The Malevolent Nephilim E-Book

Lydia Avant Ortiz

• Herausgeber: BooxAi
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

In the haunting psychological thriller, 'The Malevolent Nephilim,' nine-year-old Nina becomes entangled in a chilling mystery in the remote countryside of southwestern Colorado. When a war veteran neighbor, Mr. Paul, falls prey to a malevolent force, Nina is convinced that the local pastor, Silas, is not what he seems. Is he an eight-foot-tall Nephilim, a giant spoken of in ancient texts? As terror grips the small town, Nina, her family, and Mr. Paul's allies fight to expose the truth and survive. This gripping tale blends supernatural horror, suspense, and science fiction elements, as chilling encounters with extraterrestrial beings and demonic forces add to the dread. Inspired by a true story, this is a thriller that explores the darkness lurking beneath the surface of a seemingly idyllic community.

Leseprobe

Praise for Lydia Ortiz Avant

Lydia Avant

The Malevolent Nephilim

All rights reserved

Copyright © 2023 Revision 2025 by Lydia Avant

No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Published by Spines Publishing Platform

ISBN: 979-8-89383-013-2

The Malevolent Nephilim

Lydia Ortiz Avant

A million thanks to my husband, Len, who has been very supportive and patient in making this book happen for me.

This book is dedicated to my daughters, Angeline and Alexis, my grandchildren, Maddie and Mateo, my sister Martha, and my brother-in-law Harvey. Praise to my brother Rudy, my sister Lavinia, and my youngest brother Steve, for contributing to the story.

Thank you family!

Len and Lydia Avant

Contents

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Introduction

It is through her hazel green eyes that nine year old Nina first sees the World War One Veteran. She bonds with him instantaneously. But what compels the war hero to self-annihilate four years later?

What happened to Mr. Paul?

Do the Nephilim still roam the earth?

Nina is the narrator of the psychological thriller titled: The Malevolent Nephilim.

The fictional story is inspired by a true story that began in 1954 through 1958. In the true story Nina and her grandparents move into the neighborhood next door to the log house where Mr. Paul resides. The Mordor in disguise appears to be a haven in the countryside of South Western Colorado. It seems like the perfect place where Faustin and Lugarda can raise their nine-year-old granddaughter, Nina. The looming curse that transpires during those four years consumes the lives of the residents who live alongside of the mighty Rio Grande.

In the year of 2022, Nina decides to change the narrative of the true story to a fictional story where she is able to control the thread spun short in Mr. Paul’s life.

The fictional story consists of several elements: Thrill, Horror, Terror, Mystery, Paranormal, Science Fiction and ample Sphere Sovereignty.

Early in the fictional story Nina introduces the protagonist Mr. Paul, and his antagonist, Pastor Silas. Nina and her grandparents, Faustin and Lugarda, become Mr. Paul’s first advocates against the vile pastor of Mr. Paul’s church, just like in the true story.

In the fictional story Nina blames the tall and gangly superimposing Pastor Silas for Mr. Paul’s fate. In one of their weekly Bible studies Nina’s grandmother reads the scripture to her about the Nephilim giants. In Nina’s nine-year-old mind, the pastor represents the fright of an eight-foot-plus malevolent Nephilim. The giants are the offspring of fallen angels and daughters of ordinary men mentioned in Genesis of the Old Testament. Nina is convinced that Pastor- Silas-is-of the Nephilim.

Pastor Silas is being demonized by a curse that he doesn’t fully understand until his mother Ruth, tells him the truth about his real origin. He tries to destroy Mr. Paul and his advocates. He deceives most of the congregation in his church including the town’s sheriff. When the residents in the area realize what Pastor Silas’s macabre intentions are, they take the situation into their own hands after law enforcement fails them.

In the fictional story Nina creates a legal avenue to avenge Mr. Paul’s life. She gives the war veteran the justice that he rightly deserves. Nina also reveals a major truth about her grandfather’s heroic act during a very crucial part of the true story. In the true story the sheriff and his deputy take full credit for her grandfather’s bravery.

AN EXCERPT

As Faustin walked closer to the dim light in the attic, he could see the distorted hanging corpse of his best friend, Paul. The three-day-old stench of decaying leaking bodily fluids quickly dominated his olfactory sensory receptors triggering a- projectile vomit. “Jesus Christ,” he uttered. He wiped his mouth clean with his shirt sleeve as he was forced to deal with the next horrific shocker.

