It was a four-block section of A- frame houses, with beautifully manicured yards and colorful gardens of different varieties of flowers standing as sentries before the newly painted front porches. The neighborhood was definitely a reflection of simpler times. My realtor told me that all the houses were built by the same developer just post world war two.

I bought the house as sort of a portal away from my most prior state of affairs. You see, the company I kept in the time previously before buying the house was literally driving me insane. Too much snorting coke, too much alcohol, too low self esteem and morale, combined with an inability to hold down any decent employment, left me standing at a fork in the road. Which way I chose to go, I was sure would effect my life in the long run, and if I continued on with the way things were… there would be no long run. I caught a vision of myself lying in a casket in a putrid black suit with a ghost white face and those faggy red lips that they gloss on so thickly. I saw my mom walking slowly up to the box where I lay wearing that horrible blue sundress she used to wear when I was six. Leaning over my coherent corpse she put her hand on her hat to keep it from falling, the hat looked like an old pillbox about twenty years out of style. I saw her bring her face close to mine and whispered, only audible enough so I could hear her – if I were alive - … weird… “Ye did this to yerself, you stupid little fuck.” That’s not happening to me.

I made the choice to clean up my credit, (which was challenging after my divorce) and invest in that beautiful bungalow in … “Devils Heights.” Here’s the thing. Although that four-block neighborhood seemed to be flawless, the surrounding areas were the seediest you could imagine. Complete with long strips of littered streets, saggy titted whores that should’ve waited until dark to emerge, crack deals in broad daylight and an occasional bum brawl under the nearby interstate overpass. South Seminole Heights seemed to be flawless, a safe haven away from all this sickness. But at night, when one would expect an escalation in immoral activities around there… Dead Silence.

I mean nothing was heard. I noticed that on the first night of my stay at my house, “What the Hell?” I thought to myself. I stood on my front porch observing this nothingness, and soon I noticed that I was the only one standing on his porch observing this nothingness. I also noticed no streetlights, and everyone else’s

Shades closed, curtains drawn, and lights out. Very eerie… Within a week, every night at dusk, I observed people

getting to their homes and making mad dashes toward their front doors, slamming them and quickly closing the blinds, which had actually been opened during the day. Maybe they we’re just scared of the horrors outside of our neighborhood.

One night, I was talking on the phone with a long time friend. We usually spent at least an hour venting on each other about our exes. His was an overbearing Jewish lobbyist who dangled his dick size over his head to keep him somewhat under her quells. Which, as it turns out, she was banging her boss, and that made him laugh a little because he knew that his dick was at least bigger than her boss’s. He knew this because, at a Christmas party, a bunch of the office girls paid him to strip. Being on a drunk, he did so. No need to go any further with that story.

My ex was a greasy blonde haired piece of trailer shit that was raised in bars and at bike fests, and every bit of her blisteringly blinding aura screamed this reminder to me every time I looked at her. Oh well, that’s over. That night as I spoke to my friend, my attention trailed off to some bizarre sounds coming from outside. I hastened to end our conversation to get a better listen. The sounds were… Shall I say, upsetting. They we’re the kind of sounds that make you freeze. They sent cramps up my inner thighs and made my anus pucker, and the only other time that’s happened to me in life was when my eighth grade English Teacher ran her thin nails across the black board to quiet everyone down. The only way that I can come remotely close to a description is to compare them to the sounds from an old movie I saw several years ago called “The legend of Hell House”. The end of the movie, when they discovered where all the disturbances we’re originating, in the basement, there was all this horrible moaning. Like hundreds of people moaning in agony. That’s what it sounded like! But also mingled with sporadic roaring of lions.

I felt beads of perspiration forming on my fore head, sending shivers all over my body as it clashed with the crisp night air. Where we’re the sounds coming from? Everywhere! They we’re all around me. They flooded the streets, saturated every front and back yard of every neighboring house. The noise was loud, and now I heard laughter. Like the laughter of mischievous kids all over the place. Moaning, roaring, laughter, and somewhere in the midst of it all, the crackling of fire.

