Crazy House

By Peter Galarneau, Jr

Growing up is always a challenge, but for 12-year-old Jeremy Stone, it's been particularly difficult since his best friend disappeared while shopping in a nearby mall years ago. Now his Grammy is suffering from a stroke, bedridden in a care center that, she says, has a demon in it. His divorced mother is overworked and overprotective and headed for a breakdown. And, of course, there's the abandoned asylum on the hill near Jeremy's home, the one that's said to be full of ghosts and all the things that frighten young men. But it's the Crazy House that holds the answer to Teddy's disappearance and the salvation of everyone in his life, including himself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Peter Galarneau, Jr
• Release date: Dec 7, 2014
• ISBN: 9780990865322

Peter Galarneau, Jr

Peter Galarneau Jr.'s works include the YA novels: "Dr. One" and "Crazy House"; and "The Edge of Hell", "The Worms Within Us", "Muldoon's Nursery" and the multi-volume saga "The 2012 Trilogy". He is a professor of media studies and public relations at West Virginia Wesleyan College in Buckhannon, West Virginia. He lives with his wife and cats (Foot Foot, Theodora, Braveheart) within the comfort of the West Virginia hills,

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Crazy House

by

Peter Galarneau Jr.

Copyright © 2014 by Peter Galarneau Jr.

All rights reserved

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written permission of the author or the author’s designee.

Crazy House is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places and incidents either are the culmination of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, places or people, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

ISBN: 978-0-9908653-2-2

Text set in Times New Roman

Published in the United States of America

Published by P.T. William Publishing Company

at Smashwords

P.T. William Publishing Company

P.O. Box 611

Buckhannon, WV 26201

www.PTWilliam.com

Dedicated to:

Peter Galarneau Sr.

Author of the son

Also by Peter Galarneau Jr.

Short Stories

The Worms Within Us (1994)

The Edge of Hell (1994)

Blood Barters (1996)

Muldoon’s Nursery (1997)

O-Time: PUSH* (2010)

Novels

The Cubit: The 2012 Trilogy I (2008)

The Djed: The 2012 Trilogy II (2009)

Journey of the Daggers:

The Complete 2012 Trilogy (2012)

***

If his mom ever found out that he’d ridden past the old asylum, he and his bicycle would be placed on suspension forever. Forever was a mighty long time, she’d told him. Forever is like when you end up in a psycho ward—one just like that haunted, busted up place he wasn’t supposed to go near. Moms with no husbands were like that, Jeremy thought. Always trying to persuade, not by belt or paddle but by scaring the living crap out of you.

Today, he’d have to chance it. Taking Alberman Road all the way home, though safe from forever, was three miles longer and the mid-November sun had already fallen to the tree tops. Going past the asylum would cut fifteen minutes off the ride and get him home just as the valley hills of West Virginia’s northern panhandle blocked most of the daylight.

A car had taken out the road sign marker many years ago and its metal pole remnants still bowed up and over in an arc from the muddy, leaf-thick culvert next to the shortcut’s intersection with Alberman. The corroded, four inch wide nameplate, once green with white reflective writing, was compressed like an accordion but Jeremy could still read the first three letters. He whispered and repeated them one by one, his fingers clenched around his mountain bike’s handlebars. It was a warning, of course.

D…e…a… D…e…a…

He shook off a quick chill that shot straight to his toes. He’d not biked Deacon’s Pass since the week before Teddy had disappeared, and that had been almost two years ago to the day. Even now, Jeremy believed that he and Teddy had somehow upset the spirits and that his best friend had paid the price with his life.

Deacon’s Pass carved a fairly level path through dense trees for the first half a mile, and a gentle breeze full of mountain essence lifted fallen leaves from the asphalt as Jeremy cruised along the left side of the road, a habit his mom had insisted he adopt. She’d always said that if you could see the cars coming, they wouldn’t run into you.

