The House of Last Resort

by Christopher Golden

Genres: Horror; Supernatural suspense

Synopsis

The next high concept horror novel from NYT bestselling author Christopher Golden.

 

Across Italy there are many half-empty towns, nearly abandoned by those who migrate to the coast or to cities. The beautiful, crumbling hilltop town of Becchina is among them, but its mayor has taken drastic measures to rebuild―selling abandoned homes to anyone in the world for a single Euro, as long as the buyer promises to live there for at least five years. It’s a no-brainer for American couple Tommy and Kate Puglisi. Both work remotely, and Becchina is the home of Tommy’s grandparents, his closest living relatives. It feels like a romantic adventure, an opportunity the young couple would be crazy not to seize. But from the moment they move in, they both feel a shadow has fallen on them. Tommy’s grandmother is furious, even a little frightened, when she realizes which house they’ve bought. There are rooms in an annex at the back of the house that they didn’t know were there. The place makes strange noises at night, locked doors are suddenly open, and when they go to a family gathering, they’re certain people are whispering about them, and about their house, which one neighbor refers to as The House of Last Resort. Soon, they learn that the home was owned for generations by the Church, but the real secret, and the true dread, is unlocked when they finally learn what the priests were doing in this house for all those long years…and how many people died in the strange chapel inside. While down in the catacombs beneath Becchina…something stirs.

Release date: January 30, 2024

Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

Print pages: 304

Sample

1

The rats are like fingers.

No. That’s not right. Fingers can reach out, can grasp and extend. The rats are not like fingers at all. They are periscopes, like those on submarines, each able to give its captain only a limited view of the world above. From their place below, among the dead, the lost ones can see only as far as the rats can see. But they are patient, and so they wait. And they let the rats run.



2

Tommy fought the urge to jump from the car and run all the way home. Kate would murder him, of course, and his grandparents—who awaited their arrival—would be less than pleased. The fact that he’d sold his childhood home and given up the apartment he and Kate had shared in Boston would also be a problem. They’d put the Mediterranean Sea and thousands of miles of Atlantic Ocean between themselves and everything they knew to start this new adventure together in Sicily.

This was home now.

The tiny Fiat wound its way up through the narrow streets of Becchina. The engine whined in protest at having to pull the small trailer up the twisty road that was the heart of this hill town.

“Hey,” Kate said, reaching over to put a hand on his thigh. “It’s going to be perfect.”

“Your Tommy-sense kicking in again?”

“I don’t need superpowers. You think I can’t just look at you and see how tense you are?” Kate took his right hand off the wheel and kissed his knuckles. “I told you. It’s going to be perfect. Trust me.”

She squeezed his hand to ground him, let him know she was with him all the way.

Tommy pulled back his hand. “I need both to steer. Last thing I want to do is crash into one of these old buildings. Not the first impression I want to make on the locals.”

Kate scoffed. “It wouldn’t exactly be your first impression. You’re like royalty around here.”

“That’s a slight exaggeration.”

“Is it, though?”

She was overstating a bit, but it was true he wasn’t exactly a stranger to Becchina. The population had dwindled over the past few decades, but many of the people had met him before. He had been here five times in his twenty-eight years, visiting his grandparents first with his mom and dad, and later just with his mother. Then, four months ago, he had come to Becchina with Kate, and that had changed everything.

In many ways, it had become a ghost town. There were many of them in Sicily—places too distant from the island’s coast or from the few business hubs, places abandoned by the young in favor of Palermo, or more likely Rome or Milan on the mainland. The more adventurous departed for other European nations or for the United States. Some of the hill towns in the vast island’s interior managed to use tourism to keep their communities alive, if not exactly vibrant, but Becchina didn’t have the castles of Erice, or the cathedral of Monreale. It didn’t have fifth-century temples with a view of the Mediterranean like Agrigento.

Becchina did have a few things going for it. An ancient set of stone steps wove down through the town—two hundred twenty-seven steps, more than the famous stairs in Ragusa. The town also boasted a church with a blue neoclassical dome older than the one on the basilica in Ragusa, but church and dome were both in desperate need of restoration. The town had breathtaking views of the valley and quiet streets that were clean and colorful. Yet somehow it had never made it onto the radar of the travel sites.

A forty-minute drive from the volcanic Mount Etna, Becchina should have been alive.

Instead, it was the corpse of a town that didn’t even realize it was already dead.

The mayor, Fausto Brancati, had seen other towns take drastic measures and had followed their lead. Becchina needed new blood, and it no longer mattered where that blood originated. At Mayor Brancati’s instruction, the town seized abandoned homes and offered them for sale for a single euro, with certain strings attached. The buyer had to live in the home for at least five years and had to spend a minimum of fifty thousand euros on renovations. They were trying to lure people with a sense of adventure and romance, people who might stay beyond the five years, who might have children in Becchina and raise them here, although in his heart, Brancati had to know that most of those children would leave when they were old enough.

That’s a long way off, Tommy thought. He wasn’t even sure he and Kate would stay the five years needed to solidify their ownership of their new house. But he wasn’t going to tell her that.

“I still have no idea how the movers’ truck is going to get to the house,” Kate said as the Fiat juddered through a series of potholes.

“Magic?” Tommy said. “Maybe they use a hot air balloon.”

She poked him in the side.

“Hey! Don’t poke the driver!”

“Hot air balloon, my butt.”

Tommy snickered. “So many jokes. Brain overloading.”

“I would punch you so hard, but I’m glad to see you smiling. This is supposed to be a happy day. Literally the happiest day that isn’t our wedding day. It’s like a dream. Look around you, Tom.”...