Episode 96: Lessons Learned

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Not about now. Oh God, it's a Vapalachia, it's a horror anthology podcast, and therefore, make-and-tain material not suitable for all audiences. So listen to discretion is advised. Regina Fletcher woke in her own cold grave.

She wasn't sure how she got back here. She hadn't gotten used to being dead yet, and certainly wasn't what she expected.

A good book had never mentioned all the rules and protocols that govern the afterlife.

“Regina had been a lifelong churchgoer at North Liberty Presbyterian, and when she finally”

found herself on the other side of the veil, she'd expected pearly gates, not an old black door. Like a vast black-hold ship emerging from a dense fog that dread portal had appeared, and she'd been afraid. There were no angels, no welcoming saints, just a heavy slab of blackwood that stood between

her and whatever come next, and at first she was distraught. Thinking that this must surely be the gate to hell, and all of her clean living prey and entire then had all been for nothing. Then she realized she didn't smell sulfur. Nor did she feel the flames of damnation looking at her feet.

Perhaps this was a waste-ation of sorrows, and if she crossed that grim threshold, she'd

be reunited with all her loved ones and finally meet the father son and the Holy Ghost.

She reached for the iron ring that hung in place at a proper knob, a flash of orange

“light, had raced around the edges of the door like summer lightning, and she'd snatched”

her hand back. Was that a hell fire? Oh, maybe this door led to damnation after all, before Regina could reconsider the door had flickered and disappeared. She called for her mother, her father, her husband Homer, for all the folks who were

supposed to greet her on that heavenly shore, but none of them answered. She thought it was a demon, her burning eyes and monstrous teeth, like something that rose from the sea in St. John's revelation. She'd seen a rip a little boy limb from limb, gobbling the child up in just a few bites. She wanted to help.

Truly she had, the fear had consumed her in, she just ran, and then suddenly before she knew what was happening. She'd found herself back in her old room inside the tall house with the kind nurses and the handsome orderlies. She'd watched as they boxed up all her things to be hauled away.

Since then, she had simply been here. One of dozens of spirits who walked the ground to wood-haven sanatorium. She had met some of the others, Mr. Havis, Mr. Moss, Ms. Verenstein, and Ms. Helten had all been very nice and welcoming. None of them had any more idea than she did, how to get to whatever come next.

But at least they weren't demons sent to torment her. Regina hadn't thought the living could even see them until the lady in room 16 and nurse villas had proved her wrong, and she wasn't sure what the elders had done to cast her out of the house, but she didn't think it was right. They weren't bothering anybody.

They just wanted help. Why did they deserve to get eaten up by some monstrous dog in the bone yard just because they couldn't move on from this world. Oh God, the dog! She thought in sudden terror.

She was in danger. She had to get away from here back to the house where it was safe. Regina willed herself to head toward the main building. Hoping she would simply appear in her room like she had before. But it was not to be.

Instead, she found herself. Drifting. In that general direction, her feet float in a good six inches over the soil below. Her progress toward the cemetery gate was slow, but steady, and she'd begun to feel a spark a hope.

When she heard it, the panty of some heavy beast, plotting through the gravestone.

She kept her eyes fixed reasonably on the path before her, stay in the course.

“She could see the shape of woodhaven in the distance, growing closer with every moment.”

She passed the lovely marble angel for Mr. Moss was late to rest, and started in surprise as the man himself rose from beneath it. Marcelis Moss smiled and tipped in a imaginary hat in her direction. Before he could wish her good evening, there was a roaring bar, and the monstrous dog was a bone.

The patriarch of the moss is a green-wire county, screamed and terror. Regina tried to block out the sounds of rindling flesh and the choking softs as the friendly

man with the stylish sideburns met his second death in the jaws of the beast.

“She told herself she had to keep moving, as she reached the cemetery's iron gate.”

She saw Dr. David Robinson making his way towards her, carrying a bag of some kind. She waved and called out to him, trying to alert him to the danger. Panic finally gave her the speed she'd been unable to find. She flew with the man, arms waving, spectral voice, shrinking and passed right through his flesh without even causing the big man to shiver.

She slowed and floated back towards him, watching as he dumped a load of kindling on the

ground, then he raced his head.

As narrowing with curiosity as the snarling of the dog reached his ears from deeper within the cemetery.

“Regina Vletcher watched in horror as Doc Robinson, the man with the gentle hands and the”

conpholdies strode into the cemetery to investigate. She drifted ahead of him, screaming for all she was worth anything to make him hear her, seeing her to stop what was coming. She watched helplessly as he froze at the side of the beast that had stalked her kind from the moment she had risen from her grave.

The monstrous dogs eyes. It's hellish maw, primble and dissipation, and then it lunge the bulk of the shadowy body collided with the healer, knocking him aside, Regina heard a sickening smack as the soft flesh of his temple collided with the corner of a nearby headstone, and just like that, one of the kindest men she'd ever known left the mortal world behind.