AUTOBIOGRAPHY

Greetings. It is Spring of 2023. I am the seventy-eight-year-old NINA. My oldest sister Martha nick-named me Nina in the late 1940s. Most of my family still call me Nina, except for my daughters and grandchildren. They know me by my birth name, Lydia. My husband Len, calls me Liddie.

I belong to a family of story-tellers and story writers. While in college, I studied creative writing for teenagers and children. One year I wrote a bilingual play titled: La Vista/The Visit. It was chosen from thirteen entries and put on stage during a summer festival in North Denver Colorado.

My long career in Early Childhood Education takes credit for my inspiration to continue writing. In 2019 two of my stories were published in the book titled: La Llorona: Encounters with the Weeping Woman. It’s a book of 56 stories told in the first

person about people’s experiences with the ghostly spectre. The book was written by author/compiler Judith Shaw Beatty. It can be purchased through Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other channels. Judith has given me praise as a prolific storyteller and contributor to her latest third edition of La Llorona book. The praise article written for me by author Judith Shaw Beatty is available upon request.

I belong to a social media group site called: Forgotten Southern Colorado. In 2022, I wrote a summary of the true story on that site about my ongoing anguish over my neighbor Mr. Paul’s demise. (Not his real name.) Some people on that site remembered the true story. I received over three hundred comments from residents in the area where the true story happened.

A special couple, Pam and Will Williams on that site supported the story from alpha to omega. Pam is a talented photographer in the beautiful San Luis Valley of Southern Colorado. Her fantastic and stirring skyline photos are an incredible contribution to the description of the story. Will’s donation of spine-tingling ideas for the paranormal development of the book is also greatly appreciated. I had the pleasure of meeting the intriguing couple in the summer of 2022.

HISTORY

Southern Colorado is often referred to as the land of unidentified flying objects. On January, 2023, a popular television channel reported that there had been over 350 new reports of what the United States government terms as, unidentified aerial phenomenon/UFOs.

THE LESSON

What Nina wants her readers to learn from her story is, if they too are struggling to find closure to something that’s plaguing them, there’s hope. It took Nina nearly sixty-four years to achieve her inner peace. She’d yearned for closure the entire time that she’d lived with the atrocity of Mr. Paul’s demise. She’d reached her goal by the time she’d finished writing the last chapter of the book. Nina finally discovered the missing link—the last step to her healing. Acceptance.

ChapterOne

The ambrosial aroma of the spinach casserole dominated the entirety of bachelor Paul’s log home. He’d picked the fresh spinach in the casserole from his flourishing garden that same morning. The World War One Veteran had watched the grandmother and her granddaughter with a nagging presage as they continued to move in next door. Midway through his brooding he suddenly remembered that the casserole dish was ready to be delivered.

* * *

Pastor Silas of Paul’s church had taken night occupancy of the house before Nina and her grandmother had moved in. By daytime Pastor Silas practiced his vocation at one of the only two churches in town. At night time, the pastor illegally and discreetly visited the empty house. He’d been using the house to meet with his sundown acquaintances. Pastor Silas had instinctively gravitated to the visitors although he was yet to understand the multitude of his attraction to the extraterrestrials.

* * *

Paul had been attending psychodynamic intervention therapy. The training had helped him with his army-related post-traumatic syndrome disorder. He hoped to be able to help Pastor Silas cope with the demons that plagued him. His wish was to win back the respect of the pastor. But the man of the cloth had detested him from the very beginning. He was out to destroy Paul and anyone who advocated for him.

Paul was certain that Pastor Silas wasn’t going to take kindly to the news that Lugarda and Nina had moved into the house next door. He’d known the pastor’s preposterous story from the time that he was a child. He never discussed the boy’s tormented mind with anyone except for his mother, Ruth. She had trusted him with the most bizarre information that had changed both of their lives forever. The reeling curse had continued. The Veteran’s goal was to help turn it around without drastic consequences to the community. Not even Pastor Silas knew the utmost significant part of his own troubled history.

* * *

“Grandmother someone is at the door,” Nina hollered from her bedroom window. Lugarda was coming into the house through the backdoor. “It’s a man holding a container with food.” Nina ran to be with her grandmother when she answered the front door.

