Creature

by John Saul

  She only wanted to be rid of him.

  The axe began to move now, rising above him, quivering slightly, as if the blade itself could anticipate the splitting of his skull, the crushing of his bones as they gave way beneath the weapon’s weight. He could see the steel begin its slow descent, and time seemed to stand still.

  He had to do something—had to move away, had to ward off the blow. He tried to raise his arms, but even the air around him seemed thick and unyielding now, and the blade was moving much faster than he was.…

  He opened his mouth and, finally, screamed—

  The horror is a dream, only a dream. Or so Kevin thinks. Until Helena, suddenly, horribly, dies inside the locked nursery. And now there is no escape, as tortured spirits from the sinister past rise up to tell the true terror of the unloved.

  CREATURE

  A terrible secret lurks beneath the wholesome surface of Silverdale, Colorado, where well-behaved students make their parents and teachers proud, and the football team never—ever—loses. But soon, some of the parents in Silverdale will begin to uncover the unimaginable secret that can turn a loving child murderous …

  “It’s two in the morning, Chuck. And Jeff isn’t home yet.”

  Chuck groaned. “And for that you woke me up? Jeez, Char, when I was his age, I was out all night half the time.”

  “Maybe you were,” Charlotte replied tightly. “And maybe your parents didn’t care. But I do, and I’m about to call the police.”

  At that, Chuck came completely awake. “What the hell do you want to do a thing like that for?” he demanded, switching on the light and staring at Charlotte as if he thought she’d lost her mind.

  “Because I’m worried about him,” Charlotte flared, concern for her son overcoming her fear of her husband’s tongue. “Because I don’t like what’s been happening with him and I don’t like the way he’s been acting. And I certainly don’t like not knowing where he is at night!”

  “Maybe he stayed overnight with a friend,” Chuck began, but Charlotte shook her head.

  “He hasn’t done that since he was a little boy. And if he had, he would have called.” Even as she uttered the words, she knew she didn’t believe them. A year ago—a few months ago; even a few weeks ago—she would have trusted Jeff to keep her informed of where he was and what he was doing. But now? She didn’t know.

  Nor could she explain her worries to Chuck, since he insisted on believing there was nothing wrong; that Jeff was simply growing up and testing his wings.

  As she was searching for the right words, the words to express her fears without further rousing her husband’s anger, the front door opened and Jeff came in.

  He’d already closed the door behind him and started up the stairs when he caught sight of his parents standing in the den in their bathrobes, their eyes fixed on him. He gazed at them stupidly for a second, almost as if he didn’t recognize them, and for a split-second Charlotte thought he looked stoned.

  “Jeff?” she said. Then, when he seemed to pay no attention to her, she called out again, louder this time. “Jeff?”

  His eyes hooded, her son turned to gaze at her. “What?” he asked, his voice taking on the same sullen tone that had become so familiar to her lately.

  “I want an explanation,” Charlotte went on. “It’s after two A.M., and I want to know where you’ve been.”

  “Out,” Jeff said, and started to turn away.

  “Stop right there, young man!” Charlotte commanded. She marched into the foyer and stood at the bottom of the stairs, then reached out and switched on the chandelier that hung in the stairwell. A bright flood of light bathed Jeff’s face, and Charlotte gasped. His face was streaked with dirt, and on his cheeks there were smears of blood. There were black circles under Jeff’s eyes—as if he hadn’t slept in days—and he was breathing hard, his chest heaving as he panted.

  Then he lifted his right hand to his mouth, and before he began sucking on his wounds, Charlotte could see that the skin was torn away from his knuckles.

  “My God,” she breathed, her anger suddenly draining away. “Jeff, what’s happened to you?”

  His eyes narrowed, “Nothing,” he mumbled, and once more started to mount the stairs.

  “Nothing?” Charlotte repeated. She turned to Chuck, now standing in the door to the den, his eyes, too, fixed on their son. “Chuck, look at him. Just look at him!”

