Without warning, the lights of Bula Manor came on one night. It started with just the foyer, but slowly, steadily, each and every light in the building was coming on. At first, as the lights had just started turning on, the few residents of Hapscomb who had noticed just assumed that it was some kind of maintenance (surely someone had been hired to periodically check up on the place, regardless of the fact that such a thing had never happened before). But as more and more lights came on, one by one, and more and more residents stopped what they were doing to walk over to the bottom of the hill and shamelessly watch the gradual progress, one by one. From the distance, the watchers could just imagine a single person, walking back and forth across each and every lonely corridor. What this person was trying to accomplish and who was even doing it was anyone's guess, but for once, the townsfolk felt they didn't need to yap their gums about what was happening; this silent vigil was all they could do, and they felt that, surely, when all the lights were on everything would become clear in more ways than one.
For over three quarters of an hour they waited in complete silence (aside from the occasional cough or rustling of restless feet). Though the manor was big, surely it couldn't possibly be this big, many of them found themselves thinking. And yet it apparently was that big, because though it was almost impossible to distinguish the individual lamps being turned on at this point, the overall effect of it all was undeniable; the glow from the house was still getting brighter and brighter.
Then, just as sudden as the lights turning on, the front doors opened wide, allowing even more lights to dance through the slightly moist grass, the unmistakable outline of a man displayed at its center. Almost all of the observers, both young and old, immediately did their best power walk imitation to get away as fast as possible, either afraid of the silhouette itself or of the mere chance of coming off as nosy. A select, slackjawed few, whether bold, stupid or just morbidly curious, remained behind, even as the man from the manor started making his way towards the gated entrance.
In later years, the seldom few who had remained behind had been asked by friends, family, or just awed people who heard the tale at Uncle Fink's Moon Diner, to describe in agonizing detail about the man and what they were feeling at the time. Though most had exaggerated the tale into something involving a nine foot tall behemoth drenched in blood threatening to eat the chittlun (because that's what you do when you find yourself part of an honest to goodness real life urban legend, no matter how thin and shoddy the string was), but Stu Burton was always a level headed, thoughtful man who listened more than he spoke, making him the ideal man to describe to the rest of the town what exactly had happened.
"Well, I had a right start o' fear at first, believe me," he would always start the story out, no matter how many times he told it. "When he first started walkin' towards us, he just seemed larger than life, what with all the lights 'luminatin' behind him 'n all. But each step he took, a bit of that fear left me, you know? O' course, I couldn't've known't the time, but as he got closer 'n closer I just felt...well, like regardless o' ever'thing else, this here fella just had something likable about him, really. 'nd all this time I'm thinking all this, he's finally got to where we all were, and the first thing I noticed was that he seemed as confused as the rest o' us, though he had a big grin plastered all over his face, instead o' the fear most o' the faces lookin' back at 'im had. Me bein' me 'n all, I couldn't be impolite, so I held out my hand 'n said 'Stuart Burton. Pleased as punch to be makin' your acquaintance, mister...?'"
At this part of the story, everyone in Stuart Burton's audience would be deathly still and equally quiet, listening with rapt attention that was usually only reserved in Hapscomb for funerals and Jeff Foxworthy standup, regardless of the fact that everyone in town had heard the tale countless times.
"'n he said right back to me, no hesitation or thinkin' that he had said anythin' strange at all, 'Ben Hughes. Do any of you know anything about sasquatch?'"
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Monday, November 2, 2009
Chapter 1: Of Hapscomb and Bula
Some said that Bula Manor was haunted. Of course, the thought was ridiculous; the house had been built not even 10 years ago, and being that it had been a bonafide mansion being built in the middle of as quaint an Appalachian town as one could possibly find, it definitely attracted the attention of the bored, bemused residents, to the point where watching the gradual construction of the place had soon replaced Uncle Fink's Moon Diner as the de facto activity to do on quiet evenings when it was still cool enough to keep the mosquitos at bay. So how could it have been haunted? Ghosts surely didn't just move into a newly built hotel-sized home on their own accord, and seeing as how no one had ever taken up residence there, that seemed to close the matter. Still, even the most logical, season weathered residents of Hapscomb Kentucky couldn't deny that there was just something funny about ol' Bula; it would have been described as just having an enigmatic aura surrounding the place, had the more earthy townsfolk known what that phrase even meant.
