by Amy Cross
I adjust my hands a little, hoping to get a better grip, but the pain is intense and my fingers are covered in blood. I feel nauseous too, as if my shifting guts are trying to expel everything they contain. My underwear's soaked too. Even if I get out of here, I don't know how -
And then suddenly I hear him.
I freeze.
I don't dare look, but I know he's close.
Who? Someone. It's all a jumble.
Letting out a groan of pain, I try again to get to my feet. This time I force myself up, but I can feel my knees trembling as if they might buckle again at any moment. I start stumbling forward, heading unsteadily toward the top of the stairs while leaning heavily against the wall. With each step, more and more blood is forced out through the cut in my belly, and when I get to the top of the stairs I let out a whimpered sob. Each step feels as if it has to be my last, yet somehow I've made it this far. I've slipped in my own blood and I've almost passed out as pain bursts through my body, but I refuse to curl up and die. I have to fight.
“Matt!” I gasp. “He's here! Run!”
I don't know where Matt is right now, but I have to find him. If he's hurt – if that monster has gotten to him – I have to make sure he's okay and get him out of here. If anything's happened to Matt, I'll never forgive myself.
I pause for a moment, leaning against the wall and letting out another groan, but then I hear a bumping sound. This time I turn instinctively, and to my horror I see the silhouette of a man standing at the far end of the landing. He's facing this way, and in his right hand he's holding a large knife with a curved blade. Even from here, I can see that blood is dribbling down onto the floorboards.
My name is Maddie Harper, and I am not going to die like this.
“You're not going to get me,” I whisper, trying to find some strength from somewhere. “I won't let you.”
I lunge at the table next to the top of the stairs, desperately trying to find something I can use as a weapon. I miss the table, however, and slam against the wall, and my hands barely contain the sloughing mess that's threatening to come slopping out of my belly at any moment. I feel dizzy, and it takes a moment before I can even turn and focus on the silhouetted figure.
“Leave me alone!” I scream. “Go to hell!”
Suddenly he takes a step toward me, and he emerges from the shadows enough for me to see his dark, dead eyes. I recognize him, he...
I have to get out of here.
Gripped by panic, I turn and start making my way down the stairs, but I immediately slip. I try to steady myself against the wall, but I quickly realize that I'm starting to fall. As I tumble forward, I instinctively reach out to grab the banister, almost but not quite managing to save myself. Finally I scream as I fall. My remaining hand slips down and my intestines burst out from my belly, splattering against the bare wooden steps.
Chapter Twenty-One
“Doctor Charles Grazier”
Thursday October 4th, 1888
“You're not real! You're not real! You're not -”
His final cry becomes a faint gurgle, as I stamp my boot straight through his skull. Blood splatters against the wall, and I twist my heel against fragments of shattered bone before taking a step back. Grazier's left hand twitches slightly, as if there is yet some spark of life in his body, but then finally he falls entirely still.
***
Despite having never touched one before, I am nevertheless able to tie the bow-tie that I slipped from Doctor Grazier's neck. Indeed, as I stand in the study and look at myself in the mirror, I rather believe that I have done a good job.
I am wearing the man's clothes, and – apart from some dirt on my face, which will come off easily enough with a swift wash – I am astounded to see that I look like a gentleman. A real, proper gentleman, of the type that I used to watch when I was younger. As a child, I'd hide in bushes in the smarter parts of London and watch as rich people walked past, and I used to daydream about what it would be like if I could become like them. I dreamed of success for a while, before eventually realizing that I could not work my way up from poverty. But now...
Now, standing here in Doctor Grazier's clothes, I look like a real gentleman. Indeed, I doubt that anyone would be able to tell that I was not born into this kind of clothing.
“You're not real!”
That's what poor Doctor Grazier shouted at me as he died. His voice was gurgling with blood, a little more with each word, until finally the heel of my boot knocked his jawbone clean away. Looking down, I see that there is still a great deal of his blood splattered against the wall. He tried to put up a fight, but it seemed that he was quite insane by the time I found him today. It seems that as he died, Doctor Grazier believed that I was somehow a figment of his imagination. I suppose he did not believe that he was truly going to die.
Then again, in one way he did not die. For although the man's body is wrecked and bloodied on the floor, I intend to take on his attributes to the greatest possible extent. I studied him extensively over the past week, watching his mannerisms and trying to understand how his mind works, and now I believe that I shall be able to become him. By so doing, I shall transcend my old life on the streets, and I shall become a proper gentleman. I shall also succeed where he failed.
