Edgewise

“A mesmerizing storyteller!”

—
Publishers Weekly

“One of the most consistently entertaining writers in the field.”

—
Gauntlet

“Graham Masterton is the living inheritor to the realm of Edgar Allan Poe.”

—
San Francisco Chronicle

“Graham Masterton is always a lot of fun and he rarely lets the reader down. . . . Horror's most consistent provider of chills.”

—
Masters of Terror

“Masterton is a crowd-pleaser, filling his pages with sparky, appealing dialogue and visceral grue.”

—
Time Out (UK)

“Masterton is one of those writers who can truly unnerve the reader with everyday events.”

—Steve Gerlach, author of Rage

“Masterton has always been in the premier league of horror scribes.”

—
Publishing News

 

At one fifteen in the morning, Lily heard a piercing scream, and then another. She threw herself out of bed and was halfway across the landing before she was properly awake.

“Sammy! It's OK, honey, Mommy's coming!”

She collided with Tasha, who was just coming out of her room, white-faced. They hurried together into Sammy's room. Sammy was standing on his bed with both hands covering his face. He was shuddering and sweating and he had soaked his pajama pants.

“Sammy! It's Mommy! Everything's OK! You had a nasty dream, that's all!”

Sammy took his hands away from his face and stared at her. He looked almost mad. Lily took him tightly in her arms and shushed him.

“You had a nasty dream, baby, that's all. It wasn't real.”

“It—was—nobody,” Sammy quaked. “He—came—through—the—door—but—he—wasn't—”

“Come on, baby. Everything's going to be fine. Why don't we get you out of these pajamas and change your bed for you?”

“He—came—through—the—door—and—he's—
here!
”

 

 

Other books by Graham Masterton:

NIGHT WARS
MANITOU BLOOD
THE DEVIL IN GRAY
THE DOORKEEPERS
SPIRIT
THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT
PREY

G
RAHAM
M
ASTERTON

C
HAPTER
O
NE

C
HAPTER
T
WO

C
HAPTER
T
HREE

C
HAPTER
F
OUR

C
HAPTER
F
IVE

C
HAPTER
S
IX

C
HAPTER
S
EVEN

C
HAPTER
E
IGHT

C
HAPTER
N
INE

C
HAPTER
T
EN

C
HAPTER
E
LEVEN

C
HAPTER
T
WELVE

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTEEN

C
HAPTER
F
OURTEEN

C
HAPTER
F
IFTEEN

C
HAPTER
S
IXTEEN

C
HAPTER
S
EVENTEEN

C
HAPTER
E
IGHTEEN

 

 

DORCHESTER PUBLISHING

Published by

Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.
200 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10016

Copyright © 2007 by Graham Masterton

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author's rights is appreciated.

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

Trade ISBN: 978-1-4285-1749-3
E-book ISBN: 978-1-4285-0223-9

First Dorchester Publishing, Co., Inc. edition: May 2007

The “DP” logo is the property of Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.

Printed in the United States of America.

 

Lily was beginning to slide into a deep sleep when she heard a muffled clicking noise, somewhere downstairs, like a door opening. Then a stumbling sound, as if somebody had accidentally walked into a piece of furniture in the dark.

She raised her head from the pillow, frowning and listening hard. She knew that she had locked all the doors and set the alarm. Maybe it was Sergeant, her black Labrador, trying to get out of the utility room. Sergeant was nine years old now, and he wuffled so loudly in his sleep that he kept waking himself up.

She waited and waited, but the house remained silent, except for an occasional indigestive gurgle from the central heating. She was exhausted—so tired that her neck muscles creaked—and all she wanted to do was rest her head back down on the pillow and sleep.

But then she heard another stumbling sound, and immediately afterward she was sure she could hear somebody cough.
Shit,
she thought.
Maybe it isn't Sergeant at all. Maybe it's intruders
.

She switched on her poppy-patterned bedside lamp. Her carriage clock said seventeen minutes after two in the morning. She didn't often go to bed so late, but after she had given Tasha and Sammy their supper, she had sat for over four hours at the dining-room table, working on the sales brochure for Indian Falls Park, a 350-acre development of $2.5-million homes out on Ridge Road, Edina.

She opened the drawer in her nightstand and took out her pepper spray. Then she swung her legs out of bed and reached for her cerise satin robe.

In the multiple mirrors of her bedroom closets she could see herself standing indecisively by the door, her short blond hair tousled, her eyes puffy from lack of sleep.
Maybe you should lock yourself in your room and call nine-one-one,
she told herself. But then she thought:
No, if it's only Sergeant, you'll look like a hysterical idiot.
And besides, she had Tasha and Sammy to worry about.

