Garden of Evil

by Graham Masterton

  Table of Contents

  Recent Titles by Graham Masterton Available from Severn House

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Recent Titles by Graham Masterton available from Severn House

  The Sissy Sawyer Series

  TOUCHY AND FEELY

  THE PAINTED MAN

  THE RED HOTEL

  The Jim Rook Series

  ROOK

  THE TERROR

  TOOTH AND CLAW

  SNOWMAN

  SWIMMER

  DARKROOM

  DEMON’S DOOR

  GARDEN OF EVIL

  Anthologies

  FACES OF FEAR

  FEELINGS OF FEAR

  FORTNIGHT OF FEAR

  FLIGHTS OF FEAR

  FESTIVAL OF FEAR

  Novels

  BASILISK

  BLIND PANIC

  CHAOS THEORY

  DESCENDANT

  DOORKEEPERS

  EDGEWISE

  FIRE SPIRIT

  GENIUS

  GHOST MUSIC

  HIDDEN WORLD

  HOLY TERROR

  HOUSE OF BONES

  MANITOU BLOOD

  THE NINTH NIGHTMARE

  PETRIFIED

  UNSPEAKABLE

  GARDEN OF EVIL

  A Jim Rook Novel

  Graham Masterton

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  First published in Great Britain 2012 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS LTD of

  9-15 High Street, Sutton, Surrey, England, SM1 1DF.

  First published in the USA 2013 by

  SEVERN HOUSE PUBLISHERS of

  110 East 59th Street, New York, N.Y. 10022

  eBook edition first published in 2013 by Severn House Digital

  an imprint of Severn House Publishers Limited

  Copyright © 2012 by Graham Masterton.

  The right of Graham Masterton to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

  Masterton, Graham.

  Garden of evil.

  1. Rook, Jim (Fictitious character)–Fiction. 2. Horror

  tales.

  I. Title

  823.9'2-dc23

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78010-368-6 (epub)

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-8249-3 (cased)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-84751-468-4 (trade paper)

  Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to living persons is purely coincidental.

  This eBook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

  Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland.

  ONE

  The smog was so thick that Jim didn’t see the dark figure walking up the college driveway until the very last moment, and he had to stamp on the brakes and swerve sharply to the left to avoid hitting him. His car slewed around with its tires screaming in a shrill, panicky chorus.

  For a few seconds afterward, he sat behind the wheel of his car, his heart palpitating. The CD player continued to thunder out Beethoven’s Piano Concerto Number Five at deafening volume, but the Swiss-cheese-and-pastrami sandwich that he had been eating had dropped into his lap.

  ‘Jesus,’ he said. He knew that he had probably been driving too fast, and that he should have had his headlights on and been paying less attention to eating his sandwich and more attention to where he was going. All the same, the figure had been walking right in the middle of the driveway, dressed entirely in black.

  Jim picked up the slices of rye bread and cheese and pastrami and pickle that were scattered over his navy-blue chinos and cupped them in his hand. Then he climbed out of his car and looked around. The figure had vanished into the smog, which Jim thought was deeply strange. Like, if somebody almost runs you over, what do you do? Either you scream and shout at him and accuse him of driving like a fricking maniac, or else you tell him that he missed you by inches and that you’re fine. What you don’t do is simply walk away as if nothing had happened.

  ‘Hey!’ Jim shouted. ‘Hey! Are you OK?’

  No answer. And no sign of him, either. Only a suffocating wall of yellowish smog, which muffled the constant roaring of traffic from the San Diego Freeway.

  ‘Hey! Hallo? I’m sorry if I scared you! I just want to know that you’re OK!’

  His voice was flat and didn’t seem to carry at all, as if he were shouting in a soundproof booth. Again, no answer. Jim tossed the bits and pieces of his disassembled sandwich on to the grass, smacked his hands together and returned to his car. He started up the engine, and then crept up the driveway, hunched over the wheel, peering intently ahead of him in case the figure was still walking in the middle of the road.

  He reached the top of the slope, where the driveway widened into a large circular turning area in front of the college’s main entrance. The college buildings themselves gradually appeared out of the smog like some phantom castle. It was still early, around seven thirty, and only a few students were walking to and fro, although more than twenty of them had gathered under the huge cypress tree in front of the college, which was a favorite meeting place for gossip and banter and flirting before class.

  Jim drove very slowly past them, staring at each of them in turn, but not one of them was a match for the dark figure that he had nearly run over. At least a half dozen of them were dressed in black sweaters or black T-shirts, but they all wore jeans or cargo shorts, and four of them wore baseball caps, while three of them had sports bags slung over their shoulders, bulging with books. Apart from that, most of them were far too chunky. The dark figure on the driveway had been tall and very thin, like a stretched-out shadow.

  Jim gave up his search and circled around to the faculty parking lot. As usual, he maneuvered his green metallic Mercury Marquis into the space reserved for Royston Denman, the head of mathematics. The Mercury was eighteen feet long and six feet wide and Royston Denman’s space was adjacent to the entrance and much larger than any of the others.