“Welcome to the neighborhood ladies. I’m Paul your next-door neighbor. I hope you’ll enjoy this spinach casserole for lunch,” he said while he glanced at Nina. He wondered what her young life had in store in this formidable locality.

Lugarda thanked Paul and introduced herself and Nina.

“My granddaughter Nina has moved in with me to keep me company,” Lugarda said. “Please take this food to the kitchen,” she said handing the ceramic dish to Nina.

Nina took the warm casserole and put it on the small wooden table that she and her grandmother had assembled that morning. When Nina walked back to Lugarda’s side she noticed that her grandmother and the elderly man had continued with the introductory conversation. Her grandmother was telling Paul that her husband Faustin would be coming to join them in a few weeks. She’d also told him that Faustin had stayed behind in the adjacent county to finish business matters. Nina was relieved to hear Paul’s offer to help her grandmother move heavy furniture. Lugarda had thanked him and said that she’d wait for Faustin to help. When the conversation was over Lugarda told Nina to thank their nice neighbor man for the spinach casserole.

“Thank you Paul,” Nina said.

“To you he’s Mr. Paul, Nina,” her grandmother corrected.

“Thank you Mr. Paul,” Nina said.

The war veteran tipped his fedora hat and said goodbye. From that day on Nina called him Mr. Paul.

* * *

On the first night in the house Nina and Lugarda yelled when they saw several huge spiders hurrying away from a corner of the master bedroom. Lugarda took an insect spray can out of a box and sprayed excessively. The next morning they shuddered when a couple of mice scurried across the kitchen floor and into the cabinets. Nina searched for the mouse traps in the packed boxes. Later that afternoon Lugarda screamed when she stepped barefooted on a garter snake that slithered across the patio doorstep. The snake had wrapped itself around Lugarda’s ankle and let out a foul musk before it bit into her foot. Nina bent over close to the snake’s head and yelled out a demand for the release of her grandmother’s foot. That was all it took for the reptile to unwrap from Lugarda’s ankle and wiggle away. Lugarda thanked Nina for applying first aid to her wound. She’d jittered at the reality of having been pierced by the cold-blooded vermin. They hadn’t expected the unnerving interruptions to take place in their assumed happy move. They could hardly wait until Faustin came to be with them. He’d surely relocate all of the unwanted critters on the premises.

The next eerie thing that happened that week took place in the backyard. A tall and scrawny-looking gray humanoid with huge oval black eyes bumped into Nina on the old tire swing. The scary creature quickly cut off a piece of Nina’s bangs with a sharp tool. Then the freak disappeared into the air with the lock of her hair. It’d left a chartreuse green stain on Nina’s brown mane. From the catacombs of her throat she struggled to suppress the urge to scream. She decided not to tell her grandmother what had happened. Her grandmother had suffered enough anxiety that week and she didn’t need added stress.

But Lugarda noticed Nina’s bangs the moment she walked into the house. Lugarda asked Nina what had happened to her hair. Nina had no choice but to tell her grandmother the truth. Her story had overwhelmed Lugarda’s tired mind. “Nina must have found a can of green paint out in the yard,” Lugarda thought. She chose to disregard Nina’s dramatic antics and deal with her green bangs after she unpacked the boxes.

And as if things weren’t already bad enough, one evening just before sunset Lugarda looked out of the kitchen window and saw a gangly-looking man leaning heavily on her mailbox. The glabellar lines on her forehead deepened. The fragile mailbox was set on a tree post near the sandy river road of the Mighty Rio Grande.

Who was he and why was he staring at her house? What did he want? The frightening stranger rested his long arm on the rustic mailbox. The tree post which held the mailbox was bent over and it wasn’t going to take much more weight to bring it down. Lugarda had positioned the red flag for the next day’s outgoing mail. The flag had moved downward with the weighted arm of the stranger. “Darn that man,” she thought.

She’d have to go out again to reposition the flag when the intruder was gone.

