Ultimate Supernatural Horror Box Set (108 page)

He opened the closet door and headed to the foot of the stairs.

Climbed.

Paige had righted the table in the second-floor hallway and returned the lamp to its original place.

He stopped beside it.

Your friend is dead in a room right around the corner. You should at least put a blanket over him. Something.

Already, he could hear a collection of sounds coming from behind the closed door to Paige’s bedroom.

A wooden headboard slapping against the wall.

The low, breathless mumblings of Dr. Jude and his sister.

He involuntarily turned his head.

Despair.

Nausea.

Anguish.

How did you sink this far, baby sis?

He backed away, his eyes locking on the first door he saw, the floor groaning under his weight as he moved toward it.

Get out of sight.

The glass doorknob was freezing to the touch, and while it turned without a problem, the hinges screeched bloody murder. He stared into a linen closet—bare shelves coated with dust and just roomy enough, he hoped, for him to squeeze inside.

Grant stepped in and ducked down, his back flush against the shelves. He reached up and tugged the door shut, but his body blocked it from closing all the way.

The darkness seemed to magnify the labored breathing and muffled friction of the bed frame emanating from Paige’s room.

Paige was getting loud and so was Jude.

Grant had just brought his fingers up to plug his ears, when out in the hall, the desk lamp flickered three times.

For a microsecond, it burned as bright as a new star.

Bright enough to blind him and scald the walls with radiance.

It exploded.

The hall went dark.

The acrid stench of ozone and scorched glass filling the air.

Grant strained to listen.

Dead stillness.

His retinas slowly recovering from the overload of light.

He started to push the door open but stopped himself when the bedsprings in Paige’s room exhaled a slow groan.

No footsteps followed.

No voices.

The brownstone held its breath, and the longer Grant stood in the closet with the door pulled against his chest, the harder it became for him to move. Fear swept over him, its mass doubling with every pregnant second. He wanted desperately to call out to Paige. His legs began to tremble. A cramp shot through his quads. Sweat beaded on his forehead and slid down into his eyes with a salty sting.

The door to Paige’s room swung open.

A figure stood in the doorframe, backlit by candlelight—Jude.

Grant felt the change in his eyes, his chest, his ears—a subtle pulling from the doorway, like a vacuum seal had broken and the room itself was gasping for breath.

He squinted, searching for detail, but Jude was only a profile.

The doctor stepped out into the hall and began to walk, his pace as measured as a metronome, foot-strikes steady even as the glass from the shattered light bulb crunched beneath his feet.

In the darkest part of the corridor, Grant lost his silhouette.

His pulse rate kicked up a notch, eyes working every angle of the crack between the door and its frame for a better perspective.

Four feet from the closet door, Jude reemerged into the scraps of light that filtered up the staircase.

Grant could hear him breathing now and smell his cologne which also bore traces of Paige. Grant struggled to pull the door in with all the force he could rally but it wouldn’t close the final inch, leaving a gap that felt as big as the Grand Canyon.

Jude stood in perfect view, the doctor facing the closet door.

Motionless.

Gazing straight at the crack.

For a long time, Jude didn’t move.

When he finally stepped forward, his eyes came into the stairway light.

Grant’s first thought was that they looked dead, but that wasn’t quite right. They exuded a thousand-yard intensity he’d seen countless times during interrogations and interviews. Talking to murderers and victims’ next of kin. People who had fucked up or been fucked up and were trying to come to terms with the rest of their life.

Jude took another step toward the closet, so close now that his shadow filled the crack.

The tension coiled in Grant’s chest had maxed out its tensile strength.

His system spiked with adrenaline.

Somewhere in the distance, a man began to sing.

Jude stopped, turned his head.

The tinny, five-second refrain of “Ring of Fire” repeated itself from somewhere on the second floor.

Jude’s shadow disappeared from the crack, footsteps trailing away while Johnny crooned.