The soul fleeing before his body even hit the ground. For a moment she could not tear her eyes away from the dead man, and she heard a low rise in her mouth, and realized with cold dread that the good doctor had not been the beast stalked at all. As she turned back toward the gate to resume her flight, she felt massive jaws closed around

her left him at a play of blood and madness. The blooded and our soul. When the fire nasned down, in the woods go quiet, and you think you told every tale you know, no flame burns, and reshaping the darkness, so you lock your eyes on the trembling low, the faces you found are so familiar, they could almost speak, the stories

fall with light or rage, but you can feed the fire and curse the darkness when the voice is calm, but in the end long shadows and fall. In the cozy bed in room 16, Dr. Dooley dreamed. The night was crisp and cold as Dr. Dooley followed the tall figure leading her down a dark and trail that ran along the quiet verbal of the guest river, somewhere in the

untamed woods of e-saw County, Virginia. Her precious orange monstrosity perched on her shoulder, the rest of her foul litter scattered

the banks of the tiny tributary of the mighty Clint River.

“They were led by the being who had begun tutoring her in the ways of warning and sigil”

making. He was calm, the widower, and he was at least seven and a half feet tall, spindly as a young tree and silent as the grave. He was ever dressed in a black shroud of mourning over a pitch black suit. His enormous hands were the only part of his body that were visible. Each finger long and unnervingly mobile, let the legs of some night mirrors creature sired in the depths of the darkest sea. There were too many joints in those alibaster digits,

and the middle and ring finger on each hand were tipped in a needle like claw that jetted

out of the tip of the creature's finger rather than from the nail band. He used these

protrusions for drawing out the rooms and sigils that he taught her. Each claw was capable

“of secreting ink, blood, tears, or venom. The widower could summon up whatever the”

working required. A head of him prowled two of his wives. One might wonder how widower still had wives, but daughter Dooley had learned better than to ask such questions when dealing with the denizens of the dark. Through careful observation in a bit of outradives dropping of she were honest, she had come to understand that the wives were the undead husks of women who had once been the widower's prized people. Dry things in funeral

black dresses that rattle like wind shums made a bone with their every step. The pair

were tethered to their dread husband with rusty chains. Their eyes were bound with stained rotting silk-blind folds, one bloom and one red. Bad Shirley had gossiped that this was so their husband might tell them apart, adding that the one in red was called dorkas with demaris in blue. Each of the skeletal thralls carried a small wooden box like accolades bringing tribute to some dark altar. The comparison daughter Dooley mused to herself wasn't

far off. When she had turned up at Bad Shirley's shack that night, she'd found the widower waiting on the dork step, as if he too had an appointment with the old crowing in her beasts. Bad Shirley had emerged from her layer wearing a wool winter coat and a thick shawl, leaning heavily on a thicker cane. Her foulest familiar growled at them from her shoulder.

“The daughter Dooley couldn't remember a time when Bad Shirley had left her hut and the surprise”

must have shown on her face. "Wipe that gauntlet's piss off your face girl. I know it must water your nails to sink two of your teachers in one place, but tonight is a special occasion. The master himself has arranged for you to meet with a new instructor and ask that I make introductions. Not that you deserve such a boon you've rotten and grateful thing, but it is a rare opportunity to be a guest of one such as the yes. Even at the master's behest so,

I have to wear to wear gentlemen that he is if he'd like to come with his doll for proper tribute. The widower inclined his head slightly and his wives followed suit. The bones of their spines clacking the dry whisper as they moved. "So are we waiting here to greet them then?" Bad Shirley grated out a rasping death ran a laugh. "No child. The one you'll meet on this night will not venture far from its safe place. We must go to eat. It ain't cloaks though. She'll know it ain't.

We'll walk away is on our side of things to we find ourselves a little short cut. You know we're a main douchy heights. The man draped in morning rags, not at again, and his beloved brides set off into the trees, leaving daughter duly and mad Shirley to follow. They'd walked for what felt like an eternity. Though daughter duly knew that time couldn't be measured reliably on the path they walked, eventually they had come to a bend in a stagnant

creek bed. The air thick with the stench of brackish water and things left to rot. Bad Shirley stepped to the edge of the murky water, and the entirety of her ill-timpered brood suddenly surrounded her. The slender tordy with the black foreleg gave the water a tentative smack. A worried expression etched onto her goblin face. "Oh my little man, I, you ain't going to get away at this wide, mama shall ye?" He won't do the honors, big fella.

something dark and rants it to slip from the spike tip of his left ring finger and splash into

“the fett of little stream. A sudden stiff breeze began to blow. It smelled of sulfur and”

rodded meat and carried a stinging grit that caused daughter duly diskweezer eyes shut again for a long moment and when she opened them again, they stood on the banks of another river miles away. This one flowing strong and sure. Bad Shirley glanced around to provenly. "Ah, there we go!" Shirley knilled down, dipped her index finger into the running water and tasted it. North, another three miles, lay down ladies. The widowers' wives took up the charge,

following the gentle flow of the river into the dark heart of he saw county. After a while,

this gill to women led them away from the river and down into a hallar. A small squat house set all by its looms and like a tick nestled into the flesh of some gracely being doll. A subtle

“hum of power surround the place, a polite warning that promised pain and worse if not heated.”

