Wheezing, gasping for breath, he locked the door just as the doorknob turned.
Then it rattled, and the door began to shake.
Graham looked over his shoulder. “Run,” he croaked, the rasping word so garbled, he could barely understand it himself.
Susan sat up, and put a trembling hand across her mouth. “Graham?” she said.
The door exploded off its hinges, and Graham crashed to the floor.
Three huge men came laughing through the doorway, twice as tall and twice as wide as Graham, all three wearing jeans and different colored dark flannel shirts, sleeves rolled up to just below the shoulder. All with bushy black beards, bulging muscles and narrow, dark eyes. They looked enough alike to have been triplets.
“Graham?” Susan said, her voice a fearful plea as the first one through put a booted foot on Graham’s chest and the other two hurried to Susan. One grabbed her by the throat, while the other threw off the covers and climbed onto the bed. Legs bent behind him, knees digging into the mattress, he grabbed handfuls of Susan’s shear nightgown, and ripped the fabric away from her chest, flattened his hands across her breasts and groaned, Susan beating at his face as he laughed and the hand around her throat tightened; Susan clawing it as her eyes bulged and her tongue lolled from her wide-open mouth.
The foot pressed against Graham’s chest, harder and harder, until bones cracked and he croaked out a dry and rasping plea, blood bubbling up from his throat, onto his lips as the laughing redneck called out, “You’re in for it now, boy!” He nodded at his brothers in arms, one of whom had grabbed both of Susan’s breasts. Squeezing and mashing them together, he crammed her nipples into his mouth, slurping and biting, moaning with pleasure while the other gripped a fistful of hair and tears rolled down her cheeks, onto her quivering lips as she sobbed. He was forcing her face forward so she would have to watch whatever the bearded behemoth licking her breasts was going to do. What he did was unbutton his pants and shove them and his soiled underwear down to his knees, laughing as his cock coiled out, and then grabbing it and rubbing its massive head against Susan’s inner thigh.
“She wants this here monster!” he called out, and Susan drove a knee into his scrotum.
He grabbed her shoulders and pinned her against the mattress, reared back his head and howled. Head diving and snapping forward, he buried his face into Susan’s chest, and bit down on her breast; Susan screaming while the slavering redneck shook his head violently back and forth like a Rottweiler tearing a newborn baby apart, screaming as he rose up with a bloody hunk of meat clamped between his teeth, showed her the shredded mass, and then spit it in her face.
Susan shrieked, shook her head wildly and the ragged piece of flesh shot across the room. She grabbed at her breast, but the laughing maniac had buried his face in the gory mess of it. Blood washing onto his thick beard matted the bristly hairs into dark brown clumps as bright red rivulets trickled between what was left of Susan’s fleshy mounds, down her side and onto the white cotton sheets. She cried out to God for mercy, screamed for Graham to save her, flailing her fists and pounding the mattress as Graham cried out “Noooo!” and the foot pressed harder against his chest, crushing his words into painful-sounding huffs of breath.
“Graham?”
His eyes bulged out and his capillaries burst, flushing the whites of his eyes red. A giant hand gripped his heart, a frozen vise closing tighter and tighter until metal touched metal and a paralyzing jolt snatched Graham’s breath away. He clutched at his silver clasp, raking his fingernails across his neck like a horrified man clawing his way out of a sealed casket.
“GRAHAM!”
Graham looked up from sheets soaked with sweat to find Susan silhouetted in the dim bulb of the bedside lamp, her face buried in shadows until Graham wasn’t sure that it even was his wife.
“Please,” he muttered.
“My God, Graham,” She said, brushing a hand across his forehead, which was cold and clammy and dripping wet. “Are you all right?”
He looked past Susan at the closed bedroom door, to find they were alone in the room. His face was pale, his breathing hitched. He tried to sit up, but Susan pressed a firm hand to his chest and told him to stay put.
“I… I… was dreaming.”
Susan, laughing nervously, said, “No shit, you were dreaming.”
