Hallon Seed Day 02

Mark's eyes opened to the morning sun beaming through the window and a hint of a morning-wood lump in the surface of the top sleeping bag. He turned his head to see Julia still asleep. She was on her side, facing him, curled up tight, with the sleeping bag pressed into her chin.

The sun was high enough that he was not in the way of it lighting up her face. Her blonde hair shimmered, and strands hung down across her nose and closed eyes. Not wanting to risk waking her, he moved as delicately as he could to brush the strands aside without touching her.

She looked so different when she was asleep. She'd been hiding behind a facade, of one design or another, since before they'd met, but there were little moments, when she was not thinking about anything that troubled her. Little moments when she didn't know he saw her facade fall.

This was one of those far too rare moments when she was sincere, and that sincerity amplified her beauty exponentially. This was the face he wanted to touch. Those were the lips he wanted to kiss. Those were the eyes through which he could see how magnificent she could truly be.

He knew that if they opened right now, he would see that magnificence, if only for a moment, before she remembered to put her mask back on. Maybe, just maybe, if he was quick enough, he could capture that sincerity in a kiss, and hold it long enough for the mask to crack and fall apart.

For almost three years, he'd been keeping an eye out for that moment, but he'd always been too far away or just in the middle of some other task.

But right now, he was right in front of her, and he was doing nothing else. He could touch her face and wake her up, and maybe that would be the opportunity. But no. He couldn't force it. It would surely fail if he tried to fabricate any part of it.

So he carefully eased closer. Positioned himself perfectly to extend his neck. His hand relaxed between them, but ready to move in one smooth motion to wrap around her head, beneath her ear. Press to those lips, before she had a chance to close her eyes, and draw that sincerity out into the light of day.

He waited. Minutes passed. She stirred slightly and let out a quiet, sleepy moan, but did not waken. He became distracted by that moan. It filled his thoughts. He wondered what had the honor of inspiring that moan. What was she dreaming?

He wanted to make her moan like that. He wanted to make her moan in a variety of ways. Every beautiful sound in honor of him, yet in honor of her.

His erection grew. He resisted the urge to move that ready hand under the sheet and slide it down his pants, but soon it became unbearable.

He carefully rolled over, pulled away the blanket, sat on the edge of the bed, and slipped his feet into his shoes. Quietly, but quickly, he went down the stairs and into the kitchen to search for the roll of paper towels they had brought, but he could not find them. He settled for a disposable plastic cup.

He freed his rampant dick, spit in his hand, and rubbed it into the pre-cum already threatening to drip from him onto the floor. More than sufficiently lubricated, he stroked himself vigorously, trying to get it done quickly, and in just a few minutes he was shooting several streams into the cup.

He slowly milked himself and scraped the remaining cum off the tip of his dick using the rim of the cup. After a sigh of relief, he shoved his deflating penis back into his underwear.

How to dispose of the evidence, he wondered. He didn't want Julia to find it. Just putting it in the garbage bag was too risky. Probably better take it outside and dirt wash it first.

Suddenly there was a sound from the presumed basement. He completely forgot about his objective and walked to that shut door. He listened closely for a moment. There was another sound of stirring, but nothing loud enough to truly distinguish.

He turned the knob. It was unlocked. He slowly pulled the door open, peering through the crack. There didn't seem to be anything immediately inside. There was not enough ambient sunlight to allow him to see much of anything at all.

He grabbed a small flashlight from the counter and turned it on. It was not a lot of light, but it allowed him to see about seven steps down before darkness enveloped everything.

He listened intently as he took each step as stealthily as he could. As he descended, the flashlight revealed more steps, and then eventually a wooden floor. He swept the area with the inadequate light.

From the last step, a set of rotting shelves came into view; a stark contrast to the floor on which it stood, which showed no signs of decay. He walked to the front of the shelf, finding some of the planks broken. The unbroken ones contained what appeared to be some very old leather straps; maybe a horse's bridle or any number of a thousand things that were made of leather a century ago.

Before he could react, to a clinking sound of metal to his left, something snatched the cup from his hands and retreated back into the darkness.

