen it once before.

  He tried to raise the gun but lost his balance and fell back onto the steps. The shotgun came free of his grip and slid down, landing between the kid and the creature. He crawled down and reached for it but stopped, only inches away.

  Hot, moldy breath worked its way around his neck and wafted into his nostrils, filling them with the horrible stench that always came from the hatch. The cellar always smelled that way but its close proximity was like having his face shoved in shit.

  Instinct told him to look the other way, to get back upstairs and far away from there. But fear often breaks down that system rather than driving it. Its power to incapacitate held Robin in place, canceling out any other action.

  He waited for his guts to be spilled onto the floor in a cascade of carnage. He wondered if it would be like the movies, if he would try scooping them back into his abdomen in a vain attempt at survival. The thought was joined by the immense, excruciating pain that would surely accompany his demise.

  The creature’s coarse, brown hand reached past Robin and opened its claws as it advanced on the boy. Like curved razors, the multitude of bony fingers sliced at the boy’s flesh until the bone had been scraped clean. The claw then flexed like a pair of scissors, and Robin watched in horror as the boy’s head rolled across the floor.

  The hatch’s resident monster lumbered over and picked up the head carefully. It shoved the skull into Robin’s chest and forced him to take it.

  As the beast crept back toward the hatch, it turned and stared at Robin with vacant black eyes. Its jaw curled into a smile. Then it turned and went down the hatch willingly. It even remained quiet while Robin locked the chains.

  He set the three new additions on the wall of skulls and realized he didn’t know any of their names. Maybe the news reports that were sure to follow would tell him who the boys were. He’d watch them intently as he’d done once before. Otherwise, they’d sit atop the mass grave in the basement, forever strangers to him.

  Outside, as the whispers of Halloween faded away for another year, Robin opened the shed, sighed, and hung the three masks on the wall next to the devil costume.

  About the Author

  Lee Forman is a fiction writer and editor from the Hudson Valley, NY. His fascination with the macabre began in childhood, watching old movies and reading everything he could get his hands on. He’s a third generation horror fanatic, starting with his grandfather who was a fan of the classic Hollywood Monsters. His work has been published in numerous horror magazines, anthologies, websites, and podcasts. He’s an editor for Sirens Call Publications and currently writes for the horror fiction website PenoftheDamned.com

  Twitter: @leeandrewforman

  Website: leeformanauthor.com

 

 

  Lee Forman, The Bones of Hillside

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