Blood Kin Read online

  BLOOD KIN

  By Ronald Kelly

  A Macabre Ink Production

  Macabre Ink is an imprint of Crossroad Press

  Digital Edition published by Crossroad Press

  Smashwords edition published at Smashwords by Crossroad Press

  Digital Edition Copyright 2015 / Ronald Kelly

  Blood Kin was originally published by Zebra Books in 1996.

  The novella The Wanderer of Twilight Mountain was previously unpublished.

  LICENSE NOTES

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to the vendor of your choice and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Meet the Author

  Ronald Kelly was born November 20, 1959 in Nashville, Tennessee. He attended Pegram Elementary School and Cheatham County Central High School before starting his writing career.

  Ronald Kelly began his writing career in 1986 and quickly sold his first short story, “Breakfast Serial,” to Terror Time Again magazine. His first novel, Hindsight was released by Zebra Books in 1990. His audiobook collection, Dark Dixie: Tales of Southern Horror, was on the nominating ballot of the 1992 Grammy Awards for Best Spoken Word or Non-Musical Album. Zebra published seven of Ronald Kelly’s novels from 1990 to 1996. Ronald’s short fiction work has been published by Cemetery Dance, Borderlands 3, Deathrealm, Dark at Heart, Hot Blood: Seeds of Fear, and many more. After selling hundreds of thousands of books, the bottom dropped out of the horror market in 1996. So, when Zebra dropped their horror line in October 1996, Ronald Kelly stopped writing for almost ten years and worked various jobs including welder, factory worker, production manager, drugstore manager, and custodian.

  In 2006, Ronald Kelly started writing again. In early 2008, Croatoan Publishing released his work Flesh Welder as a standalone chapbook, and it quickly sold out. In early 2009 Cemetery Dance Publications released a limited edition hardcover of his fist short story collection, Midnight Grinding & Other Twilight Terrors. Also in 2010, Cemetery Dance is planning on releasing his first novel in over ten years called, Hell Hollow as a limited edition hardcover. Ronald’s Zebra/Pinnacle horror novels are being released by Thunderstorm Books as The Essential Ronald Kelly series. Each book contains a new novella related to the novel’s original storyline.

  Ronald Kelly currently lives in a backwoods hollow in Brush Creek, Tennessee, with his wife, Joyce, and their three children.

  Book List

  Novels

  Blood Kin

  Father’s Little Helper (re-released as Twelve Gauge)

  Fear

  Hell Hollow

  Hindsight

  Moon of the Werewolf (re-released as Undertaker’s Moon)

  Pitfall

  Restless Shadows

  Something Out There (re-released as The Dark’Un)

  The China Doll

  The Possession (to be re-released as Burnt Magnolia)

  Timber Gray

  Novellas

  Flesh Welder

  Collections

  After the Burn

  Cumberland Furnace and Other Fear Forged Fables

  Dark Dixie

  Dark Dixie II

  Long Chills

  Mister Glow-Bones & Other Halloween Tales

  The Sick Stuff

  Twilight Hankerings

  Unhinged

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  BLOOD KIN

  Prologue

  March 1898

  The child reached for the stake in her father’s heart.

  “No, Mary,” said Elizabeth Craven, gently pushing her hand aside.

  The girl, perhaps thirteen years of age, stared at her mother, eyes questioning. “But why not, Mother?”

  The old woman’s face was stern. “Because I said so.”

  The other girls who stood around the kitchen table swapped uneasy glances, then went back to the task of bathing their father’s body.

  After it was done, they dressed him in a white cotton shirt and his finest Sunday suit of black broadcloth. Even in death, Josiah Craven was an impressive and intimidating man. He was well over six feet tall and thin as a cadaver, but it was his face that had once been his most powerful tool. The firm jaw, the head of iron-gray hair, the thick mustache and bushy eyebrows—all had stood out starkly during the many fire-and-brimstone sermons he had given at the helm of a pulpit. But it was his eyes—bluish-gray and as fiery as the noonday sun—that had scared countless souls into salvation… as well as damnation. Those eyes were hidden now, beneath still lids, but the memory of them remained in the minds of those who stood there, his wife most of all.

  A knock came at the back door. Elizabeth turned to find her eldest son, Thomas, standing there. “The pastor’s here, Mother,” he said. “He’d like to speak with you.”

  The woman nodded solemnly. She studied the face of the boy. He stared at the lifeless body of his father, showing nary a sign of emotion. Usually, a mixture of respect and dread would gleam in his eyes in the presence of the man. But his father was gone now, and so was the fear Thomas had endured for the eighteen years of his life.

  “Have you and your brothers finished your work?” she asked. The sound of saws and hammers had grown quiet a half hour before.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he said, unable to hide the satisfaction in his voice. “The casket is ready.”

  “Did you build it the way I said?”

  The boy nodded. “The heaviest of oak and the sturdiest of nails. It’ll last a thousand years. Maybe more.”

