Story Spotlight: “Final Walkthrough” by Lou J. Berger
This is Southern Gothic at its most intimate—not a crumbling mansion full of strangers, but a family farmhouse where every warped board and rusted hinge carries the weight of generations. When Robert Anderson returns to settle his grandmother’s estate, he expects grief. He expects guilt. What he doesn’t expect is MeeMaw herself, risen from the dark water of the pond that claimed her husband decades ago, bearing a smile that knows too much and a story that changes everything he thought he understood about his family.
Excerpt
“Land sakes, child,” she said, wringing more water from her hair. “Fetch me a towel, would you? I’m sopping wet.”
Robert stared, his mouth open. The voice was exactly right, the same mountain accent, the same way of calling him “child” even though he was pushing forty.
“MeeMaw?” he whispered. It couldn’t be. She was dead. An intolerable dread filled his chest and he grew lightheaded.
She smiled, the same gentle smile that had comforted him through scraped knees and hurt feelings. “Course it’s me, Bobby. Who else would it be?”
He scrambled to his feet, his heart hammering. “But you’re…” he took a deep breath, cleared his mind. “You died three months ago. I was at your funeral.”
“Well, I’m here now, ain’t I?” She stood up, water dripping from her dress onto the dock planks. “That towel, honey? I’m catching my death of cold.”
About the Author
Lou J Berger lives in Littleton, Colorado with his high-school crush and two rescue dogs. A member of SFWA, he has been published in Clarkesworld, Galaxy’s Edge magazine, and a host of anthologies. He is STILL working on his first novel.
Find out more about Lou at loujberger.com
Read the Story
“Final Walkthrough” appears in Haunted Waters, available now from Blackbird Publishing.
Buy the book from your favorite store
If you liked…
- We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson—for its intimate voice and the darkness that lives inside familial devotion
- Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn—for its portrait of family rot, Southern secrets, and the horror of going home
- The Skeleton Key (2005 film)—for its Southern Gothic unease, its old house full of wrong answers, and its gut-punch moral inversion
…then you’ll enjoy “Final Walkthrough,” a story about a man who returns to his grandmother’s farmhouse to settle the estate—and discovers that some inheritances can’t be refused.