A Wistful Tale of Gods, Men and Monsters Read online

  . . .

  James had operated the town’s pharmacy as his father did, and his father before that. Those big chains had not yet invaded their small hamlet. Brunswick was only two and half hours from New York City, but it might as well have been a million miles away. It was worlds apart from that bustling metropolis with its millions of jaded inhabitants.

  The Willowsby’s Sundries and Pharmacy was a family affair, begun by James’s grandfather; Joshua, in 1915. This charming corner drugstore had witnessed generations of locals born, endure and die. Through it all, they would obtain their remedies for an array of infirmities from Joshua Willowsby and his descendants. Along with those dutiful doses of cod-liver oil, Bole’s, funky smelling liniments and soothing syrups, came a cortege of newfangled prescriptions sent over by old Dr. Van de Berg. While caring diligently for both his kinfolk and neighbor, Joshua doled out unsolicited advice to all who would listen. He had an antidote for all the townsfolk’s problems and their lives’ continual dilemmas. The one topic that was never mentioned by Joshua was the veiled dread the villagers had for the old Forest Park Cemetery and the evil things that had occurred there. Better known as Pinewoods by the inhabitants, it had been abandoned and fell into disrepair for generations. Outlandish tales of ghosts, goblins and other fearsome apparitions had haunted the townsfolk and over decades had now become an unwelcomed attraction for intruders.

  CHAPTER 3

  HADES

  Their infants will be dashed to pieces before their eyes; their houses will be looted and their wives ravished.

  -Isaiah 13:15-18

  What a marvelous time of the year; there was a delightful chill in the air. If you were able to soar above the village, you would have been astounded at the lush and vibrant green carpeting that camouflaged the mountains and fields surrounding Brunswick. Autumn leaves that had already changed had begun to fall from their limbs and transformed the countryside to a glorious rainbow of various shades of red, yellow, purple, black, orange, pink, magenta, blue and brown. Meanwhile locals were preparing for the upcoming deer season. The annual hunt was a long-standing tradition, a gathering of meat and a ritual of sorts; it was all those things and more.

  The children were all safely back in school and counting the days to the next holiday. Both kids and adults alike began to think of jack-a-lanterns and costumes. An extraordinary feeling of happiness and expectations filled the inhabitants, this was their holiday.

  Checkerberry Lane was a phantasm of serenity, a quiet, wooded street that was within a stone’s throw from Pinewood. Bordering the road on either side was a sparse array of ancient dwellings that were all splendidly setback from view. Many still had their barns; one red, a few ram shackled, but all seemed majestic. One home even had a marvelous old well. Their manicured lawns and meticulous flowerbeds gave the first impression of contentedness and tranquility. Ancient trees that lined the block, their limbs laden with thick foliage, helped to conceal a different reality. On the far-flung end of the street, nestled on a hilltop, kept far from its neighbors; was a sprawling Victorian structure that dominated the area. Immediately you could see that this vast property was incompatible with the rest of the dwellings. Every neighborhood had its “haunted house,” (unlike other haunted houses in other communities, this one truly frightened both the kids and adults alike) and this was Brunswick’s. This massive three-story dwelling, with its gables and soaring turrets topped by ornate cast-iron railings, professedly had a bizarre allure to the infrequent outsider. Without any knowledge of its past, it still seemed chilling, its towering structure was crowned with a cupola that held an arresting weathervane adorned with a black cat, it’s back arched in fright; providing an omen of what might lie within.

  It was a dark and sinister house that appeared to have an underlying consciousness. Some of its long and vertical windows had been broken, most likely the handiwork of local troublemakers. Harsh winters along with neglect had caused many of the shingles to slough off and the edges of its ornamental metal roof to rust. Its neglected grounds, thick and overgrown signaled abandonment. Ornate cement urns that had once burst with color from arrays of flowers, now sadly only held bundles of widow weeds. Forsaken for decades, no one in the town would openly acknowledge its grim lore; in fact, most townsfolk flat-out refused to even speak about it.

  A century ago, before grim tales and dark secrets of its’ affairs became common knowledge, 84 Checkerberry Lane had been the place where Brunswick and the surrounding communities brought their dead. This estate was the areas sole funeral parlor; originally erected for a man befitting Edgar Hades’ stature. It had been a marvel of its time, nearly 18,000 square feet, complete with four viewing rooms for the dead and an expansive cellar where the bodies were prepared. Hand carved moldings and elaborate cornices graced each room, painstaking detail went into creating his masterpiece. The south wall of the mansion was adorned with a massive stained-glass window that Hades had imported from Europe, depicting a rather ghastly vision of purgatory. Its grim glimpse into limbo distressed all who saw it.

  Then, without warning, the mortuary was shuttered after the mysterious death of Hades’ six-year-old daughter Margaret. She had been found in the autumn of 1914, her body tossed into one of the marble vaults in the desolate mausoleum of Pinewoods, having been desecrated in a most violent and vile manner. Hades was so distraught; he flung himself from the highest turret. His wife Harriette, devastated by the sudden loss of her family, was so desperate to flee her husband’s morgue, that she didn’t bother with a fortune in its furniture and fixtures. But she did take the time to board the windows, in a deliberate, but vain attempt to trap and imprison its evil.

