Amityville Horror Now Read online

  Amityville Horror Now:

  The Jones Journal

  Book One of The Light Warriors

  John G. Jones

  Inspired by his true story

  Wombaroo Books

  Los Angeles, California

  Copyright 2013 by John G. Jones

  Smashwords edition

  Praise for John G. Jones and his work...

  “Even more readable and horrifying than its distinguished predecessor--it’s a chillingly told bestseller.” -- Frank DeFelitta, Bestselling Author of Audrey Rose and The Entity

  “Chilling, convincing, compulsive reading ... a terrifying adventure of the spirit.” -- Brad Munson, author of Inside Men in Black II, The Mad Throne, and Rain

  ...and from readers on Amazon:

  “Once you started, you just can’t stop reading. It is a precursor to Jordan’s Wheel Of Time and other great writers. It’s excellent!”

  “It is an awesome book!”

  “You wouldn’t believe what is so hard to believe. Chilling, intense action, which never seems to let up!”

  © 2013 John G. Jones.

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, transmitted or distributed in any in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights.

  Wombaroo Books

  9903 Santa Monica Boulevard, #372

  Beverly Hills, CA 90212

  First North American Edition: June 2014

  Although based on a true story, this book is a work of both fact and fiction. Some names, characters, places, and incidents have been changed or are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. In this case, any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Book Cover design by Beyond Art

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author

  DEDICATIONS

  Special thanks for their help, inspiration and friendship…

  Brad Munson: Mate, Editor extraordinaire and talented Author. Thanks for hanging in for all these years.

  Robert Dean Lewis: Long-time partner and brother-from another-equally-fabulous-mother as Mumsy.

  Neil Fischer: Good Mate, long-time friend and legal adviser for more years than seem possible.

  Sergio Reyes, old friend, mate and long-time associate

  VPJ the love of my life and my spiritual inspiration.

  And above all else, MCS and BGS, the true Light Warriors.

  “It's amazing what an exorcism’ll do for you. You start the day thinking ‘I’m jet-lagged and tired and I really don’t feel up to doing this bloody interview!’ Then you die in a way you could never have imagined...and your whole world changes forever.”

  John G. Jones

  The Jones Journal

  FOREWORD

  For more than a quarter century, The Amityville Horror has haunted America and the world. The story was first revealed in the late Seventies, when Jay Anson’s book told the horrific story of an American family’s 28-day ordeal in their dream home. It was a story of dark visions and possession, of strange ghostly hauntings, of putrid ooze that with no warning or rational explanation seeped from taps and toilets, and of bizarre attacks by hordes of flies commanded by some unseen, malevolent force. These events shattered the lives of George and Kathy Lutz and their children, drove them to the brink of insanity and finally caused them to flee in terror, never to return. The tale of the Lutzes – a typical, loving, God-fearing middle-class family until their encounter with the unknown – resonated with readers around the world. It seemed so possible, so true.

  The Amityville Horror: A True Story sold millions of copies in the U.S. alone, and duplicated that success throughout much of the world. The subsequent film adaptation became the most successful independent movie of its time. This was soon followed by equal returns in foreign sales.

  John G. Jones, an Australian musician/author/producer, had only a passing acquaintance with the Amityville story… until the day that he met George and Kathy Lutz. They saw something in each other – a special connection – and within a few weeks, the unintentionally famous couple had told John a secret that few others knew at that time: the horror didn’t end when they left the house. It escaped with them, and continued to pursue them as they fled across the country. It even followed them as they sought refuge and help halfway ‘round the world. Worse: they were not the only ones affected.

  Friends and family, co-workers and colleagues, were all having terrible trials of their own, triggered by mere contact with the force from Amityville. Somehow the infectious horror was continuing, they told him – years later, even as they were talking to John. It was happening every day.

  The Lutzes were terrified and exhausted, but they wanted the world to know: the story wasn’t over. The Horror was continuing … and getting worse.

  Shortly after their first meeting, at the request of the Lutzes, John, acquired the rights to the continuing story of the Horror that began in Amityville. His first book, The Amityville Horror II, was an instant New York Times Best-seller and soon appeared on best-seller lists worldwide, as did his subsequent books: Amityville Horror III, Amityville: The Evil Escapes and Amityville: The Horror Returns.

  During those years, the name “Amityville” became synonymous with modern-day, real-world horror and John himself became an almost unwilling authority on the supernatural. Others would bring their stories and secrets to him, and inevitably he became involved in their lives. In the process he met a group of remarkable people – researchers, healers, shamans, and charlatans – who changed his life.

  What he has not revealed to the public until now is that, while researching and writing his books, John himself became part of the story – that shortly after his first encounter with the Lutz family, the Force from Amityville touched him, and remains part of his life today, many years later.

