The Nightmarys

ALSO BY DAN POBLOCKI

The Stone Child

For Brendan and Emily

CONTENTS

Cover

Other Books by This Author

Title Page

Dedication

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Interlude

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

About the Author

Copyright

… the act of the passing generation is the

germ which may and must produce good or

evil fruit in a far-distant time …

—Nathaniel Hawthorne,

The House of the Seven Gables

Where does madness leave off and reality

begin?

Is it possible that even my latest fear is sheer

delusion?

—H. P. Lovecraft,

The Shadow over Innsmouth

“The girl’s got sass,” said the old man with a

snarl.

“But that’s never stopped me before.”

—Ogden Kentwall,

The Clue of the Incomplete Corpse:

A Zelda Kite Mystery

INVISIBLE THINGS

PRELUDE

THE MAYFAIR APARTMENTS—

NEW STARKHAM, MASSACHUSETTS

On a Tuesday afternoon in early March, Zilpha

Kindred prepared to do the laundry, as she’d

done almost every Tuesday afternoon for the

past forty years. This week, though, the old

machine in her apartment was broken, so she

left her schnauzer mix—an inquisitive lit le dog

named Hepzibah—and wheeled the laundry

basket to the elevator.

Downstairs, when the doors opened, the

basement was almost entirely unfamiliar to the

elderly woman, and a wave of unease

overcame her. The corridor was longer than she

recal ed. The light was dim. The pipes hung

from the low ceiling, craning at wicked angles

from the low ceiling, craning at wicked angles

every which way. A bit er scent lingered in the

air. She was suddenly afraid and brie y

considered returning to her apartment to cal

the local laundry service. But she had been

doing her own laundry forever. And real y,

what did she have to be afraid of?

Zilpha walked for what seemed like an

eternity before turning toward the laundry

room. Its ickering uorescent light instantly

made her dizzy. She wished then that she had

fol owed her earlier instinct and turned around.

But she gured the job would be quick, and

then she could go back upstairs and carry on

with her day. In the meantime, she’d brought

an old paperback to keep her company.

She l ed and started the washer, then sat

and waited and read her book. The water

cycled. After a few minutes, Zilpha heard a

thumping noise inside the machine. It became a

hard, constant banging, as if she had

accidental y dropped a shoe in with the

detergent. When she opened the lid, she found

detergent. When she opened the lid, she found

the basin l ed with soapy water. Whatever

was making the sound was hidden at the

bot om. With a hu , she rol ed up her sleeve

and reached in, digging through the wet

clothes. Finding nothing unusual, she closed the

lid. Whirring, the machine started up again.

But before she sat down, the thumping noise

returned. She thought it might just be the

shifting weight of the load working itself out

somehow. She listened for a few more seconds

before opening the lid again.

To her surprise, a red froth had boiled at the

water’s surface. Unlike the suds she’d seen

earlier, there was a new substance, which

reminded her of fat particles that rise to the top

of a soup broth. Oily like meat. And worse, that

bit er scent she encountered when the elevator

door had opened was stronger now, as if

coming from the red water. Her rst instinct

was that there was a problem with the machine

or possibly the pipes. She decided to try

another washer. Disgusted, she slowly reached

another washer. Disgusted, she slowly reached

into the basin to remove the pile of wet

clothes.

But as Zilpha held the load, the laundry

seemed to squirm like a fish. Alive. She shouted

and dropped the pile back into the water, then

stumbled away, her stomach in her throat.

Immediately, she tried to reason that she had

imagined it. Brie y, she worried that Hepzibah

had slipped inside the laundry bag upstairs, but

then remembered kissing the dog goodbye at

the apartment door. Zilpha could think of

nothing, absolutely nothing, that might have

provided a logical explanation for what she

had just experienced, and so she reasoned that

the sensation must have been in her head.

She eased her breathing, trying to calm her

nerves. As she peered into the basin, where the

clothes had sunk beneath the surface, her own

dark re ection stared back from behind chunks

of gristle. White globs of gore clung to her

blank silhouet e.

Then the lights ickered, and she could not

Then the lights ickered, and she could not

bear another moment in that horrible

basement. She decided to nd Mario, the

doorman, upstairs. She didn’t care if she came

across as a foolish old ninny. But when she

headed back toward the long hal way, she

heard something splash behind her. Zilpha

turned and looked. The lights dimmed further,

as if playing a game.

Then the entire washer lurched toward her so

violently, the cords and pipes pul ed out of the

wal . The red water spil ed over the edge of the

basin and ran like blood down the front of the

machine in a great gory wave.

That was enough to set her running. She did

not look back until she reached the elevator

and frantical y pushed the but on. The long

hal way stared back at her quietly. Seconds

later the door opened and she slipped into the

car, pressing the but on for the lobby.

But before the door slid shut, Zilpha saw a

man come around the corner at the end of the

hal way. She could not see his face, but she

hal way. She could not see his face, but she

knew him nonetheless. He stood there in his

tal dark overcoat watching her, as he had

watched her in her memories for many years.

As the door closed between them, she felt

herself slipping away. By the time the elevator

reached the lobby, she was unconscious.

She awoke in a hospital bed. Mario had found

her and cal ed an ambulance. The doctor

explained that Zilpha’s daughter and

granddaughter were on their way from New

Jersey to help take care of her, but this news

did not calm the old woman. If what she’d seen

in the basement was real, she would have

wished Sarah and Abigail to be as far from

New Starkham, Massachuset s, as possible.

When she asked the nurse for a phone so she

might contact her daughter to convince her to

stay home, the nurse simply placed her hand

over the old woman’s own, trying to comfort

her. Zilpha, however, knew that this was not

the type of demon who was quel ed with

the type of demon who was quel ed with

comfort.

Action must be taken, and soon.

This was not good. Not good at al .

1.

Timothy July rst noticed the jars lining the

top shelf along the side of room 117 at the

beginning of the school year, but by mid-April

he’d stil not looked closer. The specimens

inside the jars had been pickled decades earlier

in an opaque and yel owish liquid by some

forgot en alumnus of Paul Revere Middle

School. Over the years, most of the labels had

faded or peeled away from the glass, and so the

true identity of the strange multilegged worms,

the twisted slimy bodies of mammalian fetuses,

and the hol ow exoskeletons of beetles would

be left to the imaginations of those students