by Rick Hautala
“Well,” Andy said, turning away from them, “I have to get back to work here. If you have any questions or whatever, don’t hesitate to give me a call, okay?”
“Sure … okay. Thanks,” Edward said.
Dianne didn’t like the way her husband’s voice sounded—so flat, almost robotic. Her heart flipped with a hollow thump when she noticed the tears streaming down Edward’s face. Moaning softly, she went over to him and wrapped her arms around him, pulling him tightly to her. As much as she tried not to, she couldn’t stop herself from starting to cry, too. For several seconds, they stood together, holding on to each other; then Edward looked over at Brian and signaled for him to come over to them. He moved forward hesitantly, then melded into their embrace. Before long, all three of them were standing there, crying and holding on to each other desperately.
After a moment, Edward pulled away from Dianne and Brian, and in a raw, scratchy voice said, “He did it on purpose, you know.”
“Yes,” Dianne replied, forcing the words out of herself. “I … I know.”
“I mean, he set the whole damned thing up so he so he could kill us all … even himself.” He snorted and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “He wanted to die, and he wanted to take us with him.” He snorted and rubbed his nose. “Goddamn!”
For a moment, he had seemed as though he was gaining control of himself, but then tears started forming in his eyes. “Ever since we were kids, I … I never realized how what I did to him ruined him, absolutely ruined his life.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Dianne said softly.
“Oh yes it was. And I just don’t know if I can handle living, knowing how much he must have hated me.”
“No,” Dianne said softly as she clutched him all the tighter. “He never hated you.”
Ringing in her memory as clearly as if he were saying it right now, was the last thing Michael had shouted to her as he died on the cellar floor, engulfed by flames.
“This is where it has to end! Go to them! It wasn’t Edward’s fault! Tell him I forgive him! Go! Now! You promised me that you’d help them!”
“I … I honestly think a lot of what he did was against his will,” Dianne went on. “He wasn’t in control of himself, and I think that, underneath it all, he genuinely loved you … as a brother.”
More than anything else in the world, she wanted to tell him, right now, everything that had happened just before and after Michael fell through the trapdoor and died. She wanted to let her husband know how absolutely convinced she was that Michael had been driven to do what he had done; she wasn’t exactly sure what had driven him, but she was convinced, by things he had said and by things she had experienced in and near the mill, that there was some kind of malevolent force, directing Michael to do what he had done. She knew she would tell Edward everything … eventually, but right now she couldn’t do it. There was still too much immediate pain to deal with, and too many ancient wounds to heal.
She sucked in a deep breath and said, “But I do know that he wanted it all to end—right here, where it all started.” Her voice was a wire-tight whisper. “He said as much. And I honestly believe that, no matter what else Michael did before that, at the very end, he sacrificed himself so that—hopefully—all the ghosts and all the terrible memories wrapped up inside that building would be destroyed … forever.”
Edward licked his lips and regarded her with a long, glassy stare. “But they won’t be. Even now,” he said.
“Not until I have a talk with an old friend of mine.”
Dianne looked at him, perplexed.
“My old friend, Ray Saunders,” Edward said softly. “There’s something I have to tell him before I tell you about it. And then—?” He shrugged and shook his head.
“Well, you have to believe that your brother forgave you,” Dianne said, looking back and forth between Edward and Brian. “You’ll go crazy if you don’t.”
She grabbed Edward’s shoulders and gave him a vicious shake. “He loved you, goddamnit, and in the end, he made it clear—at least to me—that he had never intended to hurt you—or any of us. Not really! He wanted you to live because I think he was convinced that what he was doing really would end it all for good.”
“Umm,” Edward said, sniffing with tight laughter and forcing a smile as he looked back and forth between his wife and son. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe it is all over now.” He glanced at the smoldering ruins of the mill and added, “Either that, or else there’s just one more angry ghost, lurking around out here somewhere.”
Other books by Rick Hautala available from Crossroad Press
UNTCIGAHUNK: THE COMPLETE LITTLE BROTHERS
It has been five years since Kip Howard saw his mother killed horribly by a blur of "little brown things." Five years of nightmares and a terror of dark places. Five years of struggling to overcome what must have been just his imagination…But the "untcigahunk," the Indian word for "little brothers," are no one's imagination. Hideous forest creatures who feed every five years on human flesh, the little brothers are about to emerge from underground once again. Only this time, there will be no escape for the young boy who witnessed their last feast.
Untcigahunk —The Novel is an updated version of Rick Hautala's classic novel Little Brothers. Also included are seven short stories about the Untcigahunk:
Little Brother
Little Brother Speaks
Redman
Chrysalis
Love on the Rocks
Deal with the Devils
The Birch Whistle
Oilman
OCCASIONAL DEMONS
This collection, from an acclaimed Master of Dark Fiction, consists of twenty-one tales with some being straight genre entries, others psychological terror and finally a few shorts that include science fiction elements. The first eighteen are short stories written solely by Rick and the final three are collaborations with Jesse and Matti Hautala, Matthew J. Costello, and Jim Connolly.