  The truth is: John has become a part of the horror itself.

  Like so many others, John began as a skeptic; he admits that he didn’t completely believe the Lutzes at that first meeting. The story seemed so bizarre, so impossible. But just a short time later he found himself keeping a journal of the inexplicable events that were occurring around him almost every day. It was the only thing he could do to stay sane.

  John retains the rights to chronicle the story of the late George Lutz and his family…and there is still much to tell. But now, for the first time, he is also opening his journal and telling his own story and the stories he has been a part of over all these years. Just as he did in his best-selling books, he is expanding the story of the Amityville Horror beyond its original “haunted house” roots, and exploring the evil force from Amityville as it has affected and continues to affect the world at large – his world, and our world – with the same sense of real, true experience.

  Only John knows the whole story.

  Only he can tell it to the world.

  And that telling begins right here.

  PROLOGUE:

  THE NIGHTMARE

  The thunder crashes were like hammer-blows. They made his whole body shudder and tilt, his heart going THWACK THWACK THWACK in his chest with ev
ery impact.

  With each violent rumble the old house convulsed in empathy.

  The lightning was more than just blinding-bright, it was sharp. It cut at his eyes like a razor. Blade and hammer, blade and hammer, thwack thwack BOOM!

  He was drowning in pain, swaying in the upstairs hall of a charming five bedroom, four bathrooms Dutch Colonial with huge yard, somewhere in Amityville, long Island, New York.

  The hallway was tasteful. Christmas decorations hung along the carved walnut wainscoting; lovely patterns twirled through the burgundy wallpaper. Fluted sconces, the real estate lady had said, and a circular, fully mullioned stained glass window that gives the hall an almost church-like appeal.

  Funny how you knew all about the stained glass windows, he thought as he swayed against the doorposts and hefted the ax, suddenly heavy in his hand. Funny that you didn’t know a THING about the shotgun murders in the bedroom or the torture chamber in the basement. FUNNY, that’s FUNNY, that’s –

  The truth was that he wasn’t really cognizant of where he was … not really.

  All he knew … all he wanted to do was kill them, kill them all. He couldn’t even remember why, he just knew he had to do it; just because they were there, just for being alive? Or maybe because it hurt so much inside and out and he somehow knew it wouldn’t stop until they were dead; it just wouldn’t STOP…

  The Christmas decorations popped and flared along the walls as evil surged through them, running tick-tick-tick in a trail that led from the doorway where he stood to the far end of the corridor.

  There were body shapes there, at the other end. Night-shadows, dead black. A woman with lanky wet hair snaking down one side of her face. Arms out, embracing three children, huddled around her feet.

  He knew them. He knew them all. He just couldn’t remember their names right now. But he knew he had to kill them and kill them just for being there, for being in the way.

  He hefted the ax and took a step forward. A silver-backed mirror on the wall glinted like a metal tooth in a gaping mouth furry with rot, and he caught sight of himself:

  Big man. Burly. Tangle of hair all around his head, a filthy wet glistening corona. Beard thick and black, flowing down his neck. Eyes dark and tiny, shoe-button bright and dead dead dead.

  Hey, you, he called out to himself. Having a night out, are you? Having a ball, lookin’ to kill the family just like the last guy did, and the guy before that and the guy before –

  “–Honey?”

  It was the woman huddled in the hallway. His … his wife. The sound of her voice made him stop in his tracks, made him turn towards the tangle of shadows at the far end of the corridor and gulp in a breath, ice-cold and cleansing between the slash and hammer of the storm.

  “Honey,” she said, trembling but oddly strong – steady – certain. “Please don’t hurt us. You don’t want that.”

  She was wrong. The worm in his brain wanted that COMPLETELY, wanted it NOW, more than ANYTHING, but

  He didn’t want that. He wanted his family, wanted to be with them, wanted to …

  To …

  To …

  The walls around him flexed like a swallowing throat. It pushed at him from all directions. The lightning and thunder hammered and slashed.

  He bellowed and lifted the axe over his head. He held it there, suspended, muscles twitching, eyes on fire. He took a lurching step forward and a huge flash of lightning EXPLODED just outside the stained-glass window, made it rattle and shriek in its frame.

  As if on cue, black goo oozed from the wallpaper, thick as blood, and cascaded over the Christmas tinsel.

  DO IT, said the wriggling worm in his brain.

  Save them, he told himself, screaming in rage from his cave, in the back of his own brain.

  He gripped the ax tight.

  DO IT

  Save Them

  DO IT!

