FICTION BY KRISTEN HOUGHTON

Kristen Houghton is the author of the best-selling series, A Cate Harlow Private Investigation, which has been named Best Series of the Year by the WNYC Book Club.

Her writing portfolio includes The Huffington Post, Criminal Element Magazine, interviews and reviews for HBO documentaries, The Style Network, and OWN, The Oprah Winfrey Network. A storyteller from childhood, she has always felt that “Words in any language are pure magic,” and calls her passion for writing horror stories a unique gift of imagination.

Kristen holds a doctorate in education and has taught World Languages and cultures in both high school and college.

On a personal note, she is crazy about tennis and, just like her fictional character Cate Harlow, tries to play as often as she can.

THE PLOT
by Kristen Houghton

He sees me!

I start running into the foggy night, knowing that he’s following me. I have to get away from him but it’s so dark and foggy that I can’t see where I’m going. No matter what, I can’t let him get my phone. It has all the evidence I need to let everyone know what he’s doing to the old people in our town.

I have to get to the ball field where I can hide in the club house. Right now, all I know is that I’m too near The Plot. Too near that snapping sound—that rotting meat smell—that comes from that cursed, dead-looking land. No, oh please no.

*****

Twice a day, on my way to school and then back home, I pass by Dansbury Plot. I always make sure that I’m across the street over by the ball field when I’m walking, but I can still see that dead, eerie place, although I try not to look.

Everybody I know calls it The Plot and littlest kids call it Bury-the-Dead-Dan’s Plot. It’s a scary-looking place because nothing ever grows on it. It’s dead and barren and spooky. I hate the fact that the Little League ball field is across the street from The Plot.

A lot of scary stories have been told about The Plot and stuff that’s happened. One story says that Union soldiers—prisoners-of-war—were starved to death on that barren piece of land and they’re still hungry, looking to eat any type of flesh they can. Old guys who hang out in the summer and watch Little League ball games say that sometimes they hear a snapping sound coming from The Plot, like teeth clamping down on something. They grew up here and they’re older than dirt so they would know.

Men from the homeless camps along the river have gone missing over the years. Some say they caught a train out of town like they always do, traveling from one town to another, riding the rails. But others say they just wandered away from their camps and got too close to The Plot.

And then there’s that baseball cap that was found—old and faded and lying near The Plot. Everyone knows who that cap belongs to ‘cause we’ve seen it on his head a hundred times. Hermie does odd jobs around town and sometimes works late and a lot of times he walks home past The Plot when it’s dark. He hasn’t been seen in over a week and his little cabin out in the woods is empty. What happened to him?

I listen to what the adults say about The Plot. My friend’s dad told some of his buddies about what he heard late one night while walking their dog, a big German shepherd named Zeus who fears nothing.

“Zeus started barking at something that must’ve been on Dansbury Plot, but damned if I could see anything. I heard that sound, though. Like the sound of teeth closing on nothing but air. Dog damned near pulled my arm out of the socket trying to get away from The Plot.”

I think about people who went missing over the last few years…some couple from Pittsburgh who went berry-picking and never returned to their B & B; an elderly woman, Mrs. Rutledge, who went looking for her cat who’d gotten outside. The next morning, the cat was found meowing on the neighbor’s porch, but no one ever saw old Mrs. Rutledge again.

And then there are the creepy moans you can hear late at night and the sight of lightning in the sky that only appears above The Plot and nowhere else. That place is cursed but nobody can do anything about it except avoid it or move far away from here.

I’ve never set foot on that dead-looking piece of earth, but I have walked near it. And I remember the sound I heard. The ball field is small and if you hit a high pop-fly, it just could land on Bury-the-Dead Dan’s Plot. If that happens, you just let it go and get another ball from your gym bag. No way is any kid going over to actually step on The Plot to get that ball.

Once when I was doing some batting practice with my best friend, I got too close to The Plot. I remember that it was hot and the air kind of smelled like hamburgers left out in the sun after a barbecue: rotten meat.

I looked over toward The Plot and it looked as dead and barren as it always does. Absent-mindedly, I picked at a new scab on my left hand, and it started to bleed. I wiped it on my shirt. Everything was okay until I whacked a ball so hard it sailed over the high fence and landed right next to The Plot. It was my favorite ball, signed by some old major league player, and it wasn’t on The Plot—just near it—so I ran over to get it.

I felt the hair rise on my arms; icy cold. It was so damned hot, why this sudden chill? Okay, I told myself, it’s only your imagination. Just pick up the ball and run back to the field.

Just. Pick. It. Up. And. Run.

The baseball was maybe a foot from the barren earth of The Plot. I didn’t want to get too close so I stretched out and bent over to reach for the ball. My left hand, the one with the broken scab, hovered slightly over the very edge of The Plot as I quickly grabbed the ball. And then I heard it. A snapping sound.  I looked at my hand and saw that there was a trickle of blood on it. Some of it must’ve dripped onto The Plot!

Sucking my hand, I ran back to the field as fast as I could and told my friend it was too hot to continue playing. No way did I want to stay anywhere near The Plot.

Later that day, I got a book from the library that has local legends about our state and one of them mentions Dansbury Plot in my town of Bridge Crossing. Stories about The Plot go way back, says the author of the book. Stories from over two hundred years at least. There’s one story about Union soldiers who were imprisoned on Dansbury Plot. It says that they were abused by this sadistic Confederate captain, A.R.Robertson, who ran the place. Robertson? That name! I’m so surprised that I drop the book onto the floor. There’s Old Man Robertson who lives in my town and he’s meaner than anyone I know. He sure as Hell abuses people.

I picked up the book and read more about the Confederate captain, A.R. Robertson. The most horrible thing Captain A.R. Robertson did was starve the prisoners so that some of them turned cannibalistic.

