Out of the Darkness Read online

  Out of the Darkness

  The land remembers…

  Built on a cursed patch of land, George Simpson's house of horrors ruined many lives. Author Steve Corey rents it as a surprise in a desperate attempt to salvage what's left of his marriage.

  Samantha Corey thought getting Steve sober in the early days of their marriage would be the hard part, but she's reached the end of her rope and is ready to leave. It doesn't help that her thoughts have turned to Matt Barry, Steve's best friend—and her old love.

  Now, Samantha needs Matt more than ever as Steve's behavior deteriorates. She wonders if her husband's sick, drinking again, or if her own sanity's in question. The house has a dark agenda. Even though she's ready to divorce Steve, she's not ready to relinquish his soul to the ancient evil enveloping him. Can she and Matt pull him from Out of the Darkness?

  Note: This book has been extensively expanded. It was previously published with another publisher and was the 2010 EPIC winner for Horror.

  Genre: Contemporary, Paranormal

  Length: 106,258 words

  OUT OF THE DARKNESS

  Tymber Dalton

  EROTIC ROMANCE

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

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  A SIREN PUBLISHING BOOK

  IMPRINT: Erotic Romance

  OUT OF THE DARKNESS

  Copyright © 2012 by Tymber Dalton

  E-book ISBN: 1-61926-684-9

  First E-book Publication: April 2012

  Cover design by Jinger Heaston

  All cover art and logo copyright © 2012 by Siren Publishing, Inc.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED: This literary work may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

  All characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly coincidental.

  PUBLISHER

  Siren Publishing, Inc.

  www.SirenPublishing.com

  Letter to Readers

  Dear Readers,

  If you have purchased this copy of Out of the Darkness by Tymber Dalton from BookStrand.com or its official distributors, thank you. Also, thank you for not sharing your copy of this book.

  Regarding E-book Piracy

  This book is copyrighted intellectual property. No other individual or group has resale rights, auction rights, membership rights, sharing rights, or any kind of rights to sell or to give away a copy of this book.

  The author and the publisher work very hard to bring our paying readers high-quality reading entertainment.

  This is Tymber Dalton’s livelihood. It’s fair and simple. Please respect Ms. Dalton’s right to earn a living from her work.

  Amanda Hilton, Publisher

  www.SirenPublishing.com

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  DEDICATION

  For Mom and Dad, who put up with and encouraged my writing when I was a kid. For my Granny and Grandaddy. Granny didn’t live to see me published, but Grandaddy did. To my hubby, who’s always supportive and whom without his help I never would have made it this far. To Mr. B, who knows why.

  Much thanks to the Internet Writing Workshop, and the members of the Novels-L list who helped me edit early drafts of this book and helped me hone my writing and editing skills.

  I actually started this book over two decades ago, while in high school, as part of a creative writing class project. It’s had a lot of changes over the years, but I was lucky enough to find my teacher, Mr. Kotranza, and let him read it. I will be ever grateful for his early encouragement to keep writing when I was a teenager.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  I once lived in Brooksville, Florida. Those familiar with the area, including the Croom Motorcycle Park, will recognize many landmarks mentioned in this tale, including the gravestone, state park, and mining pits. While some of the places are real, I use them fictitiously and have taken literary license with others.

  This book was previously released in e-book format by another publisher, and won the 2010 EPIC award for horror. It has been extensively revised, and previously deleted scenes have been restored to the original manuscript.

  OUT OF THE DARKNESS

  TYMBER DALTON

  Copyright © 2012

  PART I:

  BEFORE

  Chapter One:

  Florida, Mid-1600s

  The little boy played at the base of the slash pine. He stirred puffs of dust in the summer heat, his hands and feet darkened by the dirt. His black hair shimmered under the late-afternoon sun. He was oblivious to his surroundings until he heard the sharp rapport of a stick cracking nearby.

  He jumped to his feet, his games forgotten. “Mama?” he called out tentatively. His tribe gathered blackberries nearby, and he’d been allowed to help until his mother spied him eating more than made it into his basket.

  Another twig snapped. Like a rabbit, the boy broke into a run, back to the clearing and his family. His mother looked up, adjusting the strap on the doeskin bag slung across her shoulder.

  “What is it, Opa?”

  He jabbered in fear and pointed, his agitation universally familiar to mothers of four-year-olds. One of the other women noticed the commotion and walked over. He seized their attention with a terrified yelp then hid behind his mother and pointed at the woods in the direction he’d emerged.