I shall bring my sweet love back to life.
“I am Doctor Charles Grazier,” I say out loud, although I can instantly tell that my voice is all wrong. Growing up on the streets, I developed a certain way of speaking, and I suppose it will take time to appropriate Doctor Grazier's more refined ones. “I am Doctor Charles Grazier,” I say again, and I believe there is already a slightly improvement. “I am Doctor Charles Grazier. I am Doctor Charles Grazier.”
Those words sound so foolish coming from my lips. A gentleman speaks with a refined tone, and I cannot subdue my street-born accent. Still, I have time to work on such things.
After a moment I turn and look across the room, and I see the naked, bloated body on the floor, with its head smashed to pieces and blood having splattered several meters in every direction. There is even blood on the poker I used to kill the man, which rests in a patch of crimson. I had hoped to kill him with my bare hands, but a brief moment of pure rage overtook me. I am calmer now, however, since I know that gentleman are always calm.
“I am Doctor Charles Grazier,” I whisper, before stepping over to the body and using my right foot to roll him onto his back. “I am Doctor Charles Grazier,” I continue. “I am now, at least. How does it feel, old man, to have your very name and life usurped?”
His dead face stares up at me. Or what is left of his face, at least. He might have kept himself together in life, and affected a certain degree of class, but in death he wears the same gormless idiocy that I saw many times during my time in the city's rougher parts. As it turns out, a dead gentleman looks very much like a dead thief. Perhaps all men, having suffered a violent death, ultimately look more or less like this. Perhaps death levels us all.
“You knew me as Jack,” I say after a moment, even though I know the old man cannot possibly hear me, “but now I think I shall take on aspects of your life. I shall become you, so that I can continue your work and bring Delilah back.”
Then again, maybe he can hear me.
Maybe he is somewhere around, still insane but now a ghost.
Maybe he screams in some distant void, begging to come back to the world.
Reaching down, I pick up the poker and use it to gently bump the side of his face. He does not respond, of course, since he cannot. Doctor Charles Grazier is dead, his head having been crushed from behind to a pulp, yet I have risen to take his place. If I gave any thought whatsoever to the concept of fate, I think I would believe that this moment had been my destiny ever since I first spotted him in one of the city's dark alleys.
“I shall continue your work,” I tell him, “albeit in a more improving fashion.” I pause for a moment, before realizing that there is another task to complete before I can go back
down to the basement. “First, though, I think I know the most fitting manner in which to dispose of your corpse.”
Taking hold of his ankles, I start dragging him out toward the hallway. His shattered head leaves a thick trail of blood on the floor, but that matters not: I can clean the mess up later. For now, I simply have to get his corpse out of here and then get on with the task of saving Delilah.
I can do this. I am Doctor Charles Grazier now.
Coming Soon
THE RAVEN WATCHER
(THE HOUSE OF JACK THE RIPPER BOOK 7)
Trapped alone with a murderer, Maddie desperately tries to find a way out of the house. Meanwhile, a century earlier, Jack begins to follow Doctor Grazier's plans, although he soon finds that his mind is crumbling.
Also by Amy Cross
THE ASH HOUSE
Why would anyone ever return to a haunted house?
For Diane Mercer the answer is simple. She's dying of cancer, and she wants to know once and for all whether ghosts are real.
Heading home with her young son, Diane is determined to find out whether the stories are real. After all, everyone else claimed to see and hear strange things in the house over the years. Everyone except Diane had some kind of experience in the house, or in the little ash house in the yard.
As Diane explores the house where she grew up, however, her son is exploring the yard and the forest. And while his mother might be struggling to come to terms with her own impending death, Daniel Mercer is puzzled by fleeting appearances of a strange little girl who seems drawn to the ash house, and by strange, rasping coughs that he keeps hearing at night.
The Ash House is a horror novel about a woman who desperately wants to know what will happen to her when she dies, and about a boy who uncovers the shocking truth about a young girl's murder.
Also by Amy Cross
HAUNTED
Twenty years ago, the ghost of a dead little girl drove Sheriff Michael Blaine to his death.
Now, that same ghost is coming for his daughter.
