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Coach, the energy out there felt different.

What changed for the team today?

It was the new game day scratchers from the California Lottery.

Play is everything.

Those games sent the team's energy through the roof.

Are you saying it was the off-field play that made the difference on the field?

Hey, a little play makes your day, and today it made the game.

That's all for now.

Coach, one more question.

Play the new Los Angeles Chargers, San Francisco 49ers, and Los Angeles Rams Scratchers from the California Lottery.

A little play can make your day.

Please play responsibly, must be 18 years or older to purchase play or claim.

Old Gods of Appalachia is a horror anthology podcast and therefore may contain material not suitable for all audiences.

So listener discretion

is advised.

The man in the suit looked down into the devil's cradle and watched the county deputy, one Eustace Caudle, as he sat reading his newspaper for the fourth time, trying to stay awake and keep watch as the sheriff had ordered.

The man smiled

and raised a single finger.

Eustace yawned like a bobcat trying to swallow a pumpkin.

The deputy shook his head and tried to clear it, and he put his newspaper and flashlight down and took out his thermos, knowing that another stiff cup of his wife's excellent coffee would do him just right.

The man in the suit,

some 30 yards into the tree line, held up a second finger and then a third.

The thermos sloshed to the floor, unopened.

His deputy caudal slumped over, dead asleep, already snoring to beat the metaphorical band.

Now, the man in the suit had planned on drawing that out for a few more minutes, but he couldn't have the officer open his thermos and spill hot coffee everywhere.

That would have just been cruel and unnecessary.

Moving with the unpracticed silence the young deer used to avoid drawing the attention of a predator, the man in the suit walked out of the woods and down into into the devil's cradle.

He moved among the simple bunkhouses and sheds, locked and barred doors yielding to his practiced hands until he reached the sturdy cabin that had been Granny Ambergie's humble abode.

Its door was

knocked.

It had crumbled to a soft pulp as if months of rotten decay had eaten it away while its frame stood as stout and strong as the rest of the building.

The girl, then.

It had begun.

With Granny passed on, all the gifts, curses, powers, and manifestations bound within the children of the devil's cradle were slowly unlocking themselves.

There's no time to lose.

He moved into the cozy cabin and summarily tossed the place, dumping out bookshelves, shaking out baskets, trying loose floorboards or other traditional hidey holes.

Came up empty-handed each time.

The book

was gone.

He'd heard from one of the boys who knew his boy that one of the things the older young'uns had made off with was a big old book.

Granny Ambergie had all manner of books and all manner of subjects, so he hoped it wasn't the book.

But wishing one hand, and

well, you know how that goes.

Would they understand it if they read it?

The girl probably wouldn't know exactly what she was looking at, but the boy might.

And that could become a problem.

From what his sources closer to Greta Amberge had told him, the boy had been asking about where he come from,

who his people were.

He would be the one with the most questions.

Hell, all orphans had questions, and this boy was a very specific kind of orphan.

Which is to say, the kind that still had parents that had been looking for him for years, and the boy might not know that.

But he figured the young feller had figured out he wasn't exactly like the rest of the misfits and little lost lambs taken in by Granny Amberge and company.

Questions were fine, though.

The boy just needed the right hand to guide him to the proper answers.

That was all.

He could track the boy easy enough if he wanted to.

If the sheriff and the bank were still watching the property, they at least thought the older kids could still be in the area, or at the very least might come back and try to steal stuff.

They wouldn't, though.

If they had the book,

they'd have a whole mess of places to call on, and

there wasn't nothing left for them here, nohow.

With Greta dead, the place felt like an old abandoned farm more than it did anything that had ever been a home.

The man in the suit heaved a mighty sigh and made his way back to the tree line.

Now this could still work out in his favor.

There'd be bridges to burn and creeks to cross, but what else was new?

Right now, he needed to get ahead of them while they were still unlocking the book's secrets.

He took one last look back toward the farm and snapped his fingers.

Down in the cradle, Eustace Coddle sputtered awake and wondered why his good thermos was down in the floorboard of his patrol car.

Well, thank goodness none of of it spilled.

Sheriff Bowen would tan his hide if he made a mess in the county's new vehicle.

Deputy Caudle

never even glanced toward the tree line,

where he would have seen a stranger watching from above, pleased with his work.

Said stranger straightened his tie,

made sure his wallet and watch were just where he needed them,

and in that same unhurried, unpracticed silence,

vanished into the deep Kentucky night

and was gone.

