Prologue.
The fields around the little wooden house sat quiet in the dark. Tall miles of corn flanking the little weather-boarded structure like an armed guard. Dark shadows rattling in the chill wind like a hiss or a whisper, all leaning towards where a single lamp lit up the dusty ground beneath the porch, and to a constant, dull thumping that radiated up from the building's foundations.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
It was happening again. Somewhere within the walls evil was happening and it involved a man, a woman, and a shovel.
"You got the pendent?" the woman asked from the basement steps, wisps of grey hair floating before her eyes as she lent forward, her arms holding close the thin battered bathrobe that covered her figure. Before her the man, the younger by several decades, glanced up nervously through heavy ginger curls thick with grease and nodded.
"Yes ma," he replied, raising an arm to wipe the sweat from a thin moustache with the sleeve of his shirt, "I took it off afore I buried him."
The woman gave a single nod, eyes falling onto the fresh mound of earth lying before them,
"Good boy," she responded, distantly, "We're going to need it to find us another one. A better one," she added with a nod of determination before letting out a sigh, "Such a shame about your last brother. He wasn't right for us at all. A wicked child," she spat.
"A wicked child," the man bleated back at her quietly.
"Just like the one before him" she sighed, lifting her gaze to take in the fainter bulges that dotted the earthy ground with a frown of ferocity, "But don't you worry none Isaac," she continued, her conviction growing as her son came to stand obediently before her, letting her run bony fingers through his hair, "We'll find you a worthy brother this time and we'll keep him with us forever. He'll be a good boy, just you wait and see."
Isaac nodded, turning to rest his head against his mother's chest as she gripped him to her fiercely, repeating the final sentence as if to convince herself,
"Just you wait and see."
The response was chillingly compliant.
"Yes mother."
"Just you wait and see…"