The Eaton Read online

  praise for

  T H E

  EATON

  “The Eaton is an astonishing debut. A tense and suspenseful thriller set in Mid-Michigan, filled with historical information, I could not put this down! Fresh, original, and truly terrifying.” - Kirk Montgomery, WILX-TV

  “Reading John K. Addis was like reading an eighties horror movie. It’s fast paced, macabre and full of gritty atmospheric settings, along with a relentlessly chilling plot from an author who’s mastered the genre!” - Catherine Rose Putsche, Top #40 Regional Goodreads Reviewer, Author of “The Surgeon’s Son”

  “The Eaton is the best kind of horror. Some of the images are so vivid that I had to put it down for a few minutes, let myself relax, take a few breaths, and then I could continue. You have to keep reading to see what happens next, even if you are afraid to find out.” - Bill Mackela, Bill’s Book Reviews

  “Amazing debut by a really talented author. This is one of those books that will stick with you after you read it—Addis does a great job of putting you in the action.” - Alec Drachman, Goodreads

  “I would recommend The Eaton to anyone who loves a good horror story with rich, well-developed characters who all have their secrets they would like to keep hidden, but are faced with a horror they’ve never met.” - Melanie Marsh, FangFreakinTasticReviews.com

  T H E

  EATON

  JOHN K. ADDIS

  SMASHWORDS EDITION

  Copyright © 2015-2016 by John K. Addis.

  All rights reserved.

  Book layout and cover designed by AE Press,

  a division of Addis Enterprises LLC.

  Author photo by Jennifer Berggren.

  www.aenow.com

  To my Father, for the many late-night

  horror movies, and for looking

  like Stephen King.

  prologue

  Jonathan Wesley’s head pounded in perfect time to the whiskey-drenched drumbeat of his blood. He tried to force his eyes shut, to drown out the reality around him, but found this sapped the energy away from his fists, as if he could only keep one part of his ravaged body clenched at a time. He chose the fists, looked around again in the dim light, saw the panicked faces of acquaintances and strangers, and the pounding worsened. He had to get out of here, but there was nowhere to go.

  Thump. Thump. Thump.

  “Help me with this,” someone yelled. Two men were moving a piece of furniture. Jonathan remained seated on the ground, his back leaning hard against the cold wall farthest from the door. He registered a new noise, and turned his head to his left—a little too fast, as it made his stomach curdle—and saw Nora shaking and sobbing over the blood-drenched body of a woman he didn’t know. The stranger was young, nearly naked, and clearly dead, her insides spilling out onto the carpet, a deep gash from one shoulder having ripped her apart like the flesh of a peach. The rough slice had severed one of her breasts, and only a thin flap of taut skin kept it from sliding off her body and into the gore. Nora wouldn’t stop with the damned crying, and the harsh sound of her sobs seemed to be getting louder and louder, taunting him, filling his head. It even threatened to be louder than his heartbeat. Though he had only met Nora two days ago, Jon was overcome with hate for her, and felt a macabre urge to tear off the stranger’s dangling dead breast before him and shove it down Nora’s fat blubbering throat.

  Keep it together, Jon.

  He became vaguely aware that there was now a new rhythm in the room, an even deeper pounding than his head, now a full syncopated timpani battle for domination of his senses. It was coming from the other side of the door. His fellow prisoners looked more terrified now, and at least two women had their heads in their hands. One man—Harland, he thought—was praying, on his goddamned knees and everything, begging for forgiveness. Jon wondered what Harland’s sins had been. He wondered if he should pray for his own.

  Thump. Ba-Thump. Ba-Ba-Thump.

  “Can’t you hear him?” screamed an older woman in white. She was gesturing with intensity toward the door, confronting the men who had succeeded in barricading the entrance with a heavy oak desk. “Can’t you hear my son?”

  Lady, Jon thought, even if they could hear him, they’re not going to move the desk. Besides, how would it help having another person trapped with us? There was still nowhere to go. And, no more to drink.

