J.A. Konrath / Jack Kilborn Trilogy - Three Scary Thriller Novels (Origin, The List, Haunted House)

by J. A. Konrath

  He was tugging on some rubber gloves, and gave Deb a crooked smile.

  Is this the guy? Or does he just look like the guy, and my imagination is doing the rest?

  Deb sometimes thought she saw people she knew in crowds, only to look closer and realize they just resembled the people she knew. Her mind filled in the blanks, jumped to conclusions. It happened to everyone.

  Is it happening to me now?

  “Why, Mrs. Dieter. You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” He opened up a plastic package, taking out a long needle attached to a clear tube.

  Maybe this isn’t the guy. Maybe Forenzi hired him because he looked like the man Deb knew.

  To scare her.

  After all, this is a fear study.

  “You… remind me of someone.”

  “I get that a lot. George Clooney, right?”

  More like Boris Karloff.

  “Please put your arm on the armrest, Mrs. Dieter. I’m going to strap it down so you keep still.”

  He buckled a strap around her wrist.

  “So, are you from around here, Doctor?”

  “Oh, no. I’m from West Virginia.”

  Where the Rushmore was.

  “Been here a while?”

  “Only recently. For the past few years I’ve been… busy.”

  “Busy doing what?”

  He smiled again. “Just hold still, Mrs. Dieter. This will only pinch for a moment.”

  The needle was jammed into her forearm. The agony was immediate.

  Then he began to move it from side to side.

  “Where is that vein? I can never find it.”

  Deb ground her teeth, locking her jaw. The doctor wiggled it, going deeper, so deep Deb was sure he’d hit bone.

  The pain was bad. But the anxiety was nuclear.

  Deb shut her eyes again, begging the universe for it to stop.

  “You have such tiny veins. I may have to get a smaller needle.”

  Yes! Please please please do that!

  Her whole world had been reduced to that needle in her flesh, probing, twisting, poking left and right like she was being tenderized instead of giving blood.

  “Maybe I should try the other arm.”

  No!

  “Yes, I think that’ll I have to… ahh, there it is.”

  Deb chanced a look and saw him attach a vacuum vial to the end of the tube, and it began to fill with blood.

  “Was that so awful, Mrs. Dieter?”

  Deb’s hair was stuck to her head from sweating. She blew out a deep breath, and pumped her fist to make the blood go faster.

  “Looking good, Mrs. Dieter. Looking… oh, wait. We’re slowing down.”

  He flicked the vial with a fingernail, which tugged on the needle and caused Deb a spike of pain.

  “I believe your vein has collapsed.” He roughly grabbed the needle, then pulled it out.

  “Do we have enough blood?” Deb whispered.

  He shook his head. “I’m afraid not.”

  “So…?”

  “So I guess we’ll have to try that other arm after all.”

  Before Deb could object, the doctor was pinning down her other wrist and buckling it to the armrest.

  She was trapped.

  “What are you doing?”

  “You recognized me. From the hotel. I can see it in your eyes. Don’t you lie to me, girl.”

  Deb immediately began to thrash and yell, but the moment she opened her mouth, the man waved his hand over her face and Deb could no longer make a sound. It felt like something foul had crawled inside her throat and was choking her from the inside out, even though she was still able to breathe. Deb screamed, loud as she could, but it only came out as a hiss of air. She tried to kick him, but he caught her left prosthetic and pressed the vacuum release, letting it drop to the floor. He did the same with the left one.

  “Ya know my name is Franklin.” His voice was getting deeper, the southern accent more pronounced. “Ya know I’m very angry about what y’all did at the Rushmore.”

  Deb pulled on her arms as hard as she could, until her elbows felt like they were going to pop. But old as the examination table was, it was built solid.

  She was trapped.

  Franklin strolled over to the equipment cart. He ran his hand over the antique medical tools, his fingers caressing the rusty speculum.

  “Ya know I’m angry about going to prison. I’m really, really angry about that, girl. Do ya know why?”

  He picked up the hand drill.

  “I’ll tell ya why.”

  Deb was growing light headed from her attempts at screaming. She tried to push Franklin away with her stumps, but he simply moved to the side of the table.

