Ultimate Supernatural Horror Box Set (153 page)

That kind of talk was for later, in the safety of a well-lighted room with a cup of herbal tea in her hand. She’d get Cody to tell her about it, asking enough questions that she could gaze into his eyes for hours, maybe luring him into another kiss or two. She was nearly to the square of light marking the access when the door below slammed shut.

“Cody?”

“Right behind you, kid.”

She turned and Cody was nowhere in sight, but Rochester seemed happy to see her. He grinned like a rat wallowing in contaminated cheese.

Chapter 38

He hadn’t seen Kendra in three hours.

Wayne Wilson splashed cold water on his face, his stomach finally settled enough for hunger to emerge. He cupped his hands and drank from the bathroom sink, watering down the bile. The erratic pulse had given way to the occasional
tha-dump
of a skipped beat. He winced as he studied his reflection, adjusting the top hat that now felt foolish, as if he were Bugs Bunny pulled out of some magician’s ass. His face was pale but he’d be able to fake it.

“Showtime, Digger,” he said. “It’s a new day.”

Bury the past yet again.

His last clear memory was sitting next to Cristos at the bar and making the decision to go for that third drink. After that, only flashes remained, a jigsaw puzzle of his night he’d never be able to reassemble: the hostess, Violet, waving from across the bar...a Bud Lite commercial featuring Mike Ditka...the cryptic message “Yaz manchoo” scribbled on the wall above the urinal...Kendra taking his boots off...and…

No. Please, God, you didn’t let her see me like that, did you?

And what if Beth had been watching? His encounter with her swirled in with the broken memories of his binge and the shards of frantic dreams, until he couldn’t sort one from the other. But maybe there was no difference.

Wayne changed the batteries in his walkie talkie and pressed the button. “Burton?”

“Aye, Kip-tin,” Burton answered, in a Scottish brogue parody of engineer Scottie from “Star Trek.”

“How’s it looking?”

“Assembling for night hunts.”

“I’ll be in the control room shortly. Over and out.”

“Roger.”

Professional, controlled, relaxed, just the way Wayne had taught him. And everything Wayne wasn’t.

The trip to the door went smoothly. He made it just fine to the stairs, greeting a couple of ghost hunters and smiling as if to say, “Sure, I’ve been around all day, you just haven’t seen me.” His head swam a little as he ascended, but nothing too unmanageable. Based on distant past experience, he’d have pegged his consumption at between a quart and a half gallon. Only his bar tab knew for sure.

He was nearly to the top of the stairs, breathing hard and wobbling, when one of the guests confronted him. He recognized her face but she wasn’t wearing her name badge. Her clothes were rumpled and dirty, as if she’d been ghost-hunting in a basement somewhere. But it was her eyes that got him.

“Where’s the party, Digger?” she said.

“In the control room. We’re gathering for hunts.”

“I don’t need a group.”

He remembered her now. Eloise Lanier, one of the panelists for “What’s My Line?,” a discussion of why some people were more attuned to supernatural and psychic phenomena than others. He made a polite step to one side to indicate he was in a hurry. His throat was already dry despite the glass of water he’d downed. “Well, ma’am, we can’t accommodate solo—”

She shoved him against the railing with enough force to knock his top hat over the side and twenty-five feet down to the landing below. Off balance, he grabbed at the slick oak rail. “Ma’am, if you’re upset—”

Eloise grabbed a fistful of his ruffled shirt and shook him. Even though she outweighed him by a good eighty pounds, he was startled by her strength. “Upset? Why should I be upset?”

He gripped her wrist with both hands, forcing himself to remain gentle despite the pain. “I’m sorry if—”

“I’m not upset, I’m grateful.” Her voice changed and deepened. “Thanks for inviting me to the party.”

“Well, I’m glad you’re having fun,” he said. “But we also hope to get some serious data on the White Horse Inn.”

She leaned her face closer, spittle flying from her broad, dark face as she hissed. “You want answers, Wayne Wilson? Do you really want to know?”

Wayne blinked. Had her eyes flashed yellow or was he still wobbly from the drinking? He couldn’t trust any of his senses, and it made him feel even more lost than before.

He pulled free but she grabbed his wrist as he tried to slip past her.

