"Not all horror has to frighten. It can disturb, enlighten, mystify, and spur many other emotions..." -- Jon Hodges, Wicked Hollow

From inside her crib my daughter stares at me with a grim face, reaching with long skinny arms. I have no idea what she wants, just like in April when she tried to kill me.

Death would have been a sweet deliverance after thirteen hours of hard labor, but suddenly she came. A five pound female with eyes like those of a snake and lips the shade of a grape. The recompense for all the sin I'd done was stretching in my arms. I could sense the darkness she possessed and it wrapped itself around me like smoke. I sobbed in disbelief.

The mid-wife crossed herself each time she looked at us, hurrying to clean up so she could leave. I was pale and weak as I pleaded with her to stay. My sweetheart, Jack, was in the doorway with a look of horror on his face.

Maggie arrived a few minutes early for her interview at The Crossbones Inn, the only place in the town of Raeford that she hadn't been in search of a job.


"You understand I'm looking for a desk clerk," said the owner, a woman in her sixties that wore glasses hooked to a chain around her neck.

"Yes Ma'am," said Maggie handing her a resume, "I worked at a small motel for a couple of years before moving here."

"Well," said the woman, "The Crossbones Inn is my baby and I am particular about who I bring in."

"I understand," said Maggie, following the woman to a desk in the corner.

Sabrina passed it every day on her way to work; A two-story building of jagged gray rock with a single screen door and no windows.

Everyone in the town of Pritcher called it the rock store, bragging that it had been there for over a hundred years.

At the time she couldn't have cared less. She'd just recently moved to this forgotten place alone, and was loading the trunk of her car with groceries one afternoon at the local grocery store. A lady parked beside her was loading her trunk as well, but Sabrina noticed the woman's eyes never left the old store on the hill across the way, and that she was literally slinging her bags into her trunk. Slamming the lid she left her cart, then jumped in her vehicle and sped off.

Despite its outside appearance, the old store had a steady stream of traffic. Sabrina decided it would be a good day to stop by and see what all the fuss was about.

There were two other nurses on duty with me that night, and we had 24 patients on our wing at Crest View Memorial Hospital. It was close to 9 p.m. and I was preparing the medicine cart for evening rounds, when the call light came on for room 529. I froze where I was standing and stared at the light. Room 529 was empty.

Katie and Rosa were nowhere to be seen, as I walked over to the intercom and pushed the button.

"This is the nurse's station," I said, "Is someone there?".

There was only silence and I turned off the light. Seconds later, it was on again, and I went back to the intercom.

"Can I help you?" I said.

I thought I heard a gasp, then there was a loud clanking noise, like that of a metal pan being dropped on a tile floor. Turning off the call light, I headed down the empty hallway. Room 529 was the last room on the left, and the door was always kept closed. But tonight, it was standing wide open.

At the age of seventeen, Lily Benjamin was striking in black.

She lived with two older sisters in the town of Graymoss, where Charles Mender worked as a physician. He was a bachelor in his thirties that practiced medicine from an office in his home, where Lily had taken a job after school that August. Before long, rumors were swirling among gossips that the two were involved in a romantic love affair. When Lily's sisters found out, they insisted she quit the job immediately.



October 31, 1970

While waiting to talk to Dr. Mender, Lily tossed surgical instruments into a sink of hot water and Lysol. She could hear the last patient saying their goodbyes in the hallway, then turned to see Charles Mender standing in the doorway.

"I can't work here anymore," she said, looking down at the floor.

"I understand," he said, "Just don't forget how much I love you."

Dark and mysterious, the road was cloaked in fog. Skeletal arms of malevolent trees were shrouded in moss. Their appearance reminded one of shrunken heads hanging from a cannibal's belt. The headlights of his car projected ahead like a child's flashlight illuminating almost nothing. Odd shapes appeared like tortured ghosts along the edge of the roadway. Something disappeared as quickly as it came...maybe it was a bat.

Mac had been asked to work overtime. Being a poor man and new on the job, he'd had no reason to refuse. He'd left the mortuary about midnight after having cleaned the embalming tools and tables. The whole embalming theatre was now sparkling clean.

He tapped a rhythm on the steering wheel as he navigated the pot-holed road. Staring intently through the cracked windshield of a pickup that should have been in a junkyard, he hit more holes than he missed.

Detective James Walker came out of the small neighborhood grocery and put the bags on the back seat of his car. Then he watched as Mr. Wong put the closed sign in the window and turned out the lights. It was the end of a long hard day's work; Walker was no closer to closing his case than when he started. As he started to get into his car, he heard a woman scream. "Police," he yelled as he entered the alley with his gun drawn. In the shadows he saw a woman leaning against the dumpster. Her clothes were torn and she was holding them trying to cover her body.

"He ran away when I screamed," she said.

He took off his suit coat and put it over her shoulders. "I'm Detective Walker, Jefferson PD," he said. "I'll get some help." As he looked down and reached for the cell phone on his belt, he felt a jab in the side of his neck. He looked up; the woman was holding a syringe. Then he recognized her. She was Arlene Carter, the serial killer he and the entire police force were looking for. Her eight victims, all men, had been horribly mutilated. He dropped his cell phone, fell to his knees and passed out.

"Jenny McCreary, go and tell that vile creature I wish to speak with her at once."

"Oh, no! Please...ma'am, please don't make me. She scares me something awful!" the Irish girl whined.

"Good! I hope she scares you to death, you silly cow," the dressmaker hissed. "Now go and fetch her before I give you the strap!"

Mrs. Olson was a master of the strap. She had grown up in the textile factories of England before the Act of 1833 that limited the hours a six-year-old could work. She had received the strap daily for falling asleep at her post.

The carrot-haired waif cringed visibly at the threat backing up against the wall, eyes never straying from the matron's wrinkled face. Without another word, she scurried away to do as she was told.