  Save them Save them Save them NOW –

  He spun on his heel and threw the ax, hard as he could, straight through the jittering stained glass window. It exploded as if a grenade had gone off, tiny glittering rainbow shards shrieking off in every direction, the rain gushing in, drops as big as rotting cherries.

  The instant he let the ax go, the slithering voice in his brain collapsed, dissolved, burned away, leaving an acid scar and nothing more. He fell to his knees next to his family and held them tightly for a long few seconds.

  “Come on,” he finally told them, lifting the smallest child into his strong arms. “Come on, let’s get out of h–”

  – and the corridor collapsed like a chewing mouth and crushed them, swallowed them KILLED THEM ALL…

  CHAPTER ONE

  John Jones lurched upright in bed, fully awake, gushing sweat, and involuntarily cried out.

  “Bloody ‘ell!”

  He just sat there for a long moment; frozen in place, listening to the echo of his voice as it bounced around the room. Then he slumped back against the wall, exhausted.

  Fuck! He thought. Not again.

  He dug his hands into his long brown hair and pushed it back off his forehead, back until it tickled his shoulders.

  I’m not him, he told himself, and not for the first time. I wasn’t there. I just know too much about what happened in that fucking house. It’s gotten into me, somehow.

  He swept away the covers with an abrupt, almost impatient sweep of his arm. He could still hear the echo of his terrified shout caroming now throughout his sparsely furnished apartment. It finally faded as he swung his legs over the side of the Queen-sized bed and thumped his feet on the polished wood floor. Feeling the strong, cold planking under the soles of his bare feet somehow made things seem a little more … normal. Still, for a long moment, he just sat, eyes scanning the shadows.

  Breathe, he told himself, ordering his heart to slow. Just breathe.

  After another long beat, he switched on the bedside lamp. The room lost its ominous shadows and leapt into sharp relief; he shrugged as he stared at the mirror hanging on the opposite wall and slowly checked out his reflection. He patted down his bushy side-whiskers, and then ran a hand over his shoulder-length hair and pulled it back into a tiny ponytail. He tugged at the skin under one eye and examined the deep red streaks etched across the whites of his eyes.

  I look damned near as tired as I feel, he thought, as he let the skin ease back into place. You’d never know I haven’t used drugs in years; my eyes look like I’ve been snorting coke for days ... weeks, even.

  It wasn’t really surprising he looked so tired, so frayed – much more than someone barely twenty should look. After all, he hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in a month or more.

  He finally stopped staring into the mirror, as his breathing slowed to almost normal; he brushed a few straggly hairs from his face, lurched to his feet, and headed for the door.

  John’s living room and adjoining kitchenette was simple, clean, and uncluttered – pretty much the norm for an above-average, middle-class apartment in Santa Barbara. The only interesting thing was his makeshift music studio, built into one corner of the room. There was a huge 10-inch reel-to-reel tape recorder with the accompanying rat’s nest of wires, cables, and bits and pieces, a professional microphone and stand, a four-legged stool, and a number of quarter-inch tapes and boxes – all state of the art c. 1980. An acoustic guitar, an electric guitar, and a small practice amp sat nearby.

  Still in his sleeping sweats, John shuffled wearily to the kitchen. Suddenly he was thirsty – urgently, deeply thirsty. With an almost frantic need, he snatched the refrigerator open, grasped a bottle of organic orange juice from the refrigerator and gulped it down without even taking a breath, as if it were a magic elixir that would somehow help him regain some kind of equilibrium.

  But it was only orange juice. It did nothing to help ease the tension that held his shoulders firmly in a vise-like grip. After a few more seconds, he sighed and switched on the automatic coffee maker. As it begun to purr through its cycle, he headed back into the
living room.

  For a long beat, he just stood and stared down at the tape recorder, pondering what he had planned. Now, at this moment, in the cold light of day … he wasn’t really sure about it. It won’t do anything, he told himself. It won’t help at all. But he had to do something. He had to try and get some of this … this … stuff out of his head, somehow. Maybe this would do it.

  Finally, resigned, he perched on the edge of the stool and switched on the recorder. As the reel-to-reel began to slowly turn, he bent the goose-neck attachment holding the microphone close to his mouth, rubbed at his forehead with the fingers of one hand, and struggled to find the right words. After a few more seconds, his accent clearly tinged by his Australian roots, he began to speak.

  “I’m not ... sure ... this is a good idea. Feels kinda crazy. I dunno ... maybe I should try writin’ a journal, but I’ve never done that before, either.”

  He looked around as if he was worried someone might hear him.

  “I sure as hell ain’t tellin’ any of the band I did this. They’ll be takin’ the piss out of me for months.”

  After yet another long awkward pause, he again rubbed tiredly at his eyes, and went on.