Synopsis

Abigail Rivers suffers through a dreary life she no longer wants to be a part of. Everything at home, work, and in-between has become a claustrophobic nightmare, one that blurs reality and the dream world she unwillingly inhabits; a world stuck in a past she can't completely escape. She finds temporary relief, but the escape she clings to every day is slowly killing her from the inside out.

One day, Abigail goes to work not knowing that it will be her last shift. She doesn’t know it will be the last time she says goodbye to her boyfriend, the last time she has to deal with her clingy boss, the last time she puffs her favorite brand of cigarette. Something emerges from her past—her late mother’s past—and it won’t leave her alone. It keeps knocking at the edges of her mind, trying to get her to let it in, to let him in. She can’t resist the temptation forever. The crooked cane always gets its way.

A Crooked Cane Comes a Knockin' is a supernatural horror novella set on the border of Kentucky and Tennessee in the late 90's. For fans of Silent Hill, The Exorcist, Stranger Things, and The Conjuring.

Origin

The story idea originated here on The Storyletter in May of 2022 as an event called "Tele-Prompt", where I started with a sentence and paid subscribers continued the idea by adding additional sentences, which I’d reply to in order to keep it going. It was an extremely fun exercise. I hope to do it again in the future.

Here is the original post:

After a long day at work, Abigail returns home. Something seems off about the house, but she can’t tell what it is. It’s not until she lies down to sleep that she realizes she can’t breathe properly. She gets up frantically.

(Now it’s your turn, what does our character do?)

Participants in the event were Sandra, Thomas Bubb, and Dave Malone. They injected life into the prompt and added a lot of cool ideas. I attribute co-creator status to everyone involved in this story. It wouldn't exist if it weren't for you. Thank you!

Help Wanted

I'll need more assistance in the coming weeks as I continue to finalize the first draft. The current self-imposed deadline is Feb. 25. This is where you come in. Would you like to Alpha/Beta read the story for structural edits before I send it off to my editor? If so, message me at storyletter@protonmail.com.

Below is a preview of the story. It's a first draft, but this scene is by far the most polished section. I can't wait to publish it in full. Hope you enjoy. I appreciate all of the support!

A Crooked Cane Comes a Knockin’

Knock…

Abigail Rivers choked on the cigarette between her fingers. She stood outside, waiting for the sun to dip below the Tennessee tree line. Bundled, she still felt Winter's icy chill. It always found her these days, the warmth she'd known in childhood cut from her like an umbilical the day her mother died. She coughed again and phlegm broke apart in her throat. 

Knock…

She recalled the strange thumps that had come from her bedroom closet last night, or morning, in her case, since she generally slept through the day. It could’ve been the water heater, or a mouse in the wall. There was always something settling in her double-wide trailer; the one she was born in, the one she’d inherited from her mother, and her mother before her. 

Knock...

Her boyfriend, Ricky, wasn’t home at the time of the thumping, since it was during the day and he was at a construction site. When it hadn’t ceased its beckoning rhythm, Abigail was forced to get up and check it herself. She had a fear of small, enclosed spaces; the suffocating nature of not being able to escape haunted her. Therefore, Abigail rarely used her closet. It was dedicated to long-term storage, a way to hide the crap she never wanted to look at again. All of her clothes were easily accessible from her dresser, organized and folded neatly. She’d swung open the closet door and found no plausible culprit. There were boxes, tattered shoes, and an odd-looking walking cane propped up in the corner.

Knock…

Abigail stamped out the cigarette butt into the ashtray perched on the thin porch railing. She opened the trailer’s glass door to lean in to ask Ricky about it. He was home now. Maybe her boyfriend knew where the cane had come from.

“Hey, Rick,” she called out. The squat twenty-something raised his eyebrows at her as he got up from his recliner. “Do you know where that cane came from? The one in the closet.” 

Ricky trudged into the kitchen to open the fridge. ESPN highlights of an old Tennessee Titans game played on the small television in the corner, the announcers’ voices droning on in that annoying tone that soaked up every bit of silence in the house. It blared at a volume just a decimal too high for her. Not only was it football, it wasn’t even a live game. Why Ricky cared that much about sports, she would never understand.

“What are you talking about?” Ricky asked.

“The walking cane in my bedroom. Do you know where it came from?” 

“Oh, that thing? Yeah, it was underneath the house.” 

“Underneath the house? What the heck were you doing under the house?”

Ricky closed the fridge and walked back into the living room. “I heard a thumping sound down there last night and had to check it out. I was worried it was a trapped dog, or something. All I found was a box with some old stuff in it. Figured that fancy cane was worth a pretty penny. It has gold on it, I think.”

“So you put it in the closet and didn’t tell me about it?” 

“Where else was I going to put it? What’s the big deal?” He cracked open the beer can and took a long chug.

Abigail swept a hand through her black hair. She wanted to blow up at Ricky, but she knew it wasn’t really about the cane; it was everything else in her life boiling under her skin like molten lava trying to escape. “Never mind. I’m going to work. See you in the morning.” 