  He climbed out, took his briefcase out of the trunk, and then crossed over to the students under the cypress tree.

  ‘Any of you see a guy walking up the driveway a couple of minutes ago? Dark top, dark pants.’

  ‘Walking?’ said one of the students.

  ‘Sure, you know. That thing when you put one foot in front of the other and it miraculously gets you from one place to another.’

  Almost all of the
students shook their heads. ‘Woulda noticed some dude walkin’ to college. Jeez.’

  ‘OK,’ said Jim. ‘Just asking. Any of you here in Special Class Two?’

  Three of them put up their hands – a very tall African-American boy in a droopy gray tracksuit, a baby-pretty blonde with scraggly curls and a tight pink T-shirt with sparkly silver sequins on it, and a red-headed boy with a buzz cut and raging red acne and a bright green sweatshirt.

  ‘Good. My name’s Mr Rook and Special Class Two, that’s my class. So I’ll be seeing you characters later.’

  Just then, he caught sight of Sheila Colefax mounting the steps to the college’s main entrance. He jogged across to catch up with her. Sheila taught Spanish in the classroom next to Jim’s. She was a petite, perky brunette but she always wore heavy-rimmed eyeglasses, a blouse that was buttoned right up to the neck and fastened with a brooch, and knee-length pencil skirts. Ever since he had first met her, Jim had harbored a fantasy that she wore a black bustier and black stockings underneath those formal outer clothes, and that once she had taken off her eyeglasses and shaken her hair loose, she would be a tigress in bed.

  ‘Hi, Sheila! Cómo está usted?’

  ‘Very well, thank you, Jim.’

  ‘Cuál es le precio de la salchicha hoy?’

  Sheila didn’t even turn to look at him, but continued to hurry up the steps. ‘I suppose you’ve been practicing that,’ she said, sharply.

  ‘Well, yes, I admit it. Spanish isn’t actually my second language.’

  She reached the top step and now she confronted him. ‘Sometimes I don’t know whether you’re ignorant, Jim Rook, or juvenile, or crude, or all three. It isn’t exactly seductive to ask a woman how much a sausage costs.’

  ‘You’re kidding me! Is that what it means? I thought it was a compliment. Like – “to me, o my darling, you are more precious than sapphires.”’

  There was a moment when Jim seriously thought that Sheila was going to slap him. But then her lips pursed tightly to stop herself from laughing and her eyes brightened up behind her eyeglasses and she shook her head from side to side.

  ‘You really are one of a kind, aren’t you? “More precious than sapphires.” You didn’t think it meant that for a moment, did you?’

  ‘No,’ Jim admitted. ‘But it tickled you, right? And I could tickle you all evening, if you let me.’

  She pushed her way in through the college entrance, and Jim followed her, catching his briefcase in the revolving doors as he did so. He had to forcibly tug it out, breaking the handle.

  ‘Shit,’ he said.

  Sheila turned and said, ‘It’s a strict rule of mine, Jim. No dating fellow teachers under any circumstances, ever. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Ehrlichman doesn’t have to know.’

  ‘That’s not the point. It happened to me once before, when I was teaching in San Luis Obispo. No matter how discreet you are, it always ends in tears.’

  ‘Sheila—’

  ‘No, Jim.’

  With that, she walked off along the corridor toward the faculty room, her heels rapping on the polished vinyl floor. Jim was left standing there for a moment, with his briefcase in one hand and the broken handle in the other. Three students went past and gave him goofy grins. He looked back at them fiercely, and said, ‘What?’

  He was still standing there when the principal, Dr Ehrlichman, came bustling out of his office. Dr Ehrlichman was short and round shouldered, with a bald head peeling from sunburn and bulging green eyes and a nose that always made Jim feel that he wanted to parp! it like an old-fashioned motor-horn. Jim thought that if he hadn’t been appointed principal of West Grove Community College, he could have easily found an alternative career as a clown.

  ‘Jim! Just the man!’

  ‘Doctor E. How was your summer vacation? You went to Bora-Bora, didn’t you, or was it Bolivia?’

  ‘Bulgaria. My wife has relatives in Sofia. It was very cultural. Well, to tell you the truth, it could have been very cultural. But my wife’s relatives are a little earthy, if that’s the right word.’

  ‘Earthy. Yes, I know what you mean. I have an earthy uncle, up in San Francisco. Uncle Ned. Swears like a longshoreman, drinks like a dolphin, but he always picks the winners at Golden Gate Fields, I’ll give him that. Doesn’t have to work for a living, like you and me.’

  Dr Ehrlichman lifted the clipboard in his hand and flipped over three pages. ‘Ah, here it is. You have an extra student joining Special Class Two. Simon Silence.’

  ‘Silence? What kind of a name is that?’

