J.A. Konrath / Jack Kilborn Trilogy - Three Scary Thriller Novels (Origin, The List, Haunted House)

by J. A. Konrath

  Okay, stay calm. Find a place to hole up. Someplace you can defend. Where they can’t sneak up behind you.

  A snort escaped his nose before Roy could stop it. All damn night he’d been searching for a safe place in this hell-on-earth. But there were no safe places. Every room, every corridor, in this damned house was lethal. Maybe, if the others were still alive, they could have protected each other. But that hadn’t worked out, and Roy was pretty sure he was the only one left.

  He thought back to his military days, before he became a cop. The Q course for Special Forces, the hardest training in the world. Desert Storm in Iraq. Then over a decade on the street, working his way up from beat cop to homicide detective. He was good, and his past had prepared him for a lot.

  But not for this.

  Nothing could have prepared him for this.

  Roy sucked in another breath through clenched teeth. The air was musty, foul, like old running shoes mixed with…

  Body odor.

  Strong, noxious body odor that wasn’t coming from Roy.

  He flinched.

  Roy knew that smell. Knew where it came from.

  That’s when he heard it.

  Giggling.

  High-pitched. Almost childlike.

  But that’s not a child.

  “Oh, no,” Roy whispered. “Not this again.”

  Roy waited, hoping, praying, it had been his imagination.

  The darkness remained silent.

  You’re freaking out, man. Imagining shit. You need to keep it together if you want to—

  “Hee hee hee hee.”

  Not imagination. This was real.

  Real, and coming somewhere in the unlit room.

  Somewhere close.

  Roy stumbled backward, his bladder constricting, and then fell as his foot stepped into a hole in the floor.

  He landed on his ass, strained to get his foot free, and the pain came hard and fast.

  Sharp points. Stabbing through his pants, into the flesh of his calf.

  A punji trap.

  The hole contained spikes, pointed at a downward angle, trapping his foot there. The harder he tried to pull away, the deeper the spikes dug into his leg.

  “Hee hee hee.”

  Roy swung his flashlight beam, locking onto the sound.

  The giggling man who had been stalking Roy through the house for the last two hours was standing only a few meters away. Roy could see him clearly now, for the first time. He was tall, over six feet, wearing a black rubber gas mask that obscured his face. His chest was bare, covered in dried blood. All he wore was stained white underwear, and combat boots, their laces untied.

  In the man’s hand was a meat cleaver.

  Roy reacted viscerally, immediately trying to scramble away, the spikes digging further into his calf. He cried out in pain, then stared at his stalker.

  “Hee hee hee.”

  The Giggler didn’t move closer. He simply stood there, swaying slowly from side to side. The BO coming off him coated Roy’s tongue.

  Roy pawed for his sidearm, drawing it and pointing the weapon at the man.

  “Get the fuck away from me! I swear I’ll kill you!”

  The man stared.

  “I said get away!”

  He continued swaying. Staring.

  “Hee hee hee.”

  Roy hadn’t signed on for this. It was supposed to be simple. A way to get ahead, provide for his daughter. But the nightmare of the last few hours, the horrors he’d been through, was almost beyond comprehension.

  “Someone help me!” he shouted to the house.

  The house didn’t answer. But the Giggler did.

  “Hee hee.”

  Roy reached up, grabbed the sticky electrode on his temple, and tore it off out of defiance. Did the same with the one on his chest.

  The giggling man watched, his expression hidden behind his gas mask.

  “What the hell do you want?” Roy pleaded.

  The man raised the cleaver—

  —and placed it against his own chest.

  What the hell is this guy going to…?

  He drew the cleaver downward, splitting his skin open. The blood flowed, fast and red, soon drenching the man’s soiled underwear.

  “Hee hee hee.”

  Roy watched, slack-jawed, as the man continued to cut himself, making Xs on his abdomen. Over his nipples. Across his belly button. It wasn’t long before his upper body looked like a dropped plate of spaghetti.