  His mother blessed him with a smile. “You’ve done well. Bring it here to the house and help the girls finish up.”

  “Yes, ma’am,” he replied, then headed back to the barn, where his brothers were waiting.

  Elizabeth Craven pulled her black shawl closer around her shoulders and stepped outside. The evening shadows thickened as that spring day of 1898 grew to a close. In the gloom, she could make out horse-drawn buggies and buckboard wagons parked along the mountain road. Beneath the big oak at the side of the Craven house stood a crowd of folks dressed in black suits and mourning veils: the members of her husband’s congregation. The very thought disgusted her. They had come out of tribute and grief, unaware that the man who had guided them, even baptized them into the glory of God, had been their worst enemy all along.

  One man—a portly, balding fellow in a black suit and straight-brimmed hat—left the crowd and appr
oached her. She knew him at once. He was Horace Massey, the pastor of Green Hollow, way down in the valley. She had not invited him, but he had come anyway, out of a sense of duty and, in Elizabeth’s opinion, meddlesomeness. His face was unsympathetic as he respectfully removed his hat and stood before her. Confrontation was on his mind, she could see it in his eyes. The old woman matched his glare with one of her own. Her mind was set and there was no changing it.

  “What did you want to talk to me about, Pastor?” she asked.

  “The injustice of your husband’s burial, Mrs. Craven,” he said. She could detect a hint of fury in his muddy brown eyes. “Reverend Craven’s congregation, they’re upset. They’ve called upon me to voice their outrage.”

  “And why should they feel such a way?” countered Elizabeth. “My husband is dead and he is to be buried. It’s that simple.”

  “But the way he is to be interred,” protested Massey. “That is what’s so disturbing to them. To be buried in the dead of night without as much as the benefit of a wake or even a period of mourning. And your denial of a blessing over his grave… well, frankly, Mrs. Craven, it isn’t fitting. Your husband was a devout servant of the Lord Almighty and a shepherd of these God-fearing people. I can’t help but believe that you are ignoring his wishes for a decent burial.”

  The woman’s face held rock steady. “Josiah’s wishes were never my own,” she said.

  The pastor’s round face reddened with anger. “What you are doing here is blasphemy, Mrs. Craven. Blasphemy, pure and simple!”

  Elizabeth’s eyes flared. “Don’t talk to me of blasphemy, Horace Massey! If anyone knew of blasphemy in the name of the Lord, it was my husband. He was quite adept at it, in fact. He would preach of the rewards of Heaven and the tortures of Hell bright and early on Sunday morning, while every other night of the week he was indulging in sins of the flesh, fornicating with half the women in these here Smokies. And I can’t count the times I’ve chased him from the beds of his own daughters.”

  “You can’t expect me to believe such lies,” said the pastor, looking a little uncomfortable.

  “Believe it, Massey,” she told him. “He had Satan in his heart… even more so recently.”

  The preacher grew silent for a moment. He thought of how Josiah Craven had been found: lying dead on the earthen floor of his own barn, the broken stalk of a bean pole through his heart. The story was that he had been forking hay to his cattle from the loft above when he’d lost his footing and been impaled by the pole. But there’d been some speculation in the village as to whether or not he had actually perished in such a manner.

  “Tell me the truth, Mrs. Craven,” said Pastor Massey. “It’s been said that you are allowing Josiah to be buried along with the cause of his death, the very thing that killed him.”

  “That’s correct,” she replied.

  “But why?” he asked.

  “That’s of my own affair,” she told him firmly. “If you and the others wish to accompany us to the grave, Pastor, you are more than welcome. But if you insist on making my husband a martyr and protesting the way he is to be buried, then I must deny your invitation. It makes no difference to me.”

  “We’ll be there,” said the minister. “But only because he deserves someone to mourn his passing. It’s apparent that such a grievous loss fails to touch your heart, or even the hearts of your children.”

  Elizabeth smiled coldly. “Amen to that” was all she said before turning and walking back into the house.

  It was nearly midnight. Elizabeth Craven stood on a grassy slope, her face illuminated by the soft glow of a coal-oil lantern. The peaks of the Tennessee Smokies were cloaked in shadow. From out of the darkness echoed the chirring of crickets and the occasional call of a whip-poor-will. Elizabeth had grown up all her life among such sounds, had even taken comfort in them. But that night, she felt no such comfort.

  The light of the lamp washed across the mound of earth that was her dead husband’s grave. As she’d proclaimed, Josiah had been buried not in the sacred plot of their family cemetery, but on the far side of Craven’s Mountain, in a grassy meadow. The burial had been unceremonious. There had been no eulogy, no flowers, no prayers said over the body. After the last shovelful of earth had been tamped in place, the grave had been left barren, unadorned by as much as a marker or headstone.

  It was Elizabeth’s intention that the resting place of her husband be forgotten, that its whereabouts be erased from the minds of his family and friends.

  Elizabeth stood there at the foot of the mound, her face bearing no tenderness, nary a trace of spousal love.

