Return to Daemon Hall: Evil Roots

A year has passed since that fateful night in Daemon Hall’s house of horrors. Bestselling macabre author Ian Tremblin decides to hold another writer’s contest but this time in the safety of his own home. Tremblin is excited to share with contestants a very old book he has recently acquired that once belonged to Rudolph Daemon, the millionaire builder of Daemon Hall who later went mad and killed his family. But the book, like the mansion, is powerfully evil and soon transports the group to the burned out shell of the haunted mansion. Flesh eaters, voodoo, a proficient sociopath, and the root of the house’s malevolence are all part of the mix. Who will get out alive?

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

TO FLEE THE CITY OF SHADOWS There’s a small farmhouse, and the first room you enter is a parlor. Picture it in your mind. It’s late afternoon, almost dusk, so shadows are thickening. From nearby comes the soft sound of movement. Everything in the room is old-fashioned, from the framed black-and-white photos on the walls to the round wall clock. A large TV is pushed against one wall with two chairs in front of it. One is a lounger; the other is a skinny wood rocking chair. A narrow closet door is underneath a staircase. Next to the closet is this heavy wooden roll-top desk, and on the other side of it is a short hall leading to the kitchen. Two windows, separated by the front door, look out on the front yard.*   *   *Ian Tremblin paused a moment, and said, “I know I’m being overly descriptive, but it’s important that you have a good idea of what it looks like.”“Go on,” Demarius said.*   *   *The front door flies open, bangs against the wall, and nearly swings closed. A little girl runs in wearing grubby bib overalls; her tangled blond hair is pulled into pigtails. Breathing hard, she stops to look at the wall clock, then runs to the door and opens it all the way. She hurries to the closet door and twists a lock above the knob, then goes and pulls the chair from the desk, crawls in the chair well, and hides by pulling in the chair.The clock ticks off a few minutes, and there’s a thump followed by a brushing sound. The knob on the closet door rattles, twists, and the door opens. A person emerges. A skinny man in his fifties staggers into the parlor. His neck twists so that his left ear nearly rests on his shoulder. His right arm is drawn up so that his hand dangles under his chin. His left arm swings loosely. He barely lifts his right foot to step, then drags his left behind him. He wears dirty brown slacks, and his T-shirt is stained a crusty brown and rust red. His blank eyes are sickly yellow, and his flesh is the color of ash. He stumbles across the parlor floor and out the open front door, dragging his left foot up and over the sill.The girl pushes the chair from the desk, crawls out, and runs to the door, shutting it and twisting the deadbolt lock.“Bye-bye,” she says in a sweet little girl voice.*   *   *There weren’t supposed to be any this far from the city, but we’d spotted four.“I say we let them catch up, then crack open their heads.” Carlos swung a two-by-four.“No, no, no.” Ramsey shook his head. “There’s more around, I can feel it.”“Ram’s right,” I said. “It’s night, and we need a safe place.”“Who asked you, loser?” Carlos sneered. He was a big kid with intense blue eyes. He didn’t have a drop of Latin blood, but his mom had been a Carlos Santana fan, and that’s how he got his name. He was the typical neighborhood bully. Being smaller, I spent my life either avoiding him or getting beat up. It was the same for most of the neighborhood kids, except for Ramsey, a chubby black guy and Carlos’s only friend. When it became too dangerous to stay in the city, I left with them.My old friends might not think much of me running off with Carlos and Ram. They might think of me as a collaborator, something we’d been studying before the breakout. In times of war there are always collaborators, our history teacher had told us. They were traitors who, generally out of fear, worked for the other side. Collaborators in Iraq helped U.S. forces, then passed information to the insurgents. During World War II, collaborators turned in their Jewish friends and neighbors because they were afraid of the Gestapo. Centuries ago, Roman collaborators identified Christians, who were fed to lions in arenas as a form of entertainment. Would traveling with Carlos make me a collaborator?I’m not sure why they let me go with them. To Carlos I was a weakling, a punching bag that breathed. Maybe on an instinctive level they knew the same thing I did: There’s safety in numbers.“Hey, look at the top of that hill.” Ramsey pointed out a small farmhouse illuminated by the moon.“I don’t know if that would be secure,” I said.“Who cares what you think,” Carlos growled, and threw the two-by-four behind us. “Maybe they have food.” And he started toward the house, Ramsey in tow.I sighed and followed.