He hunched his shoulders to readjust his backpack which was filled with the textbooks that he’d need to read over the weekend. The pack was quite heavy and even in the forty degree weather, a sweat had developed along his spine under his jacket. It was all his own fault, though. If he’d just been the young man his mom had required him to be, he’d be home already. If he’d paid more attention to time management, he wouldn’t have missed the bus. His mom had just started twelve-hour shifts and she’d told him that young men could be twelve years old. Young men could get themselves ready for school. Young men could make their own cold cereal breakfast. Young men could make it to the bus stop, unassisted. Young men could be on time. But Jeremy had not done most of those things. He had spent the morning like a little boy, paying no mind to the clock as he’d struggled through another level of Angry Birds. His mom had left at six-thirty and she’d not been there to push him along. She’d wanted him to grow up in one morning, and now he was riding home late in the day after serving detention, his back and shoulders heavy with extra homework as penalty for his morning tardiness. He only hoped that she wouldn’t find out that he’d taken Deacon’s Pass. Forever was a mighty long time.

Jeremy stood on the pedals as the asphalt began a one-hundred-foot rise that was steep enough to hide the approach of any cars beyond its apex. The bike’s knobby tires slipped several times across leaves on gravel which threw off his cadence and increased his heavy breaths. He’d have to climb a few more hills just like this one before a long, gentle glide downhill would bring him back to Alberman Road and a five-minute ride home. He was particularly fit for a young man—not too skinny, not too fat, average really—and he’d ridden his bike for hundreds of miles up and down the West Virginia landscape since moving to the Wheeling suburbs six years ago, but for whatever reasons, he was tiring quickly. Tree tops towered overhead, their autumn canopies dropping tri-colored leaves into scattered beams of sunlight that grew dimmer with each pedal push, each heavy gasp, each yard he rose up the hill.

Half the way up, a scrambling shadow pulled his attention to the right side of the road where a couple of worn down, weed-cluttered wheel ruts angled from the asphalt into a treeless clearing within the dense woods. No sign warned against it and no fence kept would-be trespassers out of what was known as the pauper’s cemetery, not even the rabbit that had caught his attention. This was where the long, dark history of Roney’s Point had buried their dead: poor unfortunate souls that, decades ago, had ended up on the Point because they’d been unwanted by society—those that had been transient, destitute, wayward boys and girls, felonious thieves, tuberculosis patients and the otherwise mentally ill.

The rabbit looked at him then wandered into the cemetery as Jeremy continued up the hill to its apex. He dropped down from the seat, straddled the bike’s frame, and peeled off the backpack. His heart pumped a throb that made his ears feel as if they were wiggling. Ahead and down the hill were lots of blowing leaves that twinkled in spears of sunshine. Behind him were more falling leaves but they appeared much grayer, their vibrant colors just shadowy counterparts as dusk seemed to have kidnapped the essence that defined autumn. Just a few feet to his left was a dirt and rock road filled with washouts, potholes and ruts. It cut an uphill path through the forest and had not been cleared of fallen trees in decades. Only ATVs and those on foot could manage it. The road was called Roney’s Point Run and up over the ridge, though he couldn’t see it from where he stood, was the old asylum.

Still straddled, he walked his bike forward, carrying his pack in one hand, to a point where he could look up the beaten road. A Dead End sign was planted askew in a shallow culvert, a couple of bullet holes puncturing the spaces in the three Ds, the puckering metal bleeding dried rust down the pale, yellow face of the sign.

A car approached from somewhere beyond the tree line, its direction unknown until Jeremy saw the white hood of an SUV as it climbed Deacon’s Pass in the same direction he’d just ridden. Jeremy knew the driver, Mrs. Gantry, a single mother friend of his mom whose twin six year-old girls peered at him as the vehicle passed. Mrs. Gantry didn’t seem to notice him, her eyes directed at the flickering sun rays and shadows that made asphalt roads a menagerie at forty miles an hour. The twin’s eyes, however, remained locked, their tiny index fingers pointing at him, until the SUV dropped down the hill and out of sight. Jeremy absently wondered if the twin’s mother had told her kids about the asylum, about crazy people and about forever. He wondered if Mrs. Gantry had warned them not to ride along Deacon’s Pass because of speeding cars—and because of the ghosts.

As if on cue, something shuffled the leaves behind him. Jeremy quickly spun around, dropped his backpack and jumped from his bike. He rolled into the roadside culvert and his blue jeans absorbed moisture around the knees as he pushed up from all fours. He stooped and crept forward, remaining behind low brush that was filled with thick vines and broken