Grant pushed the closet door open.

The hallway was empty, light spilling around the far corner where it had been dark moments before.

Guest bedroom.

Grant bolted down the hall, past the stairwell, forcing himself to slow down as he rounded the corner.

The phone was still ringing, the song much louder.

Grant crept up to the open doorway.

The room stood empty, but there was movement in the bathroom.

Grant took two steps inside, said, “What are you doing?”

The phone went quiet.

Grant saw a shadow stretch across the floor, and then Jude emerged from the bathroom, his white sneakers tracking perfect bloody footprints across the floor. The man stopped and stared at Grant with an expression as lifeless and blank as a mannequin. His hands were darkened with blood, and he held something small and black in his right hand.

Don’s cell began to ring again.

Jude raised his arm above his head, and with alarming speed, pitched the phone at the floor.

It shattered against the hardwood in a debris field of glass and plastic and circuitry.

Then Jude started toward him.

Grant instinctively backed away—something in the man’s stride putting him on notice.

“I just want to talk to you,” Grant said. “I’m Paige’s—Gloria’s—brother.”

Jude didn’t stop.

Grant steadied himself, ready to intercept the man if need be, but Jude just stepped to the side and slid past him, their shoulders brushing.

Grant turned and followed him out the door.

“Hey!”

Jude was already halfway down the hall.

Grant doubled his pace.

“I didn’t say you could leave.”

Jude’s gait didn’t change, and by the time he reached the top of the stairs, Grant was on his heels.

Jude started down the staircase.

Grant put a hand on his shoulder from behind.

“I’m a cop. That means when I tell you to stop, you listen.”

Jude came to an abrupt halt two steps down.

“I want to know what happened in there. In her room.”

Jude brought his hand up to his shoulder and wrapped his fingers around Grant’s wrist.

Grant tried to jerk his arm away, but the man’s grip was a cold vise.

Jude turned and faced him, and the moment he saw Jude’s eyes, Grant’s words died in his throat.

The man’s pupils had been swallowed almost entirely by the roily gray of his irises. Only two infinitesimal pinpricks of black remained, like shrunken keyholes.

Jude folded Grant’s wrist back with ease and a lightning bolt of pain exploded up Grant’s arm, crumbling him to his knees.

Time protracted, seconds becoming eons of escalating misery as his radiocarpal joint approached its limit. A power surge illuminated the staircase for one burning second, and then everything was enveloped in darkness.

Jude released him.

Grant collapsed onto his side, cradling his hand against his chest as Jude’s footsteps continued down the stairs.

“Get back here,” he said, but neither his voice nor his heart was in it.

The front door opened and slammed shut, Dr. Jude vanishing into the rainy night.

Chapter 13

“Paige!”

Grant pounded on her door.

“Can you hear me?”

He grabbed the doorknob and tried to turn it, straining with his good wrist until it popped, but nothing happened.

“Paige!”

His voice raced through the second-floor halls that wrapped around the stairwell.

Grant turned and felt his way through the darkness to the hallway table. There was nothing of use on the surface, but a brief exploration along its side revealed a drawer handle.

He yanked it open, blindly rummaging.

Mostly unidentifiable junk.

Couldn’t believe his luck when he found a small flashlight.

Please.

He twisted the end and a narrow circle of light shone on the floor beneath him.

Grant returned to the door and dropped to his knees.

Put the side of his head on the hardwood and shined the weak light underneath the crack.

Nothing.

He stood, took several steps back, and accelerated at the door, his shoulder lowered, bracing for impact.

There was as much give as if he’d run straight into a brick wall, a bright shudder of agony exploding in his shoulder and screaming down through his arm to the tips of his fingers.

But a fear that tore his guts out overrode the pain.

Something had happened to Paige and he couldn’t get to her.

He sprinted down the hall, around the corner, and shot down the stairs as fast as he could safely travel in the dark.

Need an ax, a sledgehammer, a bowling ball—something with heft.