Wars. Someone gifted and wrapped this place in the power of the green and the blood of their own people. It hadn't been lightly done, either. "Ah, the house, this surrounding brush, have been cleared for a solid 30 feet to the tree lawn." Around the edge of that clearing, a regular intervals stood trees that had been carved with sigils that seemed to pulsed with power. There were strands of dried peppers and flowers hung from the rafters of the porch,

whose interior roof and floorboards had been painted at a stink shade she recognized as "haint blue." There was no fence nor other visible barrier between the place where they stood in the house, but if she listened closely, she could make out a heartbeat to power. It's quiet pulse running

“around the edge of the yard. This was a place that had been warded and maintained by green-touched workers”

who knew what they were doing. Not only noticed the boat bat, surely aunt the widower, kept their respective pets well behind, as they came to a stop at the edge of the property. She was wondering what torturous lesson she'd learn here when the regular clump of horses hooves and the creek of wagon wheels reached her ears. She'd looked to her two monstrous companions to see if they were concerned,

but neither seemed surprise, but still. The glow of the lantern pressed at the hill, and bad surely pulled her close. The old woman's grip, like iron, round her forearm, you listen to me your little mongle, mind your tongue, do not spaken less spoken to, what's in yon buggy to gobble the lot of us up if it's so chose, so listen close and do as your towed girl. Reflect poorly on us and you won't even have to worry about punishment at iron hands.

It will bring you more hurt than we ever could. If you know what's good for you, you'll behave as if the master himself has come to call. A long, white-painted wagon with high sides rolled to a stop of view yards from them. Tune in and climb from the bench seat in your perfect aimless. They were dressed in clean, home-spun pants and shirts, the color of perfect, unstained ivory. Their skin was as pale as the moon, and completely hairless.

The lack of eyebrows and eyelashes gave them another worldly look, as they nodded politely to the travelers and said about their business. The taller of the two moved to the rear of the wagon home, his beady eyes scowling out of them resentfully. The driver strode forward. His mouth lifting into what he must have thought with an approximation of a smile. Will met Granny Stewart,

screaming her, "Daughter duly bleaked." They never occurred to her that bad Shirley might have a

surname. She was just bad Shirley. She had similarly never heard the epitetic used to address the widower. The formal tone, the man used, gave it the feel of a title, rather than a name. She filed these facts away for future examination, knowing she would be punished if either of the two thought she wouldn't pay an attention. Bad Shirley spoke first. Her voice taken on an uncharacteristically differential tone. Brasson, or is it, Byron? It means that

I'm Brasson. That's my brother Byron. You'll have to excuse his lack of manners. He doesn't

“use a leave the property and has become unused to observe in the properties. But since this”

request came from your master, it was appropriate for the eldest to give this personal attention. The man's cold eyes, praised Dr. Dooley, and she had the distinct impression he was unimpressed. His voice was skeptical when he spoke again. This is the vessel there. Oh, yes, yes, it's Mr. Dooley. The master has requested his lessons specifically for her,

and he sends his thanks to your granny for making this possible. As her teachers, we also appreciate

her taking the time to instruct the girl, and we've come bare and kiss to demonstrate her gratitude

“properly. Yes, we have. The blind tholded skill to women scuttled forward, offering the small”

wooden chests with formal little bowels, as bad Shirley and the widower nodded significantly. The man called Brasson, accepted them with a chuff of laughter, and retreated to the wagon. Byron stepped up and into the shadowy recesses of the conveyance.

A moment later, he emerged, carefully pushing a figure in a wheelchair. He stepped out next to his

brother, and each of them took one side of the chair, lowering it carefully to the ground between them. The hunched figure in the chair wore the shape of an ancient woman. Skinny and narrowed as a

“crab apple tree, and just as milk pale as the men who had varied her here. The two men were”

cheerful to keep her long, trailing white hair from tangling in the wheels of the chair as it draped under the ground behind her. She wore a simple white house dress, the stretch taught across a swollen belly that appeared unnaturally, horrifically ripe with pregnancy. She wore tiny glasses with ruby colored lenses through which she surveyed the three of them sowerly. The man called Brasson's spoke to her in reverent tones. Granny, this is Granny Stewart. I know who they are, boy. What kind

of fool do you take me for? You think I don't know bad Shirley when I smell her? Good Lord, child. Now I know you don't care about that body, but do the rest of us the family will wash it. These men like somebody made a pot of coffee at a cat basin cabbage. It is truly unpleasant. Who else is over there? Oh, the way I was it. Yes, I know you, but I know you work anyway. Lord, what's bone binding in the light? Yes, you get out of the house about as much as I do.

Who don't you? You do fine works, sir. Fine, what? The widower placed a hand over his heart and inclined his head at this acknowledgement. Dorcus and Demaris rattled their chains in excitement. The widower snapped them to stillness with a certain jerk combo links that bound them. I can't say much about your taste and wind, but who am I to judge? We all do what we must to get by. Yes, we do. We do what we have to do to

put food on the table and keep our family safe. Don't we? Can't let them batys go hungry. Now okay, baby, go hungry, baby, baby, go hungry. Now the thing pretending to be an old blind woman rested her fingers on the uncanny mound of her belly and turned her gaze on daughter Dulee. When you bring this to this sweet little moth or hear her, yes, and then I've heard a lot about you, yeah, or patron can't say enough about the things you're going to do for our family.

