Amityville Horror Christmas Read online

  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 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.

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

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  PROLOGUE:

  CHRISTMAS PAST

  There’s something about Christmas and ghost stories. Maybe it’s because the holiday itself is based on a supernatural event – a whole mess of them, actually: phantom stars in the sky, virgin births, and visitations by angels. Perhaps that’s why Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol as a ghost story, all about three very memorable spirits of the past, present, and future, and how they changed an old man’s life.

  Maybe that’s why Brad and Kiley asked Grandpa Owen to tell them a ghost story that Christmas Eve. Enough with the merry gentlemen, and Bible stories, the good cheer and the red-nosed reindeer. Time to get a little scared before bedding down, so Santa could finally stop lurking in the shadows and sneak inside.

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

  Owen was about to pull some piece of holiday fluff out of his memory, some half-remembered tale from a half-forgotten book … when his daughter-in-law Sherri pulled him up short. “Here you go,” she said, as she placed a cup of hot cider on the table beside his arm chair. As usual they’d set it up very nicely for him, a stack of comfortable pillows angled just right, so that the old wound in his side wouldn’t bother him too much. It always bothered him more in the winter time, especially around Christmas. He blamed the cold when anyone asked, but he knew it was more than that. It always had been, ever since he’d been so badly hurt back in ’75. Ever since good old Randy had almost single-handedly carried him out of danger that unbelievably awful Christmas Eve.

  The sudden, sharp burning in his right side, just below the ribs, and the sweet smell of cider brought it all back. Randy and Charlie Danvers and that terrible Rotting Girl. The bitter, cutting cold, the fever … and the bizarre puss-filled infection that threatened to take over his entire body. The vicious black dog. The shadowy man with the axe who wouldn’t help them, even when they screamed and screamed …

  There was no way Owen could have known that Christmas Eve night that what they went through was just a part of something that would soon make a tiny hamlet in Long Island, New York, infamous across the world … and come to personify the word ‘horror’. That would burn the name Amityville into the psyche of modern culture, through word of mouth and even books, television and movies. That what they had inadvertently stumbled into was a series of events that would for all time be known as: The Amityville Horror.

  “I have a story for you,” he heard himself say. And though he knew it really wasn’t what they wanted to hear, it was the one he had to tell. Because, even though it was more than thirty years later, and he was snug in his children’s home, far from Amityville, a part of him was still there.

  Still there.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Charlie Danvers sat behind his desk in the office of Danvers & Son in Hicksville, Long Island, one hand still resting on the large, heavily worn receiver of the old Bakelite phone. He was trying to make some sense of the call he’d just taken. The word weird came to mind, right along with bizarre, strange, and …what the hell.

  I guess Christmas is always a pretty discombobulated time, he thought. People are all tangled up with buying presents, seeing family, making sure there’s enough to feed everyone that might be coming for the holidays. The last thing they want to worry about is a problem with the house. Still, he had to admit, at least to himself, that even with the added stress of the year-end holidays, the call he’d just taken ranked right up there as one of the strangest he’d ever gotten.

  He looked at the pad with the name and address of the man who’d just called him scribbled on it and felt a chill trickle down his spine. Something colder than the freezing weather just beyond the foggy window. The man had sounded like he’d passed stressed some time ago and was now bordering on hysterical. In fact, if it had been a woman he would certainly have used that term, even if Emily said it was ‘chauvinistic.’ Feminism was one of his wife’s newly acquired causes and she tended to bring up the topic more and more often these days. “It’s 1975, Charlie Danvers,” she would say. “Not 1875. And the sooner you men get used to the idea that things really have changed, the better.” She always added his surname when she wanted to emphasize a point; she’d been doing it since the day they were married almost thirty years ago. One of the many things I love about her, he told himself. For all of their mutual eccentricities, they’d always had a warm and loving relationship, possibly because he’d always treated her with the kind of respect she was now talking about.

  He sighed and looked thoughtfully around the shabby, familiar office he’d inherited from his father. Not even the cheery aroma of the piping hot apple cider wafting from the bowl on the office hotplate – a Christmas tradition at Danvers & Sons since the days of his Dad – could lift his spirits.

  Unlike his marriage, the business of being the “Son” in “Danvers & Son” had always been a love/hate relationship, even after all these years. Not that he didn’t appreciate the gift; it had kept him and his family in a style that – well, they weren’t rich, by any means, but they were well above anything close to middle-class. It was just that he’d always imagined himself doing something more creative with his life. Like so many youngsters, he’d had big dreams as a boy. He wanted to be a train engineer, maybe even an aviator. He wanted to travel and take chances. It had never even occurred to him that at the age of fifty-six he would be running what was essentially a glorified ‘fix-it’ shop, even if the fix-it jobs ranged all the way from broken faucets to using a mobile crane to lift a damaged roof. And he was proud of what they’d accomplished: they’d built
quite a reputation in the Islip/Minneola area as the go-to guys, the ones you called when you had a big problem. That reputation had generated very substantial profits.

