Love Life and a Touch of Horror

By Gerald F. Heaney

To know love, you must know life
And to know life you must know horror,
These stories touch the corners, the trails,
And the alleyways that lead into the dark
And back into the light.
Whimsical, touching, heart wrenching,
Suspenseful and downright scary at times,
So, sit back in your easy chair, adjust your glasses
And Have fun on the trails.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 21, 2020
• ISBN: 9781664129276

Gerald F. Heaney

Gerald Heaney has been writing for most of his adult life. His fondness for intrigue and the macabre has led him down some pretty dark corridors of time and space. He loves a story that ends in a twist as you will find in these stories within. He lives in a small town in Michigan with his wife Christine and his cat Shadow.

Book preview

LOVE, LIFE AND

A TOUCH OF HORROR

GERALD F HEANEY

Copyright © 2020 by Gerald F Heaney.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Edited by, Sue Listerman, Connor Heaney

Technical advice: Dr. Phillip Siemer and wife Alice

Front Cover design: Trever Scott

Back cover design: Megan Genevieve

Rev. date: 09/21/2020

Xlibris

844-714-8691

www.Xlibris.com

819378

CONTENTS

Prologue

THE TRAILS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

THE TICKET

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

TO STEAL A CAR

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

THE PEN PAL BOX 309

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

THE WATCH

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

THE BOX

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

FAN ROOM D

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Acknowledgments

Also, By Gerald F Heaney

About the author

Dedicated to;

My wife Christine

For her support

Enthusiasm

And love

THE TRAILS /

SUMMER OF 85

PROLOGUE

It was the first time I’d walked the trails of the Potawatomi. I had just moved from Detroit with my parents to the town of Westmore. I was hot ta’ trot to explore and see what my parents had gotten us into. I love the country but I loved the city too. At the time, if I had my way, I would rather have stayed living in our three-story Victorian on Burns Street in Indian Village on the Eastside of Detroit.

As I walked along the path, I couldn’t help but feel like there was something special about the place. I knew it was silly but the woods, so lush and verdant on that mid-August morning seemed to be as close to enchanted as any fairytale I’d ever read or been told. The trails passed close to the back side of my parent’s property and according to what I had been told traversed some forty miles from end to end. The trail seemed harmless enough to me as I padded along. The sun in the eastern, sky popping in and out at times, highlighted the strands of my too long and tangled hair. The old gentleman that lived in the house across from ours had told me differently. I met him on the very first day we moved into the sprawling brick ranch so different from the up and down home we’d left in the city. His name I’d learned was Mr. Ledermyer. He had a large head that was covered with a thick blanket of silver-grey hair that would have touched his shoulders except for the odd-looking artifact that looked to have had an Indian’s touch that kept it tied up in a pony-tail. I found out later that he was half Native American on his mother’s side. He had walked across to greet us, his new neighbors, and while he shook all our hands, he offered up a broad welcoming smile that couldn’t help but lighten one’s heart.

Mr. Ledermyer was easy to talk to and while the moving men unloaded our things, he gave us a brief summary of the area. That’s when he mentioned that we were sitting next to the trails for which the area was so well known. As I walked with him to the road we stopped to talk further.

The light, it seemed, had somewhat diminished from his eyes and for a second or two he suddenly looked years older as he began to speak. Did you say your name is Paige, Miss Kingsley? Yes Sir, I replied. Well Paige, I don’t mean to be talkin’ down them trails, no sir, but still, it pays to be on the cautious side when you’re on them, and I ain’t just talkin’ about the occasional bicycler that might run you over. Then what are you talking about Mr. Ledermyer I asked, my curiosity having been teased a bit? He looked down at me and though my seventeen-year-old body is of average height, he seemed to suddenly grow in stature, to tower over me. There’s stories told is all. It’s an old Indian trail you know, hence the name Potawatomi. A lotta’ life’s been tied up in those trails, long before the whites arrived. It’s easy to get lost in them woods, easier than you’d think. But! I asked. Aren’t the trails marked? Oh, they’re marked alright, there’s even maps with all the right lines and colors. But take the word of an old man missy, an old man that has been round these parts all his life, an old man that was young once just like you. Maps and markers don’t mean a damn thing to those woods and their trails. Excuse my language. Right about then the light returned back to his eyes and once more he smiled that welcoming smile and gently patted me on my shoulder. You just be careful is all I’m saying, and if there’s anything you folks need you just come and see ol’ Ned Ledermyer.