Returning to the small town where she grew up, Alex Roberts is determined to live a normal, quiet life. For the residents of Railham, however, she's an unwelcome reminder of the town's darkest hour.
Twenty years ago, nine-year-old Mo Garvey was found brutally murdered in a nearby forest. Everyone thinks that Alex's father was responsible, but if the killer was brought to justice, why is the ghost of Mo Garvey still after revenge?
And how far will the real killer go to protect his secret, when Alex starts getting closer to the truth?
Haunted is a horror novel about a woman who has to face her past, about a town that would rather forget, and about a little girl who refuses to let death stand in her way.
Also by Amy Cross
THE BRIDE OF ASHBYRN HOUSE
“I have waited so long for your return.”
In the English countryside, miles from the nearest town, there stands an old stone house. Nobody has set foot in the house for years. Nobody has dared. For it is said that even though the lady of the house is long dead, a face can sometimes be seen at one of the windows. A pale, dead face that waits patiently behind a silk wedding veil.
Seeking an escape from his life in London, Owen Stone purchases Ashbyrn House without waiting to find out about its history. As far as Owen is concerned, ghosts aren't real and his only company in the house will be the thin-legged spiders that lurk on the walls. Even after he moves in, and after he starts hearing strange noises in the night, Owen insists that Ashbyrn House can't possibly be haunted.
But Owen knows nothing about the ghostly figure that is said to haunt the house. Or about the mysterious church bells that ring out across the lawn at night. Or about the terrible fate that befell the house's previous inhabitants when they dared defy the bride. Even as Owen starts to understand the horrific truth about Ashbyrn House's past, he might be too late to escape the clutches of the presence that watches his every move.
The Bride of Ashbyrn House is a ghost story about a man who believes the past can't hurt him, and about a woman whose search for a husband has survived even her own tragic death.
Also by Amy Cross
THE BODY AT AUERCLIFF
“We'll bury her so deep, even her ghost will have a mouth full of dirt!”
When Rebecca Wallace arrives at Auercliff to check on her aged aunt, she's in for a shock. Her aunt's mind is crumbling, and the old woman refuses to let Rebecca stay overnight. And just as she thinks she's starting to understand the truth, Rebecca makes a horrifying discovery in one of the house's many spare rooms.
A dead body. A woman. Old and rotten. And her aunt insists she has no idea where it came from.
The truth lies buried in the past. For generations, the occupants of Auercliff have been tormented by the repercussions of a horrific secret. And somehow everything seems to be centered upon the mausoleum in the house's ground, where every member of the family is entombed once they die.
Whose body was left to rot in one of the house's rooms? Why have successive generations of the family been plagued by a persistent scratching sound? And what really happened to Rebecca many years ago, when she found herself locked inside the Auercliff mausoleum?
The Body at Auercliff is a horror story about a family and a house, and about the refusal of the past to stay buried.
OTHER BOOKS
BY AMY CROSS INCLUDE
Horror
The Soul Auction
The Ash House
The Camera Man
The Bride of Ashbyrn House
The Body at Auercliff
Haunted
B&B
Laura
Asylum
Meds (Asylum 2)
Annie's Room
The Farm
The Ghost of Molly Holt
The Curse of Wetherley House
The Ghosts of Lakeforth Hotel
The Haunting of Blackwych Grange
The Ghosts of Hexley Airport
The Devil, the Witch and the Whore (The Deal book 1)
Darper Danver: The Complete First Series
The Disappearance of Katie Wren
The Horror of Devil's Root Lake
The Printer From Hell
The Nurse
American Coven
Eli's Town
The Night Girl
Devil's Briar
The Cabin
After the Cabin
Last Wrong Turn
The Ghost of Shapley Hall
A House in London
The Blood House
The Priest Hole (Nykolas Freeman book 1)
Battlefield (Nykolas Freeman book 2)
The Border
Short Story Collections
Perfect Little Monsters and Other Stories
Twisted Little Things and Other Stories
The Ghost of Longthorn Manor and Other Stories
The Vampire of Downing Street and Other Stories
Thrillers
The Murder at Skellin Cottage (Jo Mason book 1)
The Return of Rachel Stone (Jo Mason book 2)
The Girl Who Never Came Back
Other People's Bodies
Dystopian / Science Fiction
The Dog
The Island (The Island book 1)
Persona (The Island book 2)
The Abyss (The Island book 3)