  Still, he thought as he watched the steam rise lazily from the cider. Still, there’s nothing unusual about my life, is there? Nothing special, nothing out of the--

  His wool-gathering was interrupted by the distinctive clang of the old brass bell -- also courtesy of his Dad – that hung above the shop’s front door. It jerked open and let in a blast of frigid air, so strong and cold it seemed to propel the two bodies that accompanied it. He huffed in surprise as Randy Hallowell barged into the room, followed closely by his young assistant, Owen Blake. Randy was laughing, as usual. Owen was pensive – also, as usual.

  Almost a shame to have to break that good mood, Charlie thought, as Randy called out, “Merry Christmas, Squire.”

  Randy grinned as he wiped the grease from his hands with a heavily soiled rag and took a deep whiff of the hot cider. “Shame I can’t stand the stuff,” he said, and stomped over to drop his heavy frame into the chair in front of Charlie’s desk with a wheezing thud. “So there you go,” he said, as Owen quietly drew out the ladle and poured himself a cup of punch. “Lock replaced, window re-glazed. Last job for this bitch-cold Christmas Eve, done and done. Time to break open the bubbly, share a quick Yuletide celebratory toast, and – while the bubbles are still popping in our ears – head for hearth and home.”

  Charlie smiled and shook his head at the thirty-year-old family man. Randy was an avid reader, and lately he’d been going through a Victorian phase, hence the nonsense about ‘Squire’ and ‘hearth and home’. In the fifteen years Charlie has known him, he could always tell what Randy was reading simply by his conversation. A few months back, during his Raymond Chandler period, he sounded like a bad imitation of Humphrey Bogart. He was glad when that had ended. But now this …

  Owen leaned his butt on the credenza in the corner and sipped his cider, showing no emotion, just taking it all in. If Randy was the one who couldn’t stop talking, his partner was the one who barely spoke at all, and when he did it was usually in short, almost staccato bursts followed by long, stubborn hours of silence, as if every word cost him something in a coin he didn’t like to spend.

  Deep, Charlie thought. It wasn’t that Owen didn’t think about things, or that he didn’t have an opinion. Charlie suspected he had tons of them. He was bright and observant, and a terrific problem-solver, especially for a twenty-two-year-old. He just didn’t care to give them voice, especially around his boss or his partner. Maybe he went home to his dog and chattered like a magpie, but Charlie suspected he’d never know.

  “Well … ah …” Charlie hesitated, then cleared his throat. “Maybe it’s not totally done and done.”

  Randy stared at him, frowning in disbelief. “You’re shitting me,” he said. Owen didn’t change expression at all. He just stopped moving.

  Charlie sighed. Both of his men had had a long day already, he knew, and it was cold out there, really cold. They were ready to begin their Christmas celebrations; the last thing they would want to hear about was one more job.

  But Charlie had promised the strange caller he would at least make an attempt. It had seemed very important to the man. He needed help, and ‘help’ was Danvers & Sons’ stock in trade.

  “What do you mean?” Owen asked.

  Charlie was shocked by this uncustomary outburst. My, my, he thought. Four words in a row? It actually made him stutter before he answered.

  “Aah … ah … well, there is another job. If you want to do it.”

  Randy had already begun shaking his head, so Charlie quickly added the kicker: “The customer’s willing to pay extremely well for the inconvenience,” he said. “We’re talking bonus, here.”

  Randy stopped shaking his head and frowned, just as Charlie thought he might. He knew Randy had two young kids and a wife who didn’t work, and of course there was the added burden of Christmas. He clearly didn’t want the job, but just as clearly, he couldn’t afford to say no. Owen, on the other hand, was a different story. No wife, no girlfriend, no obligations. He could be at the Cask and Cleaver with a beer in his hand in half an hour with no real regrets, no matter how big a cash windfall this might include.

  But he also wasn’t the kind of guy to let his partner down.

  “It would have to be a pretty damn big ‘bonus’ to convince Randy to change his plans,” Owen said grudgingly. “He’s been going on and on about getting home to the family for the last two hours.”

  Damn! Charlie thought. That’s the most I’ve heard him volunteer since I first hired him, three years ago.