“Yep, have a good shift,” Ricky said, sitting into the recliner. The door drifted shut and she looked to make sure it closed all the way, but something else caught her attention. At first, she thought the reflection in the glass was distorting her vision, creating an optical illusion. The man in the chair was clearly not Ricky. It was an elderly man. He grinned at her with blackened teeth, his wispy, grey hair coming out at the sides.

Abigail stepped back and knocked the ashtray off the edge of the railing. It shattered against a cinder block down below. She cursed, then looked back at the man in the chair. Ricky was sitting up as far as he could in the recliner with his feet still kicked out in front.

“You all right?”

Abigail waved it off, not wanting to engage with him further. She walked down the small staircase, the soles of her Converse crunching on the thin layer of snow. She got into her ‘96 Plymouth Turismo and started the ignition, lighting up another cigarette while she waited for the thin layer of ice to melt from her windshield. She blew smoke out of the lowered window despite the chill; she preferred to have the windows opened slightly in the cramped confines of the vehicle. Today was her birthday, yet it felt like any other day to her; a never-ending slog through the muck.

A few minutes later, her wipers removed the remaining moisture that clung to the windshield. For whatever reason, the radio’s clock triggered in her memory that today was the day Bethany, her coworker, was going to be out on leave. Abigail was supposed to show up early and cover the registers for a full shift tonight which meant she was late. 

Cursing, Abigail flicked the cigarette out of the window. She put the vehicle in reverse. The back window pane was still mostly frosted over with a bluish, white sheen. She didn’t have time to deal with it. She backed out of the gravel driveway like she had a thousand times before. The streetlights glowed an orange-yellow in the night. It always bugged Abigail how early the sun set in the Winter.

Suddenly, a dark shape filled the back window, backlit by the nearest street light. She slammed on the brakes but hit the object hard. It fell out of view. 

“Oh my God,” she said, covering her mouth. Her mind flipped through every possibility other than the one that was the most likely.

Abigail threw open the door and got out of the car. She reached the back of her Plymouth, anticipating the worst, knowing deep down it was all her fault for not paying attention, for being in too much of a hurry, for being late, for everything. To her surprise, no one was there. Her chest was tight, her heated breath curling out in front of her as she stood there in a momentary daze. What if they were underneath the car? Had she been going that fast? She dropped to her hands and knees, the snow an afterthought. Nothing was under the tires or the bumper. 

Except, there was something there just beneath the exhaust. She reached and pulled out a long stick. It had one hooked end, the other straightened to a point. An ornate design resembling tendrils of writhing smoke was etched in gold up the length of the shaft; identical to the cane from her bedroom closet.

Abigail twisted around to search, fearing the off-chance that she’d possibly struck an elderly person and they tumbled off into the snow. There was no one around. The street was empty. There wasn’t even a sidewalk on her property, and her closest neighbors were half a mile away. Why would anyone be walking out in the cold in the first place? Where would they even be walking to? She reasoned that it was the stress, and the lack of sleep. She came up with a thousand justifications, but none of them made any real sense to her. 

Abigail brought the cane into the car with her. She placed it on the passenger floorboard, leaning it up against the seat. With trembling hands, she opened the cigarette pack, pulled one out and lit it. After taking a long drag to fill her lungs with the smoke's calming embrace, her hands stopped shaking. It took her the entire length of the cigarette to feel comfortable driving again. Closing the lid to the pack, she placed it in one of the drink holders, then slowly reversed out of the driveway.

The front of the cigarette packaging glistened under the streetlights as she passed them, the gold-etched foil smoke rising from the bottom all the way to the top. It signified the iconic Cane’s brand, the brand she’d smoked ever since she could get her hands on them, the same brand her mother liked. It was a local brand, famous in this part of the country, specifically this part of northern Tennessee.

Knock…

Abigail jumped in her seat and swerved a little. It was the same thump from the night before. It came from nowhere and everywhere all at once. Abigail looked around the interior of her car, but was entirely too shaken up to take her eyes off the road for too long. 

Knock…

She started coughing again. Something in her throat burned her airways with every breath. The cough didn’t last long, but it was worse than before. The thumping grew louder.

Knock…

There was an overwhelming desire flooding her veins. Like chaos needed to be tamed, like if she listened, the world would quiet down a tiny bit more. It made her want something familiar to bring closure to her otherwise empty relationship with life.

Knock…

She froze when she saw him, the car drifting to a halt on the side of the road. In the rear view mirror was the face of an old man staring at her from the backseat. It was the old man that had been in Ricky’s recliner. This time she recognized him. He was different now, older and more sinister looking, yet as real and alive as he once was all those years ago.

“I killed you,” she whispered, not taking her eyes away from his.

The old man grinned, black saliva pooling from the corners of his mouth. He slowly shook his head to either side in a taunting gesture. He mouthed her name, but not her full name, and she could almost hear it as if he’d spoken it aloud. It was the name he’d chosen to call her: Abby.

Abigail’s throat began hurting again. It felt like hot liquid was pouring down her esophagus. She coughed, covering her mouth, then noticed tiny dots of residue left in her palm when she pulled it away. Was that blood?

Flashing lights filled the car through the rear window. Abigail glanced out of her driver’s side to see a police car stopping behind her. When she looked back into the rear view mirror, the old man had vanished. However, the strong smell of tobacco lingered in the air.

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