  Pain be damned, Roy pulled his attention away from the freak and began to tug on his trapped leg, trying to free himself. His heart was beating so quickly it felt like it was going to break his ribs, and the man’s giggling got louder the more he mutilated himself. But try as he might, Roy couldn’t get his leg out of the hole.

  Then the giggling stopped. Replaced by wheezing.

  Fast, wet wheezing.

  Not wanting to look, but unable to stop himself, Roy once again directed his flashlight at the man.

  He’d stopped cutting. And instead, the giggling man had a hand inside his underwear, using the blood as a lubricant while he stroked himself.

  Roy shook his head, like a dog after a walk in the rain.

  No. Oh no no no no. This is not happening. This is NOT happening.

  But it was happening. This wasn’t some elaborate prank. Some gag where a TV crew was going to jump out and shake his hand for being a trooper. It wasn’t a dream. It wasn’t a hallucination.

  He’d watched people die tonight. Die horribly. And he was going to be next.

  Roy adjusted his flashlight, staring into the hole that refused to release him. He saw five metal rods, digging into his leg from various angles. With a trembling hand, he lowered the KA-BAR knife and tried to cut the first rod free.

  The steel was too thick.

  Roy took a breath and held it.

  Then he gouged the knife into his leg, trying to pry out the bar.

  Soon Roy’s screams drowned out the moans coming from his stalker, but even after slicing his calf almost to the bone, the rod continued to hold him.

  “Hee hee hee.”

  Roy looked up at the Giggler, who had moved several steps closer. He’d apparently finished playing with himself, and was now rubbing his hand across his chest, digging his finger into the cuts and following their lengths, over and over. Like a child finger painting.

  Roy aimed the Glock at him, trying to steady his shaking hand.

  One bullet. Make it count…

  He squeezed the trigger, deadeye on the man’s center mass—

  Felt the gun kick—

  Got him! I got him! I—

  But the giggling man didn’t even flinch. It was as if the bullet passed right through him.

  Like he’s a ghost.

  He giggled again, “hee hee hee”, and Roy giggled as well. He thought of all the other rounds he’d fired that night, sure he’d hit targets, and now finally understood what had happened.

  Bullets can’t kill ghosts.

  He raised the KA-BAR like it was a crucifix warding off vampires.

  “You want me! Come get me!”

  But the giggling man—or whatever it was—just stood there. Watching.

  “You gonna just stand there?”

  “Hee hee hee hee hee.”

  “DO SOMETHING!”

  It stopped swaying, and through the damper of its gas mask said, in a deep, wet voice,

  “Iiiiiiiiii wiiiilllll.”

  The throb in Roy’s leg began to abide, replaced by a tingling numbness. His head began to cloud.

  Blood loss? Exhaustion?

  Roy closed his eyes. He knew if he passed out, things would only get worse. Being at the mercy of that thing was unthinkable, and there were others in the house even worse.

  Roy closed his eyes.

  He thought about his ex-wife. Their daughter. She only saw her daddy twice a month, due to his wife’s overzealous lawyer.

  Now she’d never see him again.
r />   The image in Roy’s head was fuzzy, growing fuzzier.

  “I’m sorry,” he told his child, his eyes brimming with tears.

  Then the Giggler pounced.

  FOUR DAYS LATER

  Cleveland, Ohio

  Mal

  Mallory Dieter knew by his wife’s breathing that she was also awake.

  He thought about reaching for her, holding her close, but she didn’t like being touched while trying to sleep. It startled her, even made her yell sometimes. At three in the morning, even a whisper from Mal could make Deb jump.

  Mal understood this. Intimately.

  Because he felt exactly the same way.

  The bed was the best money could buy. The kind where each side could be adjusted for maximum comfort. No bedframe, so nothing could hide under it. Expensive pillows, some with goose down, some with memory foam. Sheets with a 400 thread count. A ceiling fan that provided a gentle breeze, and calming white noise.

  But all that wasn’t nearly enough.

  Mal shifted, slowly so he didn’t scare her, letting Deb know they were both in the same boat.

  “Need another Xanax?” Deb whispered. “I’ll be up. I can watch you.”

