Jones - Amityville Horror Christmas

Amityville Horror
Christmas

A Holiday Novella

John G. Jones

Wombaroo Books
Los Angeles, California

Copyright 2013 by John G. Jones

Smashwords edition

Praise for John G. Jones andhis work...

Even morereadable and horrifying than its distinguished predecessor--its achillingly told bestseller. -- FrankDeFelitta, Bestselling Author of AudreyRose and TheEntity

Chilling, convincing, compulsivereading ... a terrifying adventure of the spirit. -- Brad Munson, authorof Inside Men in Black II, The MadThrone, and Rain

...and from readers onAmazon:

Once you started, you just cant stopreading. It is a precursor to Jordans Wheel Of Time and other great writers.Its excellent!

It is an awesomebook!

You wouldntbelieve what is so hard to believe. Chilling, intense action, whichnever seems to let up!

2013 John G. Jones.

All rights reserved. Except aspermitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of thisbook may be reproduced, scanned, transmitted or distributed in anyin any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrievalsystem, without the prior written permission of the publisher.Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrightedmaterials in violation of the authors rights.

Wombaroo Books

9903 Santa Monica Boulevard,#372

Beverly Hills, CA 90212

This is a work of fiction. Anyresemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead,is coincidental.

This ebook is licensed for yourpersonal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or givenaway to other people. If you would like to share this book withanother person, please purchase an additional copy for eachrecipient. If youre reading this book and did not purchase it, orit was not purchased for your use only, then please return to yourfavorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you forrespecting the hard work of this author

PROLOGUE:
CHRISTMAS PAST

Theres something aboutChristmas and ghost stories. Maybe its because the holiday itselfis based on a supernatural event a whole mess of them, actually:phantom stars in the sky, virgin births, and visitations by angels.Perhaps thats why Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol as aghost story, all about three very memorable spirits of the past,present, and future, and how they changed an old mans life.

Maybe thats why Brad andKiley asked Grandpa Owen to tell them a ghost story that ChristmasEve. Enough with the merry gentlemen, and Bible stories, the goodcheer and the red-nosed reindeer. Time to get a little scaredbefore bedding down, so Santa could finally stop lurking in theshadows and sneak inside.

Come on, Gampa,Young Kiley said.You always have good ones. Tell us a scary story. A Christmasscary story!

Owen was about to pull somepiece of holiday fluff out of his memory, some half-remembered talefrom a half-forgotten book when his daughter-in-law Sherri pulledhim up short. Here you go, she said, as she placed a cup of hotcider on the table beside his arm chair. As usual theyd set it upvery nicely for him, a stack of comfortable pillows angled justright, so that the old wound in his side wouldnt bother him toomuch. It always bothered him more in the winter time, especiallyaround Christmas. He blamed the cold when anyone asked, but he knewit was more than that. It always had been, ever since hed been sobadly hurt back in 75. Ever since good old Randy had almostsingle-handedly carried him out of danger that unbelievably awfulChristmas Eve.

The sudden, sharp burningin his right side, just below the ribs, and the sweet smell ofcider brought it all back. Randy and Charlie Danvers and thatterrible Rotting Girl. The bitter, cutting cold, the fever andthe bizarre puss-filled infection that threatened to take over hisentire body. The vicious black dog. The shadowy man with the axewho wouldnt help them, even when they screamed and screamed

There was no way Owen couldhave known that Christmas Eve night that what they went through wasjust a part of something that would soon make a tiny hamlet in LongIsland, New York, infamous across the world and come to personifythe word horror. That would burn the name Amityville into thepsyche of modern culture, through word of mouth and even books,television and movies. That what they had inadvertently stumbledinto was a series of events that would for all time be known as:The Amityville Horror.

I have a story for you, he heardhimself say. And though he knew it really wasnt what they wantedto hear, it was the one he had to tell. Because, even though it wasmore than thirty years later, and he was snug in his childrenshome, far from Amityville, a part of him was stillthere.

Still there.

CHAPTER ONE

CharlieDanvers sat behind his desk in the office of Danvers & Son inHicksville, Long Island, one hand still resting on the large,heavily worn receiver of the old Bakelite phone. He was trying tomake some sense of the call hed just taken. The word weird came to mind,right along with bizarre , strange, and what thehell.

Iguess Christmas is always a prettydiscombobulated time , he thought. People are all tangled up with buying presents,seeing family, making sure theres enough to feed everyone thatmight be coming for the holidays . The last thing they want to worry about is aproblem with the house . Still, he had toadmit, at least to himself, that even with the added stress of theyear-end holidays, the call hed just taken ranked right up thereas one of the strangest hed ever gotten.

He lookedat the pad with the name and address of the man whod just calledhim scribbled on it and felt a chill trickle down his spine.Something colder than the freezing weather just beyond the foggywindow. The man had sounded like hed passed stressed some time ago and was nowbordering on hysterical . In fact, if it had been a woman he would certainly haveused that term, even if Emily said it was chauvinistic. Feminismwas one of his wifes newly acquired causes and she tended to bringup the topic more and more often these days. Its 1975, CharlieDanvers, she would say. Not 1875. And the sooner you men get usedto the idea that things really have changed, the better. Shealways added his surname when she wanted to emphasize a point;shed been doing it since the day they were married almost thirtyyears ago. One of the many things I loveabout her, he told himself. For all oftheir mutual eccentricities, theyd always had a warm and lovingrelationship, possibly because hed always treated her with thekind of respect she was now talking about.

He sighed and lookedthoughtfully around the shabby, familiar office hed inherited fromhis father. Not even the cheery aroma of the piping hot apple ciderwafting from the bowl on the office hotplate a Christmastradition at Danvers & Sons since the days of his Dad couldlift his spirits.

Unlikehis marriage, the business of being the Son in Danvers &Son had always been a love/hate relationship, even after all theseyears. Not that he didnt appreciate the gift; it had kept him andhis family in a style that well, they werent rich, by any means, but they werewell above anything close to middle-class. It was just that hedalways imagined himself doing something more creative with hislife. Like so many youngsters, hed had big dreams as a boy. Hewanted to be a train engineer, maybe even an aviator. He wanted totravel and take chances. It had never even occurred to him that atthe age of fifty-six he would be running what was essentially aglorified fix-it shop, even if the fix-it jobs ranged all the wayfrom broken faucets to using a mobile crane to lift a damaged roof.And he was proud of what theyd accomplished: theyd built quite areputation in the Islip/Minneola area as the go-to guys, the onesyou called when you had a big problem. That reputation hadgenerated very substantial profits.

Still , he thought as he watched thesteam rise lazily from the cider. Still,theres nothing unusual about my life, is there? Nothing special, nothingout of the--