ANGELA MILLER may think she's living in hell as her soul drifts in a sea of prostitution, drugs, and regular beatings from her pimp, Eddie, but even hell may prove the least of her problems. When Angela makes a desperate attempt to flee Vegas and Eddie, she finds herself facing bizarre attempts on her life and brushes with a cult plotting her demise.
There's more riding on Angela's redemption than she knows. Across the country, Angela’s brother John and his wife, Clarice Miller have two dead bodies and a missing six -year old boy to explain to police. Fighting to hide the whereabouts of their savant son, Jackson and allowing police to believe he has been kidnapped may be nothing compared to the fight the once happy couple now face to save their marriage.
When John receives a frantic call from his sister Angela, missing since she was 15, he begs her to move back east. But even if Angela recovers from her fall from grace, cult members know more of her destiny than she does. They’ll stop at nothing to see she never reaches the Miller’s alive. For John, Clarice and Angela, Back to the Glen is just the beginning.
Back to the Glen, a 140,000 word suspense horror, continues the saga of the Miller Family in Ithaca NY. The second book in the trilogy by Carla Coon, it further unfolds the secrets of The Glen.
There's more riding on Angela's redemption than she knows. Across the country, Angela’s brother John and his wife, Clarice Miller have two dead bodies and a missing six -year old boy to explain to police. Fighting to hide the whereabouts of their savant son, Jackson and allowing police to believe he has been kidnapped may be nothing compared to the fight the once happy couple now face to save their marriage.
When John receives a frantic call from his sister Angela, missing since she was 15, he begs her to move back east. But even if Angela recovers from her fall from grace, cult members know more of her destiny than she does. They’ll stop at nothing to see she never reaches the Miller’s alive. For John, Clarice and Angela, Back to the Glen is just the beginning.
Back to the Glen, a 140,000 word suspense horror, continues the saga of the Miller Family in Ithaca NY. The second book in the trilogy by Carla Coon, it further unfolds the secrets of The Glen.
Chapter 1
Regrets
He was in front of the pack, the other worshippers seconds behind. The man who’d taken the boy couldn’t be very far ahead of them. His hand shot along the wet wall here and there steadying his way in the winding tunnel. The passage was dark, dimly lit by dangling bulbs strung every twelve feet - fat drops of cheap light on a drooping wire. Carrying the boy like a new bride, the guy turned a corner in the cave, where the path split, but there was no question which way the man was headed. He rounded the corner, just after him too fast and slipped. His right leg pushed out speed-skating on the smooth rock, but he managed to catch himself, push back from the wall, righting his lanky limbs and barely slowing his pace.
His ass was on the line. It was his job to guard the chamber, but he’d fucked up - left his post to enjoy some of the ceremonies in the Hall of the Sacrificial Stone. He figured no one could have gotten by those three fiends outside, the ones that only looked like Rottweilers. How the hell did this guy get to the kid? It didn’t matter now, he had to get him back.
Behind him he heard a roar as more and more worshippers entered the narrow labyrinth of passageways that wove through the mountain cave. Shortly, they would all know their sacrifice had been taken. This guy had no clue what he was dealing with. There were nearly 200 coven members here tonight. They would literally tear him limb from limb when they caught him.
The passageway narrowed even more slowing his progress. Stalactites hanging like icicles from the ceiling lessened then disappeared altogether, so did the stalagmites encrusting the floor. The tunnel began to climb steeply, and slabs of low, overhanging rock forced him and the man carrying the sacrifice to bend over at the waist ducking beneath it. The ceiling would stay low like this till they were practically out. It was uncomfortable, his long legs bent like a spider’s spread as far out as the narrow channel would allow. Only one body at time could make its way into or out of the limestone cave. The four-foot wide exit lay somewhere ahead, about 100 yards off.
