The Creaking Door: And Other Tales of Madness and Horror

By Jery Tillotson

On a rainy, freezing night, in an isolated lake house, a door suddenly creaks open upstairs-where nobody is supposed to be. So begins best-selling Andrea D'Allasandra's latest masterpiece of terror and suspense-The Creaking Door and Other Tales of Madness and Horror. If you dare, journey through these thirteen stories of psychos, zombies and houses that drip blood-where a creaking door is only the beginning of a stream of white-knuckled nightmares. A dead child who returns to haunt her monstrous mother a homicidal hitchhiker who thinks he's found his new victim a woman who discovers there are prehistoric dragons in her own backyard an old house that swallows up its visitors. Encounter thirteen heroines who you'll never forget-the evil, the innocent and the doomed. Andrea D'Allasandra's other three thrillers-Death House, Horror House and The Master of Hell Mountain-have all become international best-sellers!

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Sep 17, 2003
• ISBN: 9781462066087

Jery Tillotson

Jery Tillotson, writing as ?Andrea D'Allasandra?, shocked readers everywhere with his terrifying debut suspense thriller, Death House. His stunning sequel, Horror House, continues the pulse-pounding saga of the monstrous mountain psycho, Benji, who wields his axe with renewed frenzy among the unsuspecting tenants of Horror House during a ferocious blizzard. Lock your doors!

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THE CREAKING DOOR

And Other Tales of Madness and Horror

All Rights Reserved © 2003 by Jery Tillotson

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher.

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ISBN: 0-595-29504-5

ISBN: 978-1-4620-6608-7 (ebk)

Contents

THE CREAKING DOOR

DEADLY PICK-UP

GO AWAY, LITTLE GIRL

STUMPS

FREAKYGURL.COM

KNOCK, KNOCK

YOU’RE SO BEAUTIFUL

LAST PROTEST

THE CREEPER

THE SHOES

A TERRIBLE OLD WOMAN

THE ROAD

THE WAVES

THE HAUNTED HOUSE

About the author…

For my favorite brother, Jorge Tillotson

La vita e breve, La moate vin

Life is brief, death is coming…

"For beauty is nothing more than the beginning of terror…"

Ranier Maria Wilke

THE CREAKING DOOR 

You should’ve stayed at that motel in Lexington, Barb. There’s nobody around here for miles.

James said the obvious, thought Barbara, as they stood beneath the thickening drops of icy rain. The engine of his old truck still rattled, to keep the heater on because the temperatures had dropped incredibly fast.

Surrounding them were miles of unending forest, a ribbon of river that flowed a short distance away the old lake house. This looks like an old Universal horror film, she thought, filmed in charcoal and silver and black.

Barbara pulled the hood of her ski jacket up over her head. She was eager to get inside the old house, start a fire in the wood stove and brew some strong coffee.

"No Comfort Inn this time, James. This is what I want. Because it is miles from everything."

It’s your grave. There’s no electricity. You do have the water pump. I’ve put in lots of wood for you.

Great. I want to rough it. I’m tired of being a big city gal!

James Evans shook his head and raised his thin shoulders.

Okay. You’re on your own, Barb.

He didn’t move, though. He stared at the house, at the woods and shook his head again.

This place is damned isolated, he repeated. If you get in trouble out here, you really will be in trouble.

Stop it now! You’re not responsible for me. You’ll find me packed up and ready to go back to the airport Sunday afternoon. Now, get on home to Polly.

James settled in behind the wheel of his truck. Barbara stood outside the window. His pale blue eyes looked up at her.

I still remember all you Thornton kids running around out here in summer. That’s been thirty years or more ago.

I’ve wanted to come back a thousand times. Us kids loved it here all those summers.

It’s changed. Like everything else. Nobody comes along this road much. You had electricity back then. You’ll find some of Polly’s bread and pecan pie in that basket in the kitchen. ‘Bye now.

Bye, Jim. See ya Sunday afternoon.

Barbara hugged herself and shivered. The red taillights of the truck vanished down the dirt road. She could imagine the truck creeping along for several miles before it came to River Road.

From there, it would take several more miles before the road exited to the interstate.

Maybe I should have stayed at the Comfort Inn in Lexington. That’s where she always checked in when visiting kinfolk down here in this rural part of North Carolina. But that was an anonymous pit stop.

When she stayed there, she always thought: how many hundreds of other people have passed through this same room. Leaving their germs behind. Their memories. Their fights and lovemaking.

