HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS 

James A. Moore

CEMETERY DANCE PUBLICATIONS 

Baltimore 

2008 

Copyright © 2008 by James A. Moore

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

Cemetery Dance Publications 

132-B Industry Lane, Unit #7 

Forest Hill, MD 21050 

http://www.cemeterydance.com 

First Edition eBook 

HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS 

’Twas the season. 

The roads leading into town were nearly cleaned of the thick sheath of snow that had blanketed the area for the last week and there were Christmas lights in the windows of most of the houses and all of the shops. One elemental truth stood against any and all religious differences during the holiday season: Christmas decorations meant more customers. Even the very Scroogiest shop owners knew that simple fact, and all of them did their best to take advantage of it. 

They’d have had the damnedest time when it came to Jonathan Crowley. He’d been known to celebrate the season on behalf of others a few times, but not in longer than most of the stores on Main Street had been around. 

Black Stone Bay was a beautiful town and half deserted for the holidays. Two universities took up a good portion of the area and with school out of session most of the students had gone home, leaving the campuses oddly silent despite the festive decorations. It leant the town a haunted air, though he could easily sense there were other reasons for that sensation. No town of any age managed to stay free of dark spots, places where life had gone wrong or death had grown cancerous. Black Stone Bay was a town most places aspired to; the people were well off, the crime rate was light—with a few exceptions—and the town was postcard perfect. It had been years since he’d come through the town and remarkably little had changed since then. There were no new developments, no subdivisions that had grown into the area or overshadowed older neighborhoods. No matter who might want to bring change to the town, the people who lived there would never tolerate the idea. 

There was little space for the nouveau riche in the place. The old money families saw to that. 

The very notion set Crowley’s teeth on edge. He had no special love of the wealthy, or of the needy. He had no special love for people, if the truth must be known, but they called on him just the same, and with no consideration of what they asked when they made their requests. 

“So, tell me about your friend.” He looked at the latest in an endless line of people who’d asked for help. The woman was not a stranger. He’d met her twenty years earlier when she was in college herself and living in Los Angeles. Back then Laura Natchez Montgomery had planned to be the next big thing as an actress. Two decades had removed that desire and replaced it with a fairly large family, including a husband, three children and two dogs. Dreams change. Jonathan Crowley could have told her that when they met, but knew she wouldn’t have listened. Most people don’t want to hear unpleasant or inconvenient truths when they’re young and still know everything.  

Laura sighed and looked out the window while she composed herself and tried to figure out exactly what to say. 

She was not a previous client. He had never been asked to help her out of a dilemma, but he’d come to her assistance just the same. They met while he was on the hunt and tracking down a killer. A flesh eater if he remembered correctly, one that killed its victims and then let them rot for a few days before it picked the bones clean. Laura had been unlucky enough to find one of the bodies and catch the damned thing’s attention. She was a striking girl as he recalled, and the thing that had run across her agreed. It was a matter of timing really, blind luck that kept her from being raped by the nightmare. It was just tearing her clothes away, cackling as she screamed and tried to fight it off. 

For Crowley it had also been a perfect distraction to let him take the damned thing down once and for all. The seams on Laura’s jeans split open and she cried out at exactly the same time he was driving a ceremonial sword into the back of the demon’s skull. The impact had broken the blade, much to his disgust. He hadn’t been able to find a replacement and it wasn’t for lack of looking over the years. 

As he often did, he made sure she forgot about his existence and what had been done to her, with the simple added command that she would remember him and how to contact him should she run across another situation where he might be useful.  

Two decades later she called him about a friend of the family.  

“I still can’t get over how little you’ve changed…” Her voice drifted almost sleepily. He hadn’t changed. She had. Two decades weighed on her, etching fine lines in her features and transforming her from a tiny sexpot into a mother of three with the hips to prove it. Crowley looked exactly the same. The only noticeable difference was likely in his clothes and that was just because it was a damned site colder in New England at Christmastime than it was in California at the height of the summer. 