  She stared down off the slope of the mountain to where the town of Green Hollow lay nestled in the valley. She found herself thinking about events of the past month.

  Of how Josiah had returned from a traveling revival in the dead of night and how he had taken to spending his days in the darkness of the barn, the doors locked and chained.

  She also recalled the trouble that had plagued the village: infants stolen from their cribs and young girls who had simply wasted away and died. And there had been rumors of those same girls having been spotted roaming the dark woods shortly after their burials, their faces pale and their eyes glowing like foxfire in the night.

  Tall tales some claimed. Ghost stories. But Elizabeth knew better.

  She turned her eyes from the valley, focusing them again on the earth at her feet. “Damn you, Josiah,” she whispered. “Damn you for the evil you’ve brought!”

  Then, from the pocket of her apron, she produced a handful of grass seed. She sowed the grains liberally over the bare earth, praying for rain and the blooming of young sprouts, hoping that the memory of her husband would be sealed forever beneath a blanket of tall grass and wildflowers, never to be revealed again.

  Part One

  The Master’s Call

  Chapter One

  March 1996

  “Well, that’s it for me today, boys,” said Boyd Andrews. He unbuckled his carpentry belt and tossed it into the heavy metal box with the rest of his tools.

  Sam Allen glanced at his watch and frowned. It was only four that Saturday afternoon. “Hey, what gives? It ain’t quitting time yet.” He watched as the tall man with the reddish-blond hair locked the box down and hefted it in one callused hand.

  “Stop your bitching, Sam,” said Boyd. “I already okayed it with the boss man.” He winked at Freddie Smith, who was checking a wall stud with a two-foot level. “Besides, I’m just deadweight around here, anyhow. You two could finish this house on your own, with or without my help.”

  “Not today, we ain’t,” grumbled Sam. “Where the hell are you going, anyway?”

  “The dude’s going to a party tonight,” said Freddie. The black man laid the level aside, and opening a pack of Marlboros, lit himself a smoke.

  “Oh, I see,” said Sam. “You’re gonna be swilling beer and two-stepping in some honky-tonk, while we stay out here till after dark.”

  “Not quite,” Boyd told him. “The party I’m going to is my boy’s. He’s ten today.”

  Interest shone in Sam’s eyes as he slipped a claw hammer into a loop of his tool belt. “No kidding? I’ve been working with you a couple weeks now and I never knew you had a kid.”

  “Two of ’em,” Boyd said, smiling.

  “Got pictures?” asked Sam, walking over.

  “Sure.” Boyd dug his wallet out of the hip pocket and flipped it open. “The boy is Paul and the little girl’s Bessie.”

  Sam and Freddie checked out the pictures—school photographs, from the looks of them. A dark-haired boy wearing a University of Tennessee Volunteers T-shirt and a little girl with bright red hair and freckles.

  “Nice-looking young’uns,” said Sam. “Got a picture of your wife in there, too?”

  Boyd’s grin of fatherly pride faded as he put the wallet away. “No, I don’t.”

  Sam and Freddie traded glances but said nothing more.

  Boyd wasn’t a man to
let things hang, though. “We’re going through some rough times right now,” he told them. “I reckon you could say we’re separated. Have been for three months.”

  “Hey, I know where you’re coming from, man,” said Freddie. “I’ve been divorced twice myself.”

  “Well, I hope it doesn’t come to that,” said Boyd.

  “Of course not,” said Sam. “Just keep working at it. You’ll patch things up.”

  “Sure you will,” added Freddie. “I didn’t mean nothing by it.”

  Boyd appreciated their encouragement, even though it failed to lift his spirits. “I know, bud. No problem.” He glanced at his wristwatch. “Well, I’ve gotta hit the road. Got a long drive ahead of me.”

  “I reckon so,” said Sam. “Clear across the state line to Tennessee. Too bad you can’t find something closer to home.”

  Boyd nodded. “Yeah, I know. The construction business hit rock bottom back in Sevier County last fall and it hasn’t picked up yet. So I’ve gotta take work where I find it.”

  “Well, you be careful, man,” said Freddie.

  “Catch you guys Monday,” he said, then climbed down a ladder and left the frame of the two-story house.

  The thirty-five-year-old carpenter headed for the trailer office with the words GRANT CONSTRUCTION painted on the side. He hopped up the steps and stuck his head inside the door. “I’m gone, boss,” he called.

  Ed Grant sat at his desk, looking miserable. “Uh, Boyd, could you come in for a minute? I’d like to talk to you.”

  “Sure,” said Boyd. He sat down in the folding chair across from Grant’s desk. “What’s up?”

  Ed stared at the man for a long moment, then took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. “Hell, I hate this.”

  Suddenly, Boyd knew. He felt his stomach sink. “You’re gonna can me, aren’t you, Ed?”

  “It’s not that I don’t like you, Boyd,” began the contractor. “I do. And you’re one of the best carpenters I’ve ever had on my payroll. But I’ve got some problems.”