The rumors and stories could most likely be attributed to how and why the manor came into being in the first place. About a decade ago, a young man (his name had been widely spread at one time, but most of the townsfolk couldn't be bothered with remembering the name of their out of town relatives, let alone someone they had and seemingly never would meet) had won some kind of grand lottery jackpot - something in the lines of 500 million dollars, give or take. Though the people of Hapscomb didn't know the man, in their hearts they knew one thing; he must have been one of those eccentric people to have won such a large sum of money and wasted so much of it building a mansion he never used in a town in the middle of nowhere with a population of exactly 937 people. Whether he had been that odd before he won the money was another topic of discussion entirely, though most figured he had at the very least been slightly goofy, money or no.
Perhaps the strangest bit of all is what was whispered within the close knit community. Of how one week after the mansion had been completed, the owner himself actually had made an appearance, albeit an extremely brief one at an obscene hour of the night to visit the local gas station, asking advice on scaling the nearby mountains. That some "reech citeh boyh", as most of the men referred to him as, thought he would even stand a chance in the wilderness outside Hapscomb was not just laughable, but flatly absurd. Surely if this tale was true, the reason he had never been heard of was that he had died within an hour of reaching the town limit. Still, no one could rightly explain that shortly after that story was said to have taken place, odd things could sometimes be heard coming from deep within the forest. Most of the time it was an acoustic guitar, accompanied by a nigh angelic voice singing a song about guessing at numbers and figures. But some residents said that on nights when the moon is full and the air clear, you can hear the cries of "Elemonjonis! Elemonjooooooonis!" And no one, not even the teenaged residents who had home made meth labs in the basement of their parents' house, could explain what that was about.
Regardless of everything, even the hard evidence, most of these stories were seen as just that - stories. Over the years it had just become a matter of fact that there was a mansion on top of the old hill at the edge of town larger than the entirety of Hapscomb's main street that no one had ever lived in; a kind of joke, and an interesting tale to tell around camp fires and pool tables. On this day, however, those stories were about to become an undeniable reality, and nobody was ready. Not even the world.
The rumors and stories could most likely be attributed to how and why the manor came into being in the first place. About a decade ago, a young man (his name had been widely spread at one time, but most of the townsfolk couldn't be bothered with remembering the name of their out of town relatives, let alone someone they had and seemingly never would meet) had won some kind of grand lottery jackpot - something in the lines of 500 million dollars, give or take. Though the people of Hapscomb didn't know the man, in their hearts they knew one thing; he must have been one of those eccentric people to have won such a large sum of money and wasted so much of it building a mansion he never used in a town in the middle of nowhere with a population of exactly 937 people. Whether he had been that odd before he won the money was another topic of discussion entirely, though most figured he had at the very least been slightly goofy, money or no.
Perhaps the strangest bit of all is what was whispered within the close knit community. Of how one week after the mansion had been completed, the owner himself actually had made an appearance, albeit an extremely brief one at an obscene hour of the night to visit the local gas station, asking advice on scaling the nearby mountains. That some "reech citeh boyh", as most of the men referred to him as, thought he would even stand a chance in the wilderness outside Hapscomb was not just laughable, but flatly absurd. Surely if this tale was true, the reason he had never been heard of was that he had died within an hour of reaching the town limit. Still, no one could rightly explain that shortly after that story was said to have taken place, odd things could sometimes be heard coming from deep within the forest. Most of the time it was an acoustic guitar, accompanied by a nigh angelic voice singing a song about guessing at numbers and figures. But some residents said that on nights when the moon is full and the air clear, you can hear the cries of "Elemonjonis! Elemonjooooooonis!" And no one, not even the teenaged residents who had home made meth labs in the basement of their parents' house, could explain what that was about.
Regardless of everything, even the hard evidence, most of these stories were seen as just that - stories. Over the years it had just become a matter of fact that there was a mansion on top of the old hill at the edge of town larger than the entirety of Hapscomb's main street that no one had ever lived in; a kind of joke, and an interesting tale to tell around camp fires and pool tables. On this day, however, those stories were about to become an undeniable reality, and nobody was ready. Not even the world.
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