Escalation: Haunted Coal Ridge, #25

By Chuck Sperati

A series of intertwined supernatural stories that will make you wonder where the darkness ends and the light begins. All small towns keep secrets, but in Coal Ridge when the secret gets out, it begins to feed…again.

Story 25: "Escalation"

The past year has been crazy. Despite the efforts of her best friend and the Private Investigator that her mother hired, Emily is still trapped. Although she wants nothing more than to get out, there are lines she won't cross, and she has been able to help people who slipped over to escape the shadow.

When several kids disappear, it seems that the shadow is at it again. Rushing in to help, Emily discovers that its not alone. Something new has arrived, and she has once again become the hunted.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Writing Distracted
• Release date: Aug 15, 2020
• ISBN: 9781646390564

Chuck Sperati

Among other things, I'm a writer--with some published experience--whose been mostly quiet for the past few decades, mostly because I let life get in the way. I've long had a creative outlet at the gaming table and recently found another when I started building a website. With this new outlet also came inspiration. Right now I'm working primarily on a series of short stories that has received some very positive feedback, so I'm sharing. If you enjoy anything I've written, check out my website at https://www.chucksperati.com, where you can find more things that have crawled out of my imagination.

Book preview

Dedication

Coal Ridge is based on Ohio’s Finest Village. It was a great place to grow up and continues to be a remarkable community to which I enjoy returning to see friends and family. For those who live there, take a moment, look around, and be wary of the shadows.

Preface

A series of intertwined short stories that will make you wonder where the darkness ends, and the light begins. All small towns keep secrets, but in Coal Ridge, when the secret gets out, it begins to feed...again.

Set in a small, somewhat geographically secluded town in the Midwest, the blue-collar people of Coal Ridge are friendly and laid back, enjoying block parties, gossip, and the simple joys that come with being a close-knit community. Because everyone knows everyone else, secrets are hard to keep, but some are so well hidden that they’ve been forgotten.

These short stories explore a supernatural awakening that will test the bonds of family and community.

Escalation

When his daughter was born, John Randall became a different person. Gone were the weekend binges, cigarettes, and driving like a man fleeing a bank robbery. He sold the GTO, bought a safety-rated SUV, and stopped bouncing between jobs. After six months of proving that he was done being a fuck-up at the construction site in Heaton, he’d been promoted. Now, he ran four crews and had begun looking at branching into his own construction business.

Understandably skeptical, Shelly Gray-Randall had insisted on hyphenating her name when they married. Like everyone else, she didn't believe he could change and thought it would be easier later if she held onto her maiden name. Holly may not have been planned, but she turned out to be a blessing for them both.

Do you know where the scarlet and gray one is at? John called from the bedroom. Although he’d worked hard to remake himself, he still spoke like a member of his crew. You know that Ed is gonna represent with that ugly ass gold and blue tie.

It's maize and blue, honey.

Yes, they lived in a divided house.

Shelly had gone to school in Ann Arbor, and though John had barely made it out of high school, he bled scarlet and gray. With the exception of a stunning loss, they didn’t talk much about their teams during the season, but for that week in late November, the smack talk didn’t stop.

Until after The Game.

Mostly.

Of course, that didn’t mean they were always cordial before it.

You might want to check the bathroom, Shelly continued, grinning to herself, I may have mistaken that tie for toilet paper.

A few moments later. Seriously? You wrapped it around the roll. Stepping into the room and seeing the grin on her face, he nodded. I guess if I'd lost this many times in a row, I’d be—

Picking up one of her daughter’s plush dolls, she threw it at his head.