  Often the only way either got to sleep was when one offered to watch over the other.

  “Gotta work early. But you can take one, and I’ll watch you.”

  Deb turned, rolling against him, the weight of her body both reassuring and confining. She trusted him enough to hook her thigh over him—a thigh missing the calf below the knee. Years ago, a fall while mountain climbing had taken Deb’s legs.

  But that wasn’t the fear that kept her awake.

  Mal knew it was something far worse.

  A fear he also shared.

  The Rushmore Inn.

  He resisted her touch, wanting to push her away, hating himself for the feeling. During the daytime, he couldn’t get enough of touching her, holding her, caressing her.

  But nights were different. At night he didn’t want to be touched, held, or otherwise confined. He couldn’t even use heavy blankets. It made him feel trapped, helpless. As if he were still tied to that table and…

  Mal shuddered.

  Nights were a bitch.

  “You up for something else?” Deb asked, trailing her fingernails down his belly, to his boxer shorts. Mal closed his eyes, tried to live in the moment, tried to push away the past. But the only part of him the alprazolam seemed to relax was the part Deb was rubbing.

  “Sorry, hon. The pill.”

  Deb pulled her hand back.

  “I could do you,” he said, reaching for her. “Maybe my body will get the hint.”

  Mal moved his left hand down, stroked her. Deb didn’t respond.

  “Damn Xanax,” Deb breathed. “Turns us into a couple of eunuchs.”

  Mal stopped his efforts. Stared at the ceiling fan.

  He sighed. “Our lives would be perfect if we didn’t have to sleep.”

  “I hear someone is working on a pill for that.”

  “I’m sick of pills, but sign me up for that one.”

  He thought about having the nightlight discussion again. Mal found it damn near impossible to fall asleep with the four nightlights Deb had in the bedroom. There were practically bright enough to read a book by.

  The problem was Deb had panic attacks in the dark.

  Or maybe that was just a way to blame Deb for his insomnia, because Mal hated the dark, too.

  “We can get up,” Deb said. “Play some rummy.”

  They’d done that the previous two nights. But Mal knew Deb was as exhausted as he was. And with exhaustion came crankiness, frustration, misery. Yesterday, they’d both gone to separate parts of the house because of some stupid fight over how to best shuffle cards.

  “We need sleep, hon. You take another pill. At least one of us should get some rest.”

  “It’s not rest with the pills. It’s more like a coma. I hate them.”

  “So do I. But…”

  Mal didn’t need to finish the sentence. They both knew how it ended.

  But I hate the nightmares more.

  They’d been to doctors. Specialists. Shrinks. Mal knew his wife shared his condition.

  PTSD. Posttraumatic stress disorder.

  The newest research revealed brain chemistry actually changed in response to traumatic experience. And at the Rushmore Inn, Deb and Mal survived the most traumatic experience imaginable.

  “We got a little sleep on Saturday,” Deb said.

  Mal grunted mmm-hmm. He didn’t mention that during one of her night terrors, Deb’s moans and cries kept waking him up, even though he’d taken several pills because of the weekend off.

  “Maybe we’re doing this wrong,” Mal said. “Maybe we need to take speed instead.”

  His wife laughed, breaking some of the tension. “Speed?”

  “Or some coke. Instead of sleeping, we party all night.”

  “I tried speed once when I was training, to boost endurance. I finished a marathon, then cleaned the house top to bottom. It was awful.”

  Mal smiled. “Awful? We should both take some, clean out that basement.”

  “Do you even know where to get amphetamines?”

  “I work for a newspaper. We newsies know all the lowlifes.”

  “So we should embrace our insomnia. That’s your solution.”

  “It isn’t a solution, hon. Just a silly idea.”

  Deb didn’t respond right away. And when she did, her voice was so sad it made Mal ache.

  “There are no solutions.”

  They laid there, in silence, Mal unable to come up with a solution. Deb was correct. They were broken, both their bodies and their minds, and there didn’t seem any way to fix them.

  That’s when someone pounded on the door.