  At times the locals claimed that the old rocking chairs left out on the front porch would be see-sawing back and forth without the aid of the living. Animals near the house sometimes stopped and silently stared at it for hours. Some even offered to swear in a stack of holy bibles to hearing the sweet melody of sirens emanating from the basement crypt, but not a single soul would dare enter to see the source of such tales.

  Upon arriving at the mansion, the initial thing that caught a visitor’s attention was the front door’s unique knob. A bronzed woman’s boney arm protruded from the wooden door, arching down and grabbing hold of the doorknob, forming an eerie handle for the mourners. One could only imagine what mourners of the early twentieth century thought of that.

  Upon entering the mansion, you were confronted by a massive painting. It was a disturbing work depicting the Roman God Saturn, Jupiter’s father, devouring one of his children. The townsfolk wondered aloud about Hades’ choice of artwork. Most found it not only inappropriate, but just downright horrifying.

  The interior décor was a product of both the house’s purpose, but also of the era. It had been left precisely the way old Edgar had it before throwing himself to his demise. Veils of cobwebs had taken on the repulsiveness of old and dirty lace. The fine strands were no longer white, instead they hung heavy with grey dust. A thick coating of that same dust covered the carpet, standing testament of the fear people had through the decades, choosing never to enter this spooky estate.

  The underground vault that Hades’ constructed seemed boundless; numerous tunnels appeared to go on forever. The heart of his cavernous underground maze was the morgue, complete with an embalming table prominently fixed in the center of this vast cellar. Tables surrounding this macabre altar of death held an array of sharpened tools and a large stainless-steel cylinder that suctioned body fluids from the corpse, all meant to prepare the dead for their final resting place. In a far-off portion of the vault, under a wooden staircase (that seemed to go nowhere) was a mysterious small door with an ivory hued porcelain knob. The door itself was too small for an average person, even Hade’s himself would have had to crouch just to peer in. Hidden on the top step of that staircase was the skeleton
key that opened it. Behind this minute portal was a storeroom with a labyrinth of wooden shelves that held one of Hade’s hidden hobbies. Arranged on those shelves, in their respective sizes, was a collection of large glass jars holding an array of mutilated body parts and freakish fetuses. Hades had secretly stolen these pieces and parts of the towns loved ones with the aid of his hidden homunculus; Balin. This hideous dwarf, although purportedly seen at dusk in the village at times, was a mystery even to Hades’ entire family who lived just above. Balin would do unspeakable things for his master, often meeting with a sinister being that paid Hades handsomely for the perfect unborn of the deceased. At times, this evil being also demanded fingernails and locks of hair from particular corpses. Hades supposed that this apparition-like figure was performing some type of black magic, but he wasn’t about to ask. In turn, Balin was rewarded by Hades; allowing his evil assistant to remove any valuables that may have been left on the corpse, especially the gold fillings in the teeth. These two monsters ravaged the dead, leaving little to be buried.

  If the loved ones of the departed had any inkling of Hades demented pastime, surely it wouldn’t have been Hades, himself, who threw his body from the turrets.

  The first floor of the mansion had an array of parlors; the heavy velvet burgundy drapes kept any life-giving sunlight there was from entering. Thick velvet adorned gold and maroon wallpaper covered the surfaces. Morbidly left strewn about were torchiere lamps and catafalques, professedly awaiting their next funeral.

  Upstairs where the Hades’ resided, there was little evidence left that a family had lived there. In the east corner of the living room was a nondescript wooden door, which led to a narrow wooden staircase. At the top was an abbreviated door, the key to its lock long ago forgotten. This was the entry to the attic, a room that, along with the cellar, Hades had strictly made off limits without any explanation to his family. What was stored up there was a lone mirror, nearly six feet high with a thick wooden frame. This garish mirror was neatly draped with a blanket and prominently displayed in the far end of the attic, safely hidden away from any human contact. Since his demise, what had been left behind in that space above the mansion; had been festering.

  The grounds of the funeral home were overgrown, the witchgrass and goldenrod grew wild and tall, obscuring the ancient, frost-heaved flagstone that led you along a winding path to the front porch. The way was lined with dead tree limbs desperately grasping for the earth, their arched appendages almost seemed to be alive. The windows of the mansion were haphazardly boarded shut, adding to the mansion’s sinister appearance. A tattered “No-Trespassing” sign was nailed to the left-handed newel post. Ivy had taken over the east side of the mansion, creeping and engulfing the siding, and harboring enormous colonies of sleeping bats during the day. On the west side of the home was a large cellar door where Hades would bring the bodies through to the morgue. Its doors were secured with an ancient padlock, although most said it was there merely for appearances. The story around the village laundromat was that it had gotten the best of a few out-of-town curiosity seekers with sinister consequences. A mansion built for a purpose, used for sin, had become a magnet for the malevolent.

  CHAPTER 4

  HOMEL

  As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.