These old hills call

for the blood of my body,

a pound of flesh for a ton of coal.

So down I

into a dark hell waiting

Where lungs turn black and hearts grow cold

And I'll take to the hills and run from the devil to the dying sun

Something way my way comes

and and treads off my friend into these shadows where the old droam

in those hills we die

alone now

Jonah, Rachel, and Skeeter had not tarried long at Butcher's Rock that first night.

When Rachel led him back to their hideout, Jonah found that the girl and the smaller boy had packed up all their worldly goods, including the canned beans, sardines, saltines, and a few jars of Granny Amberge's pickled beets that had been in the stash at the rock and were ready to set out.

The Butcher's Rock was the furthest Jonah had ever been from Granny's farm on foot.

He'd never been out in the world without Granny Ambergie or her helpers watching over him and the others.

He'd come to the farm before he could remember anything else.

The days of his early childhood spun in his memory.

A kaleidoscope of blurred images, faces, and places that he could never quite seem to get a grasp on.

Yes, family, memories fade and distort and shift as we get older, but

Jonah's memories leapt through time as though they'd been cut and pasted together like pictures in a collage.

One moment he was a toddler splashing in the creek with Miss Laura and the other small ones, and the next he had a broom in his hand.

and was old enough to help Miss June sweep the kitchen.

He remembered being given a Bible by Pastor Kendall and suddenly found himself at the age of accountability.

But there didn't seem to be any time between these memories.

It was like he'd been through childhood and now here he stood with enough sweat to smell funky and a lot of unanswered questions.

Like who taught him to read?

Jonah had no memory of ever learning his letters.

Words just showed themselves to him one day.

Who taught him to speak?

Who told him not to touch the stove when it was hot?

These were all things that seemed seemed to spring fully formed into his mind.

Like his own name.

Jojo.

Then Jonah.

No last name.

Though that part wasn't that unusual around Granny's farm.

Young'uns that come from nowhere as babies could either take the name of the family raising them or none, as they chose.

Jonah glanced over at Skeeter.

He'd never heard anyone call the other boy anything but Skeeter, and the way he carried himself and sort of a spooky quietude.

He doubted anyone ever would.

Rachel, on the other hand, had claimed a dozen different last names.

When he'd met her, when she'd come to the farm, she said her name was Rachel Fairchild, like out of them old books that taught you manners and whatnot.

Then a month later, she said her name was Rachel Harlow, like the movie star.

Mama changed our last name all the time, she told him one day when they'd been down by East Creek looking for lizards.

Our true names are secrets held in the vaults of our souls, only to be spoken when the roll is called on that glorious day.

Rachel had recited this with all the sincerity of somebody who never believed in Sunday school in the first place.

You can pick your own name whenever you want, really.

She was quiet for a long moment as she crept along the water's edge, eyes on the lookout for lizards to capture, and then went on.

We was on the run most of the time, is what it really was.

Church business.

Mama had this habit of being super on fire for her God.

So much that she burned the whole meeting house down with her spirit.

She did not believe in half measures.

Rachel nodded.

Saves me.

Jonah wasn't sure what to make all that.

Now, he'd been taken to church a bunch of times growing up.

Churches like doing things for orphans on the holidays, especially if they could make a show of it.

Maybe get the pastor's picture in the paper.

Now, they might lift both hands and speak in tongues at the Hazard Living Waters Church of the Lord God's Victory, but

he never heard nobody having to go on the run from Jesus.

And Jonah was about to say just that when he saw something in the water that stopped him in his tracks.

He almost couldn't believe his eyes as what had to be the biggest lizard he ever seen slid into view a little bit further out into the running stream.

He had to squint to even see it.

Its strange markings blended into the rocks and silt almost as if it was part of them.

The lizard had to be a foot and a half long

with a wide head like a tiny dragon, a monster cast in miniature.

He couldn't look away.

He slowed his step and reached for his shoes, ready to wade further into the creek to investigate when Rachel grabbed his arm.

Don't go after that one, Jojo.

That's a hellbender.

Ugly as sin and bad luck if you catch him.

Ain't a soul alive wants a hellbender.

Jonah watched as the giant salamander disappeared beneath some rocks with a flourish of its long tail.

Well, he's come to the right place if he wants to live amongst folks nobody else wants, Jonah said with a laugh he didn't quite feel.

