It had been Stephen, the bastard, Stephen who had ruined what she and Rosa had shared. Stephen with his big gut and his unimaginative ideas about sex. Stephen demanding that he be present whenever Rosa and Christina were in a room together.
Stephen who ultimately murdered Rosa.
Christina jammed her palms against her eyes, as if the pressure there could eradicate the memory of that horrible night from her mind.
Stephen, Christina and Rosa in the master suite.
Stephen first watching with his greedy leer as Rosa went down on Christina.
Stephen fondling his short, thick member as Christina zoomed toward climax.
Stephen interrupting Christina’s orgasm by shouting at Rosa, ordering the little woman to bend over before him.
Stephen tupping Rosa from behind in the corner of the room, just feet from the casement windows, which were open to let in the sea breeze.
Stephen’s big body pushing Rosa closer and closer to the window.
Rosa spinning around, struggling to loose herself from Stephen’s grasp.
Stephen plunging into Rosa, shoving her into the open windowsill.
Stephen choking Rosa, his enormous belly pounding her farther and farther over the edge of the sill.
Christina’s only child Chris, fourteen years old at the time, stumbling into the room to discover the murder in progress. Christina, under the influence of some horrible, unfeeling spell, telling Chris to go away. As if nothing at all abnormal were happening in the corner, where Rosa now dangled more than eighty feet off the ground and certain death.
Moments later, Stephen had let Rosa fall.
“No!” Christina screamed.
Clapped a hand over her mouth.
She opened her eyes and saw Elena scrambling off the bed, fumbling for the covers. Elena’s eyes were huge in the dimness of her room, her hunched form backlit by the moon. Christina stared at her through the peephole, terrified that Elena would discover her and realize how lecherous her employer was. Oh God, Christina thought. Elena would think her a disgusting old slut, pathetic and patently unlovable. She stared at Elena, afraid to move, afraid that any sound would betray her whereabouts.
Then the room began to darken. A mountainous shape materialized behind Elena, around Elena, and as Christina watched, transfixed, she discerned a set of broad, muscular shoulders, a pair of rippling arms. Elena stood trembling at the end of the bed, facing Christina and totally unaware of the figure behind her, which was rising, expanding, the thing monstrous, the wild stench it broadcast overpowering her even through the wall. The hair on her arms prickled, a scalding acid sizzling the back of her throat. Couldn’t Elena smell it? Couldn’t she hear the monster’s steam-engine breathing?
You have to warn her!
Christina gave a little start, realized it was true. She’d failed Rosa Martinez those many years ago and had never forgiven herself.
Now it’s time to make amends.
Yes, she thought, but how? If she alerted Elena to her presence, the beast would simply maul Elena on the spot, and Christina knew the medium would have no chance then.
No, Christina would have to confront the beast.
But before she took a step, she saw a black, hairy hand shoot up and clamp over Elena’s mouth. Elena’s eyes were horrorstruck. The beast reached down with its free hand, yanked one of Elena’s legs sideways.
The beast had white, pupilless eyes, which snapped up and fixed on Christina. The peephole was tiny, had been designed to blend into the wall so it would go undetected. But the beast was looking at her, was unmistakably leering at her, the white eyes triumphant.
Oh no, Christina thought. Please don’t. Please—
Whimpering, Christina pushed away from the peephole and shambled down the passage. Lurching into her room, she cast about for some weapon, something hard with which to batter the beast.
A scream punctured the walls, making Christina stand rigid, hands out, fingers tensed like claws.
Low, chortling laughter.
A wail of pain, the sound of something shattering on the floor.
In an agony of impotent terror, Christina snatched the first object she found off the dresser, what looked like a pewter box. The hard object was about the size and width of a fat paperback novel. She clutched it and crossed the room. On the way out she heard an awful clatter from next door. It sounded like Elena had broken away from the beast and was hurling objects at it, doing anything she could do prevent it from violating her further.
I’m coming, Christina thought. Hold on a moment longer, Elena. I’m coming.
Her sheer nightgown billowing behind her, Christina pelted the short distance to Elena’s door, hammered on it, the corners of the ornate pewter box leaving deep scars in the old wood. Christina paused, listening for the commotion, for Elena’s shrieks.
Silence.
She tested the knob. Locked.
