A Book of Horrors Read online

  ‘And we’ll give you a call, either way.’

  ‘Unless you’re dead,’ Sheriff Frank Gozinsky said, his face deadpan. Then he chuckled and slapped Hugh with his hat again. ‘Hey, I’m just pulling your tab here is all – you need to lighten up.’

  The Sheriff turned around and pulled on his hat. As he stepped out of the doorway he said, ‘But you do hear of some things. Why, a woman – local, as it turns out – was held captive for more’n a whole day,’ he said without turning around. ‘Her killer – went by the name of the Pain Man – opened her up and took out a lot of her insides … set ’em on—’

  ‘Frank—’ Hugh started.

  ‘Jesus, so gross,’ Angie whispered, more to herself than to anyone else.

  ‘—set ’em out on plates right in front of her. And he clamped her head in a fixed position and clipped off her eyelids so she couldn’t not see.’

  ‘Frank!’

  ‘And she was local?’ Angie said.

  ‘Ayuh,’ Frank grunted.

  ‘Never saw it in the papers. Or heard it on the news.’

  ‘Didn’t make it into the newspapers yet. Or on the TV. Will, though.’

  ‘Well, we’ll watch out,’ Hugh said.

  ‘Uh, huh. Took her near on twelve hours to die,’ the Sheriff said, shaking his head. He looked up into the sky, shielding his eyes. ‘Looks to me like it ain’t ever gonna stop.’ He turned around and gave a little salute. ‘Be seeing you.’ And he was gone, jogging through the rain to his cruiser.

  As Angie watched him drive off, something felt wrong, but she couldn’t say what it was. It didn’t matter. It was already way too late.

  III

  Hugh pushed the door closed and started back upstairs.

  ‘Where’re you going, sweetie?’

  ‘Thought I’d unpack.’

  ‘I could do it later …’

  Hugh shook his head. ‘Might as well make a start.’

  When he reached the top of the stairs, having turned from the first long flight onto the shorter second flight, Hugh couldn’t help feeling just the slightest tug of anxiety. Maybe it was Ellie. Maybe it was the way Joe McHendricks had set off along the road. Or maybe—

  all of ’em

  —it was the slightly worrying feeling—

  ain’t like you’re gonna be going anyplace once you get there

  —that something was wrong. That there was somebody up here in the house … with him. Maybe he should have let the Sheriff take a look. He was alone, considerably removed from the normalcy of downstairs and the radio and the distant clunking of cupboard doors. It was like a different world, one he had stumbled into unbidden and unwanted.

  He paused for a second, tilting his head to one side, and stared intently at the door to the front bedroom.

  The sound of the radio drifted up behind him, a woman’s voice saying, It’s not true that poltergeists are just mischievous, not at all. Then a squawk of interference as the channel was changed led into the familiar strains of The Eagles’ ‘Hotel California’.

  He went into the bedroom and turned on the radio, making sure it was tuned to the news channel, and opened wide the wardrobe doors. Behind him, a man’s voice said Imagine if you had a whole family of poltergeists.

  Sounds like something out of Casper the Friendly Ghost, a woman’s voice chimed in. With Spooky the Tuff Little Ghost, Wendy the Good Little Witch and the Ghostly Trio … all of them – ’ceptin’ Casper and Wendy – just going around saying Boo! to folks.

  The audience laughed.

  As he scanned the shirts on the rail, Hugh heard the unmistakable sound of someone turning over in bed.

  ‘Hello?’ Hugh said, his voice soft as he turned around. He didn’t want Angie to hear him.

  Was that a sigh?

  It’s a myth, the man was saying. Poltergeists are not the kittens of the spectral plane, they’re more the— He paused, clearly trying to come up with the correct word.

  ‘Hello?’ Hugh said again. He walked out of the bedroom and onto the landing, looked over the banister. No sign of Angie, but he could hear the clanking of pans from the kitchen.

  —Raptors, the man said.

  Raptors? Like as in Jurassic Park?

  Yeah, the man said. Ghosts with teeth.

  Mmm, the woman said, spooky.