She slid out of bed and trotted off to the bathroom. She was wearing the same shear nightgown Graham had just seen ripped from her body. He could still see bloody bits of meat hanging from that crazy bastard’s teeth, the gory crater turning the white sheets red. If he closed his eyes he was sure to see a boot pressing against his chest. He lay there, taking one shallow breath after another, his heart hammering, just like in the dream. The only thing missing were the rednecks and their truck, and Susan’s horrified screams.
Susan came back into the bedroom. “Here you go,” she said, and then climbed onto the bed with a wet washcloth and a plastic cup of water. Small droplets dribbled from the rag, onto the sheets as she reached for Graham. First she patted his face with the cloth. Then she laid it across his forehead.
Graham sighed. The cool cloth felt great; Susan’s gentle touch, comforting.
“Sit up and have a drink of water.”
Graham manipulated himself into a sitting position, rump on the pillow, back against the headboard. The rag dropped onto his chest and Susan picked it up. She wiped it across his face, and then raised her other arm and offered him the water. Graham put a hand on Susan’s wrist and guided the cup to his mouth, tipping the refreshing liquid down into his throat. He took a deep breath, let it out and had another. Then his breathing returned to normal as he finally began to realize he was not in danger, they were not in danger.
Unless he closed his eyes.
Unless that crazy dream was some kind of premonition.
Graham shuddered at the thought.
“You okay?”
“Uh… yeah.” He took the cup from Susan, downed the rest of the water and gave her a weak smile. “Thanks,” he said.
“Your face is so pale,” Susan said, as she held the back of her hand against his forehead. “Your skin’s so clammy. You don’t look good. Think I should call the doctor?”
“Nah, I’m all right. I just had a bad dream. I’ll be fine.”
I hope.
“Well, we’ll call him in the morning, just in case. He may want you to come in.”
“I’m not coming in.” Graham huffed out a breath. “I’m going to the airport tomorrow.”
“You can not be serious.”
“Who’re you, John McEnroe? Of course I’m serious.”
“Graham, look at you. You’re pale as a ghost. You’ve sweated so much the sheets are soaked with it. You’re not going anywhere.”
“Oh, Christ, Susan. I had a creepy dream. I’m a writer. I write creepy books. I go around thinking about creepy little things, and then take all that creepy stuff and twist it into the darkest most horrific shit I can come up with. I’m gonna have a bad dream every now and then. It goes with the territory. Where do you think I get most of my ideas from, a little shop on Beasley Street? A hell of a lot of them come straight out of my dreams.”
Susan laughed and shook her head, took a deep breath and let it out. She collected the empty cup from his hand and sat it on the bedside table, and laid the washcloth beside it. “Why don’t you lie down and get some rest, sleep on it and we’ll talk it over in the morning.” It was not a question, but a friendly word of advice.
Sleep. Yeah, right.
Sleep was bad. Sleep was a nightmare world of danger and despair. He damn sure wouldn’t be doing that anytime soon, not with those crazy rednecks lurking about.
Graham slid his feet over the edge of the bed, stood up, and said, “Hell, I’m wide awake now.”
Susan watched him cross the room. “You’re unbelievable.”
“What? I’m awake. I’m gonna go get some work done.”
“It’s two-o’cl
ock in the morning.”
Graham, pausing at the door, looked back at Susan and said, “Aw, I’ll be back before you know it.”
“I won’t know it at all.” Susan pounded the edge of her pillow a couple of times, and laid her head sideways upon it. “Because I’ll be asleep.”
Graham opened the door and Susan reached for the lamp. He walked into the hallway and a sharp click sounded behind him. Then the light winked out, leaving Graham standing in a shadowy corridor, dimly lit by the faint glow of moonlight streaking in from a window at the opposite end of the house, the dark stairwell suddenly becoming the gaping maw of a beast; the open doors lining the hallways inky panels of black that made Graham wonder what might be hiding behind them.
Cut it out, he told himself.
