The Influence
Page 25
The haze rippled around her, the gloating faces seemed to swim up towards her through the thickening murk, and again she realised what her mind was desperate to flee. It wasn’t just a haze of pain, it was the heat of the flames that were climbing her body. She made the sound again, louder, and flung herself wildly about. The crowd roared to drown her cries or to encourage her to put on more of a show. Then, as if God had answered the prayer she couldn’t voice, her struggles or the fire snapped her bonds, and she was toppling forwards. Her hair burst into flames. As she crawled writhing out of the fire, she thought she felt her blood start to boil.
She didn’t get far. Hands seized her and dragged her back to the stake. She felt her life draining out of her charred legs into the earth. Hands bound her more securely and lifted her to cast her into the heart of the fire. In the moment before her brain burned, she saw the man who had judged her, gazing down impassively from his tower. The face of the devil that had killed her husband had been a ghastly caricature of the face of the man on the tower.
The Influence
Ramsey Campbell
Sometimes evil refuses to die.
Rowan’s great-aunt Queenie is dead. After all the misery she caused her family while she was alive, most of them are secretly relieved. But Queenie did not want to die, and she will do anything to live again…including possessing young Rowan. She haunts the child’s nightmares, taking her over bit by chilling bit. As her soul is drawn inexorably into a cold darkness, can Rowan hope to reclaim her life from the evil dead?
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Samhain Publishing, Ltd.
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The Influence
Copyright © 1988 by Ramsey Campbell
ISBN: 978-1-61921-299-2
Edited by Don D’Auria
Cover by Scott Carpenter
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First Samhain Publishing, Ltd. electronic publication: May 2013
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