  The tribe had heard rumors of “white gods” who landed in great boats south of them and started exterminating their brothers, the Calusa. Until now, they had not seen any. The sun reflected off the gods’ shiny skins, and they carried ominous-looking sticks the tribe had heard could make thunder and kill animals and men alike.

  The women were now tightly clustered, their fear evident to the advancing intruders. One, apparently their leader, spoke to the others. Then they laughed. Another stepped forward and approached the women, his eyes on Opa’s older sister. Motherly instinct caused Opa’s mother to step into the man’s path, her angry words unintelligible to the strangers, but their meaning clear.

  He pushed the woman out of his way, striking her with the end of his thunder stick. He grabbed the girl’s hand and dragged her, screaming, to him. She was eighteen, betrothed to the son of a chief in a tribe to the west, and quite beautiful. Her mother, now crying in fear, tried to pull her away from the marauder, engaging him in a sick tug-of-war. Another stepped forward and pointed his thunder stick at little Opa.

  His meaning obvious, she clutched her baby to her, all the while crying for her da
ughter. The other intruders laughed again, and as they advanced the women beat a fearful, frenzied retreat to the trees across the clearing. Too interested in their prize to chase down a group of older women and children, the strangers turned their attentions to the girl. They tore off what few clothes she wore as she screamed in terror and humiliation, pleading for mercy in a tongue they could not and did not care to understand.

  The women fled for camp, where the men had returned from hunting, and explained the horrible events. Dark descended as the warriors set out.

  It didn’t take long to follow the scent of their evening fire. The men of the tribe lingered on the outskirts, weapons at the ready for a signal to attack. It was a long wait as they listened to the girl sobbing, intermittently pierced by screams of pain accompanied by guttural, animal man-sounds. They waited to stage their attack until the strangers had finished eating and were drunk on food and sleepy. They went in quickly and quietly, slitting the throats of the sentries on duty before going for the men lounging around the fire.

  The tribe caught them completely by surprise, killing all save the one they caught in the process of raping the girl. At first he fought, angry and outraged, until he realized he was alone and surrounded by the savages. Two braves held him, his naked manhood wilted and drooping in fright. The girl’s father wrapped a blanket around her and handed her a knife. She looked up at him, tears of pain and fear in her eyes, and nodded. She approached her attacker.

  She raised the crude knife to her attacker’s throat. He jabbered at her in his foreign tongue, obviously not a god if so easily overtaken and frightened by a girl such as herself. She pressed the edge of the knife against his jugular. His eyes squeezed shut, anticipating the death he expected.

  She withdrew the knife. He opened his eyes in time to see her grab his manhood. As he screamed, she stretched it, slicing it off with one savage stroke. Howls of agony echoed through the woods while she turned and threw the piece of flesh into the fire, followed by the knife. The two braves shoved their captive to the ground and spat on him. The girl bent down and grabbed him by the hair, pulling his face up to meet her eyes. He could not understand the words she screamed, but her kin did.

  “May the Gods curse you and your false kin. May your angry soul be denied Paradise. May you walk the rest of eternity lost and tormented on this cursed ground, remembering these words and your deeds, in agony until someone takes mercy on your soul and forgives you.” She punctuated this last by spitting in his face.

  Her father put his arm around her and led her away, pausing as she stopped to retch, overwhelmed by her disgust.

  * * * *

  The conquistador lived five days before fever and infection from his wound finally took him. His last words raged at the girl and her tribe as he relayed his tale to fellow soldiers who came in search of the missing men.

  “Puta!” he screamed, one of the nicer things he called the girl.

  The men recoiled from his curses. Eventually he succumbed, much to the other soldiers’ relief. The rest of the dead were buried and their graves marked with stone cairns.

  Buried what was left of them, anyway, after vultures and raccoons and other creatures had feasted upon the remains.

  After two weeks of searching for the tribe, the Spaniards gave up, leaving the woods to return to their group to the south. Long after, tales of the massacre were legend among explorers and to those pioneers who followed in their footsteps, and eventually other parties avoided the patch of woods near the river the Indians called “Withlacoochee,” citing inhuman screams and a sobbing girl who was heard but never seen.

  But the land remembered.

  Chapter Two:

  1908

  The fate of the Simpson family died with its patriarch, George. He built the house on a ten-acre tract of land outside Brooksville, in the middle of good pine forest, near the phosphate mines.

  George thought Tampa was getting too large, too many foreigners. He sold his prosperous shipping business and relocated his family north, where no one would disturb him.

  Those who knew him would describe George as a class-A bastard, a real son of a whore. They felt sorry for his wife, Evelyn. He browbeat her mercilessly, often in public, humiliating her any time she dared speak. The kids—Keith, six, and Susan, five—didn’t fare much better. They learned young to stay quiet and not antagonize their father.