Failing that, find a toolbox. Physically remove the doorknob.

Grant stopped at the hearth and made a cursory examination of the fireplace toolset. The heaviest thing on the rack was the cast-iron poker, but it wouldn’t stand a chance of breaking through Paige’s door.

He threw it down and ran into the kitchen.

Pulled open the door to the pantry.

The half-bundle of plastic-wrapped firewood still sat on the floor. He frantically searched the shelves, hoping for a toolbox, a hatchet, something, but the heaviest object he spotted was a thirty-two-ounce can of whole cherry tomatoes.

Think. Think. Think.

As he’d first approached the brownstone after opening the wrought-iron gate, he’d walked up a set of stairs to reach the first level.

Which means—

—there’s probably a basement.

Grant shut the pantry door and spun around.

The shock of seeing Paige standing two feet away buckled his knees as if someone had cut his ligaments.

Grant stumbled back against the door.

His sister stared at him—reeking of sex, lingerie badly wrinkled, and looking as bleary and confused as if she’d just woken out of REM sleep.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

She blinked several times without answering, as if the connections between thought and speech were rebooting.

Said finally, “Did you see Jude?”

Grant nodded.

“He left my room?”

“He did a lot more than that.”

“Tell me everything.”

Chapter 14

The temperature inside the brownstone was diving.

Grant built up the fire with the remaining logs, and with Paige’s help, dragged over the leather sofa and the mattress she’d been sleeping on.

He took the flashlight upstairs, stripped the guest bed.

Hauled the pile of blankets and covers downstairs.

It was long past midnight when Grant finally eased down onto the sofa, and as his head hit the pillow, the sheer exhaustion swept through with such intensity he could’ve mainlined it.

He wrapped two blankets around himself and turned over to face the fire.

The heat felt good, and it came at him in waves.

Paige lay on the mattress several inches below.

“You getting warm?” he asked.

“Not yet. Has it been worse than this?” she asked.

“No, I think we have a winner.”

Without the central heat running, it was quiet enough in the powerless house to hear the rain and the occasional hiss of a car going through a puddle on the street, though they were driving by with greater infrequency at this late hour.

Grant pulled his arm out from under the covers and touched Paige’s shoulder.

“I can’t believe you’ve been living with this for weeks,” he said.

Tears had begun to shine in the corners of her eyes.

“Before,” Paige said, “when it was just me, I kept thinking maybe this wasn’t real. Maybe I was imagining it. Losing my mind. But now you’re here. And don’t get me wrong—I’m so glad you are—but it means this is actually happening.”

“There’s an explanation.”

“What?”

“I don’t know. But we’ll figure it out.”

“You’re a detective. It’s your job to believe there are answers to everything.”

“There are answers to everything. Also, I’m very good at my job if that makes you feel any better.”

“No offense, but I think haunted houses are a step above your pay grade.”

The room undulated in the firelight, Grant so tired his eyes were lingering on the blinks.

“Do you really think this place is haunted?” he asked. “Whatever that even means.”

“I’ve thought about it a lot, and I don’t know. But if this
isn’t
haunted, I’d hate to see what it takes to qualify.”

“How do you sleep knowing what’s up there? Or rather, not knowing?”

“I only sleep when my body shuts down and my eyes refuse to stay open. The dreams are awful.”

“You have a gun in the house?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“Where is it?”

“My coat pocket. The gray one hanging by the door.”

“Loaded?”

“Yes. Why? Planning to shoot a ghost?”

“Never know.”

“You know you can’t ever go into my bedroom. You know that, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Promise me you won’t.”

“Cross my heart.”

For a moment, Grant considered trying to leave again, but just the threat of that all-encompassing pain put a shudder through him.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Paige said.

“What’s that?”

“You’re thinking when you wake up in the morning, it’ll be different. That there will be light outside and people driving around, and we’ll have somehow slept this off.”