“That’s not why we’re here, Laura. You wanted to tell me about your husband’s friend.” He allowed himself a small flash of a smile and waited while she thought over the situation.  

Her eyes traveled along the length of him, not ogling, but absorbing. He was not normal and sometimes it took people a while to adjust to that fact. He was tolerant. Well, at least for the moment. The silences were stretching his willingness to behave himself. 

“He’s not…” She sighed. “He’s not my husband’s friend. He’s my uncle. I just, I didn’t know if you would take me seriously if I said he was a family member.”  

His lips pressed together and he forced himself to remain pleasant. He wasn’t known for his patience, and liars, while amazingly common in his experience, almost always managed to piss him off.  

“Oh, nothing to worry about. I don’t need him to be anything to you one way or the other. I just need to know what the situation is that has me in Rhode Island instead of home for the holidays.” He stared pointedly until she got the hint and nodded her head. He had nothing to go home to, but that wasn’t any of her business and so he opted not to share the information. 

“Turner is my uncle. My mother’s brother, but a lot younger than her. He’s only around five years older than me. We have never been overly close, but we know each other, of course.” She smiled apologetically and Crowley nodded his encouragement. For some people talking about family was like pulling teeth. “He lost his family a few years ago.” She looked out the passenger’s side window of his car as he moved slowly, smoothly down the road. “He was at work, and somebody broke in. Somebody killed all of them. His wife, his children.” She sounded apologetic, as if she were responsible for the entire situation. He was always amazed by how many people seemed to worry about that. 

The silence stretched again, until he shook his head. “We’re almost there. You should give me the details. Hit the high points.” 

“Well, the murders, they changed him. Turner became sullen, withdrawn, not that anyone blamed him, of course. He got better when he remarried, that made a big difference. It was almost like he’d been sick for a long time and then recovered. I don’t know. Maybe it’s that some people just need to have family with them to be complete, you know?” 

He nodded. He could remember what that was like.  

“Anyway, last year everything started going south again. He was fine, his new wife, his new step kids, even the new baby on the way, everything seemed like it was perfect and then he just…he lost it.”  

The light on the road ahead turned red and Crowley slowed the car down and stopped. He turned to look at her. Her expression was one he’d grown far too familiar with over the years; she looked quietly, desperately stunned, as if she’d just survived an unexpected car wreck where she was fine and everyone else was mangled.  

When she spoke again the words were rushed, as if getting them out quickly would make it easier somehow. “Turner was fine at Thanksgiving, and for a week after that, but then he started changing. He went from open and friendly and loving to quiet and angry. He wouldn’t answer my calls, and his new wife, Holly, she stopped by three days before Christmas in tears. He was screaming all the time, losing his temper and finally he told her to get out of the house before things got worse. So we took her in, we kept her over the holidays and did what we could to make everything okay. And then three days after Christmas, Turner came around apologizing and said he’d just succumbed to the pressure from work. That he’d basically lost it but he was better.”  

The light changed and Crowley started driving again. 

“He was fine.” Her tone said it all. She couldn’t understand how her uncle could go crazy and get better so fast, but she believed he had done just that. “It took almost four months before Holly forgave him, really forgave him, I mean. The baby’s what made the difference. And Turner loves that little boy, you can see it, you know? Even if he’d had any sort of problems with Holly or her children, he loves that little baby.” 

He could see the house now; there was a tree in the front yard with glowing lights and decorations, an illuminated tribute to the birth of a demigod to some, and to others merely a sign of the time of year when most people seemed a little more tolerant of their neighbors. He looked her way and asked with his eyes if he had the right place and she nodded her answer. A moment later he was pulling over in front of the place and killing the engine. 

Inside the house there were lights and decorations as well, but even knowing that a family lived there, the house felt empty, cored out and abandoned.  

“Finish it. Tell me.” He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and stared hard at her. 