  He clenched his fists again. The room appeared to be slowly tumbling, veering off-kilter like a sinking ship. Everything seemed covered in gauze, and his peripheral vision had become black, vignetting the scene like a photograph.

  It’s shit. All of it.

  Jon had always been a mean drunk. Vicious, even. Isn't that what Niamh had said? But perhaps being drunk just revealed the truth. If the past few days had taught him anything, it was that seeing things clearly required a hell of a lot of booze. So it wasn't his fault that, when he saw things clearly, every person on the planet was a worthless, festering pile. Including himself.

  All of this, all of life, the shit of bulls.

  Jonathan clenched his eyes tight, trying again to block out what remained of the world. But the naked woman was still dead. The old woman was still shouting. A new voice in the corner was beginning to wail.

  And the pounding at the door grew louder.

  one

  “Wake up, Sam.”

  Sam did not obey. His body lay motionless, on its stomach, a touch of drool dampening a spot of cotton sheet below his mouth. His light brown hair was matted comically to one side, the pillow having frozen yesterday’s gelled look into a half-mohawk. Upon a subsequent jostle, a quiet, dull moan escaped Sam’s parted lips. It was clear he remained far from consciousness, and as if to punctuate this fact, he followed the quiet moan with a significantly louder snore.

  “Samuel, wake up! It’s a big day.”

  This time, Sam’s eyes fluttered open, but only briefly. He mumbled something that sounded like “fiber menace,” which was more probably “five more minutes,” though only in context would Sarah have made that deduction. Even then, with Sam’s tendency toward wild, surreal nightmares, a “fiber menace” wasn’t outside the realm of possibility, either. Perhaps it was the distant future, and some old woolen blankets had become self-aware, learned to walk, armed themselves with atomic lasers, and were presently terrorizing the streets of Sam’s psyche.

  Sam’s dreams sometimes bled into the real world, too, which is why today was especially significant. After months of fighting with mortgage companies, banks, real estate agents, zoning boards, and even his parents, Sarah’s beloved boyfriend was finally going to become the legal owner of the long-abandoned Michigan Central Railroad station in Eaton Rapids, Michigan. And, after an estimated six months of intense repair, restoration, and build-out, this derelict station would be successfully transformed into a chic new martini bar. In Sam’s mind, the task was already accomplished—he could picture it so clearly. A signature cocktail would end up on top-ten lists in trendy publications, while respected indie bands would fall over themselves offering to play to the intimate crowd. The establishment’s name was to be determined later, as Sam didn’t want to jinx the property sale by committing to a specific moniker, but Sarah knew that he was partial to the semi-eponymous “Spice.”

  Sam let out another deep, tortured snore. Sarah was reminded how their relationship would never had succeeded without her ability to sleep through anything.

  “Oh for God’s sake,” she mumbled, strategizing her next attempt. Sam was still wearing yesterday’s undershirt; perhaps she could pull it over his head.

  Instead, she leaned in and whispered.

  “Samuel T. Spicer, you will wake up this instant, and make wild, ravenous love to your very hot and barely clothed fiancée.”


  That did it. Sam’s eyes opened, and he looked up at Sarah, who was sitting playfully cross-legged beside him. She was wearing a loose-fitting grey tank top, which made both her short, black hair and her porcelain skin pop like an old photograph against the beiges and browns of the blankets and sheets. And, she had been truthful—the tank top was the entirety of her ensemble.

  Sam closed his eyes and smiled, stretching out a bit on his side of the bed, the faint odor of sweat and old cologne wafting up around them.

  “I love it when you sound all literal,” he slurred dreamily.

  “You mean literary.”

  “Yes, literalary.”

  Sarah rolled her eyes.

  “But,” he continued, pivoting his body to stretch in another direction, “unless I was talking in my sleep, you are not yet my fiancée.”

  As his eyes were still closed, he had no warning of the pillow which was slicing through the air toward the side of his head.

  Thump.

  “Hey!”