  Dropping his pants onto the floor, Hugh sidled along the banister and then the adjoining wall all the way to the front-bedroom door. He craned his neck to see first through the open door – nothing sinister there: wardrobe, window showing the church clock next door, small pile of books and magazines on the floor – and then through the door jamb. That narrow little aperture didn’t give much more – just the made-up bed, some clean sheets that Angie must have put there ready for the weekly change-over, and the right-hand edge of the window that Hugh had thought (and how silly he now felt that was) he had seen the vaguest impression of an intruder surveying the outside like he owned it. (Was it a ‘he’? Hugh wasn’t at all sure, though he fancied it was. Or had been.)

  He moved forward slightly less gingerly now, until he was standing square-on with the doorway.

  ‘You sure you want coffee? And not a cup of tea?’ Angie shouted suddenly from downstairs.

  Spinning around to face the door again, Hugh held his right hand to his chest and breathed out slowly. ‘Either is fine.’

  ‘Well, say which.’

  ‘Okay, coffee.’

  ‘Milk or cream?’

  For God’s sake, Angie— ‘Cream,’ Hugh said. ‘Let’s live dangerously.’

  She moved away (she must have been immediately below him, in the hallway) and started humming.

  Behind him, out on the street, a car engine made a noise like the phlegmy rattle of someone clearing his throat. Just for a second, Hugh thought about not turning but simply walking out of the room and then running down the stairs, taking them two or even three at a time until he reached the hallway. Instead, holding his breath, he turned around very slowly, his eyes leading the way, and fully prepared to cease the exercise if they encountered anything unpleasant.

  There was nobody there.

  ‘Of course there’s nobody there,’ Hugh said, spitting the words out as though they were tainted meat.

  What do you say to all this, Hugh? The woman on the radio wanted to know. Hugh felt a seismic shift in the pit of his stomach, but then she added, Are we likely to see any ghosts in the new series of House – either with teeth or without?

  Just scant minutes later, Hugh had found his favourite denims and a faded green collarless shirt and was jogging down the stairs … ignoring the way the wind had got up outside to the degree that it was blowing against the window and making it sound like small (and ‘proper’ – now where had he got that notion?) bony feet clumping along behind him.

  IV

  ‘I’ll get it,’ Hugh shouted, his mouth full of peanuts. ‘Could be Frank again.’

  ‘I hope not. And you’re eating,’ Angie snarled from the next floor, craning her head over the banister. ‘No potatoes for you for supper tonight.’

  Hugh put out his tongue, narrowly avoiding spitting a thick glob of half-chewed nuts onto the tiled floor, but Angie had already returned to her cleaning.

  Hugh recognised the outline of Gary through the tinted glass of the front door. ‘It’s Gaz!’ he shouted.

  ‘Let me in!’ Gary pleaded from the step. ‘They’re after me.’

  Pulling back the door, Hugh held out his arms. ‘Then come in, weary traveller.’

  As he stepped into the hallway, Gary Aaronson said ‘’bout bloody time.’

  ‘I came as soon as I heard the bell,’ Hugh protested. ‘Coffee? Or something stronger?’

  ‘Coffee’s fine. But only if you’re having one.’

  ‘We just had one … but I’ll have another if you insist.’

  ‘I insist. You know how I hate to drink alone.’

  Hugh strode ahead through the living room to the kitchen. ‘That’s been m
y downfall at too many dinner parties,’ he said, throwing the words over his shoulder.

  ‘Well, you can always say no.’

  ‘Yeah, right.’ Hugh hit the switch on the Mr Coffee. ‘And that would stop you pouring me another glass of wine?’

  ‘Probably not. Talking of which, I may pop into the store on the way home and pick up a few bottles – place looks deserted and they’ve got an offer on for Oyster Bay … down to ten bucks a time.’

  ‘Sounds like a bargain.’

  Gary nodded emphatically. ‘In fact,’ he went on, ‘pretty much the whole town is empty.’

  ‘The weather,’ Hugh said. ‘People are sick of going out and—’

  He stopped and thought back to what Maude had said:

  ain’t like you’re gonna be going anyplace once you get there

  ‘That’s another thing,’ Hugh said.

  ‘Another thing? I think I might have blinked and missed the first thing.’

