Sam: A Novel Of Suspense (25 page)

The
door to the spa room had been left open and the tang of chlorine drifted out
from the hot tub.  Thankfully the chemical odour overpowered the smell of
Graham’s blood.

“He’s
in there,” said Mike.

Jessica
nodded, then passed through the door.  Almost half a minute passed before she
returned to the hallway.  “I don’t see anything,” she said, obviously irritated. 
“Is this supposed to be funny?”

Angela
didn’t understand.  She hurried into the room to take a look for herself. 

Graham’s
body was gone. 

Puddles
covered the tiles and there was a slight pinkish hue to the water that
suggested the presence of blood, but to a casual observer there were no signs
of any murder.  “This doesn’t make any sense,” she said.  “Somebody’s moved the
body.”

“Who?”
Mike asked.  “I’ve been with Jessica the whole time.  If there’s anybody who
could have moved Graham’s body it’s you and Tim.”

“Hey!”
Tim protested.  “There’s no way you’d catch me fondling a naked dead guy.”

“We
didn’t move him,” Angela stated firmly.  “Somebody is playing games with us.”

“This
whole thing is a game,” said Tim.  “We can’t be sure that we haven’t been
played since the very start.”

“What
exactly are you accusing me of, Mr Golding?  I’d be very careful,” Jessica warned
Tim.  “I brought you here in good faith and things have only gotten worse since
you arrived. If anyone is to be suspicious of a ruse, it is me.  This is my
home.”

Angela
put a hand up in deference.  “Tim doesn’t mean any offence, Jessica.  We’re just
as confused – and as frightened – by this whole situation as you are.  You’re
right, things have gone from bad to worse since we got here, but I assure you
that Tim and I played no part in that.”

Jessica
softened up a little, let loose a sigh.  “I just want to know that my son is
safe.  Is that too much for a mother to ask?  I just want to know that my
Sammie is okay.”

Angela
looked left and right.  “Then let’s go find him.”

Somewhere
nearby was the sudden sound of voices.

Tim’s
face scrunched up in confusion.  “Who the hell is that?”

Jessica
was the first to get moving.  Angela and the others hurried after her.

The
voices were coming from a couple doors down.  As Jessica rushed, she explained
to them that the room contained a small lounge. 

“Do
you think that Frank could be back?” Angela asked, but didn’t believe it was a
possibility.  Why would he come back and not tell anyone.  Besides, she could
hear more than one person’s voice.  In fact, it sounded like there were
several.

Jessica
turned around and called back to Mike who had fallen several steps behind.  “Michael,
open this door.”

Mike
nodded and strolled forward.  He seemed in no rush.

“Hurry
up,” Jessica shouted.

Mike
opened the door and poked his head inside.  Angela held her breath.  The voices
inside the room continued and even got louder.  There were other noises too. 
It almost sounded like…

“Is
that a television?” Tim asked.

“I
think so,” said Angela, relieved and disappointed at the same time.

“But
that’s impossible,” said Tim.  “There’s no power.”

Angela
stepped into the room and examined her surroundings.  The room was bathed in
shadows, just like the rest of the house, but there was a glaring source of
light at the far corner.  A television mounted to the wall there was switched
on and working.

“Isn’t
that…
South Park
?”

Angela
didn’t know the program well, but she recognised it as the same cartoon that
Sammie had been watching the day he attacked her for switching it off.

Jessica
called out.  “Sammie, are you in here?”

There
was no answer; only the sound of coarse-mouthed cartoon children.  Angela
rubbed at her shoulders.  The room was freezing.

“Sammie
must have been here recently,” Jessica said.  “We need to find him quick.  Mike,
switch that television off.”

“But
I don’t even think it’s switched on.  The power is off.”

“Maybe
it’s a power surge from the weather or something.  I don’t know, just turn it
off.”

Mike
scuffled over to the television.  He reached up to press the power off, but
paused. His fingers hovered half-an-inch above the button.

“What
is it?” Angela asked.

“I…I
don’t know,” said Mike.  He stared into the screen as if he was mesmerised by
something.  His face moved closer.  “I thought I could see a…I don’t know…a-”

Something
exploded.

The
television screen shattered, splintered, exploded in a shower of wicked, glass
shards.  Mike twisted and fell to the floor, letting out a muffled scream.

Jessica
ran over to him.  “Heavens, Mike.  Are you okay?”  She wrapped her arm around
his shoulders and ushered him away from the litter of broken glass.

Tim
held a candle in his hands and thrust it out to illuminate the scene.  It was
clear that Mike was in a bad way.

Tim’s
face wrinkled in horror.  “Oh, shitballs.”

Angela
had the same reaction.  Mike’s left eye was a jagged, red slit, embedded with
shards of glass.  Blood ran down his cheek in grisly tears and dripped from his
chin.  Despite the horrific injury, Mike did not cry out or scream.  He was
calm.

“Jesus,
what do we do?” Tim asked.

“I’m
fine,” Mike said, trying to open his eyelid.  “I don’t think it got my eye;
just the skin.” 

After
a short bout of fluttering, Mike’s eyelid managed to open and reveal the watery
orb beneath. He’d had a lucky escape.

“Thank
Heavens,” Angela said.  “I think your eye is okay.  You should get yourself
cleaned up, though.  There’re still bits of glass that could get in there.”

Jessica
told them she’d take Mike to the nearest bathroom.  “But you two stay here,”
she added.  “I don’t want anyone wandering around.”

Angela
folded her arms.  “Fine.”

Tim
took a seat on the room’s sofa opposite the broken television.  Angela was
shaken-up and decided to join him.