  Sam opened his eyes and wrestled the fluffy weapon from his giggling attacker. He tossed it off the bed, over his shoulder, and didn’t notice that it struck and nearly toppled a lamp on the nearby nightstand.

  Sarah was reaching for a second pillow, a back-up armament, but Sam grabbed and pinned her wrists instead. She responded with a smoldering pout, and stared him down as she untangled her crossed legs, letting herself slide along the sheets toward his body. It was amazing to Sarah how much she had grown to trust this man, as it wasn’t long ago that she had been frozen with fear at any hint of bondage. With Sam, her lips melted into a smile, as twice she pretended to try to escape the cuffs made by his strong arms.

  “Well, you got me,” purred Sarah with delicious, manufactured innocence. “I can’t move at all. What are you going to do about that?”

  He felt one of her toes snag and tug at the side of his boxer briefs, pulling them down, until he released her wrists and assisted in the maneuver, quickly joining her in lower nudity.

  Sarah’s arms stayed fixed where they had been, as if pinned against the mattress by invisible hands. Sam took the hint and returned to his previous position of playful dominance, clutching her wrists in his usual mastery of delicate and deliberate. Her green eyes seemed to sparkle at this, and she bit her lower lip, a deliberate act that she knew drove him wild.

  “You really are too good to me, Sarah.”

  “I know. That’s why you’re going to marry me.”

  Sam had begun to kiss a trail down her neck and collarbone, pausing at the vaguely Celtic, jet-black tattoo half-hidden by her tank top. He had begun tracing the inked pattern with the very tip of his tongue, but recognized the need for a verbal response to her claim. “Oh yeah?” he offered, distractedly, as he moved south, running his lips over the hard outline of her right nipple, the one pierced with steel and iron, straining through the thin fabric of her shirt.

  “Oh yeah,” Sarah responded with a confident nod, while wrapping her bare legs against the back of his thighs, pulling him into her. A broad smile crept over her face as his teeth brushed almost imperceptibly against the hard steel piercing her flesh. “And then I’m going to divorce your ass and take your new bar.”

  Sam’s eyes shot up to hers, but his lips and teeth remained in place. He bit down on the piercing, and she cried aloud, some syllable lost between “oh” and “Sam” and “God” and “fuck.”

  He was going to marry her, alright.

  *

  Vaughn was waiting for them at the old station, sitting outside on a concrete step in the chilly air. His face exploded into a toothy grin as he saw Sam’s Mustang pull into the large gravel space that was once, allegedly, a parking lot.

  “I’m going to have to pave this,” Sam remarked to Sarah in monotone.

  “Maybe if you bought a car with more than two inches of clearance on its ass, you wouldn’t have to worry.”

  Sam thought for a moment.

  “The ass of a car isn’t the underbelly, it’s the trunk.”

  “What? That’s stupid. You sit on your ass. It’s closest to the ground.”

  “No, Sarah, your feet are closest to the ground, not your ass. You just think that because you sit around eating bon bons all day.”

  Sarah laughed aloud, an almost guttural guffaw, and punched his arm. “I’m a grad student. That’s what we do. I’m exercising my mind. That involves sitting on your butt.”

  Sam placed the car in park and removed the keys from the ignition. He turned to smile at her. “I’m still right.”

  Sarah scrunched her pixie nose in response. “As I may remind you,” she countered with playful snippiness, “I am the only one among us with genuine automotive knowledge.”

  “Helping your dad rebuild cars makes you an expert on simile?”

  “No, but being a grad student does. And besides,” she added, “what the hell is a ‘bon bon’?”

  They exited the car as Vaughn jogged up to them.

  “Hey man!” called Vaughn with giddy energy. He offered a quick, manly hug to his friend, then turned to nod at Sarah. “Your boy really got something sweet here.”

  “Why thank you,” replied Sarah, all exaggerated sunshine and rainbows. “I think I’m quite a catch myself!”

