Karen looked at Scott and asked her friend Shannon, "Why does he just keep looking down into that old well?"
Shannon sighed. "He's just having a lot of problems dealing with it. It's not every day you find out that your father was a serial killer and had a dozen bodies down in that well."
Karen didn't bother to respond. Karen and Shannon had been friends since grade school. They were both pretty, blonde-haired, blue-eyed girls; they looked like sisters. Scott was a good-looking stocky man with blonde hair and blue eyes. He recently inherited his estranged father's land, but it had been revealed his father was a serial killer that had raped, tortured and skinned and scalped his victims alive. He’d kept their hair like trophies that he masturbated on after they died. The remains of a dozen victims had been found in the old well. The state had dug the whole property up. The townspeople had angrily torched the house to the ground.
Karen commented, "I don't know why you're even bothering here. This is just—it's icky."
Shannon replied, "We need the money. We've got to find a way to sell this land. We've got nowhere else to go. Karen, if you're uncomfortable here, you can go somewhere else."
Karen had nowhere to go either. She was staying with Scott and Shannon in their mobile home, which was now parked on the property. Karen found the whole thing very creepy—to be living on a serial killer's land—but at the moment, she didn't have any better options.
"It'll all work out," Shannon said. "Just give it time."
***
Over the next two months, things got difficult on Scott's inherited land. The townspeople were not happy about anyone staying on the serial killer's property, plus Scott was negotiating selling the land to some movie makers that wanted to turn it into a horror movie set.
Scott's father was known to have murdered at least twelve people—mostly women, drifters, prostitutes, and "party girls"—people that liked to disappear and didn't have a lot of people who cared. Scott had picked the perfect victims. When he was caught, he had claimed that he was being possessed by a demon that lived in his well and that he was feeding the demon. But it hadn't done much for his defense. He ended up hanging himself in his cell before ever going to trial.
Shannon found herself disturbed by how often Scott was by that well and he would go down into it on the ladder for long periods. She asked him, "Why do you keep going there? What makes you stay there so long?"
Scott honestly answered, "I don't know. I just—I feel a pull there. I wonder what went wrong with my dad that he chose to suddenly go crazy. It makes me worry that if he was mentally disturbed, I could be too."
Shannon hugged Scott, "No, you could never be like your father."
Scott sighed. "I hope you're right, honey."
***
It was nine months later when Shannon was moving out. Scott had changed so dramatically she saw no way that she could possibly stay with him. Karen was going with her.
Shannon went out to find Karen, she went to the well where Scot spent so much time. She looked into the deep hole. She noticed moisture there. She knelt down. It was a hot, dry day; there was no reason it should have been so wet there. When her hand touched the moisture, it came away red and sticky, and she realized it was blood.
Boldly Shannon climbed down the ladder into the dark hole and once down there she followed the trace of light that led her to a chamber illuminated by a hellish orange glow. Shannon found herself facing a towering dark demon out of legends, complete with head horns, barbed tail, big fangs and claws. Its eyes glowed like fire. It spotted her and uttered a bone chilling chuckle. Shannon looked over to see Scot scalping Karen alive. Karen’s mouth was taped and she was nude in restraints, apparently unconscious.
“What are you doing?” Shannon screamed in horror.
Scot looked up from his work with mild surprise. “I’m doing it for us honey. She was going to take you away. Now she won’t. I’ve been talking to this demon here named Bal. He can give us wealth and better health. We just have to feed him once in a while.”
“Like your father did?’ Shannon screamed.
“Yes,” Scott nodded very sternly. “Come here and help me. We can do this together. We’ll be rich and live forever.”
As Scott approached with his bloody knife, Shannon pulled her semi-auto pistol and it roared releasing refulgent rounds fulminating and flaring in a fusillade. Her shower of shots drilled the demon innocuously. She even fired a flurry that flogged its face, but the demon just chuckled.
“No!” Scot shouted, rushing her way with the bloody knife.
Shannon had no choice. Her pistol popped a flock of shots that socked, rocked and dropped Scot chewing through his chest in a mess. He fell gurgling through a flood of blood in his lacerated lungs.
The demon roared in rage as it began to fade. The loss of Scot was severing its presence from the place and gradually it faded away leaving behind the dead man that it had been possessing, just like it had possessed the father.
Bio:
Tom Kropp’s work has appeared in The Horror Zine, J Journal, Chiron Review, Churches, Children and Daddies, Down in the Dirt, Freedom Fiction Journal, Short-Story Me, Blood Moon Rising, Dark Harbor, Flash Phantoms, You Phantomaniacs Anthology, The Listening Eye, Evening Street Review, Conceit, Spotlight on Recovery, Outdoor Life and Muscle and Fitness. His play Jailhouse Confessions was performed at the Kennedy Center in 2019. He has numerous novels and audiobooks available. You can read more of his writings at https://tomkropp.wordpress.com.
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