Vague light shifted in the trees. Overhead, the moon glared through a rive in the clouds. Glen marched on, stepping high instinctively to avoid unseen branches and stumps. Too many times this forest’s bag of tricks had landed him on his face.
He promptly tripped and fell. He landed on his face.
Stupid clod. He’d dropped the shotgun and flashlight, failing, though, to break his fall. But what had he tripped on? Fallen branches? A rotten log? When he moved to get back up, his hand pressed against something slimy and stiff.
“Jesus.”
There was an odor, faint but awful. His hand was wet. “What the hell is this?” he said, for the second time that night.
He found the flashlight, and pointed it, and—
— | — | —
PART TWO
In your love is my death;
feel my dead heart beat stronger.
This goes on forever,
but I can wait longer.
It kills me when he touches you,
every whisper, every kiss.
But your years are my seconds,
and your misery—my bliss.
—from “Three” by RODERICK BYERS
You’ll never know where,
and you’ll never know when.
“Murder,” it whispers.
“The mirror. “ Again.
You’ll never know how,
and you’ll never know who.
It’s coming, though, and it’s coming for you.
—from “Double” by L. EDWARD S.
they are neither man nor woman,
they are neither brute nor human;
they are ghouls.
—E. A. POE
— | — | —
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THUNK, THUNK, THUNK
Kurt looked up and frowned. He was reading in the den, the floorlamp glowing softly behind his chair. In his lap he held a book entitled The Red Confession, but its pages were all blank.
At once the house fell silent again, though he was certain he’d heard a heavy, loud thunking sound only a moment ago. Perhaps he had imagined it.
He looked around the room, on edge, as if suspicious of something. A thin but very icy draft nagged at the back of his neck; when he turned, it seemed to follow him. And what was wrong with the furniture? It all seemed slightly out of place, as though someone had moved each piece an inch or two. The curtains hung open to reveal a window full of blackness. When he looked down, he noticed thick black-red carpet on the floor, but he could’ve sworn it had always been brown. Next, he put away The Red Confession, only to be left to gaze speechlessly at the bookshelves. His books were gone, replaced by titles he’d never seen. The King in Yellow, The Lair of the White Worm, The Book of Dead Names. Just what kind of books were these? There weren’t even authors listed on the spines, except for one on the end, / Have Seen the Inside, by the Duke of Clarence, whoever he was. Someone had taken the old books out, and switched them with these.
He sensed it was very late. Soon he became aware of a soft, rapid ticking sound. The clock? he thought. But it was much too fast and erratic to be a clock of any kind. Likewise, the corner which had always been occupied by Uncle Roy’s grandfather clock was now curiously vacant. Someone had taken the clock also. He would have to ask Melissa what had happened to the books and the clock and the carpet.
