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    The Cage: Haunted Coal Ridge, #4
    The Cage: Haunted Coal Ridge, #4
    The Cage: Haunted Coal Ridge, #4
    Ebook38 pages31 minutes

    The Cage: Haunted Coal Ridge, #4

    By Chuck Sperati

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    About this ebook

    A series of intertwined supernatural stories that will make you wonder where the darkness ends and the light begins. All small towns keep secrets, but in Coal Ridge when the secret gets out, it begins to feed…again.

    Story 4: "The Cage"

    Something hunts the people of Coal Ridge. Hank has spent decades fighting it, but with his time running out, he needed to find a way to stop it.

    Bruce was a lifelong screw-up until he met Hank. Who could have guessed that finding a purpose would make things worse?

    Faced with an undefeatable evil, Hank and Bruce decide that the only way to protect their friends and neighbors was to trap it, but in doing so they will trap themselves. One in death and the other with a lifelong responsibility he doesn't want, because something that can be trapped can also be released.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherWriting Distracted
    Release dateAug 18, 2018
    ISBN9781646390120
    The Cage: Haunted Coal Ridge, #4
    Author

    Chuck Sperati

    Among other things, I'm a writer--with some published experience--whose been mostly quiet for the past few decades, mostly because I let life get in the way. I've long had a creative outlet at the gaming table and recently found another when I started building a website. With this new outlet also came inspiration. Right now I'm working primarily on a series of short stories that has received some very positive feedback, so I'm sharing. If you enjoy anything I've written, check out my website at https://www.chucksperati.com, where you can find more things that have crawled out of my imagination.

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      Book preview

      The Cage - Chuck Sperati

      Dedication

      Coal Ridge is based on Ohio’s Finest Village. It was a great place to grow up and continues to be a remarkable community to which I enjoy returning to see friends and family. For those who live there, take a moment, look around, and be wary of the shadows.

      ––––––––

      Preface

      A series of intertwined short stories that will make you wonder where the darkness ends and the light begins. All small towns keep secrets, but in Coal Ridge, when the secret gets out, it begins to feed...again.

      Set in a small, somewhat geographically secluded Midwestern town, the blue-collar people of Coal Ridge are friendly and laid back. They enjoy block parties, gossip, and the simple joys that come with being a close-knit community. Since everyone knows everyone else, secrets are hard to keep, but some are so well hidden that they’ve been forgotten.

      These short stories explore a supernatural awakening that will test the bonds of family and community.

      The Cage

      Coal Ridge, July 21, 1983

      A dark form coalesced beneath the single bulb on the ceiling, its shape continually shifting. While it blocked the light, it did not cast a shadow or make any sound as it stalked across the dank, pitted concrete floor of the old house on the corner of Hemlock Drive and Third Street. Buffeted by waves of rage, pain, and hunger, the two men underground with it exhaled white plumes into the suddenly frigid room. Although they stood in a protective circle, meticulously drawn from salt, neither felt particularly safe.

      This is it, the older man whispered.

      Hank McDonald shivered. Thinning gray hair blew back off his lined forehead as the shadow passed. Although dressed in the same style of heavy jeans and plaid button-down shirt he wore back when working the coal mines before they’d shut down, he felt the cold on his flesh. In the deep mine tunnels, he sometimes felt cold like that seep through his clothes, but the rock formations more often gave off an uncomfortable heat.

      A part of him longed to be back in that sweltering darkness. Not because he missed the work – Hank missed his friends.

      Eighteen of them stumbled upon the sealed-off gallery that day. Most were convinced the old steel box they found inside contained a treasure that would finally get them out of the mines forever.

      All but him were half right.

      "This is worse than any trip, man. Is

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