  George ruled his family like he ruled his business—with an iron fist and a lead heel. Evelyn could voice no objection when he came home one day and announced he’d built the house. He ordered her to pack the contents of their Tampa home, remove the children from school, and have it done by the end of the week.

  They moved in late February. She hated the new house and being away from other people. Oriole was not very populated, unlike Brooksville, the town immediately to their west. Their nearest neighbors were workers at the phosphate mines a half-hour walk away, and a clearing with stone cairns supposedly housing the remains of a few unnamed Spanish explorers who were the victim of a brutal Indian massacre—or so local legend said.

  Worse, Evelyn could no longer find temporary respite from George’s wrath as she could when he went to work. In Tampa, once he’d left for the day, she could retrieve her carefully hidden journals and write to relieve her despair. Now she had to hide them in the attic and could only risk writing when George worked the small vegetable garden instead of making her and the children do it. Even then she only had time to jot down little more than the latest events, always keeping a sharp eye out the attic’s turret window for George’s return.

  She was terrified of something happening to the children, of needing a doctor and not being able to make the half-day trip to Brooksville in time to help them. She hated the utter isolation. She also feared the horrifying mood swings George developed, even worse than before their move. He began acting irrationally, spending long hours down in the cellar with the door locked.

  Before, George frequently acted harsh. After ten years of marriage, Evelyn had learned how not to antagonize him and found occasional calm. Now he struck at random, perhaps no longer fearing retribution from the law if one night he drank too much and killed her.

  But Evelyn feared more than that. She witnessed him changing into something ominous and quite fearful to her, even more terrifying than the “old” George’s wrath.

  * * * *

  That summer, everything exploded in the Simpson household.

  Evelyn walked into the kitchen after feeding the livestock and found George at the kitchen table, a pile of coins and bills before him. His smile chilled her to the bone. She slowly backed toward the counter, thinking perhaps she could grab a knife and kill him before he hurt her and her children.

  “Sit down.” He motioned to the chair next to him. She forced herself to do it, noticing how he winced as he turned to follow her movements. He’d been ill the past several days but refused her attempts to get him to see the doctor.

  She secretly and fervently wished he would die.

  He waved his hand over the money. “Do you know what this is?”

  Her mind raced through possible replies with lightning speed, desperately seeking one that wouldn’t provoke him. She finally shook her head, not daring to speak.

  A half-full pint of whiskey stood sentinel by his right hand and he drank directly from the bottle. “Of course you wouldn’t, you stupid bitch. All you know how to do is spend money, not make it. Well, this is two thousand dollars, just a fraction of my years of work in the harness.” He took another swig of whiskey. “I keep it and the rest down in the basement.”

  He slammed the bottle on the table, making her jump. She noticed he winced again.

  “I’ve made a few decisions today, and I thought you should know.”

  I’m going to die today, she thought. I hope I can save the children.

  He turned to her. Evelyn swore his eyes burned with a demonic red glow. “I know what you’ve been trying. I know you want me dead, but I figured
out your plan before I gave you the satisfaction of dying.”

  Now she was not only scared, but puzzled. “George, what are you—”

  “Shut up!” He leaned over, his breath strong enough to knock out a horse. He must have been drinking for hours. “I know you’ve been trying to poison me!” His hand rubbed his right side and she realized he wasn’t drunk, he’d gone totally insane.

  “George, I—”

  He backhanded her, faster than she could have imagined possible. The force of the blow carried her out of her chair, sent her sprawling. She tried to scrabble away, but he moved too quick. He wrapped his fist in her hair and jerked her to her feet, his face inches from hers.

  “I don’t plan on keeping a wife who’s trying to kill me, that’s for sure, you poisonous whore. Puta!”

  She kicked and screamed, trying to pull away while he dragged her upstairs. She struggled, and halfway up the stairs he slugged her. Her head rocked back, explosions going off behind her eyes. By the time she regained her senses he had her tied, spread-eagle, to their bed.

  He advanced, hunting knife in hand.

  “George, please! I’ve been trying to get you to see a doctor.”

  “One more word out of you, and I cut your tongue out.”

  Her sanity slipped a notch when she looked into his eyes. No mistaking that they glowed a dark, fiery red.

  He cut her clothes off, ignoring her cries when he nicked her with the blade. He dropped his pants and raped her, Evelyn screaming as he tore into her. When he finished, he collapsed on her. She was certain she would suffocate until he finally rolled off of her and stumbled out the door, his hand rubbing his right side.