“The baby, he started crying all the time about two weeks ago. I mean all the time. He wouldn’t sleep, he wouldn’t eat. He just screamed and cried like he was being tortured. And around the same time Turner started acting like he was acting last year.” 

Crowley nodded. “You think he’s being haunted.” 

“Well, yes, I suppose I do.” 

“When did his family die?” 

“It was right around Christmas time.” 

“His family, are they staying with you again?” he remembered the suitcases, and there had been a hint of baby powder in the air. 

“Yes.” She sounded just a little puzzled by his knowing. 

“The baby. Did the baby stop crying when he got to your house?” 

“How did you know that?” She didn’t just sound surprised. She sounded suspicious. 

“You called me, remember?” He stared hard at her, unflinching, until she looked down and nodded her head. “It’s a good sign. It means whatever is affecting your uncle isn’t following the rest of his family, it’s just dealing with him.” That was true enough, but if there had been anything in her house when he came to see her he’d have noticed it.  

“Of course. I’m sorry.” Her voice was a whisper. He looked away from her and opened his door.  

“Well, there it is and here we are. Let’s see what we can do for your Uncle Turner, shall we?” 

Laura nodded and they stepped out of the warmth of the car and into the harsh cold wind. She was bundled into a thick fur coat that probably cost as much as her maid earned in a year. The wealth was something she took for granted, which meant she had changed a great deal from when she was a teenager. She was happy, deep inside where it counted, she was pleased with her world. Crowley envied her that.  

He’d spent fifteen minutes inside her home and taken in all of the details he needed. In addition to the signs of visitors, he’d seen pictures of the woman and her husband, her kids. Three children, two daughters and a son, and didn’t that put an ache in his heart? Didn’t that bring back a special twist of pain when he remembered his past and the family he’d had? Oh, yes, my yes, it most certainly did. The family room had been rearranged to accommodate a massive Christmas tree that already had an explosion of gifts under it. Packages wrapped in every imaginable color and festooned with ribbons and bows. He looked away before he could let himself stare too openly.  

There was no time for sentimentality and really, no desire. The past was best left behind. 

A smile played around his mouth as he looked at the house Laura had directed him to. “Mostly. Mostly the past is best left behind.” He stepped onto the walkway, not as clean as it could have been and in need of repairs, he noted. “There are always exceptions.” 

“I’m sorry?” Laura hadn’t heard his words clearly. That was all right, too. They weren’t meant for her.  

“Nothing to worry yourself about,” he waved a hand to dismiss her query. “Why don’t you introduce me to your friend so we can get this over with?” 

Laura didn’t question him. Few people did. Most seemed to understand on an instinctive level that letting him have his way was the quickest method of getting him to leave, and even the people who wanted his help seldom wanted him around for long.  

She walked up to the door and knocked briskly, her gloved knuckles rapping the wood hard enough to make her presence known to anyone around.  

Almost a minute later the door opened and a young woman peered out: she was either a hooker—unlikely—or hired help. Crowley stared only long enough to acknowledge that she was the maid. He ignored the conversation between Laura and the woman and instead looked around the outside of the house. A nice place, not overwhelmingly fine, but better than average. There was a darkness around the place, however, that made perfect sense to Crowley. Something was wrong. Something had invited itself into the house and made itself comfortable.  

He opened his senses, did his best to find the source of the discomfort, but that was too easy and whatever was there didn’t want to be seen. Not by him, at least.  

Laura looked in his direction and smiled patiently. She was waiting on him while he was off daydreaming. Sloppy. He needed to remember why he was here. He apologized with a smile of his own and moved forward into the home of a man he had never met.  

Once past the threshold he felt them, the spirits of the house, the entities that filled the place and held sway over the head of the household. They were hidden, but they were not quiet. They howled their outrage and cursed the man’s existence with malignant fury. 

He noticed the sounds. Laura walked on as if there were nothing at all to be afraid of, and if he was right, there was no reason at all for her to be worried.  

