Book of Horrors (Nightmare Hall)

by Diane Hoh

  McCoy had been so insistent about having seen Debrah before. Maybe she had. And maybe Karen had, too. Maybe Karen had seen Debrah doing something she shouldn’t have been doing. Like … like what?

  Reed didn’t know.

  Instead of heading directly outside as she had planned, Reed swerved toward the stairs and ran down to the dining hall.

  They were all there, sitting at a table in the back. Link and Lilith, Debrah and Jude, Ray Morrissey and Tom Sweeney. Victoria McCoy’s fan club. All they needed was their founder and president to complete the group.

  Hands in the pockets of her raincoat, Reed strode over to the table. “Discussing McCoy, are we?” she asked, her voice cool. She didn’t sit down.

  “We heard about Karen Overmeyer,” Lilith said. “And we know which book it’s from.”

  Reed stared at her. “Book? What are you talking about?”

  “It’s from The Wheelchair,” Lilith said in the smug voice Reed had learned to hate. “Remember? The athlete? He’s injured in a game, but the coach makes him keep playing, and by the time the game is over, the guy is crippled. In a wheelchair for the rest of his life. To make up for it, the team buys him a specially equipped van so he can drive. So he sets out to get revenge by blowing innocent pedestrians away on the road, hoping they’ll be crippled like him. We’ve decided,” Lilith glanced around the table, “that what happened to Karen is pretty close.”

  “Except that she’s not crippled,” Reed said.

  “Well, yes, but the person who hit her probably hoped she would be.”

  I don’t think so, Reed thought. The person who hit her hoped she would be dead.

  “You can’t go back to that house,” Link said, standing up. “Use your head. Karen’s in the hospital, Carl is still missing, and Sunny Bigelow is dead. They all worked for McCoy. You’re next on that list. Can’t you see that?”

  Oh, yes, she thought, her blood like ice, I can see that.

  She didn’t want them to know she was headed for the house. Because she didn’t trust any of them. Maybe McCoy had lost it again, and was acting out the plots of her novels, using her assistants.

  But maybe not. Maybe someone just wanted it to look that way.

  “I’m quitting,” she announced, her eyes on Debrah’s face. “I’m going to call McCoy today and tell her. I thought you all should know. So, if anyone wants to take my place in that house, be my guest. But if I were you,” Reed added as she turned away, “I’d make sure my life insurance is up-to-date first.”

  Then she turned on her heels and walked away.

  “Reed, wait!” Link called.

  Reed kept walking. Link had a car, too. It was dark blue, and wouldn’t have been easy to see in a heavy rainstorm. He had seen to it that she knew about the job at McCoy’s … totally unlike him to be so generous … almost as if he wanted her to be in that house …

  Shaking her head to rid it of such a terrible thought, Reed took the elevator up to the lobby,

  Link was right about one thing. It would be a mistake to go back to that house now.

  Instead, she went to the phone in the lobby. Dialed McCoy’s number with shaking hands. Of course, it wasn’t polite to quit a job with only a phone call, but …

  Reed laughed bitterly. Not polite? It wasn’t polite to run people down with a car, either.

  Instead of a ring on the other end, she heard only a dull buzzing. The McCoy phone was doing its thing … out of order in bad weather.

  She had just replaced the receiver when Rain came in the front door, stomping fresh snow from his boots.

  “Hey, what luck!” he cried, smiling broadly. He hurried over and planted a kiss on her cheek. His face was red with cold. “McCoy sent me to get you. She wants to talk to you about all these crazy rumors on campus. I think she’s worried that you’re going to abandon her.”

  Good guess, Reed thought. But something kept her from saying it out loud. She couldn’t help feeling sorry for McCoy. If she was doing these things, she couldn’t help it, and if she wasn’t, someone was being very cruel to her, setting her up.