I envisioned one of those apocalyptic scenarios you hear of read from the bible, with the whole gnashing of teeth bits. The noise seemed to pierce my skull. I wiped the sticky sweat from my forehead… sticky? I glanced at the hand I used to wipe my head… Blood! I was bleeding! I ran quickly inside to the bathroom and fumbled for the light switch. Once I turned on the light, I glanced in the mirror, and to my utter terror, I saw that my face was glazed over with a crimson fluid!

I woke up the next morning in the tub. In the day or two that followed that incident, I managed to pull myself out of a drunken stupor- yes, as ashamed as I am to admit it, I fell back into the bottle. Anyway, I cleared up enough to have a conversation with a young man from one of the houses up the road. Jeremy was his name. We talked for a while, and eventually (after reluctantly bringing up the subject), I asked him if he had any knowledge of the happenings at night within the neighborhood. He told me a remarkable story about how that area surrounded one of several gateways to Hell. “My grandma used to tell me that over a hundred years ago, a battle between a priest and the devil ensued on these very grounds”. He said. “Back then, there wasn’t anything here ‘cept for an old church, lots of woods, and the lake, which is now the old retention reservoir down off of Curtis Street”. I listened as he continued. “Apparently, the devil was pissed off that the priest was intending to build a church on these premises, and he warned him not to. But the priest persisted”. “The devil allowed him to start and finish the church building, then he bound him in chains and cast him into the depths of the lake”. “He then scorched the church to ash”. That really didn’t explain why I was hearing all the hellishness after dark, but I listened further. “Anyway”, he continued. “Folks around here believe that this is a feeding ground for Satan. That he rides a horse after nightfall ‘round here takin’ whoever he can back to the fiery pits”. “Ground’s cursed. Don’t ever go outside at night ‘round here”.

And of course, the nightmares I began to have we’re almost unbearable. It’s really scary when you can’t distinguish reality from dreams.

- I need a nice fat line right now…

One night I decided to set up a recorder and capture all the sounds. My intent was to play it for a friend of mine (who was an audio engineer). Perhaps he could dissect the sound waves and explain to me what may be causing them. As for the blood on my face, I’ll just keep that between Jim Beam and me. It was a digital recorder so I could record all night. When I attempted to playback the night’s session, nothing… nothing printed. “Fuck”! I’ve lost my mind, that’s all there is to it.

On the night that would prove to be the most horrifying, after work, I showered up and ordered a pizza. I watched quite a bit of TV, and by nine o’ clock, here came the sounds. I’m just plain tired of it now. I walked out on my front porch and just sat on the top step. I ran my fingers through my hair as I listened to the sounds as they echoed throughout the area. And it was about a minute after this, that I caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of my eye.

I looked toward where the movement was and for an instant, I doubted that I was seeing what I was now gazing at. A figure dressed in, what appeared to me to be Grey monk’s sackcloth or burlap robes ripped and torn swaying in the night wind. It was only visible as a result of a red illuminated hue surrounding it. It walked in slow strides up the street and came to a standstill at a spot directly in front of where I sat. Suddenly, it lifted the hood from its head and looked at me with the blackest eyes that I’d ever seen. Glossy and dead, the figure’s stare revealed all the impending threat of say, perhaps a great white shark. It spoke to me. And I remember seeing a white hot flash of light and succumbing to intense fear, when all of the sudden I was standing in the crowded sanctuary of a church.

I looked at my hands, they we’re only six years old. The music was deafening, at least to the ears of a six year old. That Holy Roller music, the singing, the dancing in the aisles, oh how that frightened me. I looked to the person standing next to me… It was my mother in that repulsive blue sundress and that old-fashioned pillbox hat. I looked slowly up at her face as she looked down at me, and I could see that her eyes we’re glossy and black. Horrible greenish-yellow teeth flashed at me as she began to sing. “I got a home in glory land that outshines the sun…” A white flash is what I saw once more, and I lay on my living room floor staring up at the stipple texture on the ceiling.

Needless to say, I’ve put my house on the market and have since rented an apartment as far away from “Devil’s Heights” as can be realistic. I can’t rationally explain what was happening in that twisted neighborhood during my brief stay, but I will say this. I hope that’s only the closest I ever get to hell…

-Damn, I need a line-…

END