  “You’d better tell us what happened, son,” Chuck said. “If you’re in some kind of trouble—”

  Jeff whirled to face them, his eyes now blazing with the same anger that had frightened Linda Harris earlier that evening. “I don’t know what’s wrong!” he shouted. “Linda broke up with me tonight, okay? And it pissed me off? Okay? So I tried to smash up a tree and I went for a walk. Okay? Is that okay with you, Mom?”

  “Jeff—” Charlotte began, shrinking away from her son’s sudden fury. “I didn’t mean … we only wanted to—”

  But it was too late.

  “Can’t you just leave me alone?” Jeff shouted.

  He came off the bottom of the stairs, towering over the much smaller form of his mother. Then, with an abrupt movement, he reached out and roughly shoved Charlotte aside, as if swatting a fly. She felt a sharp pain in her shoulder as her body struck the wall, and then she collapsed to the floor. For a split-second Jeff stared blankly at his mother, as if he was puzzled about what had happened to her, and then, an anguished wail boiling up from somewhere deep within him, he turned and slammed out the front door.

  Secret rituals masked in science … hidden cellars where steel cages gleam coldly against the dark … a cry of unfathomable rage and pain … In Silverdale no one is safe from … Creature.

  DARKNESS

  The Andersons left the town at the edge of the swamp long ago, meaning never to return. There was something not quite right about the vast cruel lowlands of Villejeune … something murky, menacing, hostile … an influence too malevolent to be natural.

  Darkness wrapped around Amelie Coulton like a funeral shroud, and only the sound of her own heartbeat told her that she was still alive.

  She shouldn’t have come here—she knew that now, knew it with a certainty that filled her soul with dread. She should have stayed at home, stayed alone in the tiny shack that crouched only a few feet above the dark waters of the swamp. There, at least, she would have been safe.

  She would have been safe, and so would the baby that now stirred restlessly within her body, his feet kicking her so hard she winced with pain.

  But Amelie hadn’t stayed at home. Now, huddled silently in the darkness, she could feel danger all around her, danger she knew her baby could feel, too.…

  As Amelie watched, the Dark Man held out his arms.

  “Give me what is mine!” His voice boomed across the water, the words striking Amelie like hammer blows.

  Silently, Tammy-Jo placed her newborn babe in the hands of the Dark Man, who turned and laid the baby on the altar like an offering, unfolding the blanket in which it was wrapped, until its pale body was uncovered in the candlelight.

  From the folds of his robes the dark man withdrew an object. Amelie couldn’t quite make it out, until the light of the tapers reflected from it as from the blade of a knife.

  “Whose child is this?” the Dark Man asked, the blade held high above the baby’s naked body.

  “Yours,” Tammy-Jo replied, her voice flat, her eyes fixed on the Dark Man.

  Though his face was invisible, the girl in the canoe shivered as she felt the Dark Man’s cold smile.

  She wanted to turn away, but knew she couldn’t. Fascinated with the black-clad image of the Dark Man, she watched unblinking as he raised the instrument in his hands high, poising it over the tiny infant on the altar. The candlelight flickered, and tiny brilliant stars flashed from the tip of the instrument.

  It began to arc downward.

  It hovered for a moment, just over the child’s breast.

  There was a short screa
m from the infant as the tip of the blade entered its chest, a scream that was cut off almost as quickly as it began.

  The glinting metal sank deep into the child’s body.

  Involuntarily, a shriek rose in Amelie’s throat, a small howl of pure horror that she cut off almost as quickly as the Dark Man had cut off the infant’s scream.

  The Dark Man looked up, gazing out over the fire and the water, and Amelie imagined that his unseeable eyes were boring into her, fixing her image on his mind.

  My baby, she thought. He wants my baby, too.

  Silently she dipped her paddle into the water and backed the canoe away. But even as she moved noiselessly through the black shadows, she could still feel the eyes of the Dark Man following her, reaching out to her, grasping at her.

  No.

  Not at her.

  At the baby within her.

  As she turned the canoe, intent on fleeing into the darkness, she heard the Dark Man speak once again.