The stories included in this collection are:
The Nephews
Nightmare Transcript
Non-returnable
Dead Legends
I’ve Been Thinking About You
The Man Who Looked Like Murphy
Toxic Shock
The Call
Getting the Job Done
Every Mother’s Son
Knocking
Hotel Hell
The Compost Heap
Iron Frog
Setup
The Gates of Dawn
Off the Cuff
The Screaming Head
Abduction (written with Jesse and Matti Hautala)
And the Sea Shall Claim Them (written by Matthew J. Costello and A. J. Matthews)
Scared Crows (written with Jim Connolly)
BEDBUGS
From the subway tunnels of Boston to the rain-swept streets of Quebec City to the deepest snow-filled forests of Hilton, Maine, no one in these chilling stories by horror master Rick Hautala is safe from the darkness or the dangerous things that lurk in the shadows. Waiting for us. Reaching for us...
Over the years, Rick Hautala's stories and novels have terrified and captivated millions of readers around the world. Bedbugs is a career-spanning collection of stories that whisks you away on a guided tour of the darkest reaches of the human mind and soul — a tour that could only be conducted by someone with Rick Hautala's ability to make your blood run cold.
The stories included in this collection are:
The Back of My Hands
Schoolhouse
The Voodoo Queen
Surprise
Tunnels
. . . from a Stone
Crying Wolf
The Sources of the Nile
Silver Rings
Colt .24
Bird in the House
Cousins’ Curse
Speedbump
Rubies and Pearls
A Little Bit of Divine Justice
Karen’s Eyes
>
Master Tape
Breakfast at Earl’s
Closing the Doors
Worst Fears
Winter Queen
Late Summer Shadows
Hitman
Perfect Witness
Piss Eyes
Served Cold
MOONBOG
THE EVIL GLOW OF THE MOON...
lit the path as twelve-year-old Billy Wilson walked past the bog. He knew he shouldn't have gone near the inky shadows of the swamp — but something forced him to come closer to the yawning darkness, the suffocating tangle, the flesh-tearing brambles of Holland Bog.
THE MURKY DEPTHS OF THE BOG...
sucked the boy into its fetid earth and claimed its human sacrifice. But one child wasn't enough. It needed a second, a third — and then nothing could stop the unquenchable hunger, the raging blood thirst of the MOONBOG.
GHOST LIGHT
Cindy Toland knows that her sister's violent death was no accident. She knows her abusive brother-in-law too well... knows the dark, brutal things he's capable of doing. That's why she took her niece and nephew away into the night—away from a dangerous and twisted madness called home.
But ten-year-old Billy and his kid sister Krissy know something their Aunt Cindy doesn't. It's about the blue lady who comes late at night and whispers strange things. Billy and Krissy aren't scared of the lady. Even though she lives beyond the grave. But there's something else out there. Something much more terrifying. It's daddy. And he's coming to get them.
NIGHT STONE
HIDDEN TOYS
The old house in Maine gave Beth the creeps. She couldn't believe they were really moving in. If it weren't for the wooden doll she had found in the closet of her new bedroom, she would have been miserable. But the strange hand-carved figure fascinated her, and she sensed with a child's instinct that she had to hide it from her parents...
HIDDEN EVIL
It was a house of darkness and shadows, but with her secret doll, Beth wasn't afraid. Not even when she heard the scratching and whispering at night. Not even when the tall, massive stones of her dreams began to ooze with blood. For as she stared into the eyes of the wooden doll, she heard it call to her and felt the force of its evil power. And she knew that it was about to tell her what she had to do...
COLD WHISPER
Tully. He made Sarah's every wish come true. He appeared to her eyes alone and spoke so that only she could hear. Sometimes Sarah wondered if it was all her imagination. But the things that Tully made happen were all too real. And, as Sarah grew up, they were all too horrible.
Now Sarah, a college freshman in Maine, lives in terror. She mustn't think bad thoughts. She mustn't give in to the lure of Tully's powers. She mustn't ever, ever get angry. For what Tully doesn't understand is that some wishes aren't meant to be granted.
THE COVE
Most people who visit coastal Maine see only the stark and rugged beauty of the pine groves and rocky beaches. But for those that live and work there, it's very different. THE COVE tells the tale of a family, deeply rooted in Maine, and of a town where corruption and the Mob play a dark counterpoint to the idyllic postcard images.
Ben Brown comes back to Hudson's Cove after serving in Iraq. Fighting PTSD and a sense of failure, he finds his hard-drinking fisherman father running drugs, his sister struggling in a violent marriage, and his brother sullen and withdrawn. He falls quickly for Julia, a woman "from away," who has a devastating secret. As Ben tries to unravel the secret and help his family survive, events in The Cove pull him like a rip current toward a final cataclysm.
Rick Hautala's only mainstream novel draws heavily on his own experiences growing up in a coastal town, where fishermen struggled to make ends meet and things were not always as they seemed. Rich characters and a gripping story reveal what life at the edge of the sea really is...
Look for more Rick Hautala titles available now or coming soon from Crossroad Press
Impulse
Shades of Night
Twilight Time
Writing as A.J. Matthews:
The White Room
Looking Glass
Follow
Unbroken
Also Available from Crossroad Press
ASHES
Desperately searching for a kindred spirit, an evil force, filled with a terrifying hunger that leaves its victims burned to ashes, arrives in a small Pennsylvania town, plagued by its own dark history, where it has discovered what it has been yearning for over the centuries.
Table of Contents
DARK SILENCE
LICENSE NOTES
Meet the Author
DARK SILENCE
CONTENTS
Introduction
PROLOGUE
Prologue: November 1694
PART ONE
Chapter One
Chapter Two
PART TWO
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
PART THREE
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Other books by Rick Hautala available from Crossroad Press