I mean, I trust that must be all book about as far as I can throw, which could be pretty far all things.

to your dead mama's titties about you. Are we clear? Any witty replies dried up on daughter Dulee's

“tongue. The gravity of the old woman's presence bespoke a level of power she'd only felt in the”

company of the blackstad. The world seemed to bend in towards the withered old thing in the wheelchairs as though her very existence was a burden it struggled to bear. She nodded in mute reply. "Look here, are you getting all shiled as darling? Can't go to town?" "All I hear from all horn is

what a small mouth little brat you are!" "He seems to think you're worth the trouble, though. Me?"

"I'm not so sure, do you know who I am?" "Girl, it took daughter Dulee a long moment to find her voice. You, you're the hungry mother, the pale daughter, the unseated mouth, the very hunger of those who sleep in the mouth." "Yes, yes. Enough with the flattery. You make all me grinding white, too. I appreciate the grandads and the brown nose, but it ain't necessary. You hear me?" "Yes. Yes, gritty." "Good. Brass told me around,

so I can show little miss while we're working with the night." "Brass and white turn the chair,

so that the pale woman face the house and the clearing head on." "Yonder as well, sounds. Lays and old family around these pots. A many left of the true line. Last give one, drapes song through the old black door earlier this year, also with the old. These words should be fading and breaking all over the place, but somebody somewhere is me, man." "That's good, isn't that house that we want?" "A whole laundry list of books and trinkets and hair looms just steeped in

old work. It's here." "Now I could just have my children post up here and collect them when the time comes, but unlike your master, I don't care for wait, don't care for the bit. Now in your hungry, oh, great. All I can just make is so much worse, so in exchange for whatever we find in there, I'm to teach you the proper way to suck the juice out of a protective work and then use it for your own

“personal involvement. Turning lemons in the left night, no songs such. How does that sound early?”

That sound useful to you? "Yes ma'am, I imagine it would." "Don't bullshit me girl, ain't no imagine in here. Power is all this worth having in this world and we do what we must take it. If you don't have the stomach for this business, you will get eaten alive. Literally, I personally will eat you alive. You'll eat me now. Come here, let Granny show you how this works.

Where to lawn and now, it's gonna hurt. Now still." Daughter duly set up with a gasp, her heart racing as she rejoined the waking world in the

“hour before dawn. Her dreams hadn't been invaded by Granny why and longer than she could remember.”

The terrifying old thing had taught her a useful skill or two, but she'd almost trade those back

As she rolled her shoulders and shivered off the fading remnants of the dream,

“she became aware she was not alone. There was a flicker of ghostlight at the foot of the bed.”

She sat up against the headboard and smoothed the hair from her face, expecting another visitation from William, please call me Billy Adams. Instead, the amorphous glimmer resolved itself into the shape of a young woman in a black fuder again. Her head was bowed and her hands hung limply at her side. Her uncompared hung in a frizzy shroud about her face. Something dripped from her gown onto the floor. The lamp on the bedside table flickered and the air

buzzed with a different energy from the last time the dead had come to call on her when William

Harrison had us in company had appeared, the room was filled with a sense of caution and courtesy,

as if they didn't want to scare her off. This apparition was warped in a cold shroud of fear.

“The air in the room grew tall as a bowstring with the sense of dread she carried,”

the sound of the liquid pattering to the floor drew her eye and duttered to lease all the spirit was bleeding out to plasm from a wound that her hip, though the specter didn't seem to notice it. She spoke to her gently as if copes in the wound of Adam. Hayden's fairet? What can I do for you this year? The figure did not respond, but the temperature dropped by seven degrees and a draft of cold hair blew in from nowhere. Thought her do we dipped her hair, trying for a peek at the ghostly

woman's face? Is that you? Are you all right? The apparition quivered and clenched her fists,

her ghostly form began to shake more violently, the splattering from the wound that her hip increasing, the room single lantern flickered again, threatening to cast them into darkness. This splatter? This splatter? Can you hear me, Doctor? What can I do to help? What was left

“of Regina Blatcher through back her head and how revealing the shredded ribbons of her face?”

Her right cheek had been torn away, revealing a garden of bone daggers for her teeth that once been, her left eye gleamed with a sickly orange light, and she left on the foot of the band, crunchy and snarling, bearing that mischap and mouthful of overgrown fangs and the room began to shake. The cold draft, becoming an icy gaitle, pictures fell from the wall in their fraying shattered. The bedframe felt as though it might shake apart with the force of the tremors emanating from

the ruined ghost. Doctor duly rolled out of the band, tumbling to the floor as the specter lunged at her, clawed hands tearing her feather pillow to shreds, the living woman bitter lip, as her knees hit the floor and she paced in blood. She scrambled to her feet again and began inching toward the door, how would something like this gotten past the warrants, reaching the pleasures and tilting towards her. Jaw working like some sort of

demented Mary in the hand, as she sprawled on the bed and the spot the witch had occupied only moments before the ghost pushed herself to her hands and knees, and before daughter duly could reach the door, bridging a swifter arm in her direction. Everything that wasn't nailed down on the other side of the room became blind. The wardrobe doors blew open and co-hangers, linens and other odds and ends tucked inside the cabinet felt at her like fuckshot, the metal hook of a co-hanger

