Helltown - Jeremy Bates Page 0,97

jumped to his feet. “I gotta take a dump.”

“Right here?”

“No, not right here, you perv. What, you wanna watch?”

“Then where?”

“In the trees.”

“I think there were toilets back at the picnic area.”

“Those things are disgusting. You can get diseases from the seats.”

“You don’t even have toilet paper.”

“You can lick my ass.”

“You’re so gross.”

“I’ll be back.”

Danny watched Roy forge a path through the trees until he was out of sight. Then Danny lay down to get comfortable, folding his hands behind his head and staring up at the sky. Much of it was blocked by the canopy of branches overhead, but he could see bits and pieces, all bright blue, not a cloud anywhere.

He closed his eyes and wondered where he would be sleeping tonight. Would he have his own bedroom? Or would he share a room with Roy? That would be fun. They could stay up late, talking or reading comic books, like they did when they had sleepovers. Roy’s parents were pretty cool with curfews and stuff like that. They let Roy do a lot of things Danny’s own parents would never let him do. And besides, it was summer break. It wasn’t like they had school the next day.

And what about Peggy? he wondered. She was a girl, so she would have her own room, obviously. Danny wondered if he should try to kiss her at some point. He was a year younger after all. He was only going into grade six. She probably still thought of him as a little kid. Then again, she’d laughed at some of his jokes in the car. Didn’t that mean she liked him? Maybe if he could keep making her laugh, she would kiss him. Maybe they would even get married one day. That would be pretty neat. Then Roy would be his brother, or half-brother…

As Danny unwittingly drifted into a light sleep, his thoughts turned to what Roy’s dad had told them about Helltown during the car ride. The place was right around here somewhere. Supposedly there had been a bunch of devil worshippers a few years back who lived in the woods and kidnapped people. But then some army guy, Special Forces or something like that, tracked them all down and burned them alive in some church. Roy’s dad stopped there because Roy’s mom told him he was going to give “the kids” nightmares. Roy and Danny protested, they wanted to hear more, but Roy’s dad changed the topic. Sometimes it seemed to Danny that Roy’s mom ruled Roy’s family. It was true she was stricter than Roy’s dad (which was still pretty lenient by Danny’s parents’ standards), and she could be scary sometimes when she got angry, but for the most part Danny liked her. He just better make sure he stayed out of her bad books for the next week…

The twenty-six-foot-long green anaconda slithered silently through the deadfall toward the sleeping boy, forked tongue flicking in and out of its lipless grimace, collecting the sleeping boy’s scent particles from the air and the ground. It had devoured a similar creature years before, on the night it had escaped the House in the Woods, and like all the raccoons and deer and foxes and rodents it had subsisted on since, it knew the creature to be easy prey.

When the snake came to within striking distance, it opened its mouth one hundred eighty degrees and sunk its rear-facing teeth into the boy’s shoulder. The boy awoke, jerking then thrashing, trying to flee, but the snake was already coiling its body around its prey, constricting and wrapping, around and around and around, until the boy went still.

Then it ate.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

Thank you for taking the time to read Helltown. If you enjoyed the story, it would be wonderful if you could leave a review on the Amazon product page. Reviews might not matter much to the big-name authors, but they can really help the small guys to grow their readership.

Also, you can check out jeremybatesbooks for info on my other novels and novellas.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jeremy Bates is the award-winning author of several novels and short stories. He writes suspense, horror, and thrillers. The novels in his “World’s Scariest Places” series are set in real locations, and so far include Suicide Forest in Japan, The Catacombs in Paris, Helltown in Ohio, and (forthcoming) Island of the Dolls in Mexico. You can check out any of these places on the web, or visit his website at: JEREMYBATESBOOKS.COM

For a limited time, visit jeremybatesbooks to receive a free copy of The Taste of Fear.