  “I’ve got errands to run in town,” Rain added blithely. He didn’t seem to notice Reed’s confusion. “I’ve got my car out front. I’ll drop you off at the house, go on into town, and you and McCoy can talk. She’s really upset, Reed. I guess you know why she was at Brooklawn. Everyone seems to, now. The grapevine doesn’t waste any time, does it?”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked, trying to decide what to do. Rain seemed so calm, so normal … as if nothing were really wrong. If McCoy had lost her grip, wouldn’t he be upset?

  He shrugged. “Can you blame her for not wanting anyone to know? Even these days, it’s not the kind of thing you brag about. And it’s not like she was really crazy, Reed. She was just exhausted, that’s all. So she forgets things. Big deal. Who doesn’t? Just come and talk to her, okay? You’d be doing me a big favor.”

  “I never thought she did those things, anyway,” Reed said as they began walking toward the door. “I thought it was someone else making it look like your mother had … was sick again. I mean, using the plots of her books? McCoy would never be that obvious, would she? She’s not stupid.”

  “No,” he said, opening the door for her. “She is definitely not stupid.”

  Before she climbed into his car, Reed’s eyes automatically turned toward the front fender. There were no dents, no scratches, no sign that Rain’s car had hit anything recently. Ashamed of herself for even checking, she slid into the front seat.

  “The police came this morning,” he said as he drove to the house. “But when I told them we were both home all night long, they seemed satisfied. They agree with you, Reed. That someone is trying to set up McCoy. Don’t have a clue why, though. Neither do I. But my mother has an enemy somewhere on this campus, and I intend to find out who it is.”

  “Let the police handle it,” Reed said uneasily as they pulled up in front of the house. Looking at it now, she wondered how she could ever have found it fascinating. It was just an old, gloomy house. Nothing more. “Whoever is doing this doesn’t mind killing. They almost succeeded with Karen.” She turned toward Rain. “You said you didn’t want anything bad to happen to me. Well, I feel the same way about you.”

  “Moi?” He grinned, and gave her a quick kiss. “I’m invincible. Look, you go in and calm McCoy down, and I’ll be right back. If she’s forgotten that you’re coming and gone into her study, go and pound on the door. And look, don’t worry, okay? Did I tell you Poe is trained as an attack bird?”

  Reed laughed. “Yeah, right. He could always talk an intruder to death.”

  Rain was laughing, too, as he pulled away and turned the car around.

  No scratches, no dents, no bumps … it hadn’t been his car that hit Karen.

  The front door was, as always, unlocked.

  Just to be on the safe side, Reed locked it when she was inside. Rain would have his own key. He’d probably be pleased that, unlike his mother, Reed had thought to lock it. Especially now.

  McCoy wasn’t waiting for her in the living room. Rain knew his mother well. She’d probably completely forgotten that she’d asked to see Reed.

  Or maybe she’d decided to work while she waited. There was always the chance that her son hadn’t been able to find Reed, and McCoy could be wasting valuable writing time, waiting.

  Maybe McCoy had left a note on the desk.

  Slipping out of her raincoat, Reed walked to the desk and checked its surface.

  There was no note.

  But a spiral notebook with a black and white cover lay on the blotter, a white label pasted across its front.

  McCoy had left a manuscript out?

  The old, familiar excitement welling up inside her, Reed hurried around the desk and looked at the label.

  Betrayal.

  The last of Reed’s anxiety at being in the house again completely disappeared. At last! Just as she had planned to leave the house forever, she
was actually going to see the beginning of a McCoy novel. The book that would no doubt be on the best-seller list sometime in the future was in front of her now.

  Dropping her raincoat on the floor, Reed grabbed the notebook, flipped the cover open, and began reading.

  She was disappointed to find only one page filled with writing. She read it avidly.

  The girl stood in the doorway, staring at her captor. Her green eyes welled up with tears as she realized that she had been betrayed.

  “I trusted you,” she said, her voice reedy with shock. “I admired you, respected you. I trusted you. And all the time, you were the one. I defended you to others. And now you …”

  Her captor interrupted her. “But I am giving you a place in history. Can’t you see that? I am making you the heroine. Haven’t you always wanted to be the heroine?”