This colorless, gray terrain suddenly looked ominous.

I should’ve at least rented a car. No one came out here anymore.

But if she had rented a car, the impulse to hop in and begin driving over all these striking back roads of this stunning rural backwater would have used up precious hours. I’ve only got two days to draft this book. I can’t waste a second.

This was like a journey back into her past. The Snyder Cabin, as they called it when growing up, had haunted her all those years away from here. She and her brothers and sisters and parents had lived for the month they stayed here. All alone. Swimming and fishing on the huge High Rock Lake.

Reading Nancy Drew mysteries in bed by kerosene lamp, snuggling under the quilts in the old wooden bedrooms because out here, even in summer, the temperatures dropped.

There were those times when her older brother, Ned, put on big boots and clomped up the stairs at night and made all the kids scream and pull the covers over their heads. They were sure he was Bloody Bones. This was the nightmarish monster that came out only at night to grab high-strung kids and gobble them up.

Her family had long scattered, gotten married, her parents and a sister buried now.

Instead of that welcoming, wooden house, the summer place was now dark, dead and empty of life.

She walked around it now, stepping over the carpet of dead leaves. Old tree limbs and rotting garbage bags littered the ground. Beer cans glistened beneath the rain.

Others had obviously dropped by here over the decades to spend a few nights. She looked up at the house. A good-sized family could live here year round. There were two floors, with lots of windows, two chimneys.

But an active family with a working parent would have found it this just too impractical.

It was too hard to get to. It was too remote from everything.

But that was its purpose. It was built as a weekend hideaway.

The malls and the highways were many miles away. A narrow dirt road, nearly invisible to passing traffic on the more traveled main road, was the only way to visit here.

The large back porch was falling apart. That used to be a screened in little cocoon where they could sit after supper and watch the moonlight on the river.

Daddy had brought along a wound-up phonograph record player. The kids danced the shag and the jitterbug on the porch or in the den. Mama and Daddy slow-danced to big band sounds from the forties. A fire always crackled in the hearth.

Now, a broken down clothes washer and dryer sat rusting where the porch had been. Boxes of mason jars and more bags of debris were piled up on the crumbling steps.

She walked down to the enormous flow of water that lapped dark and icy against the shore.

High Rock Lake. She had always loved that name. They had taken boat rides on its green surface, caught fish, and even swam.

Heavy rains had caused it to rise. She was startled by how high it came to the rear of the house. Across the river, gold dots of illumination had once glowed in other lake cabins. Those houses were long gone.

The Snyder Family had hung on to this small property through the decades. Rarely did anyone want to use it now except for those rare friends who merely flopped down with sleeping bags while hunting and fishing.

She stepped over the crumbling bricks that had once been steps, over the rotting back porch and opened the kitchen door.

Old James Snyder, the last of his clan, had tidied up the place for her. He had gone over the house days before and chased out any rats or snakes that might have settled in to live.

He had stockpiled wood for the kitchen stove and for the den, it was even better. James had draped blankets over the old sofa and chair. A fire crackled warm and inviting in the rock hearth. He had lit a kerosene lamp that glowed on the wooden table in the corner.

This is where she planned to work on her book.

Her two big duffel bags sat near the hearth. One contained clothes. From the other, she withdrew her portable typewriter, a ream of paper, a carton of Salem cigarettes and a .45 magnum.

James had assured her the place was safe but she didn’t want to take any chances. Living in New York City had conditioned her to safeguarding herself against human danger.

Just to satisfy her own peace of mine, she grabbed her big flashlight. She crossed the den and entered a narrow stairwell that led to the second floor.

The steps still groaned and squeaked. As kids, she and her siblings wondered what made them moan for no reason?

On the second floor, she stepped into a narrow hallway. On either side were two bedrooms.

She shone her flashlight into each one.

The one on the left had become the junk room.

Like most junk rooms, an aura of sadness and decay saturated the air. This is where people piled the unwanted—dismantled beds, a mattress leaning against the wall, boxes of old magazines, books. It smelt of old dust and decay and damp wood.

In the corner bedroom on the right, James had kindly prepared her a place to sleep. This is the one she had always occupied with two of her sisters, Martha and Karen. The window looked out upon the water. Clean, starched sheets covered the bed. A red and gold patchwork quilt lay folded at the bottom. Another oil lamp, with a box of matches, sat on the nightstand.