  -Proverbs 27:17

  After quietly witnessing the goings-on in his town for more than seventy-two years, Jessup Homel often thought; was evil born or instead created? His bookstore; Books Are Magical, like the village pharmacy, had survived the scourges of the big booksellers and internet interlopers for decades. His staying power was more than likely due to the fact that his small bookshop was a magnet for followers of the occult and all things black magic. It had begun as a childhood fascination which continued with his college days at Syracuse where, much to his chagrin; offered classes on the occult.

  His shop displayed an array of artifacts that pertained to necromancy, decorating every square inch that didn’t hold a book. Patens, athames, wands, and chalices were sandwiched between bolines, censers, and cingulums. Hung prominently behind his register was a scourge used in Gardnerian Wicca to flagellate members of the coven. He would happily explain what each item was and how they were used to the simply curious and intently serious. He showed great patience, but at the same time he knew well of all the local lore, much of what he saw and experienced was kept to himself. This all equated to a must-see for Halloween aficionados both far and wide.

  . . .

  Joey and Bobby Martorano along with their girlfriends, Gina and Barbara, were making the trek from Livingston, New Jersey. The brothers were a bad cliché, both loud and obnoxious, but once you got to know them, they were harmless and quite fun to be around. They had an ice chest full of beers for themselves and wine coolers for the girls. A single pit stop was made at a rest area on the Taconic midway to Brunswick. It was your typical mélange of fast-food joints and quarter machines that offered everything from potato chips to penknives. Bobby warned everyone to use the restrooms, “This is the last stop before Brunswick.” Considering the amount of beer they were drinking, it seemed like sound advice.

  They loaded up with bags of corn chips and pretzels, hamburgers and French fries, sealed the windows of their car as they speeded along, passing the bags of fries along with a joint that would improve their appetite. There was a small cloth bag that Joey had hidden under the seat that held the shrooms for later that night. Bobby thought, Hey, better fucking safe than sorry if the damn law pulls us over.

  The brothers had a fascination with all things scary. They had planned each and every fall to visit Salem, Massachusetts along with the other unwanted hordes of stoners and college-dropouts that callously made a hobby of invading sleepy towns and turning them upside down. But after listening to a group of stoners that said Salem was just bullshit, a total tourist trap, they looked elsewhere. They pondered going to Sleepy Hollow, but then Bobby found online, an undiscovered village near Sleepy Hollow in New York that was chock full of hauntings. He studied about its deepest secret; Pinewoods Cemetery. (How cool would it be to party all night in a real haunted graveyard?) What really sold them on Brunswick over other haunted hallows was that it held not only a creepy graveyard but also a haunted schoolhouse (known as the “Little Red House.”) and a supposedly intense haunted mortuary. Add in a slew of unsolved village murders of its children over the past century, this was must-see scariness for any Halloween reveler.

  The Little Red House was a single room schoolhouse that had been built in the early 1800’s, and along with much of Brunswick had a dark past. Legend said that a seven-year of girl was found murdered behind the tiny school in a ritualistic manner, her body splayed out and her throat ripped open. The blood had been drained from her delicate body. This horrific occurrence would go unspoken by the villagers, even to the present time. She now haunted the shuttered school, presumably warning other children of what lurked in the surrounding forest. It was said that at sunset, many a passerby had witnessed her haunting image in one of the two windows of the schoolhouse, her small hands pressed up on the glass, desperately trying to escape its confines.

  “Bobby, the hell with the schoolhouse, I want to see if that headless statue in the cemetery really bleeds at night?”

  It would be another two hours of driving before they would arrive at their destination. As they neared the village, the state road narrowed, becoming a quaint county road. A mountain off in the distance shielded the rest of the world from Brunswick. A narrow, deep cut through the center of the mountain hid the hamlet from most of the curious. Joey slowed the car as the four strained their necks to look up at the wounded mountain, a familiar sound blasted from the radio;

  Dream Evil…

  The dark that you find in the back of your mind…

  Dream evil…dream evil…
/>   “Hey, Its Johnny B coming to you, and that was the jumping sounds of Dio that you’ve had the pleasure of listening to! This is WRVW, the sounds of Troy, Brunswick, and the surrounding areas. Get your boots out; we’re expecting an early snowstorm tomorrow evening. The Dual Doppler 5000 is saying the first snow of the fall will leave us with three to four inches.” Before Joey could lower the radio, “Hey, and now bringing you a little James Brown,” Instead he turned the volume up (we’ll allow James to join our adventure);

  I got soul, and I’m super bad…

  Haaa!

  I love; I love to do my thing…

  There was no turning back now; the precarious road was flanked by massive stone walls. They passed two signs that warned;

  Caution Falling Rock

  As they exited the mountain a weathered wooden sign announced;

  Welcome to Brunswick NY, Population 4,941.

  . . .

  Jessup had the look of a professor who had just finished teaching a second period of ancient Babylonian history. Tall, slender, bespectacled, and studious, he despised weekend afternoons in October; at times his shop was crushed by tourists from far and wide. It wasn’t the ridiculous questions from people who had no real interest in what he had to offer, as much as few ever purchased anything (what did they think I was in business for?).