Hey, there's you, last name, Jojo.

Jonah Hellbender.

They'd laughed and Rachel had called him Little Lord Hellbender for the rest of the day until Granny had told her to stop unless she wanted to do an extra week of dishes on the chore rotation for St.

H-E-L-L at the dinner table.

That day felt like a lifetime ago as Jonah and his friends hiked through the woods, making their way deeper into the shadow of Lost Mountain.

Skeeter walked in the lead, the oncoming twilight proving no hindrance to either his movement or vision.

Of the three of them, Skeeter had been off the farm the most since his arrival.

Other children had gossiped that the dark-skinned boy didn't stay in bed at night, that he moved like a whisper of smoke through the trees and ranged far out into the woods.

Eddie Feltner said he was out at the rock with Joanne Hale late one night, getting up to some devil's business, when they they started to feel like somebody was watching them they looked all around the rock and into the thick brush nearby and found no one

then joanne happened to look up

sure enough there was skeeter perched in a tree and gazing down at the two of them like a screech owl watching a pair of plump field mice

He didn't even seem to breathe.

Just stared down at them with those glossy dark eyes, the mess of his flat flat black hair hanging down, hiding the rest of his face.

There was something

hungry in that look, Joanne had said.

She'd screamed, and Eddie threw a rock at him, and Skeeter just vanished higher up into the trees like some kind of night critter.

If Eddie Feltner had gathered up his courage to say boo to Skeeter after that,

Joan had never heard of it.

Now, Skeeter led them confidently through the gathering dark, up around the side of the hill and into the mouth of a shallow cave.

There wasn't much to it, but it would keep any rain off of them and shield them from any prying eyes.

Rachel produced a small lantern from her pack and primed it to live.

A wan, flickering light grew into a warm glow as the humid breath of a Kentucky midsummer night stuck to their skins like a second sheen of sweat.

After a few minutes of arranging their gear and settling in, the three folk had made a right cozy little camp for themselves in the modest hole in the side of the mountain.

So let's hear it, Jonah.

Rachel demanded, her face lit with a grin.

You went through all the trouble of hauling it all the way here.

What does the good book have to say?

Skeeters scowled and shook his head.

No more Bible stories.

Hurts, he muttered.

Jonah pulled the heavy tone from his pack and then settled himself on the floor of the cave, with the book resting on his crossed legs, angled so they could all see the cover.

Ain't no Bible stories in here, Skeets.

Well, they is, but that's not what we're after.

Granny Ambergie's Bible was an impressive looking thing, or at least it had been at one time.

Bound white leather with a huge ornate gold cross embossed onto the front of it.

Now the leather was scuffed and stained, the gilt cross flaking at the edges.

Tattered ribbons in countless colors protruded from the bottom marking Granny's favorite passages.

Faded gold filigree trimmed the edges of the front cover and worked its way in neat squares around the spine.

And the whole affair was bound shut with a thick strip of belt leather that fastened with a simple turning knob that locked the strap in place.

I ain't even rightly sure it is a Bible.

It doesn't say the Holy Bible on it anywhere.

And I've seen things in it over Granny's shoulder that weren't no Bible I ever seen.

Plus, I've never seen a Bible that you lock.

I've been trying to get this knob to turn for the past hour, but it ain't come loose yet.

I don't know if there's a certain way you've got to push it, but I guess we can cut it off if we have to.

I can probably help with that.

Rachel said, and she extended a single finger toward the lock on the front of the book.

It worked with Granny's door, didn't it?

Jonah grabbed her wrist before she could touch it.

No,

no offense, Rach, but I don't think you meant to do that to Granny's door.

And I don't know that you could do it again and just do the lock.

We can't risk you turning this whole book into mulch.

Rachel scowled at him, but couldn't disagree.

Before she or Jonah could say another word, Skeeter snatched the book up and stood.

Holding it out at arm's length, he stared down at the gold cross and the worn illumination that wound itself around the overstuffed volume and glowered.

Hate etched into his face, tears glinting in the corner of his eyes.

Granny's dead.

Why would we need her book?

Should burn it or throw it away.

Whoa, Skeeter, calm down.

What's gotten into you?

Word said that Granny's that granny is gone to.

She was real good to us.

Why would you want to burn her book?

Jonah rose slowly to his feet, preparing to take the book back by force if he had to.

Skeets, that book has information about all of us in there, about our people.

It's everything she never told us about ourselves and what's out there for us.