After he had turned away, I watched as he disappeared into his neatly painted, turn of the century two story farm house, and somehow knew there was something about the woods and its trails that he wasn’t telling. As I walked along one of the well-worn paths I thought about the old man and his ambiguous warnings. I couldn’t help but think how silly it all was and I wrote it off as him being just another old man who lived to tell a good tale or two. That day I walked for what seemed miles until I turned around and headed for home. But the strange thing was that when I got home and examined the map, I had picked up from the local DNR office, the map I had forgotten to take with me, if I read it right, I had walked less than a mile all total.

THE TRAILS

CHAPTER 1

A short time had gone by and I had begun my senior classes at Westmore High. It took a little doing but I felt I was beginning to fit in, making friends and all. My father had started his new job at the bank in town as its manager having been transferred from its parent bank in Detroit. In the back of the property, to my mom’s delight, the previous owners had constructed a super tree house which was cleverly infused into one of the old oaks that surrounded the property. She had immediately claimed it as her own and had set up a small studio where she could pursue her passion for painting. Nothing made her happier than to have a paint brush in hand and a canvas set before her. She was good, very good, and had won various awards that brought her ample recognition. Some of her later works had sold for substantial amounts and I had always marveled at her talent and my lack of. Stick people were about my speed at best. At times I would walk the trails with friends from school some of whom were proficient with their mountain bikes. I stuck to using what nature had bestowed upon me and was satisfied with my two feet and a good pair of hiking boots that I’d acquired from a local sporting goods shop. As it turned out most times, I would prefer to hike the trails alone. It seemed like I was drawn to them, like ferrous metal to a magnet or better yet like a homing pigeon to its roost. I’d be sitting in the front room watching something on the TV and like a voice calling me I’d turn my head towards the trails and it was almost as if I could hear it speak. At these times no matter what I was doing I’d put on my boots and head for the path at the back end of the property that led to the trails and off I’d go.

It was on one of these very occasions, I had just put a load of school clothes in the drier when I felt the strangest sensation sweep over me. My skin actually tingled and for a second, I felt light headed while at the same time warm and comforted by the event, if one could call it that. All I could think of as I ascended the stairs from the basement was how much I wanted to go for a walk, to hit the trails.

Evening was closing in and I had made a practice of never staying out in the woods after dark. It was for this reason I hesitated for a moment as I approached the opening to the woods. I had become familiarized enough with the various trails to know which ones I could take that would get me back in time. The paths were color marked, blue, red, yellow, and green. I knew if I stuck to the blue trail until it intersected with the yellow and then took the yellow to the right it would eventually take me back to the blue and quite close to where I had started.

It had taken me many tries and re-tries and I must admit some anxious moments to learn the lessons of trails and their ability to get one lost if one did not pay attention to the markers. I had been down their rolling aisles enough that I hardly noticed the makers when I came to them and just automatically took the right paths to where I wanted to go. There were times I would continue on past the yellow trail which meant a much longer hike but now as I entered the forest with the evening setting in I had set my limits to the shortest of treks, the blue to the yellow and be back before it got dark.

After a short way I noticed the air turned cool and I’d wished that I had brought a sweater along but then again, the cool air seemed to accentuate the richness of all that surrounded me. It was as if I could taste the wild mint that filled the deep hollowed craters left over from an ancient ice age. The pungent smell of lichen and moss that grew in abundance atop the fallen trees filled the air leading me to imagine I was out for a walk in Merlin’s mystical woods. And all the while the feeling that had drawn me there seemed to grow with each passing step as if compelling my heart to beat in rhythm with the quiet beat of the forest. It was as if the very blood that ran through my veins did so in unison with the sap that gave life to the towering Oak and Hickory. I could sense the movement of the verdant life that lived within the abundant undergrowth of plant life, the chlorophyll that pigmented their leaves and stems. I felt that I was becoming one with my surroundings in a surprisingly special way and that discounting the fact that the sun was about to drop below the western horizon, I should continue on past the yellow marker, past the green, and let the trail take me like a mother takes her child to her breast.