  The girl hung her head. Her long, straight, lustrous hair brushed the shoulders of her black sweater. She wore only black now, copying her idol. Her green eyes reflected shame. It was true. She had always wanted to be the heroine.

  “You were wrong to trust me. I didn’t ask you to. You volunteered. I shall kill you and then I shall write about it and everyone will love reading about what happened to you. Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted? Tell the truth, now. It is, isn’t it?”

  The girl began backing away, until her back bumped up against the wall. Insanity was staring her right in the face. Total, complete madness … and there was nowhere for her to go.

  And as her captor came toward her, the shiny, wide-bladed knife raised high in the air, the girl knew that what her captor had said was true. She had fantasized about being the heroine of the books she admired so much.

  And now she was going to die because of it.

  The writing ended.

  Reed’s heart was slamming against her chest violently. Long, dark, straight hair … green eyes … wearing black like her idol …

  The manuscript dropped from her hands, landing on the floor with a soft slap.

  McCoy’s new book was about her.

  And in it, she was going to die.

  Chapter 20

  REED COLLAPSED INTO THE desk chair, her body limp. No, no, it wasn’t true. It couldn’t be.

  But it was.

  Madness … insanity … McCoy had disappeared into its depths, after all.

  Reed forced her eyes around the room in a sweeping circle, searching for some sign that the author was in the house. McCoy had sent for Reed. And she had left the manuscript out. She had to know that once Reed had read it, she would fly from the house and never return. The opportunity to fulfill the words in the new novel would be lost forever.

  So … why had she gone into her office, leaving the door open for Reed to escape?

  Sitting up straight, every nerve in her body alert, Reed swept the room with her eyes again.

  Poe’s cage was open.

  Poe’s cage had never been opened before.

  Where was the bird?

  She heard the noise then, a wild, flapping sound, a rapping, steady and insistent.

  “Poe?” she asked softly, standing up.

  The flapping stopped.

  “Poe?”

  The sound began again. It was coming from the hallway.

  I have to get out of here, now, Reed told herself. She couldn’t wait for Rain to come back. There was no time.

  She put on the raincoat. Her movements were stiff and wooden.

  Rain. Poor Rain. How was he going to take the awful news? He was so sure his mother was all right. Was … innocent.

  The flapping in the hall grew wilder, more insistent.

  Reed began tiptoeing from the room, scarcely breathing, terrified that at any second, McCoy would leap from behind a piece of furniture, shiny, silvery knife in hand.

  She was almost to the front door when the mynah’s shrill shriek split the air.

  Reed gasped and whirled. “Hush!” she cried when she spotted the shiny black bird circling the room. “Shut up!”

  But the bird aimed straight for her, circled her head, and then flew into the hall, where its wings began flapping wildly against a door.

  Not the door to McCoy’s office. This one was closer. The cellar door, Reed remembered, from the tour when the fan club had visited.

  Poe threw himself against the door repeatedly. He was making such a racket, beating the door with his wings and cawing wildly, Reed was sure McCoy would hear him and come rushing out of her office. If that, indeed, was where she was. Maybe she wasn’t in the house. Maybe she was waiting outside, just beyond the front door.

  Yes, that was it! She had left the manuscript out, knowing Reed would snatch it up and read it and become so terrified, she would fly out of the house.

  Where McCoy would be waiting for her.

  That way, there would be no evidence inside the house.

  Even in the throes of madness, McCoy was clever.

  I can’t go out there, Reed thought, her eyes on the bird, so frantic to gain entry to the cellar.

  Maybe Poe is trying to tell me something. Maybe he knows, with that weird sixth sense that some creatures have, that McCoy is waiting outside in the bushes for me.

  Reed began walking cautiously toward the frenzied bird. The cellar. She could wait in the cellar until Rain got back. If she got lucky and the door locked from the inside, even if McCoy got tired of waiting for her and came looking, she wouldn’t be able to get to Reed.

  Keeping her eyes fixed on the office door, further down the hall, Reed slowly, carefully, approached the bird.