“Hey, it’s in pretty good shape,” Ram said as we got close.Shadow Eaters were slow and stupid, but once they got a whiff of fresh meat they were relentless and would shatter windows and break down doors to get people. This place, however, still had windows and a door securely in place.“A good spot to hunker down,” Carlos said.“If they’ll let us,” I said.“Oh, they’ll let us,” Carlos said, and lifted his shirt for the umpteenth time to display the pistol tucked in his waistband. He’d found it in the apartment of a neighbor who’d been killed when the Shadow Eaters came for dinner. Normally I’d stay away from an armed Carlos, but the way things were then, I liked the idea of a gun in our group. Carlos dropped the shirt and banged on the door. “Hey! Open up! We’re living!”After a few moments, Ramsey tried the knob, but it was locked.“Get back,” Carlos growled, and pulled his pistol.I guess he was going to shoot the lock, like in the movies. Before he had a chance, there was a soft click and the door opened. It was dark inside, but we saw somebody stepping toward us. Carlos pointed his gun, the barrel shaking, at the figure.“Are you going to shoot me?” It was a little girl’s voice.Another step forward and we saw a kid in pigtails, wearing OshKosh overalls. Carlos laughed nervously and shoved past her. I followed Ram inside and shut the door. There was no light, and I pulled off my backpack and fumbled for my flashlight. The beam was weak, but it provided something to see by. I pointed it at Carlos, who grinned, knowing my fear of darkness. A match flared and the little girl lit a kerosene lantern that sat on an open roll-top desk. She crossed the room and lit a candle on an old dinosaur of a television, then another on a small table between two chairs.“Welcome to my uncle’s home.” There was a trace of a lisp in her small voice. “I’m Melody.”I knelt in front of her. “Hi, Melody.” I’d always had a soft spot for little kids. I pointed at my companions. “That’s Carlos, and he’s Ramsey. My name is—”“Loser,” Carlos said, laughing. “That’s his name.”She looked at him and said, “You’re mean.”Carlos chuckled. “So you better be nice to me, huh? Where’s your uncle?”“He’s out getting food.”“If he’s out there,” Ram said, “he’ll be food. We saw numb-munchers.”“He’ll be all right. He always is.”Carlos fell into the big stuffed chair. “Hey, loser, your flashlight is dead.”I groaned, not having any more batteries. Since the outbreak in the city, flashlights have become very important. Shadow Eaters can’t stand bright lights. In their transition from human to zombie, something happens and they become supersensitive to concentrated light. If the Shadow Eaters forced their way in, I would be without a valuable defense. The lantern and candles wouldn’t help; the light they produce is too diffuse.Someone tugged the flashlight from my hand—the little girl. “We have batteries. I’ll put some in for you.” She started for the kitchen.“Hey, brat! Put new ones in mine, too,” Carlos ordered.She got his, then Ram’s, and took all three into the kitchen.Ramsey sat in the rocking chair next to Carlos. “What’s the plan, Big C?”“We’ll wait for the uncle to get back with food. If he gives us a hard time, I’ll teach him who’s boss,” he said, patting the gun under his shirt.“Come on, Carlos,” I said. Now that he had a gun, Carlos acted like a gangster.“Maybe I’ll shoot him in the kneecap and throw him out for the numb-munchers.”Ram laughed nervously.“Don’t be a jerk,” I said.I knew I’d said the wrong thing the moment the words came out.Carlos stood and aimed the gun at me. “You give me any more grief, loser boy, and I’ll bust a cap in your leg and throw you out there. Get this through your head: I can do what I want. Who’s to stop me?”I didn’t reply, and he pushed the gun into his pants. Slowly, with my back to the wall, I slid to the floor. Carlos, I realized, wasn’t faring too well mentally. Was it the stress of the outbreak, or had he been like that all along? Whichever, I needed to get away before he killed someone, and I’d take the girl.“Here you go,” she called sweetly as she stepped from the kitchen and placed our flashlights on the desk.“Everyone sit down and wait for her uncle to get back,” Carlos ordered, falling back into the stuffed chair.I stayed on the floor, and the little girl pulled out the desk chair and sat.Time passed. Carlos and Ram whispered. I slipped in and out of a light sleep. The girl sat quietly, her short legs swinging back and forth.Carlos kept glancing at the wall clock, and finally stood, moving to the girl. “When is your uncle getting back with the food?”She giggled. “He went to get food. I didn’t say he’d bring any back, silly.”“What?” Carlos’s face ...

About the Author

Andrew Nance is retired from a twenty-five year career as a radio show host. He uses his storytelling skills to give ghost tours throughout historic St. Augustine, Florida, where he lives. He is the author of Daemon Hall and Return to Daemon Hall: Evil Roots.

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