Hey listeners, it's E J. Miller, the writer, creator and producer
here at Fast Food Horror. When I started off this podcast, I did
so with the intention on giving you bite sized stories, quick and digestible,
scary and spooky. But when this idea came to me, I realized I
couldn't tell the full story in one fifteen minute serving. It would have to
be broken up over a few weeks. So I hope you enjoy this latest
tale, the Tale of the House on Morrow Hill. Igor take it away,
Welcome to another episode of Fast Food har In this story, authored by
E. J. Miller, a man and his wife move into a small,
strange little town, but find their house is stranger still. In this
tale entitled the Tale of the House on Morrow Hill, just seven nights into
our stay in our new home, I don't believe we'll be staying an eighth
not because the home isn't structurally sound, not because we are having marriage issues,
but because the home came with something, a something we cannot live with.
Let me tell you how we got here. My wife inherited her family
home after her grandfather passed last year. A beautiful old Victorian manor just north
of the Adirondacks in the small sleepy town of Holland's Pocket. Holland's Pocket an
interesting name, to say the least. The town is placed at the base
of Holland's Peak in the Holland Hills. Due to the peak and the surrounding
hillscape, the town is cast in shadow and darkness more times than not,
hence Holland's Pocket. The town is what one might call quaint Rockwellian. Aside
from its abnormal nocturnal nature, the world as it is has not yet found
its way here. The nearest Wall Mart or Target is miles away. There
are no drive through restaurants, no McDonald's or Wendy's, and certainly not a
Starbucks. It has but one street that runs through town, lit by sodium
lights. It has a drug store that has been run by the same family
for five generations, and honest to goodness soda and ice cream shop with soda
fountains, a cafe that also doubles as the town's meeting and gossip spot,
only one church that everyone in town attends, and a police force that consists
of five officers and but two cars. It is the very definition of small
town shoot. A majority of the residents still have a landline since the surrounding
hills interfere with cell signal. My wife's family home is set on the top
of Marrow Hill, just outside of town, a beautiful Victorian manner that her
great great grandfather, the good Town Doctor, built when he emigrated from Prussia
early in the last century. Two floors, six bedrooms or was it eight
two and a half bathrooms, and a kitchen so big you could entertain in
it, all set on a small apple orchard. When my wife was told
that her grandfather left it to her in the will, I wasn't exactly thrilled
with the prospect of moving to Nowheresville, but my wife was very persuasive.
She pointed out that the home had the great potential to be turned into a
bed and breakfast that she could run, and that I could continue my job
as an editor from home and only have to travel to the main office every
three months or so. There was a lovely little study off the kitchen I
could use as an office, and the house was so secluded there would be
little to no distractions for me. I may even be able to work on
that novel I always talked about. All of our kids were now adults and
had since flown from the nest dispersed across the country. Most of her other
family had since passed, and I was raised in and out of foster care
a ward of the state. I really had no other family to tie me
down to a location, so we made the move from the big city to
Holland's pocket. We estimated three months to clean up the home that her grandfather
had not lived in in two years since being moved to the nursing home,
then passing away, painting all the rooms, making the odd repair, and
bringing the home up to date before we opened it up as a bed and
breakfast in the fall, just in time for apple picking. We moved in
fourth of July weekend and took the master bedroom on the bottom floor, nearest
the kitchen. A majority of the other bedrooms were on the second floor,
so it would give us space from our future guests. Upon arrival, my
wife gave me an emotional tour of the family home, where she spent a
good deal of her childhood memories and stories filled every room. We took a
walk around the grounds and the interior of the home, making mental notes of
the things that needed to be done repaired, replaced or updated. We then
set upon the arduous task of unpacking. By evening's end, we had made
significant progress in the ladder, and as the shadows started to cast themselves long
and dark over Holland's pocket, we decided to call it a night and collapsed
into bed. That first night, though I woke up freezing, not just
cool or cold. I'm not being hyperbolic when I say freezing. I immediately
thought the air conditioning might have been left on high or at its lowest setting,
but this house had no air conditioning. I reached to the nightstand and
tapped the screen of my cell phone to check the time two thirty three am,
and caught sight of my breath in the air, a visible puff of
white upon my exhal in July. No matter the location of the house or
time of day, this was off. This wasn't right. I tried to
wake Steph gently at first, then with a bit more urgency, but she
was out. I watched my breath as I exhaled. I tried to make
sense of the ice box like temperature in our bedroom. What kind of technical
glitch, geographical or weather finale was I experiencing? There had to be a
logical explanation. My concentration, however, was broken by a metallic thud against
something hard that seemed to echo through the house. It repeated again and again,
like the beat of a bass drum, keeping time, the wa the
waf, the whack. My immediate impulse was to rush from the room and
determine the source of the sound. Where was it coming from? What was
it? Was it the ancient pipes, the furnace, or God forbid,
the foundation giving way, or something completely else. I stayed, though,
lying there next to my wife, not out of fear, but the idea
of leaving her with this unnatural temperature thing in the room, unable to wake
her from her sound sleep, and now this pounding sound. I stayed,
keeping guard from what, if anything, I did not know. I could
wait till she woke, wait till morning to figure this out.