  He seemed to sense that she was going to open the door for him, and moved away from it, circling her head.

  No sound from the office. No door opening, no crazed author racing down the hall, knife in hand.

  Reed pulled the cellar door open. A blast of foul, stale, icy air rushed up to greet her. It was black as night inside, but there was a string hanging from the ceiling.

  She yanked on it. A dim light flickered on. She could barely see. But it was better than nothing.

  Poe flew past her and down, down into the cellar’s depths.

  Once inside, Reed turned to check the door for an inside lock.

  There wasn’t one.

  And there was nothing in sight with which to bar the door. Nothing, either, to use as a weapon.

  Still, she shut the door firmly, and turned around, facing down. McCoy might not think to look for her here. Or Rain would get back in time. Either way, the cellar was her only choice.

  A sound from below, different from the flapping of Poe’s wings, brought her head up, her eyes wide with fear. She held her breath. McCoy? Down here?

  But the sound wasn’t threatening.

  It came again, a feeble moan, followed by a faint, scratching sound.

  Holding her breath, Reed moved carefully down the steep, wooden stairs, peering into the darkness.

  There was something lying on the floor below her, beside the furnace.

  A heap of clothing … an … arm? Legs?

  Something at the top of the heap of clothing moved. A head, turning.

  Reed jerked backward in terror, her senses reeling.

  She waited a moment, steadying her nerves. Then she bent again and looked more carefully.

  A jacket, dirty, but recognizable. Blood-red and white, Salem’s colors. Blond hair, badly in need of washing, but also recognizable. Thick, curly, Scandinavian blond …

  And then Reed knew what that was lying on the floor of the damp, smelly cellar, next to an ancient black furnace.

  Carl.

  The person lying on the earthen floor of Victoria McCoy’s cellar was Carl Nordstrum, the writer’s missing assistant.

  Chapter 21

  THE DAMP, MUSTY AIR swirled around Reed, stinging her eyes. “Carl?” she whispered. “Carl, is that you?”

  The figure on the floor roused itself, turned its head. The cheeks were slightly sunken, the eyes shadowed and dull. The ankles were tied together, but it
was clear that the ropes were unnecessary. The listless figure probably didn’t have the strength to move.

  A half-eaten loaf of bread lay at his side.

  Reed barely recognized him. His face was gray with dirt, his hair matted. But she knew, clearly and sickeningly, that it was Carl Nordstrum. The clerk at the administration office who had thought him so good-looking would never have recognized him. Not now.

  Bending low to avoid the ceiling beams, Reed made her way over to him. She crouched beside him. A tin pie plate with a shallow puddle of water in it sat near his elbow.

  “Carl?”

  His eyes were dull and glazed. But he lifted a hand to show that he was aware of her presence.

  Tears of pity for him stung Reed’s eyes. The sounds she’d heard … the scratching. Not squirrels. Carl. Trying to make someone hear him, discover his terrible plight.

  “We have to get out of here,” Reed said, even as she realized that she couldn’t lift him. He was skeletally thin, but still too heavy for her. And he didn’t look like he’d be able to walk out of the cellar on his own.

  She would have to go get help. It had to be close to four o’clock, but Link wouldn’t be waiting for her, and Rain wasn’t home. The phone wouldn’t be working in this snowstorm. She couldn’t call the police. McCoy might be waiting outside, but that was a gamble she would have to take.

  Reed felt sick. Every illusion she’d ever had about the “dark side” being exciting and fascinating vanished. There wasn’t anything fascinating about the gaunt figure lying on the earthen floor. What kind of madness had imprisoned him in this damp, airless hole?

  But Reed knew the answer to that question. McCoy.

  She had wreaked havoc on so many lives. Sunny’s, Karen’s, Carl’s. Had there been others before them? In California? Was that why McCoy had been sent to Brooklawn in the first place?

  Yet there were times when she seemed so normal. It wasn’t surprising that the doctors had let her go. She had fooled them all. Even Rain.

  “We have to be very, very quiet,” she told Carl, lifting his hand. It lay limply in hers.