nicked daughter duly just above the eye and the small cup welled with blood. There was a wooden groaning and she realized the heavy wardrobe itself was about to tear free from the wall. That was enough. The red headed witch wiped the blood from her forehead and rubbed it between her palms, acting on instinct she reached for a well of power that was drained nearly dry. Nearly. The spell came to her lips almost unbidden, and she raised her bloody fingers in the air

in a gesture that stilled the unnatural wind, and silenced the roaring shade who threatened to bring the roof down over her head, Regina Fletcher. Bros. Riding against the binding to no avail, with a wave of her hand, daughter duly sent the ghost whirling into the other corner of the room behind the dislodged wardrobe. She felt exhaustion wash over, and it was all she could do to lurch back over to the bed, her shaking knees given way as she dropped back onto it and turned

to face the writhing spirit to finish the binding. I do not know what's happened to your man, but I cannot have you in her thrashing about like this. By my own blood, I bind you. By my

Rest now spirit, and be still. With a vital twist of her fingers, the tormented spirit faded

“into the shadows, and daughter duly collapsed into the ruins of her pillow before the tides of sleep”

carried her down once more. Becky Rogers was worked in the morning shift when Bill is more, who normally didn't come into almost midnight, walked in the front door carrying a sheet cake covered in foil. Well, hey there, what are you doing here in the daylight hours? The Bill is smile, place the pain on the counter. I took last night off to help the ladies up to Hillary, get ready for the bake sale this weekend. We made one chocolate cake too many, so I brought it

into share. I'm covering for Laverna today. I'll have me a little nap and then work my usual.

Bill has walked around the desk and picked up the overnight ship notes. Her brow furrowed in concern

she read what burnt had written there. Saturday, May 7th, the patient had some sort of episode during the night. The furnishings in room 16 were cast about as if a great wind had passed through the ward. The hat rack was broken to splinters. The wardrobe just launched from its corner clothing

“and other items straight about the room. Peggy? What in the world happened last night? What?”

Oh, that. I don't know what to tell you. We didn't have the bodies to keep somebody up there last night. Mr. Nelson is all worked up about the transfer down the mountain, but he kept wandering downstairs to pastor as about it. He had me in burnt hot up for most of the night.

Burt got to her whenever he could, checked on her after son-up and the room was just a wreck.

She must have had some sort of fear. Busted her to lay up and bumped her head a little bit. She's all right. Soon enough, she won't be our problem any more anyway. Fills his brow for road. What do you mean? It looks like we're done honey. Miss Marjorie's down at the state hospital feeling out the paperwork on the last of our patients right now. We ain't got enough staff to stay open. With the new hospital hire and every qualified

“nurse in a 50 mile radius, there's not really anyone to replace the folks we lost.”

I imagine she'll make provisions for that little lady in 16. I wouldn't worry about it. No. Surely Doc Robinson can work something out. Is he here? Let me talk to him. I can make him see his hands. Hey, is he here? Got him around the same time I did. Said he had to do some maintenance or something over by the cemetery. You know how he is about that. I hadn't seen him come back yet, so my baby he's still out there. Fills headed back out the

front doors and began walking east across the grounds. They couldn't close wood haven. They just couldn't. Her work was all she had left. At least she was helping people here. She didn't want to sit around her empty old house all alone all the time. Fillus Moore's house had the unusual distinction that it didn't host a single lost soul or wander in spirit. After working long shifts in a place that was chop full of the dead, one might be tempted to

think that coming home to a quiet house would be a relief. But for Fillus Moore, it was a misery. Her husband had passed away two years ago this October and her eldest son had died in an accident at the paper mill. Had either of them thought twice about what she might need before taking off to paradise? She had given anything for just a few minutes more with her husband or to say a proper goodbye to her Randall? When she realized they really and truly weren't going to come and say goodbye,

she'd have paid a fair amount for a few more minutes to give each of my piece of her mind. Instead, all she got were the shades of entitled rich folks. She couldn't stand it. She felt like she'd had to deal with every ghost in the whole wide world except for the two who actually mattered. Her pace slowed as she approached the cemetery, feeling the presence of the dead all around her. She ignored them and called out for the doctor.

Dr. Robinson, David, are you out here? At the mill, your tingle raised the hair on the back of Fillus' neck and she'd flinched as a voice spoke behind her. He was here, man. But I'm afraid most of us were in disposed when he came to call. Fillus closed her eyes and shook her head, holding up a hand to stop the gentleman ghost from coming in and he closer. "No, not right now, please, just leave me alone." A different voice boom from her left and she

startled again. "Oh horse feathers, Jim William. You know as well as I do exactly where the good

but you'll have to forgive me. I'm not really feeling like myself these days.

