Sometimes Things Break: A Paranormal Time Travel Thriller

By Rod Kackley

Evil: profound immorality and wickedness, especially when regarded as a supernatural force.

An angry, vengeful horde of evil spirits and demons have descended on St. Isidore, and it's up to Cheryl — who's been one of the Dead for decades — and Buck — a rookie on the Other Side — to put them back where they belong. It's often said, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." 

However, this time, two teenagers playing with an Ouija board have broken something in the Suicide Forest, and it's up to Cheryl and Buck to fix it.

Hell is empty and all the devils are here. — William Shakespeare

Not only are they tasked with saving the community of St. Isidore, but Cheryl and Buck also have the fate of the world in their hands. Will they be able to keep the Living from an apocalypse of unspeakable horror? 

Like all gripping, exciting, riveting, paranormal time travel thrillers, Sometimes Things Break is based on a true story that hasn't happened yet.

Buy this book and buckle up. You're about to go on a ride through time and join a battle against the evil that's escaped from the Suicide Forest that you'll never forget in Sometimes Things Break: A Paranormal Time Travel Thriller.

This is a book you won't be able to put down, a novel you'll always remember.

Welcome to St. Isidore!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rod Kackley
• Release date: Oct 21, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393193289

Rod Kackley

It’s all about the story, as far as Rod Kackley is concerned. Whether it’s Shocking True Crime Stories or one of his many works of fiction. Rod wants to keep you turning pages and reading incredible tales of criminals, their victims, and their capture. Spoiler alert: No matter how long it takes, the bad guys rarely win. But it’s the criminal who is often the most compelling character. That’s true whether it’s “Mommy Deadliest,” the story of a woman who kills her children, or “The Murder of Thora Chamberlain,” the story of a teenage girl and her kidnapper. In Rod’s world of fiction, he spins yarns about “The Coffee Shoppe Killer, a woman who kills her lovers when they disappoint her. A teenage girl wraps a serial killer around her finger in “Go Big or Go Dead.” Then there’s “The Murder of Emma Brown,” where two young women go out to party one night, and one only returns home. Written in Kalamazoo, Michigan, Rod’s books and stories allow his readers to brush up against the world of crime without getting hurt. And it’s a heck of a ride!

Book preview

1

Tim knew Megan had been afraid to go into the basement of the house for three weeks, ever since the day she and her husband, Buck, moved into her uncle’s home to do some upscale dog sitting.

That knowledge made his grooming of Megan even more exciting. Tim pumped up her confidence day by day mixing in some nighttime terror dreams all of which made the door to the basement, which had been left locked tight by her Uncle John, all that much more enticing.

Buck told her to stay away. He warned her there had to be some reason that her uncle had told her not to go into the basement. Buck tried.

You are just silly, Megan said.

I am realistic. This is your uncle’s house, not yours, not ours. You need to respect his wishes.

God, you are such a fixed-thinking person.

I am a what? And, when did you start taking the Lord’s name in vain?

You are a ‘fixed thinker,’ as opposed to a ‘growth thinker.’ It means you have no imagination, no stomach for risk.

That is ridiculous. Why do you have to label everything?

You label things — which are concepts and ideas, not things — for the same reason you put a label on soup cans. Otherwise, you wouldn’t know what you were getting until you opened the can. I would think someone like you would never want to open anything that wasn’t labeled.

Her point made, Megan went outside for a cigarette leaving Buck to wonder when she started smoking again.

Moving into her uncle’s home had been a Godsend. She and Buck were living on their last dime, both buried under college loans, both wondering how they would ever be able to pay next month’s rent.

Their landlord hadn’t made it any easier. Rents were going through the ceiling in St. Isidore.

Thanks to gentrification, as Buck put it, and no-cause evictions, landlords are tripling the rent and throwing people out on the sidewalk when they can’t pay.

It didn’t matter if their payments had been perfect, anyone who couldn’t afford to pay three or even four times more, with notice of less than a week, would find themselves among the homeless.

When her uncle asked Megan and Buck to dog sit while he spent August in Europe, they jumped at the opportunity. Or better put, Megan leaped at the chance. Buck went along for the ride.

It was the same when Megan decided to quit her job and open her own business.

After graduating from St. Isidore University with a master's degree in social work, Megan discovered quickly that government work paid squat. So she hung out her own shingle, as her father would have said.

In the twenty-first century, hanging out one’s shingle meant building one’s website or having it made for you. Frugality being the better part of discretion for a young woman with $100,000 of college loan debt, Megan chose the latter. She created her own website. She tacked up flyers in the supermarket.

And the clients poured into the house. Women of all ages came to her for advice and direction.