  Then he placed the drill bit on Deb’s thigh, pressing down hard.

  “Because,” he whispered to her, “one year ago today, I died in prison.”

  He reached his hand down the front of his pants—

  —and pulled out a handful of something, throwing it in Deb’s face.

  At first, she thought it was rice.

  Then the rice began to wiggle.

  Maggots.

  Franklin put both hands on the drill.

  “I don’t like being dead, girl. The spirit world is all fucked up. So I’m going to hurt ya. I’m going to hurt ya so bad. And then I’m going to hurt that husband of yours even worse.”

  Just as he began to turn, the back door to the examination room began to slowly open.

  Then the lights flickered and went out.

  Deb screamed in the blackness, making no more noise than a leaky tire.

  A moment later, the lights came back on, just as the drill clattered to the floor.

  Deb saw a man in a lab coat standing in front of her.

  “I’m Dr. Madison,” he said. “What in God’s name has happened to you?”

  Deb tried to talk, but she had no voice. she tried to point with her chin where Franklin was standing.

  But Franklin wasn’t there.

  Franklin had disappeared.

  Mal

  When the door opened, and he saw Deb crying and hysterical, something in Mal snapped. He stormed into the exam room, demanding answers from the doctor, listening to his wife try to talk but unable to.

  Someone—Tom—finally figured out that she couldn’t speak, and Dr. Madison gave Deb a pen and some paper to relate her story.

  Deb’s handwriting was erratic, and didn’t make much sense, but the part that stuck out the most was the word she wrote and circled several times.

  GHOST

  “So he bound your arms, tried to take blood, then threatened you with the drill?” Tom asked.

  Deb nodded. Mal felt sick.

  “And you say it was a man named Franklin? Someone you’d met before?”

  Another nod.

  “He’s in prison,” Mal said. “But he could have gotten out.”

  Deb beckoned for the paper and wrote “Franklin said he died in prison.”

  “That’s easy enough to check,” Tom said. Then he pointed to the floor. “So is this drill. My guess is that ghosts don’t leave fingerprints.”

  Deb shook her head and wrote “gloves”.

  “Careful ghost.” Tom looked at Madison. “And you’re sure no one went past you, Doctor?”

  “Positive. I was standing in the doorway the whole time. And…”

  The doctor’s face pinched.

  “And?”

  “When I came in here, before the lights went out, I saw Mrs. Dieter. But… I didn’t see anyone else.” He turned to Deb, looking pained. “I’m sorry, but you were alone in here, dear.”

  Mal wanted to hit somebody. “This qualifies as assault, right Detective?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Mal pulled a cell phone from his pocket. “I’m calling the police.”

  By now, everyone was in the exam room, huddling around Deb. Moni was helping her put her legs back on, and Dr. Madison was peering down his wife’s throat with a lighted opthalmo
scope.

  “Your vocal chords are swollen, but I don’t see any damage. How did you lose your voice?”

  Deb shook her head and mouthed “I don’t know.”

  Mal was walking around the office, waving his cell phone around like it was a talisman to ward off evil spirits. “Goddammit, no signal. Anyone else have a cell phone?”

  Tom checked his. “No bars.”

  “Doctor, where’s the phone in this place?”

  Dr. Madison shrugged. “There aren’t any phones at Butler House. No electricity either, except what’s powered by the gas generators. No Internet. We’re completely cut off from the grid here.”

  “This is insane,” Mal said. He turned to his wife, who was still shaking from her ordeal. “We’re leaving, Deb. Right now.”

  But rather than get the expected nod, Mal watched in amazement as Deb shook her head.

  “Honey, you were attacked!”

  “If it was a ghost,” Deb said, her hoarse voice barely a whisper, “he went away. If it was a trick to scare me, that’s the point of this experiment.”

  She reached out, held Mal’s hand. He gripped it tight.

  “Let’s stay,” she said.

  Moni grinned. “I’m with you, girlfriend. And if the ghost comes back, we kick his Casper ass.”

