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Hey listeners, it's E J.
Miller, the writer, creator and producer

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here at Fast Food Horror. When
I started off this podcast, I did

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so with the intention on giving you
bite sized stories, quick and digestible,

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scary and spooky. But when this
idea came to me, I realized I

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couldn't tell the full story in one
fifteen minute serving. It would have to

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be broken up over a few weeks. So I hope you enjoy this latest

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tale, the Tale of the House
on Morrow Hill. Igor take it away,

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Welcome to another episode of Fast Food
har In this story, authored by

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E. J. Miller, a
man and his wife move into a small,

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strange little town, but find their
house is stranger still. In this

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tale entitled the Tale of the House
on Morrow Hill, just seven nights into

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our stay in our new home,
I don't believe we'll be staying an eighth

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not because the home isn't structurally sound, not because we are having marriage issues,

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but because the home came with something, a something we cannot live with.

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Let me tell you how we got
here. My wife inherited her family

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home after her grandfather passed last year. A beautiful old Victorian manor just north

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of the Adirondacks in the small sleepy
town of Holland's Pocket. Holland's Pocket an

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interesting name, to say the least. The town is placed at the base

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of Holland's Peak in the Holland Hills. Due to the peak and the surrounding

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hillscape, the town is cast in
shadow and darkness more times than not,

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hence Holland's Pocket. The town is
what one might call quaint Rockwellian. Aside

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from its abnormal nocturnal nature, the
world as it is has not yet found

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its way here. The nearest Wall
Mart or Target is miles away. There

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are no drive through restaurants, no
McDonald's or Wendy's, and certainly not a

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Starbucks. It has but one street
that runs through town, lit by sodium

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lights. It has a drug store
that has been run by the same family

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for five generations, and honest to
goodness soda and ice cream shop with soda

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fountains, a cafe that also doubles
as the town's meeting and gossip spot,

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only one church that everyone in town
attends, and a police force that consists

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of five officers and but two cars. It is the very definition of small

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town shoot. A majority of the
residents still have a landline since the surrounding

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hills interfere with cell signal. My
wife's family home is set on the top

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of Marrow Hill, just outside of
town, a beautiful Victorian manner that her

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great great grandfather, the good Town
Doctor, built when he emigrated from Prussia

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early in the last century. Two
floors, six bedrooms or was it eight

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two and a half bathrooms, and
a kitchen so big you could entertain in

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it, all set on a small
apple orchard. When my wife was told

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that her grandfather left it to her
in the will, I wasn't exactly thrilled

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with the prospect of moving to Nowheresville, but my wife was very persuasive.

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She pointed out that the home had
the great potential to be turned into a

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bed and breakfast that she could run, and that I could continue my job

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as an editor from home and only
have to travel to the main office every

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three months or so. There was
a lovely little study off the kitchen I

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could use as an office, and
the house was so secluded there would be

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little to no distractions for me.
I may even be able to work on

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that novel I always talked about.
All of our kids were now adults and

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had since flown from the nest dispersed
across the country. Most of her other

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family had since passed, and I
was raised in and out of foster care

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a ward of the state. I
really had no other family to tie me

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down to a location, so we
made the move from the big city to

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Holland's pocket. We estimated three months
to clean up the home that her grandfather

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had not lived in in two years
since being moved to the nursing home,

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then passing away, painting all the
rooms, making the odd repair, and

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bringing the home up to date before
we opened it up as a bed and

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breakfast in the fall, just in
time for apple picking. We moved in

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fourth of July weekend and took the
master bedroom on the bottom floor, nearest

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the kitchen. A majority of the
other bedrooms were on the second floor,

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so it would give us space from
our future guests. Upon arrival, my

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wife gave me an emotional tour of
the family home, where she spent a

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good deal of her childhood memories and
stories filled every room. We took a

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walk around the grounds and the interior
of the home, making mental notes of

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the things that needed to be done
repaired, replaced or updated. We then

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set upon the arduous task of unpacking. By evening's end, we had made

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significant progress in the ladder, and
as the shadows started to cast themselves long

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and dark over Holland's pocket, we
decided to call it a night and collapsed

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into bed. That first night,
though I woke up freezing, not just

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cool or cold. I'm not being
hyperbolic when I say freezing. I immediately

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thought the air conditioning might have been
left on high or at its lowest setting,

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but this house had no air conditioning. I reached to the nightstand and

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tapped the screen of my cell phone
to check the time two thirty three am,

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and caught sight of my breath in
the air, a visible puff of

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white upon my exhal in July.
No matter the location of the house or

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time of day, this was off. This wasn't right. I tried to

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wake Steph gently at first, then
with a bit more urgency, but she

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was out. I watched my breath
as I exhaled. I tried to make

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sense of the ice box like temperature
in our bedroom. What kind of technical

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glitch, geographical or weather finale was
I experiencing? There had to be a

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logical explanation. My concentration, however, was broken by a metallic thud against

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something hard that seemed to echo through
the house. It repeated again and again,

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like the beat of a bass drum, keeping time, the wa the

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waf, the whack. My immediate
impulse was to rush from the room and

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determine the source of the sound.
Where was it coming from? What was

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it? Was it the ancient pipes, the furnace, or God forbid,

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the foundation giving way, or something
completely else. I stayed, though,

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lying there next to my wife,
not out of fear, but the idea

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of leaving her with this unnatural temperature
thing in the room, unable to wake

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her from her sound sleep, and
now this pounding sound. I stayed,

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keeping guard from what, if anything, I did not know. I could

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wait till she woke, wait till
morning to figure this out.