  “George Coulton,” the heavy voice uttered. “When will you bring me what is mine?”

  There was a moment of silence before Amelie heard her husband reply. When at last he spoke, George’s flat, expressionless voice was clear.

  “The night he’s born. The night he’s born, I be bringin’ him to you.”

  Now the Andersons’ return has completed a circle of destiny begun long ago. Now they must face a deadly drama of unholy ceremony and secret horror, of ancient greed preying upon young life, of unutterable depravity. For, like the other children of Villejeune—children without mercy or tears—sixteen-year-old Kelly Anderson is about to be drawn into a darkness so terrible it spares no life, no soul.

  ————

  John Saul is “a writer with the touch for raising gooseflesh,” says the Detroit News, and bestseller after bestseller has proved over and over his mastery for storytelling and his genius at creating heart-stopping suspense. Enter his chilling world, and prepare to realize your own hidden fears …

  Available wherever Bantam paperbacks are sold!

  And now, turn the page

  for an exciting preview of John Saul’s

  masterpiece of terror, SHADOWS.

  They call it The Academy.

  Housed in a secluded, cliff-top mansion overlooking the rugged and picturesque Pacific coast, it is a school for special children. Children gifted—or cursed—with extraordinary minds. Children soon to come under the influence of an intelligence even more brilliant than their own—and unspeakably evil. For within this mind a dark, ingenious plan is taking form. A hellish experiment meant to probe the ultimate limits of the human brain,

  A novel of unrelenting, nerve-jangling suspense, Shadows is John Saul’s most terrifying tale to date … now, here is a chilling glimpse of what awaits you in the …

  SHADOWS

  John Saul

  Amy looked up at the clock on the wall. Only five more minutes until her last class of the day ended.

  She wished it would go on for the rest of the afternoon, right up until dinnertime, for every minute that went by brought her one minute closer to the experiment.

  “But he said you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do,” Josh had insisted when she’d talked to him an hour ago, during the break between history and math. “What are you so scared of?”

  Instead of answering his question, Amy had said nothing at all, for the image in her mind was still the one of the cat in the cage, wired to the computer, being subjected to electrical shocks, frightening sounds, and the stinking odor of the skunk.

  Her trepidation hadn’t been eased at all when Mrs. Wilson, her math teacher, had handed her a note at the beginning of the hour, instructing her to appear at the gym at three-thirty.

  The note had been signed by Dr. Engersol.

  Why did he want her at the gym? Was that where the experiment was going to be held?

  “Amy? Amy, are you listening at all?”

  The voice of Enid Wilson, the math teacher, punched through the worries that were churning through the little girl’s head. Startled, Amy automatically sat up straight in her chair.

  “Haven’t you been listening at all, Amy?” Mrs. Wilson, a tall, angular woman whose gray hair was pulled back into a severe bun pinned at the back of her neck, was glaring at her over the rims of her glasses. The stridency in her voice made Amy cringe.

  “I—I was thinking about something else,” she said, her voice trembling.

  “Obviously,” Enid Wilson replied, her voice crackling. “But when you’re in my classroom, I expect you to pay attention to me.” She rapped the pointer in her hand on the chalkboard behind her. “Can you solve this equation, or not?”

  Amy stared at the complicated algebraic equation that was written out on the board, knowing that she should be able to solve it in her head. She concentrated, her eyes squinting and her brow furrowing as she began to do the calculations, visualizing the numbers in her mind as clearly as if she were working with a pencil and a scratch pad.

  “Come now, Amy, it’s not that difficult,” Mrs. Wilson prodded. “It’s really nothing more than a simple reduction!”

  Amy swallowed hard, trying to clear the lump that had suddenly formed in her throat. In her mind, the numbers faded away, and she lost her place in the equation. “I—I can’t do it,” she breathed.

  The teacher’s eyes fixed on her, making her want to sink through the floor. “Then perhaps you can do some extra homework this evening,” Mrs. Wilson told her while the rest of the class tittered at her discomfort. “If you’re not going to pay attention in class, you’ll simply have to do the work in your room.” Smiling thinly, Mrs. Wilson addressed the rest of the class. “Work out the first fifteen problems at the end of Chapter Three,” she told them. “Amy Carlson will do the rest of them for you.”

