Chapter 1: The Souvenir from Broke Neck Ridge

Chapter 1: The Souvenir from Broke Neck Ridge

The air in the house on Broke Neck Ridge was thick enough to chew. It tasted of dust, dry rot, and something else—a faint, metallic bitterness that clung to the back of Liam’s throat. He pulled the collar of his t-shirt over his nose, a futile gesture that did little to block the stench.

“Just pile it all by the door, kid,” Uncle Joe’s voice boomed from the adjacent room, followed by the splintering crack of decomposing wood. “The dumpster gets here at four. Anything left behind becomes the bank’s problem, not ours.”

Liam grunted in reply, hefting another box of yellowed, silverfish-eaten books. The cardboard groaned under the weight, threatening to spill its musty contents. At twenty, Liam was supposed to be spending his summer break cramming for next semester’s history midterms, not hauling junk out of a foreclosure. But his uncle had offered a hundred bucks a day, cash, and with textbook prices being what they were, it was an offer he couldn’t refuse.

This house was different, though. Uncle Joe specialized in flipping properties that other people wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole. He had a term for houses like this one: “weird iron.”

“It ain’t ghosts, Liam,” he’d explained over coffee that morning, his voice a low rumble. “Ghosts are stories. This is different. It’s like some houses, they got bad wiring, bad plumbing. Others… they just got weird iron in their bones. Something in the foundation, in the land itself, that’s just… off.”

Broke Neck Ridge was definitely “off.” Perched on a lonely hill overlooking their small town, the house had been empty for a decade, ever since its previous owner, some reclusive academic, had vanished without a trace. Locals said he’d just walked out one day and never came back. Looking around the decaying study, Liam could almost believe it. Everything was coated in a uniform layer of gray dust, a mausoleum of forgotten knowledge. Books on Egyptology, ancient rituals, and obscure mineralogy overflowed from shelves that sagged like tired old men.

Liam dropped the box near the doorway, sending a plume of dust into a sunbeam slanting through a grimy window. It was in that swirling cloud of particles that he saw it.

Tucked into the dark recess of an empty bookshelf, something small and dark absorbed the light. Curiosity piqued, Liam reached in, his fingers brushing against a cool, smooth surface. He pulled it out and held it in his palm.

It was a scarab beetle.

Or rather, a perfect, unnervingly lifelike carving of one. It was made from a stone he didn’t recognize—darker than obsidian, with a strange, oily sheen that seemed to shift as he turned it over. It was heavy, far heavier than its small size suggested, and cold to the touch. The craftsmanship was exquisite. Each leg was a separate, razor-thin shard of stone, the carapace carved with hieroglyphs too small to decipher. It felt ancient, malevolent, and utterly out of place among the peeling wallpaper and mildew.

For a moment, Liam felt a prickle of unease, a primitive instinct screaming at him to drop it. But the history major in him was captivated. It was a fascinating artifact. A strange souvenir from the weirdest house he’d ever set foot in. Slipping it into the pocket of his jeans, he felt its weight settle against his thigh, a cold, dense presence.

“Find something shiny?” Uncle Joe asked, appearing in the doorway. He was a mountain of a man, his face weathered and kind, but his eyes were sharp. They scanned the room, lingering on the shadows.

“Just an old paperweight,” Liam lied, not wanting to explain the strange pull of the object. “Some kind of stone bug.”

Joe grunted, his gaze unfocused. “This place gives me the creeps. It’s the silence. No birds, no bugs. Just… quiet.” He clapped a dusty hand on Liam’s shoulder. “Let’s finish up. I want a beer and a burger, in that order.”

The rest of the afternoon passed in a blur of sweat and dust. They cleared the house, leaving it an empty shell echoing with their footsteps. But as they drove down the winding road from Broke Neck Ridge, Liam couldn’t shake the feeling that the house’s oppressive aura was sitting in the passenger seat with him. The cold weight of the scarab in his pocket felt like a brand. He found himself unconsciously tracing its outline through the denim, the sharp edges of its legs digging into his fingertips.

Back at his parents’ house, the feeling only intensified. He took a long, hot shower, trying to scrub the grime and the memory of the house from his skin, but the chill remained. It was a deep, internal cold that had nothing to do with the temperature. He took the scarab out of his jeans and stared at it under the harsh light of his desk lamp. It looked even more lifelike now, as if it were a real beetle frozen mid-scurry. He imagined its tiny, sharp legs twitching.

A shiver traced its way down his spine. This was stupid. It was a rock. A creepy, well-carved rock, but a rock nonetheless. He was letting his uncle’s talk of “weird iron” get to him.

He walked into the kitchen, the scarab feeling slick and wrong in his sweaty palm. He lifted the lid of the kitchen trash can, the familiar smell of coffee grounds and vegetable peels washing over him. With a decisive flick of his wrist, he tossed the stone beetle inside. It landed with a soft, unsatisfying thud amongst the garbage. He slammed the lid shut, the sound final and reassuring.

Problem solved.

Exhausted, Liam fell into bed and was asleep almost instantly. But his sleep was not restful. He dreamt of sand. Endless, suffocating dunes of black sand under a dead, white sun. He was walking, his throat raw and his lungs burning, a crushing weight on his chest. He tried to call for help, but his mouth filled with grit, choking him. The sand wasn't just around him; it was inside him, a grinding, crawling presence.

He woke with a gasp, his body drenched in sweat, the sheets tangled around his legs. The dream’s suffocating terror still clung to him like a shroud. The first thing he was aware of was the silence of his room. The second was the object clutched tightly in his right hand.

It was cold. It was heavy. And its impossibly sharp, stone legs were digging into his skin.

Liam’s breath hitched. He slowly, deliberately, uncurled his fingers. Lying in the center of his palm, gleaming faintly in the moonlight filtering through his window, was the scarab.

He hadn’t dreamt it. He hadn’t imagined it. He had thrown it in the trash, buried it under eggshells and potato peels. Yet here it was, back in his possession, held in a grip so tight his knuckles ached. He had no memory of getting out of bed, no memory of retrieving it.

He scrambled to turn on his bedside lamp, flooding the room with light as if it could burn away the impossibility of the moment. The scarab lay there, inert and solid. A souvenir. A curse.

His heart hammered against his ribs. He checked his hands constantly now, not by choice, but by a horrifying new instinct. He could already feel it—the phantom sensation of the scarab’s weight, the ghost of its sharp legs against his skin, a feeling he suspected would never, ever go away. The house on Broke Neck Ridge was no longer just a memory of a creepy day’s work. He had taken a piece of it with him.

Or, he realized with a fresh wave of ice-cold dread, a piece of it had taken him.