  He upped the stakes. “Triple the normal fee. And it sounds like a q and e, all the way.” That was their personal code: ‘q and e’ for ‘quick and easy.’ Just the kind of job they all loved, especially at this time of year, and especially in weather like this.

  “Triple, Squire?” Randy asked, holding to his Victorian affectation, but not quite believing what he’d just heard.

  Charlie nodded, hating himself a little. “Triple,” he said firmly. “Just fix a boathouse door that keeps banging in the wind, and you’re home for dinner.”

  Randy’s forehead scrunched into a disbelieving frown, all hint of his Victorian silliness abruptly gone. “You’re kidding. A boathouse door? On Christmas Eve?”

  “No joke,” Charlie said, eying the name and address on the pad in front of him. “I guess it’s been getting worse and worse. The owner says he can’t spend Christmas with it banging loose. Says it’s driving him … crazy.” Actually, Charlie realized, he hadn’t said that at all, but that’s what it sounded like: crazy. He felt a sudden stab of regret at bringing this up at all. “Look,” he said, ready to take it back --

  “Has he tried changing the lock?” Randy asked.

  Charlie stopped short. He’s going to take it, he realized. And now he couldn’t very well take money out of the man’s hand. So he shrugged and said, “Beats me.” The die is cast, he told himself, and he wondered distantly why this had all suddenly become such a big deal. “Sounds like a few minutes, at most. And he’s willing to pay for driving time, too.”

  “Driving time?” Randy was even more confused now.

  “Yeah,” Charlie added. “He’s … ah … he’s over in Amityville.”

  Randy groaned again. “Ah, hell,” he said. “Why call us? Why not those idiots in West Babby, or even Bart Calvin over in Levittown? They’re both closer.”

  “I guess the other shops are already closed,” Charlie smoothly lied. The truth was that he’d wondered the same thing. The answering machine at the shop in West Babylon said they were closed for the holidays, so he connected with Bart Calvin at his shop in Levittown, and Bart told him he’d already done some work for this same customer. Calvin had been called in to check out a problem with the heater in the house early last week, and even though his workmen couldn’t find anything wrong, the guy had paid the bill before Bart could even send him an invoice. Same guy had actually called back earlier that day … but his boys wouldn’t take the job. None of them. Charlie had pushed him on this point, and Bart had turned funny on him – almost defensive. He said even the most desperate guys on his crew suddenly had something better to do. “Makes sense actually,” Calvin had said. “Considering.”

  Before Charlie could ask ‘considering what?’ Calvin had hung up. Without so much as a “goodbye” or “Merry Christmas,” just … click.

  Charlie decided there was no point in bringing any of that up. Still, Randy again seemed reluctant to do the job.

  “Look, boys,” Charlie said, feigning disinterest, “If you’d rather not do the job I’ll call the guy back and tell him we can’t do it.”

  Randy hesitated, clearly thinking of exactly that. But after a few long seconds, he shrugged. “Nah, nah, let’s do it. Hard to turn down such an easy job. Not one that’ll help pay for at least some of the kid’s toys.” He grinned. “But fair warni
ng: it just might take us a long time to get there and back. What with him paying for the driving time and all.” He wiggled his eyebrows; Charlie chuckled in spite of himself.

  “Kind’a thought it might,” he said. And truth be told, I could use a few extra bucks myself. These holiday seasons are killing me.

  He copied the name and address from his scratch pad to a blank work order, added Randy’s and Owen’s name in the right spot and scrawled Fix Boat House Door next to the words Special Instructions. Then he tore it loose and handed it to Randy.

  The chair groaned in complaint as Randy pushed himself to his feet. He took the page, looked at it, then stood, holding it out in front of him, and like a town crier bellowed out, “Good tidings, my friend! Show us your door, tell us your story, and Owen and I will make it right!” And then in a stage whisper: “And make a few bucks and hurry home for the holidays!”

  “Oh, hell,” Charlie said. Randy’s silliness had reminded him. “I almost forget; don’t do that.”

  Randy looked puzzled. “Don’t do what?”

  “Don’t talk to the guy. Specific instruction: You don’t ask for anyone, you don’t talk to the family, even if you see them. In fact you don’t go anywhere near the main house.” Those had been the customer’s exact words and he’d heavily emphasized the point. Twice. He had even made Charlie promise to use those words exactly with his ‘boys.’ That’s what he called them: his boys.”

  Randy frowned openly now. “That’s crazy.”

  “He made a point of it,” Charlie shrugged. “Was adamant about it, actually. You don’t drive onto the property; you park on the street. And you don’t bother anyone in the house. Not his wife. Not the kids, nobody. You just make your way around to the boathouse at the back, do the job and leave.”