She wasn’t the target. 

The maid looked toward Crowley and smiled apologetically. “Mr. Hamilton, he’s not himself lately.” 

“That’s why I’m here, isn’t it? To get him back to himself?” 

“Oh, are you a doctor?” She was cute and he resisted a dozen different comments he could have made in response. Instead, he just nodded. He hadn’t expected a maid. The house wasn’t really large enough to leave a reason for him to expect a maid and he doubted the man could afford the luxury for his wife.  

“Turner?” Laura’s voice rang out harshly enough to startle the maid. Crowley simply pressed his lips together.  

The man came out of a doorway to the left. His eyes were wide and surprised, his face pale and puffy. His features bore a strong resemblance to the woman who’d called on Crowley in the first place, but stress had aged him more than the five years that separated them, and the haunted expression ruined any illusion of happiness and contentment.  

Laura opened her mouth to speak, and Crowley held out a hand to silence her. He stepped past her and closer to her uncle. 

“You aren’t having a good time of things lately, are you?” 

“Who are you?” 

“I’m a specialist. Your niece told me you need help and that’s what I’m here to take care of.” 

The man shot an angry look at Laura that was completely out of place for what she had done. Crowley noticed it, but said nothing. 

“I don’t need a specialist. I need to be left alone.” 

“Sure. That’s why your wife and your kid are over at Laura’s place, because everything is just fine.” 

“How dare you?” Like so many people, he was surprised when someone stated the obvious. Manners were a good thing in small doses, but did remarkably little for Crowley’s peace of mind.  

“It’s Christmas Eve and I’m here instead of at home.” He crossed his arms over his chest and looked at the man over the rim of his glasses. The smile that slipped across his mouth was cold and predatory and Turner blanched a bit. “That’s pretty much all the reason I need to dare anything, sport.”  

“Listen, this is my house.” The expression said it all. He was angry, and that was expected, but he was also worried about something. Not Crowley. He hadn’t even begun to give the man a reason to be afraid. It was something else, and Crowley struck at that particular nerve quickly. 

“Yeah, I get that. But it’s not your house. Not really. If it was your house, you wouldn’t have to send your family away to keep them safe, would you?”  

The eyes widened. A sign that he’d struck the nerve he’d aimed for. 

“Listen, Laura, I want you and this lovely young lady to go to the kitchen for a minute, okay? I need to talk to Turner alone.”  

Laura opened her mouth to say something and snapped it shut just as quickly when she saw Crowley’s expression. Instead she nodded and all but pushed the girl out of the room. Crowley kept his eyes on them until they were out of the room and safely away from the master of the house. 

“Listen carefully. I really don’t want to be here. Your house has a serious shadow on it. I need to know who is haunting you.” He spoke quickly and quietly, knowing fully that the answer he got would be a lie.  

“No one. I don’t even know what you’re talking about.” 

Crowley’s smile bloomed, a dark and venomous expression. “Listen to me very carefully. You want to tell me the truth, because I can help you. I can make them go away, but I need to know what I’m dealing with and why they’re hovering around you.” 

The room grew colder as he spoke, and Crowley, who was used to dealing with dead things and not the least bit surprised by the change, watched Turner flinch as surely as if he’d been slapped across the face.  

“You should leave. Take Laura with you.” Turner’s voice was trying for calm and failing miserably. His eyes looked around with a quiet desperation, but saw nothing. The air temperature dropped substantially for the second time and the man stepped away from the threshold he’d been standing in and retreated back into the room he’d come from. 

Crowley followed and chuckled. “Seriously, you’ve got a bad case of the holiday spooks. Tell me who it is before things get worse.”  

They’d entered the dining room, which was set up with a small feast. The meal was laid out, a spread worthy of a dozen people, complete with settings, opened bottles of wine, eggnog, a ham and a turkey with all of the fixings.  