“The
weird shit just doesn’t stop around here, does it?” said Tim.

“It
certainly doesn’t.”

“Funny,
but that’s the third eye injury in this house since we’ve been here – if you
count Jessica’s blindness and my experience at the pond – and there was one
before too: the gardener or something.”

“What’s
your point?”

“Don’t
know.  Guess I’m just wondering if there’s any religious significance to eyes.”

Angela
thought about it for a moment.  “Well, God sees through all of us, so to injure
a person’s eyes is to try and reduce God’s awareness of our sins.  Serial
killers sometimes gouge out their victims eyes for the same reason – so that
God cannot see their crimes.”

“Hmm,
interesting.  Wonder if we’re being sent another message.”

There
was a shuffling on the carpet in front of them.  Angela flinched and pulled her
feet up onto the couch.

God
help me, I’ve dealt with a lot of things in the last forty-eight hours, but if
that’s a mouse…

“Look
at the glass,” Tim told her.

Angela
looked down at the littered shards of the television screen.  The moonlight
caught their edges and made them glow.  They were moving.

“Be
careful,” Angela said.  “They might fly up at us or something.”

Tim
shook his head.  “No.”

Angela
looked down at the vibrating splinters and watched them totter across the
carpet fibres.  They were slowly assembling themselves into separate piles.  Those
separate piles were beginning to resemble…
letters
?

Angela
glanced at Tim and then back at the glass.  “What’s it trying to spell out?”

The
glass kept moving.  Eventually the letters formed words.

Help
me.

Save
me.

Kill
the night.  Bring the day.

Angela
looked down at the words and spoke to them as if in conversation.  “Sammie, is
that you?  Who is it inside of you?  Is it Charles Crippley?”

The
glass shards reshuffled. 
No.

“Then
who is it?  Chamuel?”

Yes.

“How
does Chamuel know me?” Angela asked.  “Jessica sent for me specifically because
my name was written in a journal.  Does Chamuel know me?”

Yes.

“How?”

Helped
you.

Angela
didn’t understand.  “What?  Chamuel helped me?  How?”

Charles
Crippley.

“I
don’t understand.”

Help
me.

Angela
shook her head desperately.  “I…I don’t know how.”

Stop
the darkness. Bring back the light.

There
was a shriek from outside and the glass shards suddenly scattered in all
directions.  The messenger was gone.  Angela still understood nothing.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Tim
raced out into the hallway to see what the commotion was.  He knew enough by
now to expect nothing but the worst.  This was a house where bad things
happened.

“No
way this can be happening,” Tim said, as he tried to make sense of what he saw. 
Jessica was on her rump, shuffling backwards while Mike was trying to drag her
back up onto her feet.  Pursuing them was an abomination – that was the only way
Tim could describe it as.

A
sick, inhuman abomination.

Graham
stumbled down the corridor, colliding off the walls and lumbering towards them. 
In the dim light of the moon, the bloody streaks Graham’s hands left on the
wallpaper appeared as black smudges.  The fact that the man was stalking them
down the hallway was beyond impossible. 

Graham
is dead.  I saw it with my own eyes.

Graham’s
neck twisted around and facing the wrong way, was proof that the man had met a
gruesome end – yet his body defied the laws of natural order as it shambled
along the carpet.

Graham
came towards them, his body facing backwards while his head pointed forwards. 
His clumsy, backwards steps thudded on the carpet while a river of blood pooled
behind him.  The wound on his genitals was gaping open like a wet mouth.

“We’re
in hell,” gasped Jessica.

Mike
dragged her up off the ground and ushered her away.  They passed by Angela and
Tim, leaving them directly in Graham’s way.  Tim shook his head in despair, and
pursed his lips.  For the first time in his life, his anger was greater than
his fear.

I’m
starting to get pretty pissed off with this place.  First it was
House
On Haunted Hill
– with a little bit of
The Exorcist
thrown in – and
now it’s the goddamn
Evil Dead
.

“Come
on,” he said, grabbing a hold of Angela and hurrying them both down the
corridor.

Jessica
and Mike were up ahead.  Jessica was screaming and was once again the emotional
mess she’d been when Tim had first arrived at the house.  Even Mike had fear in
his eyes.  It was as though nothing had surprised the guy up until this point,
but seeing his ex-partner, Graham, stumbling down the corridor like a zombie,
was too much for the guy to take.

“What
happened to him?” Jessica cried.  “You all told me Graham was dead!”

“I
still think he is,” Tim said bluntly.  “In fact, I’m pretty certain he is.”

“Then
how is he walking around?” Angela asked, huffing and puffing as the group scurried
down the dark hallway.  Graham moaned and hissed from the shadows behind them.

“I
have no freaking idea,” said Tim.  “But I’m guessing he came back even more
unfriendly than before."

Angela
skidded to a stop on her heels.  “Tim, did you find any basil earlier in the
kitchen?”

“What?”

“The
basil?  I sent you to the kitchen to find some.”

“I
totally forgot about it,” he reached into his pocket and pulled out a spice jar
full of basil. He held it out.  “But, yeah, I found some.”

Angela
took the jar.

Mike
scoffed.  “Can we think about the ratatouille later, please?  Right now, we
have more important things to worry about.”

Angela
sprinkled the basil flakes across the carpet in a line from wall to wall. 
There was just enough inside the jar to complete the full length.

“What
is that supposed to do?” Mike asked in a tone so mocking that Tim felt like
punching him.  Perhaps he would have if not for the fact Mike could likely take
him apart in three-seconds flat.