A Story Idea Each Day for a Month — Day 25

This is the 12th year in a row I’ve run this series in April. Why a story idea each day for the month? Because the best way to come up with a great story idea is to come up with a lot of ideas. And the best way to come up with a lot of ideas is to be proactive in sourcing story ideas.

Today’s story: Horror behind the walls: PA family finds disturbing discovery in house.

A Schuylkill County family made a disturbing discovery when they decided to insulate their home. The Bretzius family found the home was already insulated with dozens of dead animal carcasses.

“We were shocked, horrified, and disgusted,” Kajia Bretzuis told WNEP.

The dead animals were wrapped in newspapers from the 1930s and 40s and were among half-used spices, and other items.

After removing the items they sent hundreds of artifacts and carcasses to an expert in Kutztown.

The answer they received was, “What they call Pow-wowing or dutch magic. They used this to heal ailments,” said Bretzius.

This story led me down the internet rabbit hole researching “Powwowing in Pennsylvania”. This is a longstanding tradition among the Pennsylvania Dutch who settled the area as far back as the 1700s. And that led me into the phenomenon of hex signs on barns in that part of the country.

I only have time for a quick setup. The Hohmann family lives in Buck County outside Philadelphia. Husband (Phil), wife (Serena), and children (Evan, 8, and Meghan, 6). The marriage is in a fragile state, so in an effort to escape the big city and spend more family time together in a less stressful environment, they relocate to McVeytown in central Pennsylvania. It’s an old Mennonite farmhouse complete with barn, sitting on eight acres of gently rolling hills. The place needs some love and care, but it is definitely livable.

Within a few days, Meghan develops a chest condition, making it difficult for her to breathe. Going to the local doctor, he can find nothing wrong with her, but he learns of where the Hohmann’s are living, he recommends they look up old man Stroheim. “He’s practiced in the ways of pow-wow.”

The parents have no intention of looking up a man they figure is nothing but a quack, however, when Stroheim shows up unannounced — creating a chilling scare — the old man manages to put them at ease enough to check on Meghan. Instead of examining the girl’s body, Stroheim simply asks Meghan to breathe in… and breathe out… breathe in… breathe out. He nods his head. Then begins knocking on the walls of the bedroom.

Increasingly suspicious by the man’s odd behavior, Phil starts to usher Stroheim out of the room, when he raps on one section of the wall… and the sound it makes is much different than the rest. Producing a hammer, Stroheim sets to strike the wall. Phil grabs his arm. “What are you doing?” The old man responds, “Do you want your daughter healed or not?” Lurching free, Stroheim manages to bash a hole in the wall revealing a decaying fox head.

Cut to several hours later and a large section of the wall has been knocked open. On the floor, several animal carcasses, most of them wrapped in old newspapers. They were entombed with spices across their corpses. Stroheim says, “To ward off evil spirits. Over time, they can turn.”

Stroheim and Phil burn the carcasses outside and almost immediately, Meghan returns to full health.

Where to go with this? Strange things continue to happen in the house with the Hohman’s forced to reach out to Stroheim for help. He is a self-proclaimed “powwower, “ a healer, but his responses to incidents which are haunting the Hohman family become stranger and more grotesque.

Oddly, Phil gets swept up into late night research sessions on his computer about the powwow practice, eventually buying a book with hundreds of home healing remedies. What is most interesting to Phil are the hexes.

And then one night, Phil spots something bizarre: References to a man who is said to have brought the “powwow” ministry to McVeytown in the late 1700s. His name? Philip Hohmann.

As Phil begins a descent into a shamanic lifestyle, Stroheim as it turns out sense Phil’s instinct for the “dark” side of powwowism. He reaches out to Serena, warning about her safety and those of her children. “But he’s my husband,” she says. “Not any longer,” Stroheim says, noting Phil’s radicalized personality.

Hexes, magic, “powwow” rituals, metaphorical ghosts from the region’s past, a countryside dotted with Amish and Mennonite communities, one man’s descent into madness, another pitted against him, and the well-being of Serena and the children, all as violence escalates…

There’s my 25th story idea of the month. What would you do with it?

Day 1
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 5
Day 6
Day 7
Day 8
Day 9
Day 10
Day 11
Day 12
Day 13
Day 14
Day 15
Day 16
Day 17
Day 18
Day 19
Day 20
Day 21
Day 22
Day 23
Day 24

Each day in April, I invite you to join me in comments to do some brainstorming. Take each day’s story idea and see what it can become when we play around with it. These are valuable skills for a writer to develop.