Horribly Haunted in Hillbilly Hollow (Ozark Ghost Hunter Mysteries Book 1) Read online

  Horribly Haunted in Hillbilly Hollow

  Blythe Baker

  Copyright © 2018 by Blythe Baker

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Description

  Newsletter Invitation

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Excerpt

  About the Author

  ________________________________

  The ghosts of Hillbilly Hollow are whispering – and only Emma can hear them…

  Emma Hooper thought coming home to small town life and the family farm would give her a chance to rest and recover from a traumatic accident. But that was before she started seeing ghosts. It was before Grandma Hooper started singing on the roof, and it was way, way before anybody spotted a ghost in a 19th century cavalry uniform coming out of an outhouse.

  Can Emma learn to handle her newfound ability to see spirits, while figuring out a confusing relationship with the handsome local doctor? All while solving the ghastly murder of Preacher Jacob? Or is Hillbilly Hollow doomed to be forever haunted by a cold-blooded killer and a restless spirit?

  ________________________________

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  Chapter 1

  Somewhere between the instant when I dashed out the back door at midnight in Grandma’s nightgown and the moment when I found myself running barefoot through the muddy vegetable patch, chasing a frightened cow, it hit me. I was home again.

  It wasn’t exactly the cheery homecoming I had expected. I’d arrived late from the airport last night after a delayed flight, only to find that the tiny Missouri hometown I hadn’t visited in years rolled up its sidewalks after nine o’clock. By the time a taxi I’d grabbed at the airport let me off at my grandparents’ house, they were already dressed for bed. Grandma had stayed up just long enough to loan me a hideous nightgown and usher me up to my old childhood bedroom in the attic.

  It was only early June, but the attic was warm, and I’d had trouble sleeping. I tossed and turned on the cot Grandma had set up for me, trying to find a comfortable position to get some sleep.

  I felt as though I’d only been asleep for a few minutes when a familiar sound began to permeate my consciousness. It sounded like traffic, like the blare of taxi horns and the shuffling of feet as hordes of New Yorkers moved en masse from street to street during rush hour.

  Is that traffic? I had wondered in my half-asleep state. How? Am I back home?

  I rubbed my eyes to bring myself out of the haze and realized I was home, but not my home in New York.

  I stretched and scratched my belly, my fingertips connecting with a strange polyester fabric.

  Right! My luggage.

  I rolled my eyes, remembering that all my clothes, makeup, and other belongings were, at best, in a luggage hold fifty miles away, and at worst, circling the baggage claim at the wrong airport somewhere in the world.

  I walked over to the window to see what the noise could be coming from below. I popped my head through the round open window, and looked down to see cattle – at least a dozen head – traipsing back and forth in the front yard.

  “Well, sugar!” I exclaimed and clambered down the steps and out the front door to help Grandpa who was trying to contain the melee.

  “One around the back! Take this.” Grandpa casually tossed me a length of rope formed into a makeshift lasso.

  Amazingly, I caught it and ran around to the back of the house where I hoped the unruly bovine hadn’t trampled Grandma’s vegetable garden.

  Yowch! I muffled a faint yelp of pain as the arch of my bare foot connected with the sharp end of a twig sticking up from the mud.

  I could hear Grandpa’s voice growing fainter in the distance. “Hep, hep, hep, cows, hep!” His chant to round up the wayward cattle moved farther away as he herded them back to the right side of the fence.

  “Come on girl, I’m not gonna hurt you. Come on!” I urged and pleaded, but the thousand pound behemoth in front of me just looked at me blankly, uttering a noise that sounded more like meh than moo. Meh…keep tryin’, city girl, but I’m not budging!

  “Oh yes you are,” I replied to the imaginary conversation.

  I tried to toss the lasso around her neck, and missed. The giant black and white beast dipped her head, and started munching on the tall greens of a carrot plant. I made one more attempt to loop the rope around her head and lunged. She took a step backward and I fell, face-first into the mud.

  As I pushed myself up onto my hands, a loud crunching in my ear made me look over. I was eye-to-eye with the wayward cow, who was now making short work of a giant, purple cabbage plant.

  Grandma’s going to be livid, I thought as I carefully reached for the rope that was now dangling from the cow’s neck. Feeling victorious, I cinched the rope around her jaw and, standing, grabbed another carrot plant from the patch. I began to walk the beast back down to the pasture. I passed Grandpa on his way back to the house.

  “I was comin’ to see if you needed any help. Looks like you’ve got it all in hand, though.” He tipped his chin at the cow who was now happily chewing on the tips of the carrot greens.

  “Yep. I got her! Thanks, Grandpa,” I said, pushing back a strand of my brown hair now caked in drying gray mud.

