Series: Your bridegroom is six feet under in the frozen timber, Clara, and crying won't buy your fare back to Missouri.

The ledger’s words burned into my mind: “feeding the well,” “blood tithe.” Elijah wasn’t just a greedy man; he was a monster making a pact [more…]

The house trembled around me, the guttural groans of the earth growing louder. The black, fetid water still oozed from the pump, a testament to [more…]

The air in the cellar felt thick, heavy with Thomas’s terror and Elijah’s insane greed. The rhythmic thrumming from the earth pulsed beneath my feet. [more…]

The wind outside shrieked, a wild, mournful sound that seemed to echo the groaning of the house itself. Elijah stood opposite me in the parlor, [more…]

Elijah’s confession hung in the air, thick and foul, like the black silt from the well. My vision blurred for a moment, the sheer depravity [more…]

The world around us dissolved into a maelstrom of sound and fury. The cabin shrieked, a tortured groan of wood and stone. The tremors intensified, [more…]

The world went silent. The roaring winds, the groaning house, the screams—all replaced by a deafening void. I lay amidst the rubble, shards of splintered [more…]

The next morning, the world seemed muted, drained of color. The sky was a dull, bruised grey. The biting cold still seeped into my bones, [more…]