“You have to leave. They want to eat now.” The man’s voice was hollow, weak. He swallowed, his face paler than before, his skin sweating profusely despite the frigid temperature in the room. Every breath, every word he uttered sent small plumes of condensation past his lips.  

They tried to hide themselves from him but Crowley forced the issue. His hand reached into the thick winter coat he sported and sorted past several stones and two small bags of salt until he found the cellophane strip twisted around a pinch of grave mold mixed with sulfur and ash. A quick utterance, no more than a dozen mumbled words and then the fine black grit in the palm of his hand lifted into the air and dispersed evenly through the room. The cloud of dust settled itself, seemed to stick to the air around Turner. It layered itself in a thin mist and revealed the shapes that did their best to avoid being seen.  

Two women stood in the room and near them, like satellites around twin moons, a half dozen children circled. Turner stared, his eyes bugging wider than Crowley would have thought possible. 

“What? You haven’t seen them before?” He let the humor creep into his tones. He didn’t know exactly what the man in front of him had done, but he suspected Turner was responsible for the spirits that surrounded him.  

“I-I-How did you do that? Why are there so many of them? I only wanted Michelle…” He tried to look everywhere at once, at all of the shapes and the faces hinted at by the black powder draped across their translucent forms. Apparently it was simply too much for him. Turner sat down abruptly at the head of the table, his face a study in misery. 

“Did you kill them, Turner? Or did you just miss them too much? They look mighty pissed off, whatever the case.” He quickly scanned the room and frowned; it was getting colder and more than that, there seemed to be more of the shapes than he remembered.  

“You wouldn’t understand.” Turner hid his face in his hands, mumbling the words past his clasping fingers.  

“What’s there to understand? You missed them, so you called them back. You think you’re the first person to ever summon a dead loved one or two from the other side of death?” Crowley stepped closer, pushing his way through a dead boy who simply dispersed, leaving a thin black powder across the floor in his wake. “You think you’re the only one who’s ever wanted another chance at happiness?” The rage snuck in as he spoke, stoking the fury that always waited just under the surface of the Hunter’s calm demeanor.  

“I just wanted them back to say good bye. I didn’t expect them to keep coming back.” He kept his hands over his face, and Crowley, who had been moving closer, felt the fine hairs on his neck rise and stepped back. You fight enough things in darkness and on unfamiliar territory you learn to trust your instincts.  

“How long have they been after you?” He could hear the women coming back, their steps tentative, uncertain if they should enter the room. The shadowy forms all around them—enough now to crowd a bus station: there were more shapes coming from somewhere, and not all of them could be his family—looked toward the doors with unsettling hunger on their hollow faces.  

“It’s been five years. Just at Christmas at first, but then they started coming for longer stays. I couldn’t hide them anymore; Holly was starting to ask questions and the kids…sometimes they could see them.” He looked at Crowley with a trembling lower lip. “Do you understand? They could see the dead people.” 

“What? You thought they were your special entertainment?” Crowley’s mouth curled into a scowl of disapproval. “They’re dead, you damned fool. They’re supposed to stay that way.” 

He saw the movement, the slight push at the door, and heard Laura’s voice. “Is it okay to come in now?” 

“No! No, Laura Keep away from here!” For the first time Turner seemed genuinely scared. He rose from his seat, his arms reaching as if to block her actions from across the room. 

Crowley was faster. He pushed the door shut violently enough to shake the wall. Laura let out a squawk on the other side of the barrier, shocked by the sudden action. “Is everything okay in there?” Her voice had risen at least an octave and her stress was apparent.  

Crowley smiled, though there was nothing kind about the expression. “You really screwed the pooch, didn’t you? They’re here for more than a holiday meal, aren’t they?” 

“They always come for Christmas dinner; I can’t get rid of them.” He looked at the shapes that moved, surging into the room from somewhere beyond the physical plane. Crowley looked carefully and finally saw the rift, understood what was happening.  

