by Scott Thomas
“I don’t think that was Rachel. I think the house gave Rebecca her legs back. It gave her what she most desired—just like it tried to give Daniel his daughter. I think the house gave Rebecca her legs, and in return she walled up her sister in that third-floor bedroom. I think Rachel died in the room, trying to tear her way out.”
There was no response from Erin. For the moment, she had forgotten the coffee cup in her hand.
“Why would she do that?” she asked finally.
Sam shrugged. “Maybe Rachel had second thoughts. Maybe she wouldn’t go along with the plan to bring someone in to document the experiences in the house. Maybe she didn’t want the house to grow stronger. So the house tempted Rebecca, and she accepted.”
Out in the yard, a cluster of sparrows had landed in the fresh snow, pecking around for anything of value beneath the powder.
“I still dream about that house,” Sam told her.
The suddenness of the statement caught Erin off guard. She rolled the warm coffee over her tongue and swallowed, thinking. “What do you think it means?” she asked.
“Nothing,” Sam said. It was the truth. There was no reason to think otherwise.
Sam sat alone for a while longer, watching the icicles drip from beneath the overhang of the roof.
When he went back into the house, he found Erin curled up under a blanket on the leather couch, a black-and-white movie playing on the television.
“The Thin Man,” she informed him. “Wanna watch? It just started.”
Sam stared at the TV, at Nick and Nora Charles trading witty barbs, then shook his head. “No, thanks. Not right now. I’m gonna try to get some work done.”
“Okay.” Erin watched him as he moved quietly up the stairs. “I’ll come get you for dinner.”
Upstairs, in his study, Sam sat down at his desk and wiggled the mouse, listening as the computer’s hard drive spun to life. The screen blinked on, revealing a blank white page.
For a moment, he sat with his hands in his lap, letting everything else melt away until there was only the memory of his childhood.
He was halfway through the first paragraph before he realized he was typing. He did not bother to reread what he had so far. He pushed on, knowing that the words may not be perfect, but that they were right.
When Erin came upstairs to announce dinner, she heard the clacking of keys and went away without a sound.
Sam McGarver sat at his computer and felt the story pour through his fingertips. He did not write for his fans. He did not write for his publisher or his agent or even for Erin. He did not write for his past or for Kill Creek.
He wrote for himself.
EPILOGUE
“YOU GOOD? NEED anything? Water? Coffee?”
Sam shook his head. “I’m good, thank you.”
The production assistant gave him a pleasant smile and then hurried back through a glass door, disappearing into the control room.
The man across the table from Sam, a kind-faced bald gentleman with a neatly manicured gray beard, motioned to a pair of large headphones on a nearby stand.
“Try those on. It helps to hear your own voice.”
Sam did as he was told, pulling the headphones down over his ears. Immediately, all sound from the room was cut off. He felt as if he were drifting through endless space.
The sound of the void.
“Can you hear me?” The man was now directly in Sam’s ears.
“Yeah,” Sam said into a microphone mounted on a metal arm before him. He felt his mouth move, felt the breath pushing the words past his lips, and then they were instantly piped into the vacuum of the headphones. Too crisp. Too perfect. As if his very thoughts were being transmitted. There was something uncanny about the sensation.
The man adjusted his own microphone and checked his watch.
“Well, I guess if she doesn’t show, it’ll just be you and me.”
“She’ll be here,” Sam said. He had no information to support this, but he knew it was true.
He rubbed the scarred flesh of his left arm. He wanted to get this over with. He knew there would be questions about what had happened last spring, but that wasn’t why he was there. The book resting on the table between them was the one and only reason Sam had agreed to this interview.
Across the spine, in a font that probably took a room full of executives way too long to agree upon, was the title A Thinly Cast Shadow, followed by, in smaller print, 40th Anniversary Edition.
They were there to talk about Sebastian Cole. To honor him. To remember him.
“Have you seen her?”
The too-present voice in his ears startled him. He looked across the table at his interviewer, now cleaning his glasses with a handkerchief.
