Genesis of Evil (24 page)

The Right Reverend Rimer Tillotson of the Trinidad Church of Divine Prayer deserted his congregation and moved his family to Wewahitchka where he hoped nobody had heard of him. He opened up another house of worship in an empty storefront. His new congregation wondered at the frequency with which the evils of crass commerce played in his sermons.

Francesca deVouziers stumbled across a short piece in a Birmingham newspaper about the Trinidad Mall and shivered violently. She spent twenty minutes in a scalding hot shower with Springsteen on the stereo before her hands quit shaking.

Trinidad’s police operations had returned to normal so Gerhart left the department in the capable hands of Ford for the day and drove north. He arrived at Tallahassee General Hospital at 7:00 A.M. and alternately sat and paced in the waiting room outside of surgery. He glanced once more at the clock above the double door leading to the hall, then at his watch. Both of the timepieces indicated that it was almost noon. The door swung open and a doctor entered, smiling. Gerhart bounced to his feet.

“How did it go?” he asked the doctor, who was still in scrub greens.

“Just fine. She won’t be able take up ballet, but her crutches can go in the attic. You can see her. She’s in recovery, and conscious, but still pretty dopey. Don’t stay long. She needs her rest.”

“Thanks, Doc. I won’t be a minute.” Gerhart shook the doctor’s hand then picked up a box from beneath the chair and trotted through the door.

Roberta lay in bed hooked to several monitors and a bottle of clear liquid. Gerhart put the box on a chair, walked quietly to the bed and took one of her hands in both of his. When she felt his touch her eyelids fluttered, then opened lazily.

“How you feeling?” he asked.

“I’ll live,” she mumbled.

“I brought you something,” he said. “Give me my hand back for a minute.”

As soon as she released him he retrieved the box from the chair and opened it. “I hope you like red,” he said.

He took her gift from the box and held it up for her to see. Roberta struggled to focus on the object, then a sleepy grin broke across her face as a nurse walked into the room

“Hey,” said the nurse. “Who gets the neat cowboy boots?”

Chapter Twenty-Two

December 1, 2004

The following article appeared in a Tampa newspaper the morning after the Trinidad Mall burned to the ground.

Police were called to the home of Winston L. Konig early this morning by his wife, Elizabeth, to investigate the circumstances surrounding his death. Mrs. Konig told police she was awakened violently when the bed that she and her husband were sleeping on collapsed some time after midnight. Upon trying to awaken Mr. Konig she discovered that his head had apparently been crushed.

Enrique Sanchez, Medical Examiner for the City of Tampa, was called to the scene. “I’ve never seen anything like this,” said Sanchez. “It looks like a safe fell on him.”

The frame of the bed was completely destroyed, although Mrs. Konig suffered no ill effects. A thorough search of the premises by the police uncovered no evidence of forced entry. All doors and windows were securely locked. The investigation continues.

Winston L. Konig was owner and Chief Executive Officer of Southeast Commercial Design, one of the leading architectural firms in central Florida. The business was founded by his father, Arthur, shortly after World War II. Funeral arrangements are pending.

About the Author

Nile Limbaugh is a native of southeast Missouri.
 
This makes him either a hillbilly (while living near Chicago) or a Yankee (where he now lives near Chattanooga TN).
 
Between these locales he has lived in Virginia, New Jersey, Germany, Texas and Georgia while being employed, at various times, as an auto mechanic, car wash manager, soldier, illustrator, draftsman and machine designer.
 
He has acted in a variety of community theater stage productions and once landed a small part in an independent movie.
 
When not writing or reading he can usually be found in the garage working on his antique car.

Email Nile Limbaugh at
[email protected]

Look for these titles by Nile J. Limbaugh

Coming Soon:

Daughter of Evil

She’s beautiful, seductive…and deadly!

Daughter of Evil

© 2012 Nile J. Limbaugh

The quiet little town of Tollet’s Mines is becoming even quieter lately.
 
Like a tomb.
 
Young men and boys are disappearing or turning up dead.
 
Cause of death remains a mystery, but witnesses reported seeing the victims in the company of a beautiful girl before they died.
 
How can they know that she’s been dead for years?
 
With each ghastly death, the spectral seductress comes one step closer to realizing her nightmarish goal—a vengeance that has stretched from beyond the grave.

Enjoy the following excerpt for
Daughter of Evil:

George Kratzer stepped out of the woods, stood still for a moment behind a large tree and looked at the house.
 
It was obviously empty and would make a good overnight shelter from the snow and cold.
 
He blew on his hands and walked across the clearing keeping an eye out for anybody who might spot him and run him off.
 
For some reason he couldn’t fathom, those who still had an income seemed to have it in for those who did not.
 
George had left Dubuque that morning and crossed the Mississippi headed for Milwaukee or Chicago with the hope he could find some kind of work.
 
During the summer he had been able to find work on some of the farms but now, with the onset of winter, he knew he wouldn’t survive with no place to stay and no means of making a dollar.

He had trudged along the road, raising a thumb to the occasional car or truck.
 