Crates of books and magazines were lined up against the wooden walls. Maybe some of her favorite old Nancy Drews and Judy Bolton mysteries might still be there. She was tempted to go through all these goodies right then.

But twenty years of discipline helped her turn away. She would have time tonight and she would certainly take back most of these yellowed tomes and publications back with her to New York.

She felt good and content that she had made the right decision to visit here. Already, she was getting into a writing mode.

When she closed the door, rusted hinges caused it to squawk like someone pulling nails from a wooden box. The grating sound startled her. It was so very quiet here and the creaking squeal sounded like a shriek.

Then she thought of how noisy and full of life this place used to be when she and her parents and siblings were here. All those thousands of words spoken, whoops of laughter, the deep breathing of sleeping people. The sounds of pans and pots being prepared for breakfast and then the scents of boiling tea, perking coffee, biscuits baking, fish caught from the lake frying.

All that was dead. It’s like this house is a tombstone to the only time I really felt alive and happy, she thought. But don’t think of that now or you’ll sink into depression. Don’t think of those times and the bad times you had with those boyfriends and the man who had been your husband for a few months before he filed for divorce.

He didn’t like my fits of depression. She didn’t like his drinking and drug-ging—habits he had cleverly hidden from her until after their marriage.

She spent the next hour setting up her work area.

Except for the gusts of wind and the rain falling heavily on the tin roof, the silence didn’t bother her. She was used to working in total silence in her New York apartment. She had a corner studio on the top floor of a high rise.

No one intruded into her privacy there. She turned off her telephone when she worked.

She was drafting her new suspense novel, Deadly Intruder, and she had become obsessed with plotting it while in the actual environment she was describing.

Her mysteries had become popular with both public and critics because each one occurred in a different city in a different state. Her latest best seller, I’m Watching You, Martha was based in Fargo, North Dakota. She had lived there in the historic old Donaldson Hotel for two months. Reviews had praised her eye for detail and for using city backdrops that weren’t New York or Washington or Los Angeles.

She had been saving this mystery, Deadly Intruder, for this very place. It would be her most personal thriller. Of course she could have stayed in New York and written this book easily in her apartment. But that wouldn’t do. And she needed a getaway.

I’ve simply got to actually return to the old lake house and soak it all in—just one more time.

Now, she made sure the front and back doors were securely locked. She pulled the ancient old yellow shades down over the windows.

It was fun firing up the wood stove in the kitchen and making a pot of coffee and enjoying some of the tasty Southern cuisine that Sam’s wife, Molly, had prepared for her. Ham biscuits, pecan pie, and cold chicken. The low-hanging kerosene lamp cast a cozy glow over the kitchen.

With another cup of coffee near her, she began banging away at her typewriter.

DEADLY INTRUDER By Barbara LeTourneau

A novel of terror and suspense

She lit up a Salem and leaned back in her old wooden chair. The coffee was bitter and strong, the way she liked it. She had stacked up the other books she had written beside her typewriter. Twelve mysteries by Barbara LeTourneau. Just to look at them, lined up side-by-side always gave her confidence. If I wrote those, I can write this one.

Suddenly, her heart jumped.

A board cracked above her. That was her bedroom.

She waited while her heart beat so hard she couldn’t breathe.

This house had always creaked and moaned. That’s all it was, she thought, as she stared at her revolver next to her on the table. Yet, she was shocked to discover how easily unnerved she had become.

She realized then that she should never have come out here—alone.

A simple creaking of a board and her reaction was one of fear.

Tomorrow, I’ll go out to the main road and somehow get a ride over to James. I’ll get me a rental car and move into the Comfort Inn.

Her breathing didn’t slow down for several long minutes. I won’t be able to sleep tonight. I’ll be waiting for another weird sound and then I’ll become completely undone.

Minutes crept past as she sat still, listening and looking around her.

Any tramp or killer walking outside could see lights on here. They’d notice there wasn’t a car parked in front. And they’d want to see just whose living here. All the windows were unusually low to the ground. A kid could easily step inside the house from the outside.

Stop it, stop it! Her shrink had worked endlessly with her to move on past her anxiety attacks. She helped bring them on by obsessing about nothing things. The way a stranger glanced at her on the subway in New York. A man standing beside her in an elevator, a bland, innocent man, yet, she’d race to her apartment, with her heart pumping hysterically, because she was certain the man planned to attack her.

She grabbed her duffel bag and pulled out her plastic bag of pills. She had pills for sleeping, for being alert, for anxiety attacks, for depression, for diet.