Y'all might know where you come from, but I don't.

I want.

No, I need to open that book and know what's inside.

Skeeters shook his head.

His eyes were huge and black.

Tears streamed down his grimy face in the lantern light.

I do not want to open it,

he said in a quiet, choked voice.

With a soft click, The knob holding the book shut turned of its own accord,

and the volume began to change.

The white leather seemed to char and darken.

The cross and gold filigree vanished, revealing the deep burnt brown cover of a hide-bound book that seemed to grow hot in the smaller boy's hands.

Skeeter gasped and dropped it, and the book fell open on the floor of the cave.

Before their eyes, the thin pages of scripture scripture with their spidery notation changed as well.

Chapters and verses became maps and legends.

New pages seemed to grow under the translucent onion skin of the King James.

Pages written on parchment and rag cotton, some even on tanned hide or

skin.

As its spine struck the ground, some of the new pages had torn loose and unfolded, revealing drawings of nigh unspeakable horrors.

Commentary about the monstrous beasts had been scribbled into the margins.

A picture of an old bridge labeled simply Josephine, with directions from the farm to it, loomed large on the page the book had fallen open to.

On the opposite page was a drawing of what ostensibly was a person,

but with far too many arms and a face like a screaming nightmare.

Packets of loose pages stuffed into envelopes poked out here and there.

Children's names written on each in different handwriting and colors of ink.

Some names had been struck through in black ink.

Others with a piercing slash of scarlet.

Jonah knelt to examine decades, hell, maybe centuries of accumulated knowledge now spread across the floor of this dirty old cave.

Whatever binding held the book's secrets in check had been broken,

and the truth about the farm and the devil's cradle lay bare

before the eyes of the last children

to ever call it home.

We laid my mama to rest.

The rich bowed its head.

And I tattooed her name on the top of my wrist.

Well, six feet too low when her heart becomes cold.

We'll sniff out her bones and see how bright she glows.

See, I hear that time is a cold hammer's blow.

And the days in this holler are caskets to close.

Well, I watch the sun sink and pray it may rise.

And hope in the tales I keep buried in my mind.

Of panthers on

the mountains inside

the freedom that comes and knowing you're bite.

Well, I sharpen my teeth, pray my nails become close

to finally dig out of this hole we've always called home.

Well, hey there, family.

Welcome to this, the next step of the journey of our young friend Jonah Hellbender, as he and his friends try to reconnect with who they might have been before they ended up out in the devil's cradle.

Now, if you don't know what a hellbender is, that is not some fantastical lizard that crawled out of our evil heads.

Go right now and Google Eastern Hellbender.

I'll wait.

Yeah, now you know.

It's one of the largest types of salamanders in the world, and they live all over our part of Appalachia, and they aren't bad luck.

In fact, if you've got hellbenders around, that water is probably real clean because that's the type of environment they need to survive.

And we got three episodes left in the season, y'all, and big lizards are the least of what's coming down the pipe.

Trust me on that one.

I want to take a moment to thank everybody who's voted for us in this year's Audioverse Awards.

Old Gods of Appalachia and Black Mouth Dog racked up over 30 nominations between them.

We appreciate the love y'all show us every year at awards time.

Now, if you really want to show us love, head on over to oldgodsofappalachia.com, complete your social media ritual, follow us on all the services made available to you there.

If you want to show your devotion, then you can join the congregation over at Patreon, where there is a treasure trove of additional content, and we'll be announcing a brand new Patreon miniseries that'll be coming in between seasons three and four real soon.

This is your Every Time We See You Out in the Graveyard reminder that Old Gods of Appalachia is a production of Deep Nerd Media distributed by Rusty Quill.

Today's story was written and performed by Steve Schell and edited by Cam Collins.

Our intro music is by Brother Land and Blood, and the outro music for this arc is by Brother John Charles Dwyer, whose song Panthers on the Mountainside is now available over on our band camp, old gods of Appalachia.bandcamp.com.

The voice of Rachel was Sarah Doreen McPhee.

Talk to you soon, family.

Talk to you real soon.

Panthers on

the the mountains inside,

the freedom that comes, and knowing your bite.

I'll sharpen my teeth, pray my nails become claws to finally dig out of this hole I've always called home.

Coach, the energy out there felt different.

What changed for the team today?

It was the new game day scratchers from the California Lottery.

Play is everything.

Those games sent the team's energy through the roof.