  Mr. Wellington was feeling the walls. “I can’t find any secret passages or trap doors or mirrors. But any magician worth his salt can do a disappearing act. This didn’t have to be a ghost. There could be a rational explanation for all of this.”

  Pang was setting up his spirit hunting equipment. Frank and Sara were holding hands in the corner of the room. Aabir had her eyes closed and was swaying where she stood.

  “So much sorrow in the room,” the medium said. “So much misery. And something else. A strong presence. An evil presence. Hatred. Toward you, Deb. Toward your husband. Something to do with West Virginia. Many people died there.” She opened her eyes. “Deborah, can I touch your hand?”

  Deb let go of Mal and reached for the psychic. When Aabir touched her, she gasped.

  “So much pain in your past, Deborah. So many scars. Much tragedy. But much bravery, too.” Aabir’s eyelids fluttered. “A bed and breakfast. The Rushmore Inn. I see misshapen, deformed people. They’re after you. They want something from you. You’re in a room. In bed. Someone is under the bed.”

  Deb’s eyes got wide, and she tried to pull her hand back. But Aabir didn’t let go.

  “I see a mountain lion.”

  “Enough.” Mal pulled the medium away, but then Aabir clasped his arm.

  “The ghost who did this to your wife. He has a brother named Jimmy. Jimmy is the one who cut off your hand.”

  Mal tried to shake her off, but the woman’s grip was like iron.

  “Jimmy is here, in this house. He’s followed you here.”

  Mal’s sphincter clenched. She was relating the worst thing that ever happened to him. The cause of his nightmares.

  Aabir’s voice got low, so she sounded like a man.

  “Maaaaaal…. I waaaaant your other hand…”

  Mal was rooted there, terrified.

  “Holy shit, bro!” Pang had some electronic gizmo pointed at Aabir. “The EMF is off the scale! I’ve never seen anything like this!”

  “I WAAAANT YOOOOUUUUR HAAAAAAND!”

  Mal shoved her away, and Aabir collapsed to the floor. Dr. Madison and Moni knelt next to her, and Pang was wide-eyed, snapping pictures with a digital camera.

  “Will you fucking look at this!” Pan declared. He held out the viewfinder for Mal to see.

  In the picture, Aabir was glowing like she was on fire.

  Tom

  Tom was on edge.

  He still hadn’t talked to Forenzi about Roy, and the whole examination room incident with Deb left a bad taste. Tom had interviewed enough victims to know Deb was one.

  But what was she a victim of?

  Everyone had moved into the great room. Aabir slumped in her lounge chair, looking like an inflatable float with half the air leaked out. Pang was hunched over a coffee table and typing something in his laptop, his face beaming. Mal and Deb were sitting on a sofa. Deb looked like a zombie, zoned out and slack. Mal was tapping his foot rapidly. Moni was near the front doors, whispering something to Wellington. Frank and Sara were on a loveseat, Frank’s arm around her.

  Despite Mal objecting, Dr. Madison had begun taking blood samples from everyone, going person to person, putting the vials into a metal case. He was also fitting everyone with a battery powered monitor, which recorded, among other things, electrical activity in the brain, heart activity, pulse, blood pressure, and calories burned. The device clipped to the belt, and worked wirelessly with ten electrode pads stuck to the skin in various locations, including the chest, wrists, neck, and temples.

  “I’m scared, Frank,” Sara said to him.

  “I’m scared, too.” Frank patted Sara’s leg. “But keep remembering that we’re supposed to be scared. That’s the point of the experiment. All of this could be intentional, set up by Dr. Forenzi.”

  “Where is Dr. Forenzi?” Tom asked Dr. Madison as he was labeling a vial with marker.

  “Hmm? In his lab, I suppose.” The doctor seemed preoccupied with his task and didn’t bother to face the cop.

  “I need to talk to him.”

  “I’ll tell him as soon as I finish up here.”

  “Now.”

  “I understand your urgency, Detective. Especially after what we all saw. But you have to understand, things like that happen in Butler House all the time. Dr. Forenzi has strict instructions not to be disturbed while he’s in his laboratory. And even if I wanted to disturb him, the doors are steel and locked all the time. I’ve never even been in there. If he doesn’t want to come out, no one can make him.”