CHAPTER 2

Suddenly without warning, and due to my lack of attention, I tripped on a raised root of a silver maple that crossed the path. I hit the ground with considerable force tumbling head over heels until I came to a most abrupt stop against the stump of a nearby tree. I sat there dazed and disoriented. My left leg was beneath me in a most unnatural position while my right one jutted out straight before me as if it were part of the paths planned directional system. My tripping took place while I was on a steep downward slope and it was only by the grace of the stump jutting out that kept me from a much greater plunge. As I sat there collecting my thoughts and contemplating my possible injuries the words of the old man that lived across the road from us, Mr. Ledermyer, came to mind. There’s stories told is all. It’s an old Indian trail you know, hence the name Potawatomi, a lotta’ life’s been tied up in those trails, long before the whites arrived. It’s easy to get lost in them woods, easier than you’d think. You just be careful is all I’m sayin’ missy when you’re out there all by your lonesome.

His words swirled through my head like words on flash cards. That’s when I noticed that the back of my head was beginning to throb. I must have hit it on the stump. That’s also when I realized that what light was left was fading fast, too fast and worse than that, I felt I was beginning to pass out.

CHAPTER 3

When next I opened my eyes, I was in a well-lit room on a hospital gurney with a doctor peering into my eyes with a small invasive light. Welcome back Paige. He said, with a smile. Where am I? I asked shakily. You’re in Westmore General Hospital, he answered pleasantly. Can you tell me your name? I looked at him puzzled and said. Paige, my name is Page Kingsley, what’s going on? At that point my mother stepped in, with my father right behind, Paige, that’s exactly what we’d like to know? What do you mean mom, why am I here? You’re here honey because the doctor says you have a slight concussion. A concussion and my leg, it hurts! Her fingers ran through my hair as she continued. Your leg hurts because you’ve got a bit of a nasty sprain, but what we don’t know is how you got it, what do you remember dear? I closed my eyes to think, my head hurt and my thoughts were a bit muddled but it was all slowly coming back to me. I remember now, I said with eyes wide open, I was in the house when I had an urge to go for a walk, you know on the trails. It was late, but I knew that I had plenty of time to do the short one; you know the blue to the Yellow then back to the blue. It was such a beautiful evening and the forest was so inviting that I must have missed my marker, anyway I remember tripping on something and falling, and that’s about it, next thing I know I was here with you guys. A look of puzzlement filled both my dad and mom’s face as they looked back and forth at each other. So that’s it, my father asked with concern, that’s all you can recall sweetie? Well, yeah, what else is there? This time my mom spoke up. Our question dear is if you fell in the woods on the trail some distance from the house with a nasty sprained ankle and an obvious concussion that rendered you unconscious then how did you come to be on our porch where we found you just after we heard a knock on the door?

CHAPTER 4

Three weeks had gone by and my crutches had given way to a slight limp. There was some buzz at school, the word had gotten out that the trails were up to their old tricks. October had arrived with its mystical transformations, the cool cleansing breezes that swept down from the northwest, and the inevitable changing of the season that would fill the forest out back with an unmatchable profusion of color. Mr. Ledermyer had stopped by from time to time to see how I was progressing. Always with a smile, and tender concern, he would ask how I was doing. Best stay off them trails awhile. He would counsel, but I somehow knew that he was holding back what it was he really wanted to say. It was as if he knew something that he wasn’t telling. I was sure of it and sooner or later I was determined to find him out. Still on my mind was the question as to how I’d gotten back home that night, and the question somehow haunted me. My only explanation was that I had somehow managed to make my way back on my own, though I have absolutely no memory of doing so. But then who was it that knocked on the door?

The kids at school teased that it was the ghost of an Indian brave that took pity on a poor little white girl and carried me out of the forest to the safety of my home. But Indian ghost or not, all I knew was that I missed my walks on the trails. Being that my ankle was feeling better and better every day, I was determined to get back to them, of course I’d be a bit more careful from now on.

Another week had gone by, and as far as I was concerned my ankle was feeling just fine. The weekend had brought with it a beautiful bright sun and the tingling gift of a crisp breeze that rushed through my bedroom window. After getting up I stood on the deck in the back of the house and