“Excuse me?”
“Moore. Have you seen her since . . .” He let his words trail off.
“No,” Sam said. “Haven’t even spoken to her since we were in the hospital.”
“Hm,” the man said as if already bored by his own question.
There was a sharp pop, and a third voice, that of the unseen sound engineer, informed them: “One minute until we’re live.”
The man cleared his throat and took a sip of water from a tall, thin glass. “Okay, well, I guess we’ll get started—”
A heavy soundproofed door opened, and suddenly she was there in the booth with them. She was dressed in a tight dark gray sweater, leather skirt and leggings, and a sleek black trench coat that stopped just below her hip. Her long dark hair had been cut short into choppy daggers.
Without thinking, Sam hopped up from his chair, his head jerked sharply to the side as the headphone cord went taut. He stripped the headphones from his head, angry with himself for feeling like a high school kid on a first date.
“Hi,” he said.
She smiled warmly. Warm. That was a word Sam never thought he would use when describing T.C. Moore.
“Hi, Sam. It’s so good to see you.”
Her hands slipped around him and she pulled him close, hugging him.
“How are you?” he asked.
“Good,” she said. “Really, really good.”
Sam heard the tinny voice of the engineer calling out from his headphones: “Fifteen seconds.”
The man across the table motioned to a third seat. “Ms. Moore, if you don’t mind, we’re about to begin.”
Moore took her seat. Sam did the same, securing the headphones over his ears.
The man clasped his hands on the table as if he were about to say grace. He leaned in close to his own microphone, emblazoned with the red, black, and blue logo of NPR. When he spoke, his voice was velvet.
“Welcome to the latest edition of Book End. I’m Rupert Taylor, and with me today are Sam McGarver and T.C. Moore, two of the most famous names in horror literature, here to discuss the master of the macabre, the late Sebastian Cole, and the fortieth anniversary edition of his masterpiece of supernatural terror, A Thinly Cast Shadow.”
He paused, attempting to find the best way to broach the next subject.
“Before we discuss the book and its legacy, I want to acknowledge the story that I know our listeners are expecting to hear, and that is the events at Kill Creek.”
Here we go, Sam thought. This wasn’t a surprise. He knew there would be questions about it. He had prepared a polite bit of discouragement for this very moment.
“I’m sorry,” Sam began. “I understand the curiosity, but that subject is still very difficult to talk about. Ms. Moore and I went through a very scary, very traumatic experience, one that resulted in the death of Mr. Cole. I don’t have anything else to add that your listeners don’t already know.”
“It’s okay, Sam. They’re just curious,” Moore said.
Sam stared at her, confused. What was she doing? Nothing good could come from talking about that place.
The man licked his lips and leaned in closer to his mic. “Well, um, we all know the official story, but there are many who believe something . . . str
anger happened.”
Don’t do it, Sam thought. Don’t tell them. No one needs to know.
Moore leaned back in her seat and crossed her legs. Her hands were resting on her knee. There was something odd about them. They were not the hands of a middle-aged woman. They had an ancient quality, as if they were made of brittle paper that, when punctured, would allow the air to turn the bone within to dust.
“There are things that happened that can’t be easily explained,” Moore said finally.
“Such as?”
“Well, I hate to be a tease, but I’m actually writing a book about it.”
Sam sat up straight. No.
“It’s a book I started shortly after our first trip to Kill Creek.”
No, this can’t be.
“It’s a work of fiction, but it is very much based on fact—”
“Moore,” Sam interrupted.
“Because you see, Sam and I, we share a bit of a secret.”
“Moore, what are you doing?” Through the headphones, he could hear the fear in his voice.
She turned to him, and for the first time since she arrived, Sam looked directly at her face. Something was off.
“I’m sharing our story, Sam,” she said.
What was it? Something was not right about her, but what?
“They deserve to know the truth.”
Despite the dim, intimate lighting in the booth, Moore’s eyes seemed to shimmer, her pupils like two perfect—
Her eyes. That’s it. Her eyes!