  ‘He’s the son of the Reverend John Silence.’

  ‘Never heard of him.’

  ‘Well, neither had I, until this morning.’

  Dr Ehrlichman leafed through two or three more pages on his clipboard, and then he said, ‘Yes, here it is. The Reverend John Silence is the Supreme Pastor of the Church of the Divine Conquest, 8136 Lookout Mountain Avenue, Laurel Canyon.’

  ‘Still never heard of him. Nor the Church of the Divine Whatsitsname.’

  ‘Conquest.’

  ‘Whatever. But OK. What’s his background, this kid?’

  ‘Apparently he’s been homeschooled up until now, but now the Reverend Silence is anxious that he mixes more with students his own age, and becomes a little more worldly.’

  ‘Worldly? He’ll get plenty of worldly in Special Class Two, I can promise you that.’

  Dr Ehrlichman lifted up his hairy wrist and peered at his weighty gold Rolex.

  ‘General assembly at eight thirty. You will try and be there, won’t you, unlike last semester, and the semester before that? I have some very critical announcements to make.’

  ‘Hey . . . seriously impressive watch,’ said Jim. ‘How much are they paying you these days?’

  ‘This watch was fifty Bulgarian lev, at the flea market outside of the Alexander Nevski Cathedral in Sofia. That’s about thirty-five US dollars.’

  ‘OK, Dr E., I believe you.’

  Jim walked along the corridor until he reached Special Class Two. The door was freshly painted a dull slate blue, which had obliterated the graffiti that had appeared at the end of last semester: HERE BE DUMMIES! He took hold of the door handle but for some reason that he couldn’t quite understand, he hesitated before he opened it. He thought: here I am, at the start of yet another semester. How long have I been doing this? How many more times am I going to be doing this? Is this all my life is going to be about, opening this door year after year and facing yet another class of slackers and slow learners and kids who simply can’t understand why ‘cough’ and ‘bough’ and ‘ought’ are all pronounced differently, and never will understand it, as long as they live.

  He hesitated a moment longer and then he opened the door and stepped inside. The classroom smelled strongly of lavender floor polish and through the windows Jim could see that the smog was gradually lifting, and the sun was shining through. Outside, students walked through the gilded haze like ghosts.

  Sixteen desks stood in front of him, in four rows of four. He walked slowly up and down between them. In an hour’s time, fifteen students would be sitting here – white, African-American, Chinese, Hispanic, who knew? Fifteen confused and reluctant young minds to be dragged out of the briars of semi-literacy and text-speak and slang. He didn’t expect them to be able to write like Walt Whitman or Emily Dickinson, so long as they could fill out a job application, although now and then they surprised him.

  Jim went back to his own desk, opened up his briefcase and took out a sheaf of papers on which were printed the first lesson of the day. It was a list of twenty sentences, and all his students had to do was underline any which were grammatically incorrect or misspelled. ‘I are playing baseball tomorrow with my freinds.’ ‘Me and Kim wented out and us et cheseburgers at Burger King.’ ‘My Dad went fishing and court a sammon and a cold.’ ‘I ran through hoards of people looking for my mom.’

  He walked up and down between the desks again, placing one questionna
ire on each desk. In the distance he could hear the bell ringing and the sound of doors banging and scores of sneakers squeaking and shuffling as the students poured in from outside. Before long, he would be meeting this year’s Special Class Two, face to face. If I were religious, he thought, this is when I would cross myself. Spectacles, testicles, wallet and watch.

  He returned to the front of the class to take out the list of students. As he did so, however, he heard a sharp plip! like water dripping. Then another. He looked around and saw that on the sheet of paper which he had just placed on the third desk from the front, in the second row, there were two crimson spatters, almost like two large poppy flowers.

  He went back and picked up the questionnaire and frowned at it. The two spatters were wet, like paint, or blood. He sniffed them. They didn’t smell like paint, so he could only assume they were blood. But where the hell had they come from?

  At that moment another drop landed on the back of his hand, warm and viscous – and yet another, almost simultaneously, on the sleeve of his pale blue linen coat. It was then that he looked up and saw what was nailed to the ceiling.

  He opened and closed his mouth, but he couldn’t speak. He didn’t know how he had walked into the classroom and not seen them immediately, but then he had been too busy handing out papers and thinking about this year’s students. Not only that, they had been fastened in between the two long fluorescent light fittings which hung down about two feet from the ceiling, so when he had been standing at the front of the class, they had mostly been masked from his view.

  In the center of the ceiling, a naked girl had been pinned face downward, with her arms and her legs spread wide. Nails had been driven through her hands, her elbows, her thighs, her knees and her ankles. She had been whitewashed all over with some kind of thick distemper, which had made her all the more difficult for Jim to see her when she had first walked in. Her eyelids were closed and her hair was stiff and fanned out. She looked more like a stone statue than a human being, but the blood that had been dripping down had fallen from her cracked but partly open lips.