She opened the door and went out onto the galleried landing, switching on the large glass chandelier that hung over the stairwell.

“Is anybody there?” she demanded, trying to sound utterly fearless. But immediately she thought:
What a dumb question. If there is anybody there, what are they going to say? “Don't worry, lady, it's only us intruders?”

She leaned cautiously over the banister rail. “I'm warning you, I have a gun, and I know how to use it.”

There was no answer. The house remained silent. Lily waited a little longer and then walked across the landing to Tasha's room. A ceramic plaque was screwed to the door, with a picture of a stern-looking Bratz doll and the warning
totally stay out!
Lily eased the door open and looked inside. Underneath her pink gingham comforter, all she could see of Tasha was a few sprigs of dark-brown hair. From the shelves all around the room, about forty Bratz and Barbies stared back at Lily with mute hostility.

She went to Sammy's room. Sammy was sprawled sideways, his blue-and-green-checkered pajamas rucked right up to his knees, and he was whistling through one blocked-up nostril as he slept. He was only eight, but already he looked so much like Jeff. That broad, Germanic face. Those invisible blond eyebrows. It was just as if Jeff had left a smaller version of himself behind, to keep a watchful eye on her.

Lily tippy-toed her way between Tonka firetrucks and mutilated Gorillazoids to give Sammy a kiss on his cheek. Sammy stirred, and raised one hand, and muttered, “mmh never come back, never.”

“What?” said Lily. “What did you say?”

But Sammy turned over and twisted his sheet around himself, and she realized that he had been talking in his sleep.

Lily reached out and touched his back. God, he even
felt
like Jeff. Then she tippy-toed back out of his room and closed the door.

Out on the landing she stood and listened for another few moments. The wind was beginning to rise, and she could hear the oak tree at the side of the house tapping against the weatherboards, like some old mendicant trying to get in. Maybe she should check downstairs, too, just to make sure, especially if Sergeant was so restless.

She padded on bare feet down the wide, uncarpeted staircase. Arranged on the wall were framed photographs of herself and Jeff and the children, and Sergeant, too. Near the bottom of the stairs, the largest photograph showed them by the old stone bridge at Marine-on-St.-Croix. She and Tasha and Sammy were leaning over the parapet, looking down at the gushing mill race. Jeff was standing more than twenty yards away, his head lowered, as if he didn't belong to this family at all.

Lily crossed the hallway to the front door. The large fringed red-and-purple rug was kinked in the middle, as if somebody had tripped up on it, but the front door was closed and there was no sign that anybody had tried to force it.

She went through to the kitchen and switched on the lights, which flickered for a few seconds before they popped full on. The kitchen was Shaker-style, paneled in oak, with an oak-paneled island in the middle. She could see Sergeant standing behind the hammered-glass door that led to the utility room, looking more like a liquid black puddle of uncertainty than a dog. He made a huffing noise but he didn't bark.

Lily opened the door. “What's the matter, boy? Have you been having nightmares again? Chasing after rabbits that you can't catch?”

She massaged his ears for him. She knew that he was old and sick and she ought to be thinking about having him put down, but Jeff had bought him for her when they were first married. He was the last living reminder of that happiest and silliest of times, when she had believed that she and Jeff would stay together until they grew senile, and that only death would be able to drag them apart.

She filled Sergeant's bowl with fresh water, and then she told him to settle down in his basket. He obeyed her, but mournfully, looking up at her with his amber-colored eyes.

“Good dog. Why don't you dream of tortoises instead? You'll be able to catch
them.
”

As Lily left the kitchen, she could hear that the wind was blowing even harder. Not only was the oak tree tapping but the swing on the back verandah had started to creak—
creakk-squikk-creakk-squikk,
as if someone were pushing themselves backward and forward; or the
memory
of someone, anyhow. Lily didn't believe in ghosts, but she had been working in real estate long enough to know that some houses had spirits who stayed there long after their owners had moved away, or died.

She walked through the wide archway that led into the living room. There were folding mahogany doors on either side, but she rarely closed them. The living room was in darkness, with the floral drapes drawn, so that all she could see was the shadowy shapes of chairs and couches.

No, nobody here. It must have been the draft rattling the doors. Or maybe she had simply imagined it, as she was drifting off to sleep. Several times, between sleeping and waking, she had imagined that Jeff was still lying next to her. Once, she had been convinced that she could feel him breathing on her shoulder.