The Art of the Haunted

W.F. James

Description

A Thriller with a Heart… A group of inner city delinquent boys is engaging in a horrible crime of violence, when suddenly a strange man appears. He is immediately attacked, but he defeats their aggression. He subdues them and makes them listen to scary ghost stories, throughout the night until help arrives. The unwilling audience becomes enthralled by the excitement and thrills, and the mystery, as slowly the stranger captures their hearts and minds. Finally a tale of Islamic Jihad in 12th Century Spain directly relates back to their own conflicts in the modern urban so-called “ghetto”. The tales all touch on art, and the stranger is an artist, a tortured soul whose gifts and skills transform their lives, but at a terrible cost. The characters are very real and believable, as is the harshness of their reality that is motivating their behavior. As the plot builds from crisis to crisis, the changes that occur become clear and understandable, as logical results of the driving action. The ghost stories, embedded in the plot, can stand on their own and are exciting and entertaining in their own right, but their significance is slowly revealed as the book nears its conclusion, when the meaning of all the action begins to dawn on the boys, and the reader. Readers say my book makes them cry, a lot, quite unusual for a violent thriller, which this book certainly is. It does show some insight into the mentoring process taking boys from violent, macho 15 year olds to civilized adult men. Author: The author had formal training in the Fine Arts, had been a painter, and had mentored inner city delinquent boys. The author also amassed a vast collection of antiquities from the world’s ancient cultures, each piece having its own story. These factors in the author’s life were the direct inspiration for this fearful tale of mystery and harsh reality, yet touches the heart with love.

Sujets

• Thrillers
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Outskirts Press
• Date de parution: 30 octobre 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781478747970
• Langue: English

Extrait

This is a work of fiction. The events and characters described herein are imaginary and are not intended to refer to specific places or living persons. The opinions expressed in this manuscript are solely the opinions of the author and do not represent the opinions or thoughts of the publisher. The author has represented and warranted full ownership and/or legal right to publish all the materials in this book.

The Art of the Haunted
A Ghost Story
All Rights Reserved.
Copyright © 2014 W.F. James
v2.0

Cover Photo © 2014 JupiterImages Corporation. All rights reserved - used with permission.

This book may not be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in whole or in part by any means, including graphic, electronic, or mechanical without the express written consent of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 9781478747970

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013919825

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PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
To Elizabeth
Contents
Book I: Halloween
Chapter 1: Prologue
Chapter 2: Little One
Chapter 3: Draco
Chapter 4: The Rite of Blood
Book II: The Tales of Don Miguel
Chapter 5: The Incubus
Chapter 6: Don Miguel
Chapter 7: The Intruder
Chapter 8: The Vampire
Chapter 9: Manifestations of Shiva
Chapter 10: Slaying the Buffalo Daemon
Chapter 11: The Chapelle of the Mysteries
Book III: The Wrath of God
Chapter 12: Paradise
Chapter 13: The Cult of Carts
Chapter 14: The Assassin
Chapter 15: Sancho
Chapter 16: Death to Wisdom, Death to Good Men
Chapter 17: The Ordeal
Chapter 18: The Day of Wrath
Book IV: The Haunted Museum
Chapter 19: “I Don’t Understand”
Chapter 20: The Iron Door
Chapter 21: God Grant Me Courage
Chapter 22: The Judgement of Allah
Chapter 23: Epilogue
Book I
Halloween
Chapter 1
Prologue
“I T WAS MOVING!” And now, as the avalanche of distant memories tumbled forth and overwhelmed my conscious mind, I lovingly remembered the mysterious Don Miguel, one night’s faithful friend and mentor, molder of my future life, my savior on that awful night of Halloween so long ago. “I CANNOT BEAR IT” and yet, I must, because to lose the bad will also end my memory of the good. I must write it all down now, before my mind, to save itself, destroys it all forever. So, Don Miguel, my love and praise for thy noble life must be mangled with the horror of thy end. Awakening the memories, thy wisdom and thy loving sacrifice for me also dredges up the murderer, Draco, and his delinquent gang of boys. And Dragonstar, the evil monster, hurling his bloody horde against the Citadel of Paradise, still believed by some to be the “Chosen One” of God.
Now, as I stand within the Chapelle of the Mysteries, rebuilt within the great Museum of Art, I remember the conflict of the three great cultures of the Book, Muslim, Jew, and Christian, which caused it to be built, the anguish of their strife, the force of their history, all of the meaning and emotion of that time, captured and crammed within these Chapelle walls of this great work of Art, to the point of explosion. The good and the bad are all here too, ready to explode into consciousness, as if it were the traumatic memory of the age itself, secretly preserved within these carved and painted exquisitely inlaid stones. Art, a living metaphor of the mind of an age, haunted by the pain and suffering, crushing failures, exalted ideals and loving dreams of that age, preserved but unresolved.
Even so, my mind, exploding with the memories of that terrible night, both good and bad, shall once again lock them away, preserved but unresolved, to protect itself. Before I do, I write them down, from mind to Art, to be free from their spell . . . or be forever haunted.

