Chapter 2: The Miller Curse and the $50,000 Job

The next morning, before dawn, my dad yanked me out of bed. He loaded up his battered Chevy van with all his gear, and we headed to Jake Miller’s place.

The van smelled like stale coffee and incense. I pulled my hoodie tight around me and watched the sun rise over the cornfields.

My dad was quiet, eyes fixed on the road, hands gripping the wheel a little too tight.

Miller Hollow wasn’t far, but the road was a mess—ruts and mud everywhere. My stomach churned the whole way; I thought my brain was going to shake loose.

Every bump sent my backpack flying off the seat. I counted potholes to distract myself, but it didn’t help. The trees closed in overhead, blocking out the early morning light.

My dad said, based on what Aunt Marsha had heard, the Miller family had to be cursed or something—every misfortune seemed to hit them. A year ago, Jake Miller’s wife died. Their soon-to-be son-in-law, Zach Lane, went missing. Their eldest daughter, Dana Miller, who’d come back to teach after college, was dragged into a cornfield…

The stories sounded like something out of a horror movie.

Folks whispered about the Miller place being haunted, cursed, doomed from the start. I didn’t want to believe it, but the facts were hard to ignore.

Not only assaulted, but her eye was gouged out, her tongue cut off. Tortured to death. The killer was never found.

The whole county turned out for her funeral. The preacher cried, and even the sheriff looked like he might break down. No one ever spoke about it above a whisper after that.

After blow after blow, the only thing keeping Jake Miller going was his young son, Kyle. And then, fifteen days ago, Kyle vanished on his way home from school. No trace, dead or alive.

It was like the world had it out for the Millers.

I wondered how a family could survive so much pain, one heartbreak after another.

People said the Millers’ funeral home brought too much bad luck—their house was cursed, doomed to break up the family. In just over a year, the family was nearly wiped out.

Some folks stopped using their funeral services, afraid the curse might rub off. Others left casseroles and prayers on the porch, not sure what else to do.

My dad said there had to be something more to it—he just didn’t know if it was fate or foul play.

He muttered about patterns, about how sometimes the worst things happened for reasons no one wanted to see. I wondered if he really believed that, or if it was just another line.

I was uneasy. If they couldn’t find Kyle, Jake Miller would have nothing left to live for. Yet he was putting everything he had on my dad, the con artist…

I felt a knot in my stomach, thinking about all the times we’d left town in the middle of the night. This time, it felt different—like we were standing at the edge of something we couldn’t run from.

At dawn, my dad and I arrived at the Millers’. The house was packed with paper wreaths, cardboard caskets, funeral flowers. The moment I stepped inside, a chill ran through me; goosebumps rose on my arms.

The air smelled of lilies and something sharper, like bleach. Every surface was covered in reminders of death. I clung to my dad’s sleeve, wishing I was anywhere else.

My dad looked around, calculated on his fingers for a long time. Then he said, based on the Millers’ situation, they needed a house cleansing, an exorcism, a spirit-summoning ritual—the whole nine yards. He put a hand over his heart and promised Jake Miller that after three days of rituals, he’d find out what happened to Kyle. “If he’s alive, we’ll see him. If not, we’ll find the body.”

He spoke with a confidence I’d never heard before, his voice echoing in the quiet room. Jake Miller clung to his words like a drowning man grabbing a life preserver.

Hearing that, Jake Miller burst into tears, nearly dropping to his knees.

I’d never seen a grown man cry like that. His sobs shook the walls, and even the neighbors outside fell silent. My dad stepped forward, steady as ever, and helped him back to his feet.

My dad asked for Kyle’s clothes, pillow, and hair. Got chicken blood and table salt ready. Burned ashes, lit candles, set up the altar. Put on his ritual robe and hat, left off the eyepatch, muttering incantations. One dark eye, one white. The dark eye glared, sharp as a blade—looked like a fallen angel himself. The white one, eerie and strange—he really looked the part.

He moved around the room with a kind of ritual grace, each step deliberate. The neighbors watched from the doorway, whispering to each other, crossing themselves or clutching rosaries. Even I had to admit—he looked like he believed every word he said.

He sang, he chanted—put on a show all day. The neighbors watching were stunned.

His voice rose and fell, sometimes a low hum, sometimes a wail that sent chills down my spine. The candles flickered, casting shadows on the walls. I felt like I was watching a play, but the stakes were real.

I knew my dad’s performance scaled with the client’s fee. For five hundred, he’d chant all night. For fifty thousand—well, this was only the first day. The real show was yet to come.

He winked at me when no one was looking, like we were sharing a secret. I wondered what he had planned for the grand finale.

When night fell, we ate dinner and turned in early in the guest room Jake Miller had set up. People in the hollow went to bed early. When the crescent moon was high, you could hear dogs barking and frogs croaking.

The guest room smelled of mothballs and old quilts. I lay awake, listening to the night sounds—dogs howling in the distance, the steady chorus of frogs by the creek. It felt like the whole world was holding its breath.