  ‘Maude Angstrom is out at the turn-off on the Oguncuit road, off of I-95 and she’s turning folks around.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘And that’s a thing, how?’

  Hugh shook his head. ‘Seems a little extreme. She says it’s to stop folks driving off into the ditch.’

  ‘Well, it surely is a bitch of a road.’

  ‘Okay, it’s a bad—’

  ‘And the rain looks like it’s set in for the duration, so the chances of slippin’ and slidin’ are gonna be lookin’ pretty good.’

  ‘Well, yeah, mayb—’

  ‘And she didn’t turn you around, right?’

  ‘Hey you’re not in court now, Mr Mason.’

  Gary laughed.

  Hugh took a sip of coffee. ‘And another thing.’

  ‘Hoo-eee, we’re getting through these “things” thick and fast now, ain’t we?’

  ‘She said something.’

  ‘Who? Angie?’

  ‘No, Maude,’ Hugh snapped. ‘Stay with the goddam program, will you?’

  ‘What’d she say?’

  ‘She said, “It ain’t like you’re gonna be going anyplace once you get there”.’

  ‘Oh. Were you going out?’

  ‘No … no, we weren’t going out. But—’

  ‘So she was right.’

  ‘Yeah, but—’

  ‘But you weren’t going out.’

  ‘No. We weren’t going out.’ Hugh sighed and rubbed his head. ‘But she didn’t mean that.’

  ‘Didn’t mean … that you weren’t going out?’

  Hugh waved a hand dismissively. ‘And then there’s Ellie Ferguson.’

  ‘What did she do?’

  ‘She said, “They’re here … all of them”.’

  ‘All of who? Or should I say whom?’

  ‘She didn’t say. She said, “They’re here, Hugh” … and then she said “all of them” … and then “they’re all here”.’

  ‘You think somebody’s going around sticking pods under folks’ beds?’

  ‘Oh, that’s typical. Typical of you, Gaz.’

  ‘What? What’s typical?’

  ‘You try to belittle people who are trying to discuss something.’

  ‘You want to know what I think, amigo?’

  ‘Not really, but you’re going to tell me.’

  ‘I am.’

  After waiting a half-minute, Hugh said, ‘Okay, so tell me.’

  ‘I think you’re getting too much sex.’

  Hugh was incredulous. ‘You think what?’

  ‘I mean, Jesus Christ … how long you two been married, anyway?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘What do I mean? Okay, let’s do it slowly: How. Long. Have. Y—’

  ‘No, idiot.’ Hugh lifted the cookie jar out of the cupboard. ‘I mean, what do you mean about us having—?’

  ‘Hey, amigo, you’re—’

  ‘Will you not do that? Don’t call me “amigo”.’

  Gaz put his head on one side and lowered his eyes.

  ‘And don’t do that, either.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That hurt thing. That expression you use when you’re trying to make out you’ve been wounded.’

  Gary lifted a cookie to his mouth and crunched. Speaking around the crumbs, he said. ‘I saw you – or Angela. Could have been Angela, but I reckon it was you.’ He took another bite and munched happily, giving Hugh another wink.

  ‘Gaz, you lost me here. You saw me when?’

  ‘This morning.’

  ‘In Boston?’

  ‘Not in Boston – hey, these are good.’ Gary took another cookie out of the jar and continued munching. ‘I saw you here,’ he mumbled, jerking his head upwards. ‘In the front bedroom. That your little love-nest? I know you and Ange sleep in the ba—’

  ‘Gaz, we were in Boston … coming back from Nan’s place.’

  ‘Hey, how is she?’

  ‘Good. Nan’s good.’

  ‘Excellent. I always had a soft—’

  ‘When did you call round?’

  Frowning now, seeing something in Hugh’s own expression, Gary said, ‘Around nine, nine-thirty. I’d just finished walking the dog.’

  ‘We only got back a half-hour ago.’

  Gary made a face and shrugged.

  ‘And that’s another thing.’

  ‘Jesus Christ. More “things”.’

  ‘The Sheriff came round.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  Gary made a face. ‘So he came around for—?’

  ‘Maude told him we wanted to see him.’

  ‘And you didn’t?’