"SHIT!" he cried out, stumbling backward and onto the floor, dropping the flashlight, which rolled and pointed away from the direction of... whatever that thing was.

Barely audible over his pounding heartbeat in his ears were sounds of chains clinking and what he could only imagine was a desperate animal eating. No. The vocal noises... a... human?

There was a brief moment of silence, and then the cup came flying towards him from the pitch blackness. It bounced on the wooden floor, echoing its high, hollow sounds, halfway through which was also heard, "More." The cup was quickly silent and then, "I need more. Give me more."

The... female?... voice demanded, but it also sounded desperate. In pain.

"Please give me more", it begged, this time sounding pitiful. "I can help you," it said quickly. "I know how," was almost drowned out by the sounds of chains being dragged across the floor, and then a shadowy figure rushed toward him.

He cried out in fear and began scrambling backward, away from hands grasping at his stomach and waist.

"No. I can help," the voice said, almost pleading for understanding.

"GET BACK!" he shouted. The figure followed him a short distance more and then stopped abruptly, but he continued until a brick wall stopped him.

Julia appeared in the doorway with a lantern.

"Mark?"

"Stay back," he shouted to her. "Something's down here." There were more clanking sounds as the thing retreated.

"What is it," she asked.

"I don't know. I can't see anything. It tried to attack me, but I think it's chained up."

"It's an animal?"

"I..." He hesitated, attempting to wrap his head around what just happened. "I think it's a person."

"I will not hurt you," the voice said. "I want only more food." It sounded almost on the verge of crying. "Please. I am so hungry."

"I'm coming down," Julia said. If there's genuinely someone starving down here, then she needed to help them, but she was still going to be cautious.

"No. Stay up there," Mark half commanded, half begged.

"I'm armed," Julia warned, ignoring Mark's order, and started down the steps, holding the lantern far out in front of her in one hand, and the medium sized water-boiling pot in the other. As she reached the bottom step, Mark called out to her.

"Stop there. She might be able to reach you if you get any closer."

"She?" Julia stopped. "Are you chained up," she asked into the darkness.

"Yes," the voice said, after a pause. It was either honest or just very convincing.

"Come out as far as you can. So I can see you," Julia calmly ordered.

There was a brief silence, and then the sounds of chains dragging on wood again. A vague figure appeared just out of the lantern's range. The dragging sound stopped, but the figure moved closer one more step, presumably pulling the chain taut.

"Hold your hands out in front of you, so I can see them," Julia ordered, as she stepped onto the floor. Hands reached just far enough into the light for Julia to see them, so she moved closer.

The person's head was turned away from the light, but what Julia saw was about four and a half feet tall, with very messed up, long, dirty hair, wearing a long, baggy outfit of some kind. It seemed to be all one piece, like a long shirt, except it seemed to have an overlap along the upper lengths arms to the neck. The design on the outfit appeared to be purple and black horizontal stripes, about two inches wide.

Barely poking out from the sleeves were a pair of dirty hands, which, upon closer inspection, appeared to be shackled and bound together by a chain approximately one foot long.

Both the finger and toenails were long, discolored, and very jagged .

"I know the light is bright," Julia said. "Close your eyes and turn your face to me."

The mass of hair slowly turned, revealing a dirt-smudged face. She couldn't make out the features very well, but it appeared to be a young girl. A metal collar was around her neck. Julia moved the lantern to look behind the girl, and as expected, the chain that limited her walking distance was attached to the back of the collar.

Julia was not sure what to think. The girl looked like she had been down here far longer than any person could have survived without food, yet she was standing there, with no visible signs of diminished strength.

Mark had been watching intently. After Julia had lit more of the chain, he was able to make a reasonable estimation about what direction it went, and what circular range it offered. He picked himself up off the floor and cautiously walked toward Julia.

The girl turned her head back in Mark's direction and sniffed the air twice. Mark stopped.

"Hey," Julia said firmly. "What are you doing," she demanded of the girl.

"I can smell traces of his seed," the girl said.

"What," Julia asked, confused.