  Amy’s eyes widened. If Chapter Three were like the first two, there were fifty problems to be solved. And she had a chapter of history to read, and a story to write for Mr. Conners. How would she ever do it? And all because she hadn’t been able to solve one stupid equation!

  The bell rang. As the rest of the students hurried toward the door, intent on getting out into the afternoon sunshine, Amy lingered where she was. When the room was at last empty save for herself and the teacher, Mrs. Wilson finally gazed questioningly at her.

  “Is there something you want to talk to me about, Amy?” she asked.

  For a second Amy wondered if it would do any good to tell Mrs. Wilson how much other studying she had to do that night. She decided it wouldn’t. Mrs. Wilson wasn’t like Mr. Conners, who was always willing to listen to his students’ problems. Mrs. Wilson didn’t seem to care how much work they had to do for their other classes. “It’s simply a matter of planning your time,” she’d told Brad Hinshaw last week, when he’d complained that the assignment was too long. “You’re all gifted children, and we’re here to challenge your intellects, not coddle the habits you developed in public school. I know everything has always been easy for all of you, but life isn’t like that. You must learn to do what is asked of you without complaining.”

  “She’s sure a bitch,” Brad had muttered as they’d left her room that day. When some of the other kids had giggled, Mrs. Wilson had recalled them to the classroom and demanded to know what they were laughing about.

  And then she’d doubled Brad’s assignment.

  “N-No, Mrs. Wilson,” Amy finally said as the teacher’s eyes bored into her. “I’m okay. I’m sorry I wasn’t paying attention.”

  Enid Wilson’s lips relaxed into a semblance of a smile. “Very well,” she said. “Your apology is accepted. As,” she added, the smile disappearing, “will your homework be tomorrow. Now I suggest you get about your business. Dr. Engersol doesn’t like to be kept waiting, you know.”

  Nodding quickly, Amy pulled her book bag out from under her desk and left the room. Emerging from the building, she turned left and started toward the gym on the other side of the campus.

 
She paused in front of the door to the women’s locker room, screwing her face into her habitual tight squint of concentration.

  What if she changed her mind right now?

  Was it possible the experiment had already started?

  She glanced around. There were a few of the college students lying around under the trees and walking along the sidewalks, but no one seemed to be paying any attention to her.

  And she didn’t have that creepy feeling on the back of her neck that she always got when she felt like she was being watched.

  Sighing, she decided the experiment hadn’t begun yet, and walked on into the locker room. It was empty except for Hildie Kramer, who stood up as Amy came into the humid room.

  “I was starting to wonder if you were going to show up at all,” Hildie said, smiling. “Dr. Engersol wants you to put on a bathing suit and go out by the pool.”

  Amy’s lips pursed. “The pool? Is that where the experiment is?”

  Hildie nodded. “Do you have your own bathing suit here?”

  Amy shook her head. “It’s in my room. Nobody said I should bring it. Should I go get it?”

  She had already started toward the door when Hildie stopped her. “It’s all right, Amy. We have plenty of bathing suits. I’ll bring you one.”

  Amy went to her locker and started undressing, and a minute later Hildie reappeared, carrying with her one of the shapeless maroon tank suits with which the gym was stocked. “Yuck,” Amy said, eyeing the suit with distaste. “I hate those things!”

  Hildie chuckled. “Doesn’t everyone? But I tried to find one that doesn’t look too worn-out.”

  Amy took the suit from Hildie, then finished stripping off her clothes and pulled it on. Poking her arms through the straps and wriggling, she pulled the piece of material over her body, then looked hopefully up at Hildie. “Is it really awful?”

  Hildie cocked her head critically. “Well, I don’t suppose you’d win the Little Miss America contest, but it could be a lot worse. At least it fits, and it doesn’t have any holes in it. Ready?”