As her eyes burned into his, he caught a glimpse of a dim, dirty opening and a crumbled carpet of gray and black. Ashes. In the vision, a tiny dot of red sparked to life underneath, then orange-red sparks winked to life.

He reeled against the railing as the hallucination swept over him. Eloise’s grip was like molten iron, and an electric wire of heat stabbed up his arm. The hallucination broadened and the embers burst into flames, images of naked bodies in the flickering bands of red, yellow, white, and blue.

Hell... the gate of hell
....

But he didn’t believe in hell. This was someone else’s illusion, a fire-and-brimstone story from a Southern tent revival. Or a bad horror movie. Yet the warmth engulfed his chest and his heart stuttered. He clawed at the searing band around his wrist, his head jangling with more than a hangover.

The vision swelled until he could no longer see the dull white walls of the stairwell. He was surrounded by darkness, and the searing band was now a lasso, tugging him into the roiling pit of burning human forms. The crackle of the flames was like a soft, sibilant whispering, an almost seductive lulling.

“Dance with us, Digger... stay and play.....”

“No,” he said, straining against the lasso. “I don’t see this.”

And just like that, his eyes snapped open, and he was in the stairwell, holding onto the railing and gently swaying. Eloise Lanier stood a couple of steps above him, her brow furrowed in concern.

“Are you okay, Mr. Wilson?” she asked.

Wayne looked around and reached for the top of his head. His hat was missing. “I’m just a little...late.”

“I heard you were under the weather.” She gave a sweet smile of sympathy.

He looked over the railing. His black top hat lay on the carpet of the first-floor landing, the brim dented from the fall. When he turned his attention back to Eloise, she eased down a step. He fought an urge to back away. This wasn’t the embodiment of evil.

According to the biography she’d sent in for the conference program, Eloise was a public librarian who fancied herself a psychic medium. She probably baked cookies for her grandchildren. If he gave her credit for channeling a vision through him, she’d probably quit her job and start dressing in black gowns and owl feathers.

It was easier to believe he’d gone through a delayed case of
delirium tremens
, the scientific name for shaking yourself sober.

“I dropped my hat,” he said.

“Good thing your head wasn’t in it.” Her smile remained frozen in place.

Wayne’s walkie talkie crackled and he jerked at the sound. “Come in, Digger,’ came Burton’s voice. “Where are you?”

“On my way.” He eased past Eloise, half expecting her to trip him up. He was nearly at the top when she whispered, “Catch you later, Digger.”

From the third floor, he looked down to see that his hat was gone. Children’s laughter echoed up the stairwell.

I’m going to have a talk with that goddamned manager. But first things first.

Get the night hunts rolling, find Kendra, and get out of this hotel before my brain pickles in its own juice.

Chapter 39

“Cody?” Kendra swept the flashlight beam past Rochester and into the recesses of the attic. Cody had been right beside her. How could he have just disappeared?

Rochester laughed. “What, want to play ‘kissy face’ some more?”

She thrust the beam into his face. He didn’t squint and his dark eyes seemed to soak up the light. “None of your business, you little rat-faced creep.”

His lips curled in anger. “Don’t call me that.”

“Just like a rat—sneak around in the dark and stink.” The words were louder than she’d intended, but she was scared and didn’t want the brat to know. She forced her hand to hold the beam steady on his puckered, pointy face.

“Take it back,” he said.

She glanced around, but all she saw were shadows. Why didn’t Cody answer? Had he dropped off his flashlight? Where were Bruce and those other kids?

“Why are you guys playing games?” she said, then aimed the beam behind Rochester. “Oh, I get it. Bruce, you’re such a dork.”

Rochester fell for the trick and turned to look behind him, and she glimpsed a dark depression in the flesh of his neck. It was an unbroken line, with mottled skin around it. As if....

No. He couldn’t have hanged himself, because then he’d be dead. Just like Bruce. And I don’t want them to be dead.

Because then I’d have to believe all this crap.

Maybe Cody was in on it, using her as bait in some bizarre research project. He could have set up his audio recorders, decimeters, and other devices beforehand, then tried to scare her so he could measure her skin temperature, pulse rate, electromagnetic energy, and screams.