"Please give me more. I am so hungry." The girl dropped to her knees and held her stomach.

"What the hell is she talking about, Mark?"

He certainly didn't know what to say, so he said nothing while he retrieved his flashlight and joined Julia at the foot of the stairs.

"I had some in a cup, and she snatched it out of my hand. I think she drank it."

"Drank what," she asked, not the least bit enlightened by that information.

"My... seed."

"What seed? What are you talking about?"

Mark could hear the frustration and anger in her voice. He wished she'd just put two and two together, to save him from saying it out loud, but no such luck. No use mincing words anymore.

"I jerked off into a cup this morning and was holding it when I came down here to check on a sound." There was silence, so he looked over to her. "She stole it from me and drank it," his voice trailing off.

She had no words. The entire sentence sounded as if it must have been an auditory hallucination. None of those words made any sense in that order. She stared at him with her mouth hanging open.

"What the holy fuck, Mark?"

He shook his head slightly and shrugged a little.

"Why were you doing... ANY of that?"

"Is that really important, right now," Mark asked, trying to divert that particular line of questioning.

She stared at him a moment more, exhaled a huff, and turned her face forward. She sat down on the last step and set the lantern and the metal pot on the floor so she could rest her head on her fingers to think.

"I'm gonna go get more light," he said, hurrying back up the steps. It was probably a good idea to not be in the room for at least a little while.

He went back to the bedroom and grabbed the lantern from his side of the bed, went out to the jeep and found the larger flashlight, and then searched some rooms for candles.

He didn't actually need all of it, but he was trying to keep busy, to give Julia time to settle. He had wanted to look for candles, later, anyway. Constantly carrying a lantern everywhere at night was a bother. He took some thick candles from the rooms they didn't plan to use, and he set them down in strategic locations in the rooms they were using.

Back in the kitchen, he left his lantern on the counter and brought the box of wooden matches, and the better flashlight, back down with him to the basement. He could barely hear Julia and the girl talking, and when he got halfway down, Julia turned her head and looked up at him.

Mark was relieved that she no longer looked mad, however her new expression was not all that encouraging, either. She looked worried, but more like worried for him. He decided not to pry, just yet. He turned on the flashlight and decided to check out the rest of the basement. At least the area out of reach of that girl.

The walls were brick, and bare, except for a long stone trough that ran almost entirely around the room, about five feet off the ground. It stuck out from the wall about four inches, with the trough itself about one inch deep. The inside glistened with some sort of residue which smelled like it would definitely be flammable.

He lit a match and touched it to the residue. A sizable flame rose up and traveled around the room. By the time it had stopped, the entire room was lit more than enough to no longer need the flashlight or lantern. He found it a bit odd that the flames did not produce any smoke. In fact, neither the walls behind the flames, nor the ceiling above, were coated in soot.

He looked over to Julia, who seemed decidedly unimpressed by the illuminating discovery. She was talking too quietly with the girl for him to hear, and Julia's hand was now on the girl's shoulder. She removed her hand, turned off her lantern, and then looked over to him.

"You know that tool shed in the back," she asked him.

"Yeah," he replied.

"Would you get that pickaxe thing out of it and bring it down here, please?" That was curiously pleasant of her.

"Sure," he agreed. As he passed by the two of them, the girl looked down at the floor, obviously trying to avoid looking at him.

"Thanks," Julia said, as he started up the stairs.

He set the flashlight on the kitchen counter and walked on through to the door leading out the back. About ten feet to the left, was the tool shed. He opened the door, and inspected the variety of now antique tools. The integrity of all of them was questionable, but many seemed to still be in... technically usable condition.

He found a tool that was a pick on one end of the head and a hoe, of sorts, on the other. It fit the description of a "pickaxe thing" better than any of the other tools, many of which he was unable to identify, so he took that and went back to the basement.

He was a little surprised to see the flames still burning strong, given that the fuel was only a thin residue.

Julia stood up as he went down the steps. When he was next to her, she pointed in the direction of the long length of chain and said, "Over there."