Christina reared back with the box and rammed the door as hard as she could. She listened for voices, but all was silent.
Had the beast murdered Elena?
“Leave her alone!” Christina shouted. “Leave her the hell alone!”
From down the hall came the sound of opening doors, confused voices. She heard Peter Grant asking someone if everything was all right.
It’s not all right! Christina wanted to scream. The thing has Elena and it’s ripping her apart as we stand here doing nothing!
A man’s voice, Teddy Brooks’s she was pretty sure, called down the hall, “What’s happening, Christina?”
Christina couldn’t answer, could only beat on the stupid unyielding door with hands that were numb and starting to bleed. Where was Jorge? Where was Chad Wayne, the big freaking ox?
Grant and Teddy Brooks were moving swiftly down the corridor, and finally, blessedly, Jorge’s door swung open, Jorge looking dazed but rapidly emerging from his sleep fog to kick some ass. She didn’t know if there was still time to save Elena, and she highly doubted even Jorge would be a match for the monster behind this door, but at the very least he’d be able to—
The door swung away, Elena gaping up at her in a T-shirt and underwear.
“What is it?” Elena asked.
Christina stared down at her. No scratches, no bruises. No wounds of any kind. And how did she get dressed so quickly?
Christina grasped her arm, jerked her into the hallway. Ignoring Elena’s protests, Christina shouted, “Jorge, the thing is in here. You’ll need your gun.”
“What thing?” Elena asked.
Christina stared at her, thin-lipped. “The thing that was…the creature that was making those terrible noises. The one that…”
Christina realized everyone was staring at her. Elena and Jorge looked incredulous. Teddy was eyeing her closely, but she couldn’t interpret what his look meant. Peter Grant merely seemed rumpled, his gunmetal colored hair pointing up at odd angles. Chad Wayne was nowhere to be found. Neither were the agents.
Jorge said, “Mrs. Blackwood, what did you hear?”
She cleared her throat, trying to cling to what dignity she might still retain. “I thought I heard voices from your room, Elena, but…”
No one answered. They only continued studying her like she was some unclassifiable and bizarre species of insect recently discovered by science.
“I suggest we all return to our rooms,” she said. “I…I must have had a nightmare.”
Elena’s bemused expression softened. She reached out, touched Christina’s forearm. “Would you like me to stay with you?”
The skin of Christina’s temples tightened. She heard herself saying, as if from a great height, “That won’t be necessary, Elena. I’m perfectly capable of putting myself to bed.”
Without another word she turned and set off down the hall. She refused to make eye contact with anyone until she
was safely inside her room. When she had made her successful retreat, she locked herself in and slumped against the door.
Great job, she told herself. If they didn’t think you a spoiled, eccentric spinster before, they certainly do now.
With an enervated sigh, she pushed away from the door and had almost reached her bed when something caught her eye.
Her throat as instantly dry as midsummer chaff, she beheld the secret door. The door she had left open.
The door that was now closed.
It swung shut on its own, she thought.
But she knew it didn’t work like that.
Maybe a draft…?
That was stupid too. There was no wind within the passageway because it bordered the interior wall. The only way for it to close was for someone—or something—to push it shut.
Nervelessly, Christina sank back on the bed. She closed her eyes and remembered the beast rising up behind Elena. Remembered the beast leering at her as it prepared to defile Elena.
Like it was telling Christina, This will be you soon. Only it will be much, much worse.
She shook her head to rid her mind of the image, but try as she might, she could not escape those leering alabaster eyes.
Or the sound of the beast’s low, inhuman laughter.
Peter Grant tossed down the bedclothes with an angry sigh. He knew from experience he wouldn’t be going to sleep again any time soon. The commotion Christina had caused minutes earlier forbade an ordinary heart rate, and neither of the usual remedies—reading dull books or ruminating on his next article—would prove equal to the task of putting him to sleep.
Because Christina had seen Gabriel.
Oh, Peter doubted it had been Gabriel in the flesh, the actual corporeal being who once inhabited this island and who might, in some form, still exist here. But Gabriel’s spirit, his essence was so potent that Peter believed he could inhabit dreams if he so chose. Perhaps Gabriel could do much more than that.
And now, he realized with a dawning sense of wonderment, was the ideal time for him to put into practice three decades’ worth of study. True, there had always been something of the ascetic in him. He fancied a rural life back in Victorian England would have suited him just fine. Give him his books and a warm hearth by which to read, and Peter would have been more than content.