“If you know what I mean. I know exactly how you feel, my good Fillus. I feel like I'm half”

the man I used to be." Both shades laughed heartily at the shared gest and Fillus built her tempered flair. She opened her eyes and turned to face them. When you two gest, the words shut up, die on Villus Moore's lips as she stared at the two ghosts. William Harrison Habis was missing half of his throat and the upper left side of his chest. The ghostly flesh hung in

tatters around gaping holes filled with darkness. If young William was a horror,

then the late Murray Marcellus Moss was something straight from the darkest corners of hell. His right arm hung by a thin strand of gristle and his right leg was torn away at the knee.

“His belly had been split wide and inside it a writhing twisting void churned wetly in the early”

morning light. Fillus screamed and turned to run. She tore blindly through the cemetery, heading deeper into the neat rows of graves. Her heart pounded in her chest and the fleeting

idea that this might just give her a heart attack race to cross her thoughts. When she glanced over

her shoulder to see if the ruined ghosts were pursuing her foot caught on something lying across the path between the stones and Fillus went sprawling. Her ankle gave way he with a jolt of pain and she heard something snap in her wrist when she put her hands out to catch herself. She landed on her belly in the grass with a cry of pain as she struggled to get up. She saw what a tripter. Dr. David Robinson lay staring up at her. His eyes lifeless and cold. On instinct she glanced around

searching for his shade but there had been no hesitation when this good man perished. His soul had left no confused shadow on this mortal coil. Dr. Robinson was go. Fillus felt tears well in her eye. When she heard the voice behind her she turned to glare that might have curdled milk on the shade of Billy Adams. She and the old man didn't stick around. I met he could see his now. I loved to have a chat with the old boy about my treatment plan. Would have been nice to connect with

someone who actually listened to us as he spoke. The boy and the bloody pajamas knelt down and reached out to stroke the side of Fillus's face. She flinched away as she felt his cold fingers on her skin. Not the sensation she normally felt when she made contact with the spearhead like walking into a spotter web or a cold draft. This was solid. Physical. Oh God help her. They could touch her somehow. Billy had us let out a belly laugh at the look of shock on her face. Around

her the cackles of Marcellus moss and at least a dozen others that had been ravaged and tainted by the monstrous dog rose around her. The mutilated ghosts began drifting towards her. Fill his gate at them. In a panic she lifted her good leg off the ground as best she could and smacked her foot down once twice three times and an equavering voice that sounded far too old to her own ears. She spoke the words that had served her so well for so long. Y'all stay away! Get! I said get! Get!

The laughing hoard of the dead encircled her and did not disperse. Where exactly are you trying

“to send us Ms. Fillus? We're already home and I think you're about to be too. With that,”

the tainted dead of woodhaven descended on Fillus moor. None of the skeleton crew that remained to see the facility close its doors happened to be standing outside at the time. There was no one to hear her scream and none of them had any warning of what was coming. By the time the woman in room 16 woke and ventured from her bed, there were no living souls left in woodhaven sanatorium or on its grounds.

staff alongside the handful of patients that had yet to be transferred down the mountain.

“Dr. Dooley examined the shadowy corner of the room where she had bound the shade of Regina”

Fletcher and found the malevolent ghost with secure and for the moment quiet. That sort of blood magic made for potent bindings and in her current state she doubted she could unwork it if she wanted to. Clans and around at the destruction the ghost had wrought she expected someone would be coming to check on her soon. She cunct her head to listen with the old house to its silent around her. Unusually so. Frowning she opened the door and peered out into the hallway.

She could smell it before it turned the corner. She'd seen its kind before.

With all the death and destruction she and the child had wrought in these past seasons, it would be a miracle with at least a few of these black mouth bastards hadn't followed in their

“wake, feasting on the lost and wandering souls that type of violence often left behind.”

It was the shape and dimension of an unnaturally large doll, a massive breath. She knew of course that it wasn't a dog at all. The human mind can only comprehend so much before it fractures all together and thus when it encounters things it cannot physically fathom, it will often interpret them to the limbs of familiar shapes so it can continue functioning rather than collapse under the strain. And there are beasts and haints walking the world that

folks could see just fine and those were frightening enough. But most of them were of this world. The things that came from elsewhere. From the screaming void that birthed the ravenist darkness beneath the mountains were mostly beyond mortal kin and thus the human mind would just do its best to keep from getting eaten by something it couldn't even see properly. The black mouth dog prowled down the hallway and sat down on its haunches across from her

on the other side of the threshold. Even seated, it was taller than her. The great black K9 monstrosity did not grow nor show any form of aggression. It smoldering crimson eyes met hers and she felt it pushed a thought into her head that felt like a blow to the gut in its strangeness come with me. Daughter doodly glanceed up to the lintel and saw the warding sigils carved above the door of room 16. The power laid down long before and carefully

maintained over the years by many gifted hands, a shimmering protected barrier constructed to

“give the weak and the wound at a safe place to heal. I bet you'd like that, wouldn't you?”