  ‘Well, we didn’t when we saw Maude, but then, when things got—’

  ‘Them goddam “things” again.’

  Hugh sighed deeply and rubbed his head. ‘So you’re telling me I was in the front bedroom … or rather this person was in the front bedroom?’

  Gary nodded and then smiled. ‘You ducked back when you saw me look up.’

  ‘Gaz, I was out – O-U-T … what can’t you understand about that?’

  Gary held up his hands. ‘Okay, okay, take it easy. You were out and not here at the house.’

  Hugh watched his friend.

  ‘That’s fine. I’m happy for you.’

  Neither of them said anything for a while.

  At last, Gaz said, ‘Angie not having coffee?’

  ‘I doubt it. I’ll check.’

  Hugh walked back through into the hallway.

  ‘Jeez, but these cookies are good. Where’d you get ’em?’

  ‘Angie? Another cup?’

  He waited.

  ‘Better tell her to hurry if she wants a cookie,’ Gary called from the kitchen.

  Hugh held onto the newel post and leaned over so that he could look up to the spot where Angie usually leaned over. ‘Angie?’

  There was no answer.

  ‘She got a radio on?’ Gary asked, suddenly appearing behind Hugh with his cup in one hand and a chocolate chip cookie in the other.

  Hugh didn’t answer. He stepped onto the bottom stair and shouted up again. Then, when there was still no answer, he took another step, and then another.

  ‘Angela?’ Her Sunday-best name … the one he always used on the rare occasions that he was angry with her. Or scared, a voice whispered in Hugh’s head.

  ‘You want me to come up?’ asked Gary.

  Hugh didn’t respond. Now he jogged the last few stairs two at a time. Gary stuck with him all the way.

  ‘Angie?’

  ‘Ange!’ Gary shouted – he knew she hated that bastardisation of her name and was thus sure to comment. But there was nothing. ‘Come on, Angie … quit fooling around.’

  Hugh went and checked the bathroom, then their bedroom – nothing.

  In the bedroom, a man with a European accent – German? Swedish? Hugh couldn’t make out which – was saying There are many well-documented cases of let’s say spiritual infestati
on down the years but, for the most part, they’re just one ghost. Imagine if there were more than one.

  What, the woman said, like two or maybe three?

  Oh, I’m thinking more than that. I’m thinking many more than that.

  Gary placed his cup on the little table next to the chaise longue, leaned into the small stairway up to the top floor – the guest-floor, as Hugh and Angie called it – and shouted, but there was still no response. He jogged up the stairs and Hugh heard him moving from room to room, calling Angie’s name … and now he was using her Sunday-best, too.

  V

  When Gary came back down, he said, ‘She’s not there, is she?’

  Gary shook his head some more. ‘No. Not there.’

  Hugh turned to the door of the front bedroom.

  ‘Have you been in there?’ Gary asked.

  His voice barely above the sound of air moving out between his teeth, Hugh said, ‘I daren’t.’

  Gary moved past his friend and went into the room. He stepped back immediately. He didn’t have to say anything. Instead, Gary said, ‘Could she have stepped out?’

  ‘Why would she step out? I mean, without telling me?’

  ‘No,’ he said, the word seeming at once both tired and inadequate.

  ‘Hold on,’ Hugh said.

  Gary’s face lightened.

  ‘She must have gone out,’ he said.

  Gary nodded, but the smile of anticipation at what was coming – she told me she was nipping out to the store, or something – was quickly fading. ‘Of course,’ he said. Then he added, ‘What was she doing up here?’

  Hugh shrugged. His stomach was starting to knot and he suddenly felt like a good sit-down on the toilet might be a good idea. ‘Tidying? Sorting stuff out … that kind of thing.’

  Gary looked at the front bedroom door. ‘Looks like she was having a nap, state of the bedclothes.’ He winked. ‘You sure you two weren’t—?’

  Hugh didn’t wait for the rest of it. He almost lurched forward into the bedroom and stopped dead just inside the doorway. The bedclothes were indeed rumpled – in fact, they were a mess.

  ‘Gaz,’ Hugh said, ‘something’s wrong.’

  You talk about ghosts as being infestations.

  Yes, I think that is a reasonable description.