  The dark eyes looking me up and down were older than mine, but the color and shape were the same. Now, they sparkled with a hint of amusement at my current muddy condition.

  “Make sure you lock the gate properly. Have to be up in a few hours. Don’t want to do this again tonight. I’ll have your Grandma leave a clean dressing gown and towel in the kitchen for you. There’s a bucket by the cistern. Don’t be trackin’ that mud in the house now.” He gave a quick wave with two fingers and headed back toward the house. “G’night, Emma.”

  Hmpf. “Did he seem impressed to you? I don’t think he did. He should be. Catching you was no easy feat,” I said to the cow as I continued to lure her along down to the pasture with the small piece of carrot still left in my hand.

  We got to the pasture gate and I opened it, guiding the cow to the other side as I hung onto the rope. As I gingerly offered the tiny bit of remaining carrot with the tips of my fingers, I pulled the rope off from around her head with my free hand. I patted the beast on the head and she sauntered off, oblivious to the humiliation, filth and disturbed sleep to which she had subjected me. Watching the beasts moving toward the back of the grazing pasture, I wondered how none of them ever realized that they could easily jump over that low fence if they were so inclined.

  As I shook my head and turned to head back to the house to clean myself up, I spotted something moving out of the corner of my eye. I looked down the fence line, in the direction of the little town in the valley below. If it wasn�
�t two in the morning, I’d have been able to see the soft glow of the town lights. At this hour, though, only a few pinpoints of light emitted from that direction. The houses that sat on the outskirts and the closer ramshackle buildings like the old fort were completely dark.

  I took a few steps, and looked back to where I thought I had seen the movement a moment before. I froze in my tracks as I saw it coming toward me.

  Not again, I thought. Not now! Coming back here was supposed to help.

  The pale apparition stopped approaching me and began to float down the hill toward the town. It paused, turning back, and waved a ghostly hand as if beckoning me to follow it. The figure was tall, wearing a dark colored coat and a wide-brimmed hat. There was something draped across its body from shoulder to hip.

  I took a few more steps forward and the specter began to move away from me again and I realized it was moving toward the old fort, an abandoned historical structure on the edge of town.

  I took another step, then caught myself, and stopped.

  What are you doing, Emma? You’re supposed to be here to relax…recuperate. You know perfectly well this is a side effect of the accident.

  My doctor back in the city, Dr. Jenson, had told me that the apparitions were simply a misfiring of the electrical impulses in my brain – a byproduct of the injury I had sustained a couple of months before when my head hit the hood of a taxi that had struck me at a crosswalk. “Ignore the visions,” the doctor had said. “Get some peace and quiet and they’ll disappear in time.”

  I shook my head now, hoping the image would disappear from my sight. It didn’t. Still, I was tired, and the mud in my clothes and hair was starting to dry and crust over. I needed sleep. I needed rest. So, I turned away from the figure and walked back up to the house.

  At the side of the house, I found the cistern – the old hand pump for pulling water from the spring system that ran underneath our family farm. I pulled the upside-down red metal bucket from the top, and placed it on the paving stone under the mouth of the pump. I labored to pull the pump handle up and back down. It took three pumps before water came pouring out through the spout.

  Yes! I’ve still got it!

  I filled the bucket, braced myself, and dumped it over my head. I repeated the process three times, grateful no one could see me looking like a drowned rat.

  I wrung out the polyester nightgown as best I could, and stepped carefully through the back door into what could, generously, be called the kitchen.

  There, on the small table was a clean towel and a fresh nightgown. I peeled the still damp nightgown off and placed it in the sink, quickly grabbing the towel to dry myself off. I dragged the dry nightdress over my head, and wrapped my hair in the towel before going up to bed.

  I spread the towel across the pillow, and laid my wet head down on it. The dampness of my hair and the towel cooled me down a little. As my eyes grew heavy from exhaustion, I briefly saw the apparition again in my mind.

  Electrical impulses. A side effect. Nothing more.

  I closed my eyes and my exhausted thoughts finally stopped churning, allowing me to find sleep.

  Chapter 2

  A sound roused me from sleep with a jolt, and I gulped in a lungful of warm air. I started to turn back over to go to sleep again when nature’s snooze button sounded.

  Stupid rooster!

  With my face still buried in the pillow, I grazed my fingertips along the bare boards of the attic floor near the cot, looking for my phone. My hand finally hit the thin glass and metal form, and I picked it up, cracking one eye open to look at the time. Five-thirty-two.

  I heard activity downstairs and knew Grandma and Grandpa were up, and probably had been for ages by now. I swung my feet around off the side of the cot and found the leather deck shoes I wore in from the airport the night before. I grabbed my phone, and headed downstairs.

  “Good morning, Grandma,” I said, kissing her cheek as I came into the kitchen.