Say it's a juiciest piece of meat for last-ditcher. Figure you can kill my mortal form and wait to gobble the rest of me down once I return to you. The dog sighed and chuffed. Another thought pushed into her mind, bringing with it the taste of spoiled meat, trodsen barley, hold words, come with that the dog padded down the hall, turned the corner and was gone. Daughter doodly blinked and a dog or at least a thing where in the shape of a dog just

invoked the elder covenant between the green and the dark. In our experience black mouth dogs didn't truck with human beings. They killed them and ate their ghost but they didn't communicate. They were much like the animals they manifested as. She certainly hadn't expected them to know the ancient laws and she had to admit she was curious. She knew better than to trust something directly descended from the heart of the dark and doubted its grasp of the old packs besides

so she would have to take precautions. She knew it would hurt. It would hurt a lot. She placed her hands on the door frame and reached for the power there. Just as the ancient thing that closed itself in the trappings of an old woman had once taught her to, the pain was immediate and gut-wrenching and it dropped her to her knees for a long moment. Once she had recovered, she rose to her feet and walked out of room 16 forever.

At the end of the hall she found herself in what must be the laundry room. The door at its

other end led out onto the main floor of the second story of the sanatorium.

Three bodies slump back to back in the middle of the common area. Their throats torn out,

Across the hall a couple of shades and bloody robes lingered uncertainly by the doors that

“must have led to their rooms. The dog sat by this grizzly tableau waiting for her. As she stepped”

into the common area, rose to its feet, shoved softly again and headed for the stairs. One of the ghosts, the short plump woman in a nurse's uniform with half her face torn away following it. The dog glanced over its shoulder as if to make sure daughter duly was also following. And so she did. Down the stairs and out the back door it led her. The door stain goes floating along beside it like a woman taking the family dog out for its morning constitutional.

She was thankful to be spared whatever carnage might fill the first floor,

but knew that every drop of blood spilled. Every soul mangled or devoured by this thing

“was likely her fault. The dog sought out the dead and dying, yes. But they also sought power.”

Consuming the spirits of the gifted and the green touched made them bigger and stronger. The sheer size of the thing that trotted ahead of her told her it had been done in will. Her breath caught in her throat as they approached the cemetery. It was a precious little plot surrounded by a pretty wrought iron fence with lovely marble monuments and well kept landscaping

and a veritable army of the mangled and corrupted dead spilled out of its bounds,

filling the eastern lawn of wood havens and sands and grounds. They couldn't have all come from here. Surely. But she knew there must be plenty of old family burial plots and loaned some wandering

“spirits between here and the closest town, the dog stopped and turned its mouldering eyes on her again.”

What? You brought me all the way out here to show me your kibble. Did you want me to throw one of them maybe play a little fetch? What are you waiting for? It's either have it me and see how you do or let these folks move on. It's one or to other. The blood beast growled low when it's throat and another sending wormed its way inside her mind that made her feel sick to her stomach. Take. Take what? Take them. The dog looked out over the legion of the dead and then back

to the red headed witch. I don't understand beast. Daughter Dooley held up her hands in a warning gesture. And don't go shove in your filthy paws in my head again. Show me. She regretted the words instantly. The dog turned and tore into the ghost of the nurse that had followed it from the main house, swallowing down big chunks of the screaming spectacle form until it had consumed her entirely. It's eyes burned red and its swirling black coat shimmered with twisting darkness.

It pressed into her mind once again. Take. On of them. Be strong. Come back. The realization hit her harder than the stench of bad Shirley's shack. She could do it. She could consume all these poor souls and build herself to the bloody brand with dark and terrible power just like the dog. She had been trained to use the death and suffering of others so that she could become the vessel. The old black stag and his masters had wished for. Something inside her. Aint. And her face flushed with shame

when she realized it felt like hunger. She had subsisted on the power of the dark for what felt like an age. She knew how it felt to be a lonely wandering god, wreaking vengeance on all those who dared offend her. Without thinking she shifted her arms as if to hoist a child who was not there on to work it. Daughter duly squeezed her eyes shut and pushed the ache away. She thought of her mother's. Of all the people who had come before that even traveled to this cursed place all those years ago,

she thought of the countless good and kind people who had helped her. Those who had fought alongside her for years to keep the dark at bay and she took a deep breath and strode into the sea of the dead. The beef's jaws got open in a doggy grin of its rotation. She walked toward the gait of the graveyard and looked into the faces of those who had been taken and twisted into some perverse banquet, a welcome home supper held in her honor by those who sleep beneath. She cast

older and ash spilling out on the ground. She knelt and rummaged round, finding several

satchels of herbs, a box of matches, and a paper to light the kindling. These were the components

“of a spell. Had someone tried to send the dead of woodhaven on their way, had vilest on this?”

It didn't really matter. She could discern the working's purpose easily enough from its components, a bonfire, with the appropriate materials would serve as a beacon to lead lingering spirits to the other side of the veil. It was a solid option if you had a middle and gift and needed to get pep balls ghost out of the attic, but this was more than somebody's lonesome

forbear not wanting to leave their homestead. Dr. Dooley had a bit more than a middle and gift.

She felt rot-spray now that she'd had some rest and a couple of good meals in her. It also helped considerably she'd borrowed the power fed into the wards on the private wing, a power that willed inside her now. This energy poured into those workins for years by green gifted

“practitioners over the lifetime of a place of healing and kindness. This was power intended to”

protect and preserve to stand against the darkness and send it packing. She gathered up the wood and arranged it in the proper fashion for a small bonfire just as her mother had taught her when she was still a child. The matches had gotten a bit damped line outside on the ground, but eventually they cough and she lit the paper. In the back of her mind, she felt the dog growl. She nearly fell to her knees with the force of its sending no

take, not burn, take. There was no time to perform the ritual as intended, adding the various herbs slowly as to draw the spirits gently the dog would come for her, or then, if she wasted any time. Instead, she scattered the herbs over the flames at once and reached out with her gift,

“infusing the working with the power she had taken from the doors of the private wing.”