  Vaughn laughed, and caught himself from saying “no, I meant the building,” because he knew she knew exactly what he had meant, and was only trying to trap him into an awkward moment. So, instead, he played it smart, and said “you really are somethin’, Sarah. And this building! Sam’s got two beauties in his life now!”

  Sarah smirked in response, then gazed upward at the dilapidated old train station spread out across the horizon before her. “Yeah, two beauties.” A moment passed as they all gazed into the future at the work ahead.

  “Admittedly,” interjected Sam for the save, motioning toward his purchase, “this girl’s more of a fixer-upper.”

  The long side of the structure had seven boarded-up windows and a large, imposing door. Each short side of the station had just two windows, as it was a rather narrow rectangle of a box, and Sam’s agent had warned him of this potential shortcoming early on in the process. “I’m not sure it’s large enough for the kind of club you’re imagining,” she had explained. “There’s a lot of character, sure, but practically, wouldn’t you like a property a bit more…square?” But something about this building had just seemed right to Sam. With its tall, coved ceilings, beautiful dark wood molding (which was still in decent condition), all-original paneling, and float glass, this was the type of construction that just wasn’t made anymore. It had class, a sort of regal dignity, that demanded respect, even after—and in spite of—so many years of neglect.

  The three walked closer to the entrance, but Sam stopped short. Vaughn faltered a pace later, and turned back to his friend.

  “We’re not going in?”

  “I don’t have the key yet. Janet’s coming any minute now.”

  “You were at closing for, like, three hours, and they forgot the key?”

  Sam laughed. “Actually, I think Janet just wanted to be here when we made it official. She put a lot of work into this sale, too. Besides, I’m pretty sure she’s bringing champagne.”

  She was. Janet Blair pulled up seconds later in an ugly but allegedly expensive blue Volvo sedan, leaping out of her vehicle with cheerful impatience, clutching a bottle of Moët & Chandon.

  “Sammy! Sarah! You guys excited?” She beamed at them through her bulky sunglasses and bleached-white teeth, her hair over-permed and, with her short stature, altogether resembling something of an over-caffeinated Muppet in a burgundy blazer. Her stubby legs, already having to take two steps for every one of a tall person’s stride, were restrained further by a tight matching skirt, which required her to take more than fifty steps to travel from the Volvo to the door of the station less than twenty yards away. She handed the champagne bottle to Sam, almost peremptorily, brushing pas
t them on her way to the front door.

  “Vaughn,” said Sam, by way of introduction as Janet fumbled with the keys, “this is my Realtor, Janet Blair.”

  “Nice to meet you, ma’am.” Vaughn, a former Michigan State basketball forward, towered over the small middle-aged redhead like a great oak over a dandelion. She glanced up at him with annoyance.

  “You’re blocking my light, there, Shaq.”

  Vaughn blinked twice and looked pleadingly to Sam, who shook his head and offered a quick shrug, as if to say “don’t worry, she’s not racist, she’s just weird.”

  Janet had been a friend to the Spicer family for as long as Sam could remember, and had always been a bit of a character. He remembered her popping by the house unannounced with plates of cookies, even though she lived an hour away. He remembered her talking about guys she was enamored with, only later to describe them as “worthless ass-nuggets”—a colorful phrase which got Sam’s mouth washed out with soap when he repeated it the next day. He remembered her wedding, at which Sam met a girl he would disastrously date for months, and he remembered her bitter divorce, after which Janet stayed in the Spicer family’s guest room for weeks as she bawled over every shared detail of marital hell. And he remembered how, with each passing year, she seemed to get shorter, spunkier, and frizzier.

  “Success!” screeched the Muppet. Sam smiled and grasped his girl’s hand. Sarah gazed with pride at her trembling pre-fiancé. Vaughn let his bright, signature grin melt across his face once more.

  The ancient door creaked, lightly trembled as it cleared the molding, and opened.

  two

  The building took an audible breath of fresh, crisp Michigan air. Freed dust particles danced happily in the welcome rays of sunlight. A musty smell engulfed Janet, Vaughn, Sarah, and Sam as they stepped through the threshold.