Two minutes later, he sniffed fresh air, warmer and dryer. It was just steps to the opening now. Awkwardly, he made his way bowed like an old man with his head tilted up keeping his eye ahead on the man, crouched over and cradling the kid, who despite being even more encumbered was surprisingly nimble. It seemed for the first time, he noticed a black covering on the man’s head and realized, with slight surprise, the guy must be Jewish.
Oh shit! They were practically out.
He watched the man straighten as the tunnel opened to the entrance. Suddenly, the Jew turned and stared at him, a wild look in his eyes. Even as a lesser, he could sense great power in this strange man, in fact he’d been sensing it the whole time he was chasing him. Now with the guy turned around, confronting him face to face, the ominous feeling grew to some unreal proportion. He stopped dead in his tracks, unsure if the man was reaching for a gun. At least he told himself that was why he was stopping - that stopping was a reasonable response to a possibility that he might get shot.
Frozen, he watched as the Jew repositioned the boy to his hip, then raised his free arm high and above his head as if wielding an invisible sword. In one swift motion, he pulled the imagined instrument down through the air. An incredible force of power flashed from the man’s arm. A laser beam sliced across the ceiling of the cave, splitting the rock like a coroner’s first cut down the middle of a cold corpse.
The ground below and the rocks above him trembled.
Too late, he realized what was happening, and instinctively he turned bent over, and ran spidering his way back towards the inner cave as fast as he could. He barely passed two dripping bulbs, when a bible-sized rock broke loose in front of him landing inches from his feet. He leapt over the boxy thing and heard a thunderous tumult. The banging din rippled forward as rocks crashed one upon another behind him, sealing the cave entrance shut. Still bent over, he ran smack into the arms of another lesser instantly enmeshed. Looking past their tangled embrace, he saw a pile of coven members.
“Back,” was all he could think to scream to warn them, but even as he opened his mouth to yell it, a large piece of rock slammed into his head. In seconds, it was raining boulders.
Black.. everything went black.
The solid pitch was the first thing he registered, but the next, the heavy weight pinning him to the ground followed by the searing pain - his arm, his head, and his back were on fire with it - made it impossible to distinguish if the blackness was merely blinding pain. Touching and alongside his left leg, he felt another body squirm. A warm, oozing wetness surrounded his limb, and he wondered if it was his blood or the person’s next to him. It didn’t matter. This was it for him. He could feel himself slipping away; the noises of screaming and chaos beyond the rocks fading, the physical pain, stinging in his arms and legs turning to a dull, numbing cold.
He wanted to enjoy the release of pain as the calm chill spread like a Percocet kicking in. . Instead a sharp sense of deep regret seized his heart, squeezing it in a vice-like grip, as painful and searing as the bodily injuries. He saw it clearly; this path he had chosen, this life he had been enjoying, something was horribly wrong. He suspected it while living it, and every cell in his mortal body knew it now.
His heart slowed its pumping, till his lifeblood ceased to flow through the highway of his veins. Only then did he see the state of his soul. Too late.. too late.. A terrifying realization spread over him, sucking him into an eternity of regret, as he released his final breath and ceased to exist in this world.
Regrets
He was in front of the pack, the other worshippers seconds behind. The man who’d taken the boy couldn’t be very far ahead of them. His hand shot along the wet wall here and there steadying his way in the winding tunnel. The passage was dark, dimly lit by dangling bulbs strung every twelve feet - fat drops of cheap light on a drooping wire. Carrying the boy like a new bride, the guy turned a corner in the cave, where the path split, but there was no question which way the man was headed. He rounded the corner, just after him too fast and slipped. His right leg pushed out speed-skating on the smooth rock, but he managed to catch himself, push back from the wall, righting his lanky limbs and barely slowing his pace.
His ass was on the line. It was his job to guard the chamber, but he’d fucked up - left his post to enjoy some of the ceremonies in the Hall of the Sacrificial Stone. He figured no one could have gotten by those three fiends outside, the ones that only looked like Rottweilers. How the hell did this guy get to the kid? It didn’t matter now, he had to get him back.