Dusk began to set in. The odious man continued to peer toward the house. Lugarda continued to watch the annoyer while she cooked dinner. Her mind had shifted to the passage of the fallen angels in Deuteronomy of the Old Testament. The dark stature at the mailbox was changing like the phenotype Nephilim that Lugarda had read about in Genesis. The Nephilim were hybrid sons of the fallen angels and daughters of ordinary men. Some theologians believed that it was possible that the Nephilim still roamed the earth. Tonight she was inclined to agree with them.

Panic began to consume Lugarda. She yelled out to her granddaughter. “Nina, Nina, come here quickly.” Nina had been playing in her perfectly organized bedroom most of the day. She’d never heard such a desperate cry coming from her grandmother. Something had to be terribly wrong.

Nina dropped her long black-haired doll on the wood floor and rushed to Lugarda.

“Run out of the back door as fast as you can and tell Mr. Paul that there’s a horrible-looking man at our mailbox. Tell him he’s scaring me to death. Hurry Nina and don’t let that horrid man see you,” Lugarda panted.

Nina could feel her heart palpitating as she sprinted along the Rio Grande bank. She was out of breath by the time she reached the back door of Mr. Paul’s house. Nina used her fists to thump on the door.

Mr. Paul was singing a hymn at the top of his soprano voice.

He didn’t hear Nina pounding on the door.

Nina ran to the unscreened kitchen window. She’d lost her tennis ball in his yard the day before when it’d been raining. She picked up the muddied ball and threw it through the opened window. The ball startled Mr. Paul when it hit his back.

”Child what are you doing to me?” Mr. Paul asked. He wiped the mud off with a dish towel. “It’s late. What’s the matter? Why are you here?”

“Mr. Paul, look outside,” Nina gasped. “There’s a bad man at our mailbox. He’s staring at our house. My grandmother is so scared. Please Mr. Paul chase him away.”

Mr. Paul looked out of the kitchen window and saw a familiar menacing silhouette leaning on Lugarda’s mailbox. The image looked exactly like the one that’d been described on the radio news earlier in the day. The news anchor had reported a story about a persistent scopophiliac who’d been terrorizing women for several weeks.

“Do as I say Nina. Run back home quickly while I go see what that vagabond is doing at the mailbox. Stay inside until I tell you and your grandmother that you are both safe,” Mr. Paul said.

Mr. Paul waited until Nina entered her house. Then he made his way out to confront the foreboding omen that hesitated to move even an iota.

The super-imposing giant immediately sized up the smaller man as he approached the mailbox.

ChapterTwo

Adrenaline-fueled rage engulfed the war hero upon recognizing the form at the mailbox. His arms flung high in the air. He shouted angry commands at the man he’d once respected. From the kitchen window, Lugarda watched the altercation escalate between the two men. The morphing figure mimicked Mr. Paul’s angry gestures. Lugarda’s thoughts were interrupted when she saw that Mr. Paul had taken a swift swing but missed the hideous man’s head. She worried that Mr. Paul was going to get badly hurt. There was no way that she could call Sheriff Jon’s office. She hadn’t been able to get her telephone connected after the recent move. To her utter horror, a distorted winged-figure had transformed from the anatomy of the intruder. The grotesquely shaped demon had started gliding away while mocking Mr. Paul. It’d begun ascending into the sky toward town. The intimidating figure had disappeared at an alarming speed. It’d chilled Lugarda to her core. She thought of the Nephilim teleportation of a man with wings that she’d read about in Genesis and Numbers. Out of self-preservation she’d immediately convinced herself that what she’d seen at the mailbox was an illusion created by her own fear. Nephilim didn’t exist in this time and age. She walked to the mailbox and put the flag up again.

Mr. Paul was still at the mailbox. His fragile and lanky torso quivered uncontrollably. Lugarda gasped when she saw him trying to steady himself. He’d grasped the rickety post which held up the antiquated mailbox. Had he survived the same travesty that she had?

When Mr. Paul saw Lugarda, he straightened out and stood tall.

“What did that ghastly man want?” Lugarda pressed Mr. Paul. Mr. Paul wondered if Lugarda had witnessed what he’d seen. He lied to her and told her that the stranger was looking for his lost horse. “I let him know that you’d just moved here, and you don’t have his horse. You won’t have to worry about him coming to scare you and Nina anymore. I also told him I was going to call the law if he ever showed himself here again,” Mr. Paul concluded.

Lugarda thanked him profusely.