But it was a halfway decent image, something he could work with: a mysterious, square, black rectangle, like the monolith in 2001, A Space Odyssey; not full of magic and wonder, but fear and dread and lurking serial killers, deformed hillbilly devil worshippers waiting to snatch the frightened woman who had stopped at the rundown, three-story Gothic farmhouse with her husband because their car had broken down on a dark country road in the middle of a downpour. They knock on the door but no one answers, try the door and it swings open. A faint light glows at the top of the winding staircase and they follow it up, each rickety stair creaking underfoot as they call out, ‘Hello, anybody there?’
At the top of the stairs, down a long, shadowy corridor, yellow light emanates from a room at the end of the hall. Soft moans and muffled laughter drift through the open doorway as the young couple edge closer and closer, calling out with nervous voices to announce their presence before pausing at the doorway.
The woman shakes her head no, but her husband laughs, and says, ‘C’mon.’.
They step through the threshold, beneath a single, dim, flickering bulb, twisted into a socket in the middle of the ceiling, to see a woman crucified by rusty nails driven through each of her upper arms into the hardwood wall, their dull, flat heads as round as bottle caps. She hangs like a naked human scarecrow, head bent forward, long, dark hair draping breasts scraped raw by the clutching and clawing of her tormentors. She’s all skin and bones, as if she’s been hanging there for days, or weeks. Rivulets of dried blood track her arms, down her hands and legs onto the floor beneath her, which has a dark, pooling stain upon it, as if paint that has spilled there has not quite dried. Chin touching her chest, head lolling slowly side to side, the woman moans. The husband rushes across the room and the light goes out. Somebody laughs; somebody else cackles like a witch. Footsteps thud across the floor. The husband screams and the woman flees into the dark hallway. That’s where she is now: edging her way down a dark passageway, past black rectangles hiding God only knows what, waiting to do unspeakable things to the trembling woman.
Could call it House Of Blood, Graham thought, then, Nah, somebody’s already used that. House of Fear, that’s the ticket. Definitely something he could work with.
And he was thankful for the image, because it had taken his mind off his horrible dream as he stood in the shadows of the railing, a couple of feet away from the newel post looking down into the dark edge of the living room. Even though he knew he had dreamt that whole violent episode, fear was tugging at his heart. He knew those rednecks had been a figment of his wild imagination, given life by a guilty conscious, or by fear of what might happen if he were found out. Still, he half expected them to be lurking in the shadows when he descended the staircase.
Down the stairs he went, to his study, where he turned on the lights and turned on his computer, just in case Susan happened to wake up and get it in her head to come check on him. In his desk drawer he found the Phillips head screwdriver he used anytime he needed to remove the side panel from his computer. He grabbed it and walked from the study to the living room, through the dining room and into the kitchen, where Graham went immediately to the slotted block of wood holding Susan’s collection of sharp butcher knives. Selecting the biggest of the lot, he carried it and the screwdriver back to the living room. As much as he may have wanted to turn on the living room light, he didn’t. For all he knew, those crazy sons of bitches were hiding in the house, and the burning bulb would draw them like moths to a flame.
Stop it.
If not in the house, well on their way.
Stop it!
Just a matter of time.
Christ Almighty, give it a rest!
A screwdriver in one hand, the knife in the other, Graham stood in front of the window. He parted the curtain with the screwdriver, looked out at his lawn and driveway, and at the street beyond. All was dark, all was quiet. Turning, he made his way to the front door. He looked toward the second floor landing, and all was quiet there, too.
Jesus, what if the lights flicked on and Susan came down the stairs to find him in his underwear with a screwdriver and a big-assed butcher knife in his hands?
Would almost be worth it to see the look on her face.
Graham snickered as he opened the front door, stepped through and gently eased it shut. Bathed in moonlight, he padded down his walkway to the driveway, arms swinging by his side, his hulking shadow stalking him all the way to the corner of the house. Twin beams of light cut a path through the hedges and Graham dropped to his knees. Crouched on all fours, he watched the headlights approach. What if it’s the cops, he wondered, and they catch him crawling around in his underwear with his screwdriver and knife?