  The sound paralyzed Mal, adrenaline ripping through his body making his heart seem ready to pop. But his arms and legs locked as surely as if they’d been bound there.

  He couldn’t move.

  Couldn’t breathe.

  After the initial startle, his mind went haywire with possibilities. Who would be at the door at 3am? Had those terrible people from the Rushmore Inn finally found him? Had they come to finish the job?

  Unable to suck in any air, unable to turn his head, Mal’s eyes flicked over to Deb and saw she was similarly frightened stiff.

  A second ticked by.

  Another.

  I’ve got to get up. I’ve got to—

  The pounding sound came again, even louder, a white hot spike of adrenaline snapping Mal out of his catatonia. He immediately jerked upright in bed, reaching for his nightstand, for the 9mm inside the drawer. But in his fear and haste he reached with the wrong hand, the one missing above the wrist. He quickly switched, pulling out the gun, as Deb clambered for her artificial legs, propped next to the wall.

  She squeaked out, “Do you think it’s—”

  “Shh.”

  Holding his breath, Mal strained to hear more sounds. He wondered, fleetingly, if this was one of his frequent nightmares. But they always revolved around him being strapped to the table, watching those horrid videos. He was always at the Rushmore in his bad dreams. He’d never had a nightmare that took place in his house.

  This wasn’t a dream.

  This was really happening.

  He quickly switched his thoughts to other, safer possibilities. A drunk neighbor, mistaking their house for his. Local teenagers, pranking people by knocking on the door then running away. A relative, maybe his brother from Florida, dropping by unannounced. Police, coming over to tell Mal he’d left the headlights on in the car parked in the driveway.

  Anything other than them…

  Deb was trembling so badly she couldn’t get her legs on.

  “Mal… help me…”

  But for Mal to help, he had to drop the 9mm—he only had one hand. And he didn’t think he’d be able to let go of it, even if he tried.

  “Mal…”

&
nbsp; “Deb, I…”

  Then the phone rang.

  Deb screamed at the sound, and Mal felt his bladder clench. He looked at the gun, clutched in his trembling fist.

  If it is them, I know what to do.

  Deb first. One in the temple while she’s looking away.

  Then me.

  Because there is no way in hell they’re taking us back there.

  Grand Haven, Michigan

  Sara

  Something awoke Sara Randhurst from deep, intoxicated sleep.

  She peeked an eye open, confused, her bleary eyes focusing on the clock radio next to the bed.

  3:15am.

  Without thinking, she grabbed the glass next to it, raising her head and gulping down the melted ice, savoring the faint flavor of Southern Comfort.

  Okay. Focus, Sara. Why am I awake?

  She had no idea. In fact, she had no memory of how she’d gotten into bed. The very last thing she remembered was…

  Was what?

  FedEx. The damned letter from the bank. Then opening up the bottle and crawling inside.

  She snorted.

  Sure. Blame the bank. As if I need another excuse to drink.

  A banging sound startled Sara, making her yelp.

  The door.

  Who could be at the door?

  She thought, fleetingly, about the letter. Could they be kicking her out now? In the middle of the night? Weren’t there laws against that?

  Sara immediately dismissed the idea. Tipsy as she still was, she knew banks didn’t foreclose at three in the morning.

  That left… who?

  Sara had no family that would be visiting. The only people who still cared about her, Tyrone and Cindy, had moved to LA years ago. The last contact she’d had with them had been a Christmas card this past year. Or maybe the year before. The holidays all blended together.

  Another knock. Loud and urgent.

  Sara flipped on the bedroom light. Her eyes were automatically drawn to Jack’s empty crib in the corner of the bedroom, a blanket draped over the top because she couldn’t bear to look at it. At the same time couldn’t bear to throw it away. The blanket looked like a shroud.

  Then she searched around for the bottle of SoCo, hoping she’d brought it into the bedroom with her. Sara found it, on the floor.

  Empty.

  Shit. That was the last one.

  One more bang on the door. The big bad wolf, trying to blow the house down. Or in this case, the trailer.