She heard the dog's pause racing over the grass and knew she had run out of time, and then she felt it. As she poured out the borrowed magic from all those healed and helped by the Robinson's and their chosen family, the green rose to meet her. Calling her by name. By her true name, it filled her heart and her body with immoral fire. The same fire that allowed her to walk away

from a bloody clearing in eastern Kentucky with a fistful, busted antler, and a curse she would never

escape. She called out to the dog as that power blazed bright around her. Oh, I, here boy, fetch! The massive dog emerged from the whole of Spectre's jaws open, eyes burning, as the shape of an old worn black door, materialized in the air, just beyond the bonfire she had built, as she watched the door swung inward, and the flames blazed into a tower of white hot light, sending purifying energy out in radiating waves, sweeping the dead, the dog, and all things that

belonged on the other side of the veil through the open door. After a few moments, it swung shut and faded away. The flames died down, just a normal bonfire now. If one made particularly aromatic by the herbs used in the working, she sat by that fire until it settled into a low smolder, staring into the dying flames and pondering what to do next. In the cemetery, a great shadow moved, but she was on a frayed. She knew the difference between an oversized dark-touched

mongrel, and an oversized green-touched bear. There was a shuffling as four feet became too, and a handsome dark-skinned man with a dark-beard wearing an even darker suit emerged from the cemetery gait, pausing for a moment to close it behind him. "Hail, sister. I." "Safe it. You're very face-told fool." "Why did you bring me here, worth all of you?" "You needed rest, daughter of Catherine, and Edith. Your walk with the child was long, and the cost of bringing you home was great.

You needed a place where you would be safe, and we could observe." "Oh, observed, did you?" "Watch from afar as these good people living in dead, got chewed up by that bloody dog?" "Waited to see if I'd take it's offer and go run and back to my old master's, did you?" "We had to be sure that I was what. Still in the right mind, still on the right side."

You were weeded as a weapon against a hole of the world, and it took the might of the green

and the dark together to stop you. We would not have you stolen away again." "Stolen away? I'm not an enchanted sword, or a charmed amulet. I'm a person. A person with thoughts and dreams and wants and needs. I'm more than just a thing you bury in the ground to stop that abomination from bringing about the end of everything. "You agreed to the pack to make a mince. For the harm your foolish choice is caused when you were a child."

"That's just it. I was a child. A clever child. A child all the same, and a child mourning the death of her mother's beside. I was angry and sad and I wanted bloody vengeance

“for what had been taken from me. Where was the green then, eh? Hell, where was the green just now?”

People died here about all of you. Good people. They took me in and they died for it. The dead asked for my help, and they suffered for it. Most of them didn't even know my name, and they died. For what? So the Jew could test my loyalty? It was necessary. So say you. And I'll tell you what's necessary. I need to live my life. I need to be alone for a while. I pass you a little examination. It's time for you to hold up your end of the bargain,

and let me have the years of the cycle to live for you. Go on. Leave me be. "If I go, you'll return when it's time to bind the child once more." "You'd better hope I do."

“"Sister, I'll be there yethati old beast." And give me some space. Be gone.”

I've a lot to think about. The sun chose that moment to emerge from behind a cloud, and daughter duly shaded her eyes against it. The warmth of the green washing over her body and warming her bones like the embrace of a long absent friend. When she looked around, she was, as she had requested, alone.

Well, hey there family. There you go. We come to the end of the first story arc in season six of

old gods of Appalachia long shadow. We've got more stories to tell and more miles to go. But I hope you enjoyed your time with good daughter duly and that daughter-old bear. I truly hope you do. And hey, if daughter duly aka the witch queen just happens to be your favorite character,

“you should know that we have a handful of designs of feature her, including one with Bartholomew”

as well. Over on our classic merch store, you can pick those up on a t-shirt, a hoodie, maybe a mug, whatever floats your particular boat. At merch.old godsvapalachia.com.

If this was your first time crossing paths with a certain albano horror and the black mouth dogs,

and for some reason you ain't scared enough, well, you can find whole storylines featuring them over in the hall. Head on over to old godsvapalachia.com/theholler today, hit up build mama a coffin for more of that hungry mother, or listen to the full saga of the mean mouth critters in black mouth dog. This is your granny why it is loose on the main feed terrorized and everybody's so nutty all are safe for munder. The old godsvapalachia is

a production of deep nerd media and is distributed by Rusty Quill. Today's story was written and edited by Steve Shell and Cam Collins. Our intro music is by Brother Landon Blood, and our outro music day is by those poor bastards. The voice of Granny White was Betsy Puckett, and the voice of Brother Bartholomew is Dr. Ray Christian. Talk to you soon, family. Talk to you real soon,

and we'll see you soon.