I read the last part of the story about the prisoners-of-war on The Plot. According to the book, the cruel captain of that horror camp escaped after the Civil War and was never found to be brought to justice. A dying prisoner’s last words put a curse on The Plot. Only the sacrifice of a Robertson, he said, would lift the curse.

“If not A.R. Robertson, then someone from the Robertson family must pay with their life the debt that is owed in order for justice to be served and the land to bring forth life again. Until then a curse is placed on this plot of earth.”

Then the book gave a disclaimer that this was legend and not necessarily fact. But it sure sounds plausible to me.

*****

This afternoon, I see Mr. Robertson and some other guy walking down the street toward his house. The sun is going down, and it’s rainy, hot, and foggy but I follow him anyway. Robertson looks all around before going inside his house, like he wants to make sure he and this guy are alone.

I sneak over to his house and stand outside in the bushes. The window is open, and I hear him talking. What I overhear makes me hit the record button on my cell phone and hold it up toward the window.

Old Man Robertson is telling this guy about the huge profit he made from some old couple he just admitted into his retirement village. They gave him power-of-attorney over their money.

“My money now. And I’m not wasting my money on feeding them; they’re half-dead already.”
He laughs so hard that he coughs. He tells the guy to draw up the papers so he can get into yet another old couple’s bank account. I huddle down into the bushes when I hear the other person leave, then I check my phone to look at the recording: seventeen minutes of him bragging about cheating and starving old people. I got him!  

A car backfires as it goes down the street, and Mr. Robertson looks out the window. He sees me creeping around outside. I wonder if he somehow knows that I recorded everything he said.

Suddenly he’s not visible from the window anymore which means only one thing—he’s coming after me!

I run out of the bushes and into the foggy early nightfall as fast as I can, through the trees, until I come to where I think the ball field is located. The club house is always my safety zone, my security blanket. I always feel protected there.

I can’t see well because the fog is so thick. Suddenly I realize I am lost. My surroundings look different. A snapping sound and the smell of rotting meat makes me know where I am. Oh God, I’m near The Plot—too close to it.

Robertson comes panting up behind me and, just as I am trying to guess which way to turn, he grabs the neck of my shirt. I tried to pull away, but he has a death grip on my shirt and is pulling it hard and choking me. He yells at me to give him my phone. “Give me that phone, you little bastard! I’ll rip your throat apart if you don’t give me the phone!”

He’s shaking me and hits me smack on the side of my head, but I refuse to give him my phone.
I can’t see anything! All I can hear is that snapping sound and smell that rotten meat odor. The sound and the smell is closer as I realize we must be almost on top of The Plot. Old Man Robertson is choking me and I’m going to die on that dead piece of earth!

Suddenly lightning strikes the barren ground of The Plot, sending sparks of electricity upward into the dry air. It looks like Fourth of July fireworks, and it startles Robertson into loosening his hold on me. The lightning makes our surroundings visible and shows that we’re less than two feet from The Plot. I wiggle free, leaving Mr. Robertson holding only a torn patch of my shirt. I shove him hard to throw him off balance.

Staggering and cursing at me, he lunges at me and grabs hold of my hair. I scream. Another lightning strike makes everything look like daylight and I see the earth moving on The Plot—moving slowly like a giant snake is underneath the dirt. I see teeth; sharp, mouthless teeth come up from the ground. Hungry. Hungry teeth.

Lightning strikes again and suddenly skeletons rise from the earth. They are monstrous and evil-looking as they move slowly and steadily toward us. The rattle of their bones sounds thunderous. Their skulls are cracked, and some have large gaping holes in them. Dead, empty eye sockets seem to actually be staring at us. I watch in horror as their fleshless mouths move up and down.The smell of death is all around us—the rotten smell of spoiled meat.

I think I’m going to die on The Plot, but a sudden heavy gust of wind rips down from the sky. It blows me backward a distance away from that cursed ground. Robertson stands there holding a clump of my hair that he pulled from my head. He seems dumbfounded, and he remains frozen, staring at The Plot.

The same wind that blew me away from The Plot circles back and blows hard in the opposite direction. It lifts him high into the air, then drops him smack in the middle of The Plot. “Rob-ert-son!” His name is repeated over and over again in loud and thunderous voices. “You must settle the debt!”

I watch in horror as skeleton arms take hold of him and the Teeth of the Hungry Dead begin to rip the flesh from his body. One skeleton reaches a long bony finger, stabs it into Old Man Robertson’s eye and pulls out his eyeball. One of the snapping teeth immediately sucks it off the finger. Other teeth bite down on his arms and the sound of his bones cracking mix with his screams into a terrible crescendo. It is horrible to hear. The small army of skeletons and the snapping teeth surround him.

The fog gets thicker, but I can still see the paranormal assault on Robertson.  I watch, mesmerized; I can’t look away and I can’t leave. Teeth snapping and the growls and groaning are the sounds a wild, hungry animal makes when devouring a kill. I stay huddled on the ground, my eyes wide, as the wind blows around me. This horror may never end.

And it does seem endless, but eventually the gruesome sounds calm down and then stop completely. I realize I have been huddled here all night. I see the fog lifting and the sunrise streams beautifully through it, as though there was never anything amiss at all.

Feeling groggy, I get to my knees and look at The Plot. There doesn’t seem to be anything there except some bones. As I watch, the bones are slowly swallowed up by the earth. Then nothing.

A soft breeze blows over The Plot scattering the thick dust. I rub my eyes and look carefully. I think I see something in the middle of The Plot but what is that? It can’t be, can it?I shade my eyes with my hand and squint—

In the middle of what was barren, dead earth, I see patches of grass with flowers growing on The Plot.