He had no luck at all and had was resigned to walking all the way across the state.
 
But several hours out of Dubuque, when he reached the railroad crossing, he felt compelled to stop for a moment.
 
The wind from the north had increased and the early darkness promised a repeat of the previous days snowstorm.
 
George looked to right and left and determined that it had been quite a while since any trains had traveled these rails.
 
He stepped forward to cross the tracks and stopped once more.
 
He hesitated and stared at the point where the old rails disappeared into the woods.
 
It was almost as if something was calling him.
 
At first he resisted the urge, but gave in when he realized he didn’t have any urgent commitments.
 
George set off along the old tracks.
 
The forest had shielded the railroad right of way from the heavy snow, and he found it wasn’t as hard to walk as he thought it would be.
 
The tracks had led him up a hill to the top of a ridge where this big empty house stood.

George walked around the building but found no signs of life.
 
He returned to the front of the house and surveyed the landscape.
 
A small village lay far below at the foot of the ridge upon which the house sat.
 
A narrow river, its surface a solid sheet of ice, ran through the village.
 
There weren’t many people moving down there but George wasn’t surprised.
 
The last time had seen a thermometer was on his way out of Dubuque. It had indicated 27 degrees.

The clouds were moving closer to the earth and the weak daylight was rapidly fading.
 
He returned to the house, mounted the stairs and pushed on the front door.
 
It protested with rusty hinges, but swung open to allow him into the foyer.
 
Apparently whoever had left the house had done so in a hurry, and a long time ago at that.
 
There was a great deal of furniture still in evidence.
 
It appeared to be from the 1800s and, for the most part, ready to collapse.
 
George shoved the heavy door closed and sighed with relief at being out of the sharp wind.
 
It didn’t take him long to find the kitchen.
 
There was a large wood-burning stove against one wall, but when he lifted the lid to the firebox, he found it stuffed full of rocks, probably put there by some of the local kids.
 
A fire in the stove wouldn’t have done much good, anyway, as both windows were broken out and the wind drove straight into the room.
 
The third door he opened revealed a butler’s pantry.
 
It was quite large and had no windows.
 
So much the better.
 
If there were any neighbors they wouldn’t see his fire.
 

George went in search of something to burn.
 

Twenty minutes later he was leaning against the wall, eating his last sandwich and drinking melted snow from the tin cup he always carried.
 
He had found a marble top on one of the dressers on the second floor.
 
It seemed to weigh at least a half-ton, but he managed to drag it downstairs and drop it close to the doorway between the butler’s pantry and the dining room.
 
Then he built a small fire on it using pieces of some broken chairs he had found in the drawing room.
 
Comfort is relative.
 
Before another 15 minutes passed, George was asleep in the corner.

And then he dreamed.

He dreamed that a young girl stepped into the pantry and dropped to her knees before him.
 
She wore only a thin white dress, and he wondered why she hadn’t frozen to death in it.
 
Her skin was so white it seemed almost translucent, and her watery blue eyes were sunk deep into her head, as if she hadn’t eaten in months.
 
She took his face between her hands.
 
They felt like two chunks of ice.
 
She smiled slightly.

“I’m so cold, George,” she said.
 
“Can I sit with you near the fire for a little while?
 
I promise not to be any trouble.”

She cuddled up next to him and kissed him gently on the lips.
 
The dream was one of those in which the dreamer knows it’s a dream, and George wondered who this girl was that he was dreaming about.
 
She reminded him of a woman he had known in Kansas City.
 
But then she kissed him again, a bit more urgently, and it wasn’t important any more.

George sighed and wrapped his arms around her to shield her from the terrible cold.
 
He sank deeper into sleep and slowly slid down to rest full length on the floor.
 
She followed him down, lips pressed to his.
 
Her leg moved across the fire and her stocking began to smolder.
 
The flames leaped higher and licked at the doorjamb.
 
Her dress burst into flame.
 
She hugged George tighter.

Genesis of Evil

Nile J. Limbaugh

Something unholy is waiting!

Shopping should be fun, especially in the shiny new mall just completed in this Florida coastal town.
 
But something strange is happening to those who go there.
 
At first it seems like nothing more than malicious pranks. The dessert chef who mixes a laxative into the chocolate mousse.
 
The middle-aged lady who urinates on the changing room floor.
 
But things steadily change from prank and theft to murder and mutilation. Something evil and deadly has taken residence in the mall—and in the minds of the customers.
 
Now the Chief of Police, helped by a beautiful young woman with telekinesis and a team of paranormal researchers, must stop this unseen menace that is growing more powerful by the minute.
 
But with the evil beginning to spread, is it already too late?

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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locale or organizations is entirely coincidental.

Samhain Publishing, Ltd.

11821 Mason Montgomery Road Suite 4B

Cincinnati OH 45249

Genesis of Evil

Copyright © 2012 by Nile J. Limbaugh

ISBN: 978-1-60928-736-8

Edited by Don D’Auria

Cover by Kendra Egert