The People Next Door 

This tale is about EVIL in rural America during The Depression Era in the late 1930's. The kidnapping and sacrificial murder of infants by members of a blood cult, and the Crenshaw family; a family brave enough to try to stop them.

    For nearly half a decade, infants had turned up missing in and around the town of Grover's Corner, Indiana. Babies stolen from backyard playpens, out of carriages; even from the safety of their cribs at night--most of them gone forever, but a few turning up later (what little was left of them) horribly mutilated. The local police conduct a cursory investigation, but soon blame such incidents on the depravity of "hungry transients." The Crenshaw Family discover that the ghouls responsible for this are the people living right next door to them. The police seem not to believe Nate and Martha Crenshaw when they report what they know, and they soon find out why. The cops are involved in it--some of them actually taking a part in the ritual murders. And so the Crenshaws decide to take matters into their own hands.

Sound good? I hope so.

Here is an excerpt from my book--

Martha Crenshaw speaking to Police Chief Higgins.

"I cannot adequately describe the unspeakable scene I beheld. Those god-awful people, those fiends were in the midst of some pagan ceremony, rocking slowly back and forth while chanting before a gigantic statue of black stone---a truly hideous thing, monstrous in size, resembling some horned gargoyle. The leader, a man named Caleb, held the baby aloft, as if presenting it to that---thing---while the others chanted the name, 'Rozianna', over and again as they swayed around him. I could understand nothing of the foreign-sounding language in which they spoke, except for the name, Rozianna, and that one other phrase, 'Holy Princess', which they all repeated over and over again.

"I could only stand, my eyes popping from my head as I watched one of the women take up a curved knife and sever the cord from the screaming infant's abdomen, then, looping it twice, place it upon the altar before that horrible demon-thing. Their chanting then turned into a monotonous dirge as Caleb carried the baby over to where a large cauldron stood beside the altar. Once again, Caleb held the baby aloft, all-the-while enunciating guttural-sounding phrases, as the assemblage, each of them in turn, dipped a small goblet into the cauldron and drank some of the thick, crimson-colored liquid.

"They continued their chanting in that monotonous cadence, their eyes traveling from the squalling baby to the bloodied umbilical cord lying upon the altar, then back again, their expressions solemn, expectant.

"Caleb held the baby out before him, as if in an offering gesture, toward that demon-faced statue, his words rising to a loud crescendo, then, suddenly, he plunged the baby into the cauldron, immersing it completely in the thick, red-brown liquid. There was a sudden, bright flash of fire from the altar, and the cord lying there began to shimmer, then to glow, its shape changing before my very eyes into---something else---a silver necklace.

"It was all too much for me to endure," Martha stated, shaking her head again. "When I saw all this---saw the umbilical cord change; saw the baby being drawn from the cauldron after that vile baptism, its tiny body dripping blood from head to toe---I screamed; I screamed until I thought my lungs would burst."

Don't you just love bloody babies?

I hope that you enjoyed what you've read.

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