  The smells of sausage and fresh baked biscuits wafted through the air, bringing with them childhood memories of eating at the little kitchen table before school each morning.

  “Good morning, Emma, dear. Sleep well?” she asked sweetly.

  “Well, what sleep I got was excellent, thanks. Being awakened by cows in the middle of the night is definitely something I’m not used to anymore,” I replied.

  “Oh, I barely heard them,” she said. “Breakfast will be ready in just a few minutes.” She returned to the pan, flipping the sausage over.

  “I’m going to run out back, then. Back in a few,” I said, as I let the screen door slap shut and headed out across the backyard.

  The Hooper farm had several structures, most of which were constructed nearly a century ago. The livestock barn was the largest, with a hay loft, and six stalls for horses, though we hadn’t had any horses since I was a little girl. There was an equipment shed to keep the tractor and hand tools out of the elements, and a large chicken coop from which Grandma retrieved eggs each morning.

  The main house wasn’t much to look at – not much more than a shack, really. It had a sitting room, my grandparents’ bedroom, a laundry room, a kitchen, and the attic. The kitchen had hot and cold running water, a luxury that I could remember being installed when I was very young. The laundry room, too, had water. The washing machine was a new addition since I left home, though it was at least twenty years old, and I had no doubt Grandpa had acquired it through one of his famous bartering deals. In the laundry room, there stood an old, claw foot bathtub. It had been there for as long as I could remember and apparently running water was added when it was piped into the laundry room for the washer.

  Although there was running water inside the house, the toilet was housed in the original outhouse building. That, the smallest of the Hooper homestead structures, was my destination as I headed out the kitchen door.

  Still in the polyester nightgown, I walked through the backyard, trying to avoid the still muddy spots from the previous night’s cattle stampede. Designer deck shoes and cow-trodden mud did not mix, after all.

  The outhouse was about fifty yards from the house itself. It sat near the edge of the pasture, not far from the small wooded area that began at the edge of the property.

  I followed the trodden path through the yard to the edge of the pasture, worn down from years of foot traffic to and from the outhouse. Navigating the worn path, I was careful not to scratch my bare legs on any briars.

  Making it to the outhouse, I turned the wooden latch to open it. I noticed a large, plastic reservoir on the back of the structure that wasn’t there before. It was open to the top and had some sort of mesh over it. Once inside, I saw that Grandpa had installed some creature comforts. Instead of a box with a toilet seat fastened to the top, there was an actual toilet – one from a boat or RV, by the looks of it, with a flush pedal attached at the base. A garden hose with a spray nozzle was poking through the back wall from the outside. I realized that the hose was apparently attached to the water reservoir, making use of rain water to act as a form of water for flushing.

  Pretty ingenious, Grandpa!

  As I began taking care of business, I heard a rustling outside of the outhouse. It didn’t sound like anything too big, but definitely bigger than a squirrel or possum.

  I finished up and managed the foot pedal flush and garden hose setup without getting too much water on myself. At the sink, there was an old coffee decanter with water in it, so I turned the spigot to wet my hands, and picked up the bar of soap from the dish. I held it up to my nose.

  Mmm! Ivory!

  The scent brought back early memories of having to wash my hands with a bar of Ivory soap using the little footstool in the kitchen after playing outside all day with Billy.

  Billy Stone. I haven’t thought about him in ages!

  My mind flashed back to running through the pasture with my childhood friend, trying to catch lightning bugs in mason jars. I remembered us lying on the hillside at the top of the
pasture, looking up into the starry night sky and talking about what we wanted to be when we grew up. He was my first crush.

  I wonder whatever happened to that cute little boy next door.

  I finished washing my hands and as I was drying them on the towel that hung beside the sink, I heard the rustling noise outside again. I carefully lifted the latch of the door, and opened it just a crack, peering out. I didn’t see anything, so I opened the door a little farther, and to my relief, nothing was there.

  As I swung the door open widely enough for me to pass through, I heard what sounded like a scream, and a small, white figure jumped into the doorframe.

  Instantly, my thoughts leapt to the ghostly apparition I had seen beckoning me from across the field the night before.

  Terrified, I stumbled backward, my back hitting the corner of the sink. A stabbing pain shot through my hand as it connected with the wall board. Wincing with pain, I shook my head to come back to my senses, and finally made out the small white figure as I heard another tiny scream escape its body.

  Before me stood, not an apparition, but a tiny, white nanny goat.

  “Holy smokes, you almost scared me to death!” I exclaimed.

  The small creature’s eyes met mine, and it took a step forward, bleating at me again, as if aggravated.

  "And just what is your problem?” I asked. “I’m the one with a bruised kidney and a giant splinter in my hand!”

  The goat stood fast, seemingly unaffected by my presence.

  “Shoo!” I yelled. “SHOO!”