But this…this was fieldwork!
The notion thrilled him. He’d always been an admirer of Indiana Jones and had often wondered if there might exist in him a rugged adventurer longing to break free of the strictures of academia.
What better time to find out than the present?
Springing out of bed, Peter selected his most adventurous outfit: a red button-down chambray shirt, well-worn blue jeans, scuffed hiking boots—which were scuffed not from hiking but from being stored in the bottom of his closet—and the piece de resistance, a leather Stetson hat.
Placing it atop his head and regarding his reflection in the bureau mirror, he fancied he did look a bit like Harrison Ford. He pulled the brim lower so his eyes were shadowed. Oh, what he wouldn’t give for a whip!
Heart jackhammering now from sheer exhilaration, Professor Peter Grant plucked his flashlight from the bureau, slipped out his door and stole nimbly down the corridor. There was a moon now, but earlier he had spied ominous thunderheads in the distance. Storms had been threatening back in California for several days now, and he suspected tonight the heavens would unleash their bottled fury.
All the more perfect!
The peal of thunder and the quicksilver of lightning would be the ideal accompaniments for a thorough study of Castle Blackwood. And though the list of spots he desired to examine was expansive, there was nowhere more tantalizing than the pit.
Verily floating down the spiral staircase, Peter imagined how it would feel to have his theories verified, the sheer, unmitigated vindication he would experience. He’d been working on the Blackwood case for so long…
Advancing through the gloom of the main floor, Peter neared the basement door.
Over the years there had been many at the university who had scoffed at his beliefs about Castle Blackwood. Some of these doubters had been discreet about their opinions of him, opting to whisper behind his back or spread slanderous tales about him when he wasn’t present to engage them in meaningful discourse. Others had been openly derisive about his obsession with the Sorrows, and though he’d held his own in his exchanges with these puerile opponents, he knew there were many who sided with them, naysayers who’d rather mock him than thoughtfully consider his ideas.
Yes, Peter thought as he stepped through the doorway, flicked on the basement light and closed the door behind him. Listening was a dying art. Much of the time Peter felt like a ninny in front of his classes. And though he’d procured tenure long ago, he knew that Rowena Garth, his shrew of a department head, did him no favors with his class schedule. Last year it had been English 201 and three sections of Basic Comp. This fall it was even more dire: two sections of English 101 and two classes on Pre-1750 American Literature. He wasn’t even permitted to teach Poe! And Rowena Garth had reveled in his misery. After their teaching assignments had been sent out and they’d run into each other outside Clay Hall, Peter had sensed a wicked glee in her voice as she’d explained to him that his expertise really was best utilized with freshmen who needed to get their English credits out of the way and that his encyclopedic knowledge of mythology, history and literature in general could be put to excellent use in his lessons on Pilgrim’s Progress and the sermons of Cotton Mather.
And she expected him to believe her.
The bitch.
Sighing, Peter tramped down the first long flight of stairs. He might have gone insane or developed a bona fide persecution complex if it hadn’t been for Melissa and Mark, his two loyal assistants. Soon they’d be moving onto greener academic pastures, but for the past three years they’d helped him weather the worst of Rowena’s iron-fisted tyranny, not to mention the alarming uptick in impertinent undergrads who, perhaps sensing his discomfort with the source material, had taken to challenging Peter’s authority like great white sharks circling a bleeding swimmer.
An exchange from the recently completed May term:
HANDSOME BROWN-HAIRED BOY WITH GLEAMING SMILE: Why do we have to write five hundred words?
PETER (good-humoredly): Well, when writing about John Bunyan, it hardly seems fair to limit you.
HANDSOME BOY (staring blankly): I thought five hundred was the minimum.
PETER (sobering, but still a good sport): It is. You’re free to treat that baseline loosely, but please do shoot for five hundred or more.
HANDSOME BOY: What about fifty?
PETER: Fifty words?
HANDSOME BOY: Sure. (Gleams a smile at the pretty girl next to him)
PETER: I’m afraid that’s a little low.
HANDSOME BOY: What if I’m just really good with words?
(Pretty girl snickers)
PETER: Be that as it may, I think to give the subject a fair treatment you need to—
HANDSOME BOY: What