Ah, gee, officer. No, really, I live here. I was just about to change out my busted taillight cover at two-thirty in the morning. The one I damaged when I crushed the shit outa that stupid hillbilly back at the traffic light. Oh, right, you already know about that. Yes, of course, I’ll come along quietly. Just let me wake my wife and let her know what’s going on. The knife? That’s so I can slit my fucking wrists if you really are a cop.
The lights drew closer and Graham saw the front of the car, the windshield, the bubble lights on the roof.
Holy Christ!
He dropped flat on the ground, pushing his belly into the wet grass as he willed the policeman to keep going. Closing his eyes showed him the cop pulling up the driveway, bathing Graham in swirling blue and red lights, Susan running down to find him being led to the police car. The screwdriver, the knife, the busted taillight.
‘Come along with me, Mr. Greystone.’
His heart began to race, his pulse to pound.
Jesus Christ, he thought. What am I doing? I must want to die.
Graham opened his eyes to see red taillights moving down the street. He got up and carried the knife and screwdriver up the driveway, past the Camry to the Cherokee that was parked as far up the drive as he had been able to get it. Kneeling beside it, he dropped the knife onto the grass, and then used his fingers to guide the Phillips head into the screw, twisting until the screw popped loose into his palm. When he was done, he took the fragmented piece of plastic and carried it to the rear of the garage, and then hurled it as far into the woods as he could. Graham returned to the Jeep, stooped and picked up the knife. He was sweating pretty good now, and the cold night air felt great against his skin. Eyes scanning the driveway and beyond, he hurried back to the front of the house, up the stairs and inside, easing the door shut and locking it behind him. At least that was over with, couldn’t very well be fiddling around with the Jeep in the morning, not with Susan running around the house.
‘What’re you doing, Graham? How did that happen? Oh yeah? Because I was just watching the morning news about a silver Jeep Cherokee that smashed some poor man’s knees to smithereens.’
Graham carried the knife back to the kitchen, and returned it to its wooden sleeve. He made his way through the house to his dimly lit study, and sat in front of the computer. He called up his emails and looked through the message headers, and then fired up his Internet browser. Moments later he was clicking his way to the Horrorfan message board.
Susan may have been pleased by his s
udden turnaround from Graham-the-housebound-cardiac-cripple to Graham-the-back-to-work-author, finally willing to venture away from his home. And she may have been ecstatic to see them actually making love again. But she didn’t seem too thrilled about the prospect of him leaving a day early to ‘get the lay of the land’. She didn’t understand the big rush, and for all of Graham’s thinking it through on his drive back from town, that lame excuse was the best he could come up with when she called him on it.
Graham walked to the bookcase and removed his thick, hardbound copy of Stephen King’s The Stand, fished a half empty pack of Marlboros from the back of the case and shook one into his hand. Back at his desk in his plush leather chair, he rummaged through a drawer and found a cigarette lighter. What a day it had been. What a crazy, fucked-up day. He lit up, savoring the smoke for a moment before releasing it into the air. Graham leaned back in the chair. He thought about Susan walking into the room and laughed, because after everything he’d been through in the last twelve hours, he didn’t much care if she caught him having a smoke or not.
Chapter Twenty-Five
For the life of him, Bryan couldn’t figure out why Larry had gotten off on the Forty-Fourth Street exit. So angry had he been, so freaked out as they raced back to I-77, that he’d sat stone-faced, glaring silently at the highway while Larry tried talking to him, until finally, Larry just settled back in his seat and stopped talking altogether.
Bryan didn’t bother getting into bed when he got home. A lot of good that would have done him, the way his stomach was churning. After what he’d been through, he didn’t trust himself to close his eyes, anyway. He wasn’t even sure he wanted to see what lay waiting on the other side of those tired lids. He stood in the doorway to the bedroom, staring at his wife. What a blessing it had been for Carrie to have slept through their encounter with the prowler. If she had walked in on the madness taking place on the other side of the house a couple of hours ago, no telling what might have happened. Cops would have been called; the whole damn neighborhood would’ve been out in the street.
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