They followed Megan to her uncle’s home, and the loft office she created on the third floor of the Victorian monstrosity, as Buck had labeled it.

Everything was going so well. Buck and Megan fit right into the neighborhood. Megan could see the two of them growing old like this, walking the dogs under the hundred-year-old trees, talking to people on the sidewalk, watching the sun rise and then set over the Suicide Forest.

But something was missing. Megan wanted to get into the basement of her uncle's house.

The first day they were in the house without Uncle John, she wanted to open the door. Something cold as ice stopped her. It filled her veins and ran through her body from her toes to her nose. It was like a brain freeze from too much ice cream.

She couldn’t do it. She could not open the basement door. Buck kidded her about it when he found Megan sensually running her fingertips over the antique wood.

Hey, when you get done with that, I have an idea of where you can put your fingers next, Buck came up behind her and whispered in Megan’s ear.

There was a time when Megan would have automatically reached behind her and returned the passion. That day, she did not.

It was that moment her life changed.

Going into the basement became her life’s quest, her passion. Day after day she tried.

Megan would wake up in the middle of the night, walk down the wooden staircase from the master bedroom to the living room, pad over the wood floors in her bare feet, wearing only panties and a tee-shirt. She would get so close to that fucking door as Megan called it in her thoughts. But Megan just could not do it. She could not open the basement door.

Megan even dreamt about it. She saw herself opening the door, going down the stairs, and being overwhelmed by the most incredible sexual orgasm. It was like a wet dream for a woman in her late twenties who was a college graduate with a master’s degree.

Good God, did I just cum? Megan thought when she woke up with a start and realized her fingers were in her panties and they were soaking wet.

She would lay awake breathing heavy, trying not to bother Buck, but at the same time wanting to wake him and jump his bone. God, it was so good, she thought, lying on her side, rubbing her bottom with one hand, her breasts with the other.

There was one night when she woke up from one of her basement sex dreams and did jump Buck’s bone. Megan ripped his cock out of his boxers, took it in her mouth, sucked him hard, and jumped on his pole before Buck had a chance wake up.

In the morning, he told Megan about an incredible sex dream he had. Said he even came and Megan laughed to herself.

She knew it was all related to that fucking basement. There was sex down there. Megan could feel it every time she walked into the kitchen and got close to the door.

She wanted to go downstairs. Megan had to break through the fear. She wanted it so bad.

It felt like what Megan had needed her whole life but didn’t know it until she and Buck moved into her uncle’s house, was on the other side of that door.

She had tried to talk to Buck about it, but he only laughed. He could not understand why she felt an urge to go into the basement. Cement walls, a ceiling made of 2X4s and a dirt floor.

I can’t imagine there is anything down there you need or want, he said.

After that, Megan wanted to go downstairs if only to wipe the smirk off his bearded face. But she also knew there was more down there, much more.

She shouldn’t have been surprised by his attitude. Megan had always been the adventurous one in their relationship. Buck had always been the coward.

It was Megan who decided they could take a chance when she had forgotten to take her birth control pill. She dared Buck to climb into the ceiling over the St. Isidore High School gym and pee on the basketball court. She decided they would make love for the very first time under the trees in the Suicide Forest

But Megan had been scared to death to go into the basement of the house at 999 Fountain Street. The house itself thrilled her. It was one of the massive, three-story gingerbread-style homes from a Victorian nightmare in St. Isidore’s exclusive Heritage Hill neighborhood.

None of the houses that were built by the leaders of St. Isidore’s business community in the 1850s and rehabilitated, renovated and flipped by the town’s upper middle class of the 1990s sold for less than $500,000. And that was huge money in this small city that was left rusted by the Great Recession that erased St. Isidore’s connection to the auto industry.

None of the Heritage Hill houses looked the same. Each designed and constructed one at a time, the houses reflected the owner’s personality and his pride of ownership.

When Megan’s uncle asked her if she and Buck could spend August dog sitting — the three pit bulls they would be charged with caring for, he promised, were loving creatures — she jumped at the chance to move out of their one-bedroom apartment.

If there was a risk, Megan wanted to take it. If she heard even a weak knock of opportunity at the door, Megan opened it.

He has pit bulls? You must be kidding, Buck said when she broke the news. Those things are killers.

Oh my God, Megan said. What are you so worried about? They are puppies, baby dogs.

Babies that will grow into killers. That’s what pit bulls do. They kill.

Everything you want...

What? Everything I want? What are you talking about? They will kill everything I want? Why would I want to kill anything? said Buck. Spare me the dogma. No pun intended. And when was it you met the dogs?