Now, she gulped down two Seroquel capsules. She had fought this desire since leaving New York.

More minutes passed and gradually she experienced the medication at work. Her heart stopped thudding like it wanted to burst through her chest.

But that thin layer of calmness didn’t come over her like it should have.

She sat still, unmoving, like waiting for something to happen.

No other sound disturbed the silence—except the wind that whipped around the corners of the cabin. The heavy onslaught of freezing rain. The house was silent again.

She inhaled deeply and focused her eyes on the sheet of blank paper in her typewriter.

As if awaiting this sound of clicking typewriter keys, another board creaked above her. Another one followed. Then, a third one.

Barbara whimpered and covered her mouth with a hand.

Someone was in her bedroom.

She grabbed her gun and slid out of her chair and backed up to the front door.

She listened.

Footsteps—careful, stealthy and heavy moved slowly across the empty bedroom.

Now, her heart wasn’t just pounding. She could barely hear anything because of the loud thud-thud in her ears.

Someone had hidden in one of the closets. He must have sneaked in after James had gone over the house. James had assured her the house was free of any critters. But he had inspected the house days before. Someone had been living here and he had hidden away while James was here.

Now, the person had returned and had remained hidden while Barbara moved in.

She whimpered silently, shaking her head and grasping the gun with both hands.

This happens only in my books, she thought. I’ve always been too careful for something unexpected to happen. I’ve never allowed it.

This isn’t really happening, she wept, and suddenly realized that her literary heroines always used those exact words—when something unexpected explodes in their lives!

She listened with growing terror.

Her eyes fastened on the dusty old ceiling and watched the progression of stealthy footsteps creep over the floorboards. Now, footsteps moved toward the bedroom door.

It opened the terrifying way the door of the old horror radio show did, The Inner Sanctum. Barbara and her family had loved to imitate the grating, horrifying sound of that terrible door.

Crea-ukkkkkkkk!

A moment of silence. Someone stood there. Waiting. Listening. He was on the threshold of the room.

Her eyes never left the narrow entrance of the stairwell. Twelve steps led up to the second floor.

Her mouth had dropped open as she gasped for breath. Without taking her eyes off the stairwell, her hand moved behind her to unlock the front door.

Sudden fragments of memory flashed through her mind…her mother and another friend whispering about the bodies of a young mother and daughter being found hacked to pieces up the river…of unexplained disappearances of residents from their lake homes.

Maybe that was why her family had stopped coming here.

The visitor had closed the upstairs door. Another long creak.

The intruder moved toward the stairs.

Slowly, he descended. They were heavy, deliberate steps. He didn’t try to hide his descent. It was like he didn’t care if she knew he was here or not.

She fired her gun at the ceiling.

A deathly moment of silence followed.

A terrifying shriek ripped the air. A man had screamed.

Suddenly, the footsteps clattered down the stairs.

Barbara flung open the front door and flew out into the night.

Across the old road, she plunged through a thick row of Evergreen and Pine trees.

She hid behind them, her gun held trembling in both hands.

This was how the women cops did it on television. They braced themselves while holding their weapons straight in front of them and warning the villain to stop.

They had never had to hide like this, beneath freezing rain and razor-sharp winds. She was clad only in a quilted robe and flannel-lined footsies.

She could see the window where her lamp glowed.

The shade was thin and yellow. A shadow moved behind the shade. It was tall, gangly, like a pine tree. The intruder raised long arms up in the air and started doing weird things around her work area.

The mindless movements of the intruder terrified her even more. Its jerky, awkward motions were not those of a man on the street. The towering figure stooped and rose. The head looked pointed and deformed. The silhouette distorted the actual creature. It looked hunchbacked and monstrous.

She had sat in that very spot not more than two minutes before. The visitor beat its hands over her desk, like it wanted to kill her. She was chilled more by the bizarre movements of the figure than by the terrible cold.

The intruder paused now and then, like it were getting it’s second wind, then it raised and flailed its arms over her chair.

She watched the shape whirl around in a crazy, lunatic dance. It stooped and rose in mindless jerks.

He must have been living here all this time, and he managed to hide from James. He hates me for intruding on him. She had heard of crazy hermits, demented hoboes who lived in these lake houses during the winter. They knew the owners rarely visited these places. Her intrusion had obviously enraged the crazy psycho who had moved in here.

I’ve got to get out to the main road, she thought. Hitch a ride. But there was no traffic out here. Ice covered the road and dripped in gleaming clusters from the trees and bushes.