“Oh, you damned fool. There’s always a cost, isn’t there?” He’d have to check. He’d ask Laura on the way back to her house, before he wiped the memories of the night from her head.  

“They wanted… They wanted my family. Again.” Turner’s voice broke at last and he shook his head. “I couldn’t give them Holly or the kids. I already lost one family!” 

There had been two women present among the first spirits, and several children besides.  

“How many times have you been married, you son of a bitch?” The words were cold, distant. Any sympathy he might have had for the man he was supposed to save was gone.  

“Three times, okay? I wanted my family back, is that so wrong?” He was pleading, as if there was a chance that Crowley would somehow find it in himself to grant absolution.  

“Last year your family left and you called for someone to cook for you. That’s how this works, isn’t it? You have to offer up someone, somebody to pay the price for letting them back in or sending them away.” He stared at the man, stunned. “You’ve done this before.” 

“I had no choice!” Oh he was crying now, showing his misery for Crowley, showing how he’d suffered for the last few years.  

“Was it this bad last year?” His was almost yelling to be heard over the hissed murmurs of the dead.  

“It was never this bad before.” Turner’s voice was barely audible over the sound of the dead.  

“Here’s a secret for you, Turner, old son. The Dead don’t like being where they are. It’s cold and lonely. Here, this place? It’s a lot happier for them.” 

“I can’t make them go away. I’ve tried!” 

“What rituals did you use?” There were always methods for reversing a spell, but he had to know which incantation had been used in the first place if he was going to make this painless.  

Turner did the one thing guaranteed to anger Crowley. He lied. “I don’t remember. I don’t have the book anymore.” 

There were times when Jonathan Crowley was too nice for his own good and times when he was far too lenient as far as he was concerned. He looked at the man in front of him, surrounded by the dead who demanded sacrifices, and knew that there was never going to be an easy fix for the situation. Given the opportunity, Turner Harrison would do it again. He did not want to learn from his mistakes. He simply wanted to have everything turn out his way, regardless of the cost.  

“Fair enough. Handle your own problems, Mr. Harrison.” 

“What?” Oh, that got him thinking, didn’t it? Suddenly there was more to consider.  

“I said handle it yourself!” Crowley left the room, pushing the door open in a hurry and almost knocking Laura on her ass in the process. The atmosphere was quieter on this side of the door, the air warmer, less turbulent.  

“Mr. Crowley, where’s Turner?” 

“He’s staying here. We’re not.” He didn’t give her a chance to argue, but instead grabbed Laura by her bicep and led her toward the front door. The maid hesitated for a second and then started following. He looked over his shoulder at her and nodded. “This is the part where we want to run.” 

Laura tried to resist but he was far too strong for her. He lifted the woman in his arms and ignored her frantic attempts to hit him, to make him let go. She started to say something but the sudden screams from the dining room dwarfed whatever words she tried to speak.  

Crowley didn’t stop to listen, much as part of him wanted to. Instead he forced the front door open and when she got feisty a second time he physically hurled Laura out into the snow beyond the front porch. The maid was right behind him and didn’t waste a second leaving the premises.  

A moment later the scream came again, louder, distorted by pain and something else. It did not cease, but instead trailed off, fading in the distance though none of them were moving.  

Crowley looked back at the house, a frown on his features, and studied the structure carefully.  

Silence greeted him, complete and eternal. The dead that had been in the house were gone and so too the man who had summoned them to visit and paid them in blood to stay away every year.  

Laura charged past him, screaming her uncle’s name. He let her go, knowing full well what she would find inside.  

The house was as empty as his own; devoid of family or loved ones. Once upon a time he’d lost his family too; the difference was he knew better than to try to call them back.  

The wind called out, blasting past the empty house, drowning the sounds of a woman in mourning. Her losses were bad, but could have been worse. In the end, she still had her husband and her children waiting for her.  

That would have to be enough.  

THE END

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Home for the Holidays

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright

Home for the Holidays