I went over there to check out the house and see the dogs. It’s a beautiful house. The dogs are great. All we have to do is babysit them, take care of the house, and we make an easy $10,000. What is your problem?

Megan won the argument in the end, just like she always did. The only time Buck won was when she gave in, and even then it was her idea.

So didn’t we win after all, her reflection in the bathroom mirror said.

It was another conversation with the reflection in her bathroom mirror that gave Megan the courage to finally do it.

You know you have to do it, the voice said.

Megan undressed. She stripped down to her t-shirt and panties.

Megan opened the door.

2

There was one bare bulb in the basement. Megan had turned it on with the switch in the kitchen before she took her first step onto the wooden stairs with the timidity of a child dipping a toe in a chilly lake. Unfortunately for her, it was the switch that was on the other side of the door that was now closed, at the top of the stairs that were now gone.

She had finally opened the door. Megan had told one of her clients just that morning that she needed to reframe stress and anxiety as excitement. Two hours later, Megan took her own advice.

Everything you want is on the other side of fear, Megan had told another of her clients.

Now she was afraid she would not be able to get out of the basement. The door she had opened to walk down the stairs had slammed shut on its own.

Then, just like it happened in one of the nightmares she’d been having, the stairs she walked down disappeared after Megan had taken two steps on the dirt floor.

Still, she was not scared to death, yet. Death did concern her. Megan was afraid she would not be able to get out of the basement alive. Megan was only human.

But Megan was even more afraid she would not want to get back into her uncle's kitchen. Either of those alternatives could be worse than death. Either way, Megan was worried she was doomed to an eternity in the basement.

Our Father, who are in Heaven, hallowed be... The Lord’s Prayer had served to reassure Megan since she was a little kid. She muttered it to herself now, hoping she really could be forgiven for this sin she had just committed.

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me, she sang softly.

Even though she sang the words, Megan didn't feel the music. There was something in the cobwebs that hung from the ceiling and the sand and clay under her feet that Megan wanted more than her Lord. Or maybe it is more that there is something down here that wants me, she whispered.

TIM WAS SO HAPPY TO realize Megan was getting very close to understanding for the first time what real fear was all about. She was more afraid of not being fearful then she was of being scared.

And Megan was so fucking sure of herself, Tim said to his best friend and lover, Paul. But she is also so fucking hot. I forgive her.

Paul never understood Tim’s bisexuality. Either you’re a homo or not, he thought. Paul believed he understood Tim’s sexuality. But maybe Paul was wrong.

Paul could have been jealous of Megan and the rest of Tim’s lovers. Maybe a few years ago, if it were a few years ago, he would have been far less understanding. But now that he and Tim were on the Dead side of life's equation, it didn’t seem to matter so much. And Paul was trying to figure that out, too.

While those thoughts were rambling around in Paul, Tim had only one thought; Megan. She had finally taken her own advice.

Look what it got her, Tim said as he turned to Paul and smirked.

Megan had found what was on the other side of her fear. Megan hoped it worked out better for her clients than it had for her. Tim was hoping it would work out better for him, too.

THE BASEMENT WAS DARK, cold, and damp. It was just what Megan should have expected in what was known as a ‘St.Isidore basement’ by the locals.

Megan should have been much more afraid than she was. But she felt warm. There was some fear, but no more than she had felt bungee jumping off the bridge over Red Run River, as it ran through the Suicide Forest, which was another thrill her adrenaline-phobic husband had missed.

Being in the basement, however, was even better than standing over Red Run waiting to jump.

Here in the basement, Megan felt sex. She could smell the sex. Megan wanted the sex.

I know it’s here, she whispered.

Tim heard. Tim smiled.

Megan felt the adrenaline, too. Her journey into the basement had turned into an adventure. Megan started to breathe a little quicker, her heart beat just a tiny bit faster, her nipples got a little perkier and her panties a little damper.

Adrenaline was better than sex for Megan. Diving from Red Run River Bridge, waiting for the bungee cord to snap tight a foot before she hit the water, gave Megan the second-best orgasm she had ever had. The best had been with the first love of her life, Samantha, who was maybe the only real love of her life. At least, it was the best before the dreams started.

But this experience in the basement was different. It was even better than the dreams. It was like Megan had discovered an illegal drug that was a combination of LSD — her first love had introduced her to the wonders of psychotropic drugs — and Ecstasy.

Megan ran a hand down her throat, over her breasts, and with the other found dampness spreading from her holiest of holies as Buck called the pleasure center between her legs.

Megan fell to her knees in the dirt. Her hands went back to her t-shirt, then down to her pussy again, rubbing hard, going inside her panties, finding her clit. It was hard as a rock and felt like it had grown at least an inch.