Mr. Paul reminded her to lock the doors and wished her and Nina a good night. As Mr. Paul walked back to his house, he realized that he’d have to deal with an extremely unsettling problem as soon as possible. He hoped that he could sleep after surviving the horrendous images that Pastor Silas had exhibited. The demon-possessed pastor had begun showing his cowardice by transforming and teleporting. Mr. Paul knew that it’d become Pastor Silas’s pattern of making a quick exit every time he felt threatened.

* * *

The next day at breakfast in Lugarda’s kitchen the radio news reported that a reward was being offered to anyone who could give additional information on a persistent scopophiliac who was on the lose.

“It’d be nice to have that reward money,” Lugarda mumbled. Without further thought, she turned the radio off. It was time to run Nina’s bath water.

* * *

The long days had turned into weeks and Faustin had finally moved in with Lugarda and Nina. The first thing that he fixed was the badly bent tree post that held the ancient mailbox. The tree post had endured the physical invasion of the hateful stranger who’d scared Lugarda and Nina on that dreadful evening.

* * *

Faustin and Mr. Paul hit it off at once. It was exactly like the theory of opposites attract. He was a man’s man and Mr. Paul was an introverted war hero. Faustin thanked Mr. Paul for helping calm Lugarda and Nina during their time of need. He’d made his living as a crop grower and had given Mr. Paul full jars of vegetable seeds to add to his already growing garden.

* * *

After Faustin moved the farm animals to the new place, Nina went out to see the new foal. She also visited with the rest of the animals. She already had names for each one. Nina was especially glad to see Bossy the white-faced gentle cow. Bossy was her favorite ranch animal that she rode every chance she got.

* * *

Faustin planted his garden next to Mr. Paul’s. The rusted barbed-wire fence separated the two gardens. The men worked side by side hoeing, watering, and fertilizing their crops. It was in their gardens that they learned about one another’s history. Mr. Paul told Faustin that he served in World War One. It’d been a rough tour for him. He talked to Faustin cathartically about his struggles with post-traumatic syndrome disorder. Faustin told Mr. Paul that a skin infection was the reason that’d kept him from serving his country.

* * *

Nina began to make friends in the neighborhood. She especially liked a girl named Gayle. Gayle had older siblings. Nina was happy that she and Gayle were the same age. Gayle’s mother was an actively working nurse and her father was a retired homemaker.

* * *

Nina and Gayle rode their bikes often, and they also rode Bossy around the yard. Nina had trained Bossy to lead with a bridle and reins. They played outdoors exploring the land between their homes. Their favorite indoor activity was playing Lugarda’s baby grand piano. They enjoyed composing songs from the music notes that Lugarda had taught them. The girls also liked listening to Lugarda play her piano while she sang church hymns.

* * *

When Gayle was busy, Nina played between the gardens that Faustin and Mr. Paul worked in. Each day she picked vegetables and brought them in the house so Lugarda could cook them for dinner.

* * *

One sweltering summer day while Faustin and Mr. Paul watered their gardens, Mr. Paul asked Nina if she would like to pick the sweet peas flowers in his garden. He offered to pay her five dollars biweekly to pick as many flowers as she could. He explained to her that the more sweet peas flowers were picked the less the flowers would turn into seedings. Nina put on the hot pink ruffled sunbonnet that her grandmother had made for her. She began to pick the flowers. She was thinking that she would enter the flowers of the sweet peas in the contest that was taking place in town the following week. Her thoughts were interrupted by a painful sensation in her head that she’d never felt before. Nina screamed when she saw a picture of a headstone in her mind. The words on the headstone showed Mr. Paul’s name etched on it. It also showed his birth date and an empty space for future inscription. Faustin and Mr. Paul reacted to Nina’s scream in unison. They watched Nina squeeze her eyes shut and cup her hands on each side of her temples.

“Go home, Nina,” her grandfather said. “The sun is strong. You’ll feel better where it’s cooler.” Nina hurried into the house to tell her grandmother about the disturbing picture that she’d seen in her mind. Lugarda was stunned with the vision that Nina described. Lately, Nina had been exhibiting physic-like abilities. She didn’t know what to think. Perhaps Nina was dehydrated. Not knowing how else to help her, Lugarda gave Nina a glass of icy water and told her to go into her bedroom and lie down.