He looked down at the girl who had attacked him before, and within reaching distance of where he would have to put himself in order to go where Julia had directed.

"Don't worry. She won't do anything," Julia assured. He decided to trust her and walked past the girl, who was again looking at the floor.

Julia lead him around to the other side of the dilapidated shelf. In the corner of the room, on the floor, was a pile... a nest, really, of threads, material fragments, and strands of black hair, apparently serving as a bed. There seemed to be more hair in that pile than the girl had on her head.

Julia pointed to an iron plate bolted into the brick wall. In the center was attached the other end of the long chain which had held the girl at bay.

"See if you can break the brick apart and get that plate off," Julia instructed, and then stepped back out of the way.

Mark tapped the plate with the point of the pick, as a small test of the tool's reliability. It seemed stable enough, so he took position and swung at the brick, prepared for the handle to shatter, or for something else to go wrong.

The handle vibrated uncomfortably, but nothing broke. He was sure that he hit the brick, but he saw no damage. He took position for another swing. The impact caused the handle to vibrate even more. It probably was not going to be able to take much more of that.

He looked at the area above the plate. He was certain his aim was dead on, but the brick was left completely intact. There was not even a small plume of brick dust. He looked at Julia.

"It's not doing anything to it," he said.

She glanced at him as she turned, taking the pick from him, and walked back over to the girl. Julia stood in front of the girl, who, without a word, placed her dirty hands on the wooden floor, as wide as the shorter chain would allow. Pick end down, Julia raised the tool over her head.

That's not right, was what went through Mark's mind, assuming she was going to try to break the chains. She was using the wrong end of the tool, and the chain should have been allowed to lay on the floor. He barely managed to say, "Wait," before Julia swung downward, planting the tip of the pick right into the middle of the back of the girl's left hand.

The girl cried out in pain.

"SHIT!" Mark dropped down help the girl, fully expecting the pick to have gone completely through her hand and into the floor below, but when the tool was pulled away, there was only a small, shallow wound that barely bled.

He looked up at Julia, confused. She turned to face the wooden steps, raised the pick high, and landed several heavy blows onto one of them, stopping only when the metal of the tool began to separate from the handle.

She pointed to the spot where she had hit and looked at him, waiting for him to look for himself. He moved to inspect the area, but found absolutely no new damage. He looked up at Julia.

"We need to talk," she said.

He followed her up the steps and to the bedroom. She paced next to the bed and gestured for him to sit down. He complied and then looked up at her. When she happened to turn and look at him, he said, "What's going on?"

"How much do you know about your great-whatever grandfather that built this place?"

"Almost nothing. No one ever mentioned him. I mean, why would they, since he was so long ago. The only reason I know anything at all was because I had a family tree project in high school. His wife divorced him, some time when their son was very young, and moved half way across the country with the boy."

"The lawyer that gave me the deed said that it, and the key, had been passed down through the generations, but that no one ever wanted to do anything with them. Everyone lived too far away to bother. Eventually I got it."

"The lawyer said there had been an arrangement made with the bank, that upon his death, his fortune would go to the bank, under the condition that they keep the house and property in the family, in perpetuity. Really old bank, I guess"

"So, you don't know why his wife left him," Julia asked.

"Nope. Don't even know his name."

"Well, apparently his name was Phillip Hallon, and he was not a good man, by any stretch of the imagination."

"How do you know this," he asked.

She hesitated. "That girl told me."

"How does she know?"

"Because," she paused, apprehensively, "she was there." Julia stopped pacing and looked him in the eye.

He was silent a moment. "Say what?"

She sat down next to him on the bed.

"Remember how you noticed the unusually good condition of the wood?"

"Yeah," he replied.

"And what happened just a few minutes ago with the pickaxe thing?"

"Yeah," he repeated.

"That... girl, and this house, are... cursed... sort of." She waited for some kind of response.

"Well... I don't exactly disbelieve you, but I can't think of a better explanation yet, so let's hear yours."

"Phillip Hallon..." she paused. "I know this going to sound ridiculous, but Phillip Hallon made a deal with the Devil."