Probably even the kiss had been part of it, causing her to let guard down, make her vulnerable to his suggestions of demons.

Now it made sense. Bruce grabbing her book, leading her on a chase, Cody conveniently guiding her to the attic, planting ghost stories in her ear—

Christ, my first serious crush had to be wasted on an asshole.

The Future of Horror. If this is what the future looks like, then put me down with Emily Dee in the churchyard sleep. I’ll die a virgin, and the sooner the better.

She had to admit, though, Rochester’s make-up job was pretty decent. He turned back to face her again, and she studied the black folds of skin beneath his eyes and the pale cheeks. Even the fey little Victorian get-up had the air of stage costume.

The kid was a pretty good actor, but ten-year-old boys already had a lot of creepiness inside and it wouldn’t take much to bring it to the surface. Like maybe fifty bucks and the promise of a good laugh. Or a credit on Future’s Web site.

She reached out, planning to push him back into the fluffy shredded paper that served as insulation. With any luck, he’d hit a soft spot in the ceiling and tumble through to the third floor. The flashlight dipped with the movement, and she lost her balance. She grabbed where his shirt should be, but her hand went cold and she clutched air as she fell.

“Cody!” The cry was a mixture of anger and fear, because now
she
was the one falling toward the insulation.

The attic was a kaleidoscopic swirl of dust, brown rafters, and white, plastic-coated wires as she fell. Just before she landed, she saw Dorrie peeking from behind the brick chimney. Then she was choking in the shredded paper, the flashlight lost.

Something creaked beneath her and she pictured the gypsum ceiling and its ancient cracks. If she struggled, the ceiling might give way. She’d probably survive, but it wouldn’t be fun, and it was hard to get revenge from a hospital bed.

She coughed, her throat tickled by the thick dust. “Cody, you bastard.”

“Over here.” His voice was strained and far away. How had he reached the other end of the attic, navigating the maze of support posts and wires in the dark?

From somewhere to her left, the flashlight cast a muted glow, as if it were half buried. She had the sensation of swimming as she fought for traction, and for a horrible second, she imagined she was in a dark morass of thick liquid that would suck her down and into... into what?

The hotel.

The hotel will pull you down and drown you and keep your bones inside forever, and no one will ever know where you went.

“No one will ever know,” Bruce whispered from the darkness.

As her knuckles struck a floor joist, she yelped in pain. But the pain was solid, as was the wood, and she clung to it, dragging herself to her knees. Her vision was bleary from the paper as she squinted into the depths of the attic. “Cody?”

“Run for it,” he said, and she once again wondered if he was playing with her. He sounded scared himself, and she recalled the wistful tremor in his voice as he’d said “Multiples.”

She didn’t know about demons, but three kids were sure as hell tormenting her. She gained purchase on the floor joist and spied her flashlight nestled in the insulation ten feet away. Crawling the beam so that she didn’t test the ceiling, she recovered the flashlight and pointed it toward Cody’s voice.

He hovered in the air, his face stricken and pale, mouth open and gasping for breath. His hands were at his throat, and his legs flailed six inches above the attic floor. He made a rough sucking sound, as if swallowing rocks, and it was then she saw the wire descending from the roof.

Kendra shouted his name and ran toward him, somehow managing not to trip. Rochester taunted her from the shadows: “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.”

“The old gray goose is dead,” Dorrie sang in an off-key, nasally whine.

By the time Kendra reached Cody, his eyes were bulging and glazed. She ducked between his legs and placed her head between his thighs, lifting him. Maybe that would buy him time....

Unless this was part of the act, and cameras were trying to capture his spirit leaving his body. A suicide video would really rack up the Web hits.

But she couldn’t think about that now, or the warmth of his crotch against her neck, or the laughter of the hidden children. She was working on instinct, and if she could release the tension on the wire, then Cody could untangle it.

But he didn’t kick her away, and air whistled into his lungs as his windpipe opened above her and he fought for breath. She couldn’t see what he was doing, but his arms were busy, and then his full weight was on her and they both fell. She thumped her hand again—luckily not her drawing hand—and the gypsum groaned beneath them. Cody rolled over, still wheezing, and she shined the light on his face.