The pupil of her right eye was no longer ruptured. Where before it resembled a drop of ink running into the iris, it was now a flawless black circle.
A memory came rushing back. Moore floating in the dark water of the basement. Her corpse-like face staring up. Eyes wide.
Both pupils identical.
Even then, she had been changed. She was dead. He was sure she was dead when he found her. And then she was alive.
This wasn’t Moore. This was something else.
He could still hear the shriek of that twisted obscenity that had once been Rebecca Finch: Soon even this house will not be able to hold us!
“I guess I just feel very lucky,” T.C. Moore was saying from a million miles away.
“With your help, Sam, I made it out.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I wrote the first draft of this book more than ten years ago, but with a career mainly in reality and children’s television, I couldn’t seem to get anyone interested in a horror novel by a first-time author. So the fact that it is finally in your hands is a testament to many amazing people who deserve my profound thanks:
Adam Gomolin at Inkshares, who saw the potential in my original manuscript and was there with me in the trenches for every single rewrite. He encouraged me to push myself outside my comfort zone, challenging me to beat even the moments I thought were working perfectly well. Turns out those moments could be better.
My editors, Matt Harry and Pamela McElroy, for their many, many reads through the book to hone it both creatively and grammatically.
Avalon Radys and the entire Inkshares team for keeping the train moving, and for holding the door so I could hop on at the last second.
Jamie Dorn, J.F. Dubeau, Alex Rosen, and Phil Sciranka for taking the time to read my ghost story and giving their invaluable input.
Jorge Gonzalez and Chris Contreras at the Tracking Board. Without the Launch Pad Manuscript Competition, this book would still be sitting on my hard drive.
Rock Shaink, who has been not only a huge champion of this novel but also of me as a horror writer.
Jed Elinoff for his friendship and for helping hold down our many forts while listening to me talk about how little sleep I was getting as I rewrote . . . and rewrote . . . and rewrote.
Charles Kephart, who read the very first draft of Kill Creek. He has encouraged me through friendship and kind words for years.
The friends, family, and complete strangers who supported me by preordering the book on Inkshares.
The Kansas towns of Coffeyville and Lawrence and the University of Kansas for shaping who I am and inspiring me to write a Midwestern ghost story.
The countless horror authors and filmmakers who inspired me growing up and continue to feed my love of horror. Every sentence of this book is in some way because of them.
My parents, Warren and Sherry, who never questioned why their son had so many pages from Fangoria taped to his bedroom wall.
My brilliant, hilarious, creative, beautiful daughters, Aubrey and Cleo, who cheered me on through every rewrite and never failed to ask, “How many pages do you have left?” A lot, girls. A lot of pages.
And, most of all, my wife, Kim, who lived through the insanity with grace and patience, who lifted me up in moments of doubt and took on way too many burdens so her husband could stare at a computer screen for months. If this book is the darkest parts of my soul, you are the brightest.
GRAND PATRONS
Adam Gomolin
Ben Schwartz
Chris Prynoski
Cindy Gustafson
David Vacca
Greg Munck
Jed Elinoff
Jim Martin
John Stansifer
Jon Neely
Josh And Kate Allen
Kimberly Thomas
Louise Trader
Russell Nelson
Sara Bonham
Vincent Parker
INKSHARES
INKSHARES is a reader-driven publisher and producer based in Oakland, California. Our books are selected not by a group of editors, but by readers worldwide.
While we’ve published books by established writers like Big Fish author Daniel Wallace and Star Wars: Rogue One scribe Gary Whitta, our aim remains surfacing and developing the new author voices of tomorrow.
Previously unknown Inkshares authors have received starred reviews and been featured in the New York Times. Their books are on the front tables of Barnes & Noble and hundreds of independents nationwide, and many have been licensed by publishers in other major markets. They are also being adapted by Oscar-winning screenwriters at the biggest studios and networks.
Interested in making your own story a reality? Visit Inkshares.com to start your own project or find other great books.