Eve sensed the misery of the past year lifting for, although she would still mourn her son, she knew now for certain that life always continued, but in another form, perhaps even in more than one. At last she embraced happiness again, at last she realized Cameron was not truly gone but was waiting for her in another place.
Suddenly, as if on command, the whirling lights flew high into the air and gathered together in one blazing whole. There the dazzling mass hovered for a moment, then swooped through the glassless window into the bright day where it outshone even the sun. Then it was gone, vanishing rather than flying away.
Gabe was the first to recover. He studied his wife’s upturned face and took heart at the joy he saw there. Her eyes shone with unshed tears and her smile was almost rapturous. With Lili and Percy, she continued to gaze out into the daylight as if expecting the lights to return.
At last, Lili said: ‘It really is over now.’ Her smile had become wistful.
Gabe turned Eve so that she faced him in his arms. He looked over her shoulder at the psychic. ‘It’s resolved?’ he asked Lili. ‘They’ve left this place for good?’
Lili nodded. ‘They’re complete: there’s nothing to keep them tied to Crickley Hall. Augustus Cribben has no power over them any more.’
‘And Augustus Cribben himself? Has he gone?’
Her smile faltered. I don’t know, but I don’t feel anything here. After all, he got his eleventh victim.’
‘Pyke?’
She nodded again. ‘Maurice Stafford. I sense the house is empty for now, although Cribben might not have understood it’s time to pass over. His bitterness could still keep him here in spirit, the lesson unlearned, his own evil clouding everything.’
‘Then let’s leave,’ said Gabe firmly. ‘Haunted or not, the sooner we’re out of Crickley Hall, the better I’ll like it. You okay, Percy?’
The gardener wiped a tear from his eye with the knuckle of a finger. ‘I am, son,’ he replied. ‘It’s like the young lady says, there’s nothing here any more. It’s just a big old ugly empty house an’ I hope it stays that way fer along time to come.’
A sound of barking outside distracted them all.
‘Gabe . . .?’ Eve looked up into her husband’s face. ‘That sounds like – no, it can’t be.’
Gabe grinned as Chester appeared at the open door, Loren and Cally giggling behind him. The dog waited on the threshold for a second or two, as if uncertain. But as soon as he spotted Eve, he bounded and scooted through puddles towards her. As Chester slavered all over Eve, who had made the mistake of kneeling down to his level, Gabe caught Percy’s eye.
Percy gave are assuring nod of his head. There was nothing here to frighten Chester any more.
EPILOGUES
It was nurse Iris who found Magda Cribben’s stone-cold corpse the morning after the big flood had hit the coastal village of Hollow Bay. Although such morning discoveries were not infrequent in a nursing home for the elderly, the nurse had to suppress a scream of fright when she walked into Magda’s cell-like bedroom, for instead of lying peacefully in her bed, the old woman was sitting upright and fully dressed on her hard chair, facing the door, her body already stiff as if she had frozen there.
But it was the expression on Magda Cribben’s face that upset Iris so: Magda’s jaw was dropped, her toothless mouth open wide as if in a rictal cry of horror, and her lifeless eyes remained staring at the doorway – staring past Nurse lris – as if her last sight was of something horrific entering the room.
They never recovered the body of Gordon Pyke, the man who had visited Crickley Hall on the night of what the locals called the Second Great Flood. They assumed that his drowned body had been carried by the underground river out to the sea and then to the ocean beyond. Either that, or it was still trapped somewhere in the underground river, snagged by rocks or washed into some subterranean cavern. After all, two bodies that had been lost since the last world war had only recently been found.
No one knew much about Pyke, so no one cared very much that his body was lost. To the older villagers, he was just another victim of Crickley Hall’s curse.
Crickley Hall has remained empty for a year now. Potential buyers or those looking to rent are not attracted to the place. Its architecture is too severe, its ambience too depressing, they say. Some even compare it to mausoleum despite (or maybe even because of) its grand hall.
Even the estate manager hates his monthly check on the property’s condition. It’s creepy, he likes to tell anyone who is not a possible client. Sometimes he hears noises, he claims. Oh, he knows that most are the usual sounds of trespassing rodents, birds in the chimneys or merely the house settling, but sometimes they are different from all those. Always faint. Always from rooms that are empty when he looks into them. But they are distinct.
They sound like:
Swish-thwack!
Swish-thwack!
Swish-thwack!
ASH
JAMES HERBERT’S NEW NOVEL
The World Grand Master of Horror cordially invites you to an idyllic Scottish retreat with beautiful rooms, luscious gardens, a breathtaking view . . . and a basement full of secrets.
Fear will invite you in. Terror won’t let you out.
Available August 2012 on Kindle and from the iBookstore.
James Herbert is not just Britain’s number one bestselling writer of chiller fiction, a position he has held since publication of his first novel, but he is also one of our greatest popular novelists, whose books are sold in thirty-five other languages, including Russian and Chinese. Widely imitated and hugely influential, his twenty-two novels have sold more than fifty million copies worldwide. The Secret of Crickley Hall went straight to number one on the bestseller lists.
Also by James Herbert
The Rats
The Fog
The Survivor
Fluke
The Spear
The Dark
Lair
The Jonah
Shrine
Domain
Moon
The Magic Cottage
Sepulchre
Haunted
Creed
Portent
The Ghosts of Sleath
’48
Others
Once
Nobody True
Graphic Novels
The City
(Illustrated by Ian Miller)
Non-fiction
By Horror Haunted
(Edited by Stephen Jones)
James Herbert’s Dark Places
(Photographs by Paul Berkshire)
Devil in the Dark
(Biography by Craig Cabell)
First published 2006 by Macmillan
This edition published 2007 by Pan Books
This electronic edition published 2013 by Pan Books
an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
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Associated companies throughout the world
www.panmacmillan.com
ISBN 978-0-330-47254-8 PDF
ISBN 978-0-330-47253-1 EPUB
Copyright © James Herbert 2006
The right of James Herbert to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
You may not copy, store, distribute, transmit, reproduce or otherwise make available this publication (or any part of it) in any form, or by any means (electronic, digital, optical, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of the publisher. Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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The Secret of Crickley Hall Page 54