She was breathing so fast, so hard, sweating despite the cold breeze over her face that made her shiver at the same time she experienced her next-to-the-best, and last, orgasm; at least her last in the world of the Living.

I am sorry, she heard a man say.

Megan looked to her left and saw him kneeling beside her. To ask where he had come from and why he’d appeared here in the basement, did not occur to Megan. It all seemed so natural. And she knew, somehow, that his name was, Tim.

I don’t know what came over me. I should not have done that. It was the Devil. It was Satan, the man said. Please pray with me.

Megan felt no fear. Megan felt nothing but the warmest satisfaction that comes after the hottest sex imaginable. She was ready to start smoking again. God, if I only had a cigarette. She knelt beside Tim and prayed. That made her feel even dirtier, sluttier and happier.

Did you enjoy any of that? Tim asked.

Oh yes, said Megan. I enjoyed all of it. More than you will ever know.

He is good, isn’t he, said Paul, who appeared on Megan’s right side.

The best, said Megan.

Hot sex was only one of the pleasant surprises Tim found on the Other Side. Death wasn’t so sad after all.

In fact, it had turned out to be pretty damn good to be damned.

Tim decided it was time to introduce Megan to the pleasures of the damned, and the wicked dead.

I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU are going to do this, Henry told Buck. He was of the older generation, the generation just aged enough to be Buck’s father or at least his very much older brother.

They both worked at SIS, a software company in St. Isidore. All the guys who wore beards and skinny jeans had taken the jump, except Buck.

Even his wife had done it.

So embarrassing, one of the SIS hipsters told a colleague.

Your wife jumps, but you don’t.

How could you live with yourself?

How could she live with you?

Evidently she couldn’t. She split.

No, you’re kidding.

You didn't hear Megan left him.

Fuck. She was hot.

Still is probably, just warm with someone else’s form.

Not a party to their conversation, but knowing they were talking about him, Buck lashed himself into the bungee cord and took his place on the bridge’s rail, right beside the sign that read Unsafe to Stand on Other Side of Rail.

I never thought I would be able to do this, he said to Henry Branson, who was set to go after him.

Why are you doing it now?

Can’t tell you. But now that Megan’s gone, what do I care? Live or die; it’s all the same to me.

I know what you mean. What’s the difference?

THIRTY MINUTES LATER, Henry was still looking at the red slick of blood and brains floating in the Red Run River after Buck’s impact in what had become his next-to-final resting place.

The St. Isidore Police Department investigated. Chief Lumpy Doolan floated the theory that Buck’s death might have been a suicide.

After all it happened inside the Suicide Forest, speculated Doolan. Maybe he just decided to do it without a rope around his neck. Think about it. After all, dead is dead. Instead of his neck snapping, the cord snapped.

Maybe it was a suicide; perhaps it wasn’t. But one thing is for sure. It was one more death in St. Isidore.

And with that, one more soul joined the Dead who call the other side of the Suicide Forest, their home.

3

Megan was everything Tim wanted in a woman. She was blonde, slim — but not too thin — and she was young. Well, she was a bit older than Tim’s first choice. Once a girl turned enough calendar pages to vote and buy beer legally, Tim usually lost interest. Or maybe they lost interest in him if they had ever shown any at all.

Tim’s first love, Cheryl, was too young to have a driver’s license when he fell for her. Both of them had been virgins, or so Tim had thought. Cheryl died and beat him to the finish line. She crossed over. Tim helped.

There had been others. Many others. Girls, and boys, with whom Tim was genuinely in lust. Not love, but lust. They had all rejected him. They had all died in what would become known as St. Isidore's Suicide Forest.

He had loved Bree. She was sixteen, hot and experienced. Eventually, Bree died too. But not the way Tim planned. Bree's death brought him no satisfaction.

Megan was married. Okay, married to another, whatever they were in the Suicide Forest, but still, that was married. Tim had killed before to get the next woman he wanted. This time, that wasn’t an option.

Buck would have been on Tim’s hit list if he had been alive. So, that killing thing wasn’t an option anymore. Still, Tim couldn’t see any reason to let something like a marriage vow stand in his way.

Besides Buck and Megan were both dead. So legally, their union was null and void. Tim didn’t need the help of an attorney to figure that out.

Till death do them part, right? Tim said to Paul. Well, bing-fucking-oh, my man. The ship has sailed. Death has done them part. And it is time for Timmy to dock in her port.

Megan didn’t have a problem with that line of thinking. She knew Buck was dead. But she also knew the ties that bind go beyond simple life and death. Forever means forever. Megan realized that if she found Buck, or he found her, they would still be attached to each