It was here beneath the Great Museum’s façade we met that night, in the primitive landscape of its park and grounds, enchantingly so beautiful by day, but awesome in uncanny power to frighten us by night. Here, Draco bade his gang, and me, to meet with him that Halloween, at midnight in the darkness far below the proud, imposing, moonlit, glistening outline of the Great Museum.
The great Museum of Art, a Parthenon façade, had wings extending out and forward on each side, as arms reach out embracing you. In daylight, this embrace is gradually seen and felt as one ascends the hundred broad stone steps, the museum creeping into view, sitting firmly on a flattened hill above the gleaming city. The Greek façade was dignified, imposing, but the arms reached out, inviting one and all. When standing before the soaring fountain of the Museum’s central plaza, one can see at least a mile or more along the Parkway from the base of the Museum steps to the Center City skyline. Waterfalls on either side of the Art Museum steps cascaded from landing to landing, with deep pools on each level where ghetto kids, like me, used to splash and revel throughout the sultry summer months. We never thought to actually enter the Art Museum, even on Sundays when admission was free, and throngs of people climbed the steps and felt the museum’s embrace. But they were “white people” and “rich people,” not like us. We didn’t know anyone who went to the museum. It didn’t seem to be a place for us, even though we lived near the Museum, generation after generation.
The so-called urban ghetto had grown up around the Museum, especially around the park behind the Museum. This park was the remnant of a primeval forest whose moss-covered trees, hundreds of years old, lined forest paths beaten down by millions of footsteps over many centuries, winding among the rocky crags left over from the ice age. Even when the first Europeans came here, over four hundred years ago, they were in awe of this primeval glen, perched on the sheer stone precipice above the great river. Far below was the waterfall in the narrowest part of the gorge, spanned by the eight-lane suspension bridge, where traffic from three states flowed past the Museum and up the Parkway into Center City. Enveloped in mist from the waterfall below, partway down the cliff, hidden beneath the bridge, was a natural rock ledge considered sacred by the Native Americans as an ancestral meeting place, but now serving as a support for the great bridge. This is where Draco led his gang on that fatal Halloween night, many years ago.
For as long as anyone could remember, the park was surrounded by a high stone wall, and no one was ever allowed in the park after dark. There were stories of people entering the park after dark and never coming back. Museum patrons were ushered out of the park by 5:00 p.m ., but there were always those in awe of the primitive glen who just had to see it at sunset. Sometimes kids from the ghetto would jump the wall for the excitement of doing something forbidden. People were discovered raped and murdered in the park. Sometimes they just disappeared and were never seen again. Those who wandered in the park at night were easy targets for ghetto violence.
Yet, some of my neighbors attributed these disappearances to the supernatural. There was an ancient cemetery at the far end of the park, dating back three hundred years, but with huge monuments and a small village of mausoleums from the Victorian era, constituting a kind of necropolis, a city of the dead. This cemetery was also a tourist destination, a historical site, but not often visited after dark, except for occasional guided tours on Halloween night. When seen from a distance, the hilltop, covered with huge obelisks, resembled a forest of dead trees or the remains of an ancient civilization. Some superstitious people in the so-called ghetto claimed they saw strange blue lights in the graveyard, and sometimes they heard low moans and bloodcurdling screams and the howling of wild animals.
But the ghetto had terrors of its own, especially for the vulnerable and unprotected, for children like me and women like my mother. My African American father was dead, and my Hispanic mother tried to raise me amid drug abuse and violence in the poor Black and Hispanic neighborhoods. She was a good mother who tried to keep me away from danger and adverse influences, but all around me was temptation to follow a different path, to be accepted by my peers. I looked up to Draco as a powerful male image, the kind of man we all wanted to be. I was so naïve. I strayed toward Draco and the other boys in his gang, trying to be like them, lying to my mother so I could go with them to the Museum Park that fatal Halloween night of drugs, torture, and death.
Chapter 2
Little One
“L ittle One,” that’s what Draco used to call me, but he would draw out the “one” to make it sound like Juan, my real name. Sometimes he called me Juanito in a sarcastic mimic of my mother’s name for me.
My mother couldn’t understand that I was twelve years old, and I could not keep accepting her authority without question. She was watching me closely, watching who I hung with, watching where I went and how long I stayed. If I gave in to her parental authority, I felt less than a man giving in to a woman when all the other boys were trying to act macho. I felt like a weakling, something I was afraid I might really be.
If I tried to be more independent, I became defiant and got into verbal battles with her. I became too rebellious. There was no in-between with my mother when I was twelve. With her, either I gave in too much, or I rebelled too much.
I always thought that if I had a father, I would accept his authority over me. A father could have kept me in line. A father could have been tough enough to make me listen, but I would have listened to him anyway. I would want him to be someone that boys listened to, because I would want to be a strong man like him some day. I would identify with him becaus