The s   Excerpt from Under the House

            The screams from underneath the house touched Miranda in those places where fear hides.  To be defenseless against an overwhelming army of irrational emotions was to be petrified into a shameful stasis Miranda had come to know too well.  Time ceased in this dormant state, for the horrors thriving underneath her own home knew neither the boundaries of time nor the incessant torment their existence inflicted.  Another child's memories had been thrust upon Miranda by those unseen forces within Plexus. Their secret agenda to connect all things—a notion she had not been privy to until now—was tearing her life apart.  A brutal confinement—a barbaric transgression against human flesh—reached out to her through Plexus.  The guilt, anonymous and perplexing, burned in her blood like poison.  How, for so many years, had she wandered her home in blind contempt of the truth?  She had screamed for Luke more than six times during the night that yet another child had been devoured.  But even a spirit boy with his talents could not bear witness to this horrific confinement.  The boy whose body Miranda found in the hollow tree by the river was being masticated and sucked into his own chrysalis right under her house.  His screams were awful.  They were more than painful and morose.  They were sounds only a few individuals have ever heard.  They were products of the senseless machinations of a freak allowed to prosper in a world where too many chose not to see. 

 Before Miranda would shed another tear or plead another useless prayer, she would fight to overturn this unfair sentence and liberate that child's soul before it was too late.

 From William's tool shed Miranda came charging back into the house dragging a wooden handled ax.  She stumbled into the living room, set her mark, and drove the rusted ax head into the center of the that damn spot.  Relief surged through her body like a jolt of electricity strong enough to light Las Vegas.  It took a few more awkward swipes before the floorboards cracked, then caved in.  As her eyes descended below the house she saw something—someone—moving.  A child—not the boy she found by the river, but a pumpkin-headed lurch of a goon—was trapped under the house.  He moaned and whined like a deformed beast.  His head, split and bruised from the many failed attempts at freeing himself, BUSTED through the weakened floor.  She knew instantly who he was. 

"God damn you son of a—"  Miranda planted her ax into the monster's head.  At second glance, she had only managed to wedge William's ax into the floor.  Manly was gone, but the disturbances continued.  She felt a sudden chill.  From out of the shadows a ghastly waif came toward her, its feet more than six inches off the ground.  It may have been her young daughter Jesse.  Miranda was not sure.  Her vacant yet familiar gaze crept deep inside Miranda.  Her stare directed Miranda's drifting soul away from that once fertile passageway that led to the heinous memories of a killer.  She was returned to that precious place.  It was a place only mothers and daughters knew.  It was a place where kindness is strength and love is unconditional.  Deep inside this place, there was a nurturing light that emitted eerie photosynthetic energy waves that warmed and regenerated Miranda’s aging body.  Without confusion, she suddenly understood the message.  It was never too late to grow.  It was never too late to tell someone you loved them.

When the eerie light faded back to the dullness of GE light bulbs and the last harbinger vanished, Miranda headed for the bedroom closet.  She felt refreshed and so very aware that she was indeed alive.  She hauled a dusty suitcase from the bedroom closet and threw it on the bed.  If she hurried, she could catch the late bus to the train station in Marietta and be in Cincinnati by the next evening.  She only hoped she was still welcome in her daughter's house.