  Tom wondered if he should push, but he still had all night to force the issue. Moni was right—he had no jurisdiction here. But he did have a gun, and a lot of questions, and by tomorrow he would be damn sure he got the answers he sought.

  “These readings are mind-blowing.” Pang was still staring at his laptop screen. “The electromagnetic field around Aabir surged like I was scanning a high tension power line. I wish I’d had my remote thermometer on. Did anyone notice a temperature change?”

  No one answered.

  “Okay okay okay.” Belgium cleared his throat. “Besides the painting in the hallway with all of us in it, and what happened in the examination room, has anyone else witnessed anything unusual since arriving at Butler House?”

  Sara spoke up. “In my room. A rocking chair. It was rocking by itself.”

  “Was there any explanation for it?” Belgium asked, obviously concerned.

  “No. No window open. I wasn’t anywhere near it. And when I say it was rocking, I don’t mean a little bit. It seemed like someone was in it.”

  Belgium shivered. “Anyone else?”

  “There was a cold spot in my room,” Pang said. “Ten degrees cooler. Celsius, bro. But it went away before I could record it, so I don’t have any proof.”

  “Tom?”

  Tom shook his head.

  “Mal?”

  “What? No.”

  Deb mouthed something.

  “What, hon?” Mal asked, putting his arm around her.

  “Painting in our room.” Deb’s voice was scratchy, but audible. “Fell off the wall.”

  “Aabir,” Belgium pressed, “have you noticed anything?”

  Aabir remained quiet.

  “Cornelius? Moni? Have you had had had any… um… encounters, since you’re arrival?”

  “Naw,” Moni said.

  “Neither have I,” said the Brit.

  “You told me you saw an orb,” Pang countered.

  Wellington shrugged. “I saw a flash of light in the hallway, while I was walking to the loo. You called it an orb, Mr. Pang, not I.”

  “What’s an orb?” Belgium asked.

  “Ghost lights,” Pang said. �
�Also known as orbs, ignis fatuus, will-o’-the-wisp. One pervading theory is that hauntings are residual energy that lingers after a traumatic event. Another is that the energy leaks into our dimension from another one. Like in quantum theory, where a particle can be in more than one place at the same time. In this case, our world, and the afterlife.”

  “I thought you were a skeptic, Mr. Pang.”

  “I am, Mr. Wellington. But skepticism requires me to be aware of the hypothesis I try to debunk.”

  “There are reasonable, scientific explanations for everything that has happened so far,” Wellington said.

  “A ghost assaulted my wife, Mr. Wellington,” Mal said, his chin out and his voice clipped.

  “It could have been a man who said he was a ghost,” Wellington said. “Or, perhaps, Mrs. Dieter might be mistaken in her account.”

  Mal stood up, his fist clenched. “Are you saying she’s lying?”

  “I’m not saying anything, Mr. Dieter. Only that I don’t know. I haven’t met anyone here before today, so I can’t voice for anyone’s honesty. But even if I trusted your wife was speaking what she believes to be the truth, couldn’t her account of the events be colored by her past traumas?”

  “So now she’s not a liar. Now she’s insane.”

  “I’m simply calling attention to the obvious. We have ample proof of liars in our society, as well as ample proof of mental dysfunction. But we don’t have any proof of spirits. So if I’m being asked to dwell on what is more likely—either supernatural activity, or lies, hoaxes, and hallucinations—I think Occam’s Razor bears me out. The simplest explanation is usually the correct one.”

  “Let’s all of us take it down a notch,” Tom said. Dr. Madison was attaching a sticky pad to his neck, and the conducting gel was cold. “But I think that anyone who wants to leave Butler House, should do so.”

  Moni snorted. “And give up a million bucks? You’re on crack.”

  “Dr. Belgium?” Tom met his eyes. “Do you and Sara want to leave?”

  They exchanged a look. “I believe we’re staying.”

  “Mal and Deb?”

  Mal faced his wife. “We should go, hon. We don’t need this.”

  Deb shook her head.

  “Deb…”

  “I’m done running away,” she rasped. “Go if you want. I’m staying.”