Her gown was soaked with the wetness quickly turning into ice. She felt nothing in her feet now. The slippers were meant only for indoor wear. Freezing water sloshed around her toes. Her hands were already losing any feeling.

I’ll freeze out here! I’ve got to find another place to stay. Her eyes had not moved from the window. Around and around whirled the intruder in a psychotic dance. Suddenly, the light moved.

He’s picked up my lamp!

What was he doing with it? The light faded from the window. The house looked dead and empty.

Is he coming after me?

Her shivering increased. I’ll die of hypothermia out here!

She wiped rain from her eyes as a light suddenly appeared in an upstairs window.

It grew brighter.

He’s—he’s in my old bedroom! The yellow shade pulled over the window now acted like a motion picture screen in reverse.

The shade glowed amber. The strange, terrifying form appeared to be whirling around in a mindless dance. She couldn’t make out its form clearly. Long, thin arms flapped in rhythm. Big hands clawed the air.

The shadow was doing something to her bed. The head bobbed and reared back. The shoulders twisted and shook. What if she had gone to sleep in that room and this thing had slithered out of a closet and had come over to her?

The figure suddenly stopped. It grew larger as it approached the window.

Just before the window shade was torn away, the lamp went out.

She discerned only a square of darkness. Through the rain, she saw, or imagined she saw, a tall, deformed figure standing there.

It stared straight at her hiding place.

She fell backwards and scrambled over the freezing ground to another row of trees. The limbs did little to shelter her from the rain that had become even heavier.

She tried to think of other places out here she could escape to.

She and James had passed no houses. This part of the countryside was desolate.

James and his wife lived twelve miles away on their comfortable little farm. She would never make it there. She felt so frozen she could barely move her head or hands.

She wiped the streaming rain from her eyes.

A door had banged shut. Even through the wind, she recognized the clattery sound of the backdoor.

A tall, dark figure had left the house from the rear.

It looked like it was heading toward the water!

The figure took strange, exaggerated strides. It didn’t move like a normal person. She had never seen anyone so tall. The creature stuck his feet stiffly in front of him and moved like he marched in a silent military band.

What appeared to be a long, black coat covered the upper part of the visitor’s torso. Long, strands of hair blew around the pointed head. Arms that resembled tree limbs stretched upwards.

Ehhhhhhh! cried the terrible visitor.

She tried to straighten up. Her legs buckled. She grabbed hold of the wet, frozen tree. Her gown clung to her like icy glue.

She moved slowly and saw the figure stride to the racing river.

Maybe he thinks I’m down there.

She stared at the house.

It represented a nightmare to her now but—it was her only means of surviving.

Her mind whirled in panic, terror and images of death.

I’m going to die out here, she thought. I had wanted to live to an old, old age but this is what fate has planned for me. I’ll be murdered, or I’ll freeze to death. Maybe they won’t find my body out here.

If that’s the case, she thought crazily, then I’ll go back into the house. For reasons she didn’t want to think about, this horrible intruder was going to murder her—because she had dared to move into his home.

I’ll fight him. If he’s going to kill me, then I won’t go down like a gutless marshmallow. I’m going to fight back.

Shaking violently—from cold and terror—she splashed and half fell across the dirt road, up the icy path and stepped upon the front porch. The door was halfway open. Just like she had left it.

Holding her gun ahead of her, she stepped into the warm den and locked the door.

She crept into to the kitchen. It was empty. The door banged back and forth from the wind.

She slammed it shut, bolted it, and grabbed a butcher knife.

Barbara raced into the den.

At any moment, the intruder would return. This was his house. He was looking for her. He could break through these old windows like paper. He could smash through these old doors like cardboard.

She stripped off her clothes with hands that shook like she had palsy.

Using the blanket that draped the sofa, she ran it over her wet body and frantically wiped her feet.

She yanked out her clothes from the duffel bag on the floor. As she dressed in warm slacks, sweater and boots, she glanced at her work area.

Her typewriter was bashed in. Blood and glistening wetness, like mucous, gleamed on the table. Swaths of dark hair spattered the surface like an animal had been here. Sprays of urine wetted the floor around her desk.

Just as she slid into her rain-proofed jacket, Barbara jumped as someone hammered the backdoor. A horrifying shriek ripped the air. She thrust the knife into her pants pocket and grabbed her gun.

Yaaaaaaaaa!

The intruder kicked and rammed