Charnel House

Perched on the plateau atop a hill named for the hickory trees dotting its slopes, the abandoned house broods over the tiny Alabama town like a rattler guarding a clutch of eggs. Few of the townspeople ever think about the house above them; it has faded in the town’s collective memory the way colors in an old photograph do. The lines of the house are skewed, and its supports grown weak. But still it stands, ageless and timeless, looming over the town like a watchful sentinel. 

And sometimes, it feeds.