Behind him he heard a roar as more and more worshippers entered the narrow labyrinth of passageways that wove through the mountain cave. Shortly, they would all know their sacrifice had been taken. This guy had no clue what he was dealing with. There were nearly 200 coven members here tonight. They would literally tear him limb from limb when they caught him.
The passageway narrowed even more slowing his progress. Stalactites hanging like icicles from the ceiling lessened then disappeared altogether, so did the stalagmites encrusting the floor. The tunnel began to climb steeply, and slabs of low, overhanging rock forced him and the man carrying the sacrifice to bend over at the waist ducking beneath it. The ceiling would stay low like this till they were practically out. It was uncomfortable, his long legs bent like a spider’s spread as far out as the narrow channel would allow. Only one body at time could make its way into or out of the limestone cave. The four-foot wide exit lay somewhere ahead, about 100 yards off.
Two minutes later, he sniffed fresh air, warmer and dryer. It was just steps to the opening now. Awkwardly, he made his way bowed like an old man with his head tilted up keeping his eye ahead on the man, crouched over and cradling the kid, who despite being even more encumbered was surprisingly nimble. It seemed for the first time, he noticed a black covering on the man’s head and realized, with slight surprise, the guy must be Jewish.
Oh shit! They were practically out.
He watched the man straighten as the tunnel opened to the entrance. Suddenly, the Jew turned and stared at him, a wild look in his eyes. Even as a lesser, he could sense great power in this strange man, in fact he’d been sensing it the whole time he was chasing him. Now with the guy turned around, confronting him face to face, the ominous feeling grew to some unreal proportion. He stopped dead in his tracks, unsure if the man was reaching for a gun. At least he told himself that was why he was stopping - that stopping was a reasonable response to a possibility that he might get shot.
Frozen, he watched as the Jew repositioned the boy to his hip, then raised his free arm high and above his head as if wielding an invisible sword. In one swift motion, he pulled the imagined instrument down through the air. An incredible force of power flashed from the man’s arm. A laser beam sliced across the ceiling of the cave, splitting the rock like a coroner’s first cut down the middle of a cold corpse.
The ground below and the rocks above him trembled.
Too late, he realized what was happening, and instinctively he turned bent over, and ran spidering his way back towards the inner cave as fast as he could. He barely passed two dripping bulbs, when a bible-sized rock broke loose in front of him landing inches from his feet. He leapt over the boxy thing and heard a thunderous tumult. The banging din rippled forward as rocks crashed one upon another behind him, sealing the cave entrance shut. Still bent over, he ran smack into the arms of another lesser instantly enmeshed. Looking past their tangled embrace, he saw a pile of coven members.
“Back,” was all he could think to scream to warn them, but even as he opened his mouth to yell it, a large piece of rock slammed into his head. In seconds, it was raining boulders.
Black.. everything went black.
The solid pitch was the first thing he registered, but the next, the heavy weight pinning him to the ground followed by the searing pain - his arm, his head, and his back were on fire with it - made it impossible to distinguish if the blackness was merely blinding pain. Touching and alongside his left leg, he felt another body squirm. A warm, oozing wetness surrounded his limb, and he wondered if it was his blood or the person’s next to him. It didn’t matter. This was it for him. He could feel himself slipping away; the noises of screaming and chaos beyond the rocks fading, the physical pain, stinging in his arms and legs turning to a dull, numbing cold.
He wanted to enjoy the release of pain as the calm chill spread like a Percocet kicking in. . Instead a sharp sense of deep regret seized his heart, squeezing it in a vice-like grip, as painful and searing as the bodily injuries. He saw it clearly; this path he had chosen, this life he had been enjoying, something was horribly wrong. He suspected it while living it, and every cell in his mortal body knew it now.
His heart slowed its pumping, till his lifeblood ceased to flow through the highway of his veins. Only then did he see the state of his soul. Too late.. too late.. A terrifying realization spread over him, sucking him into an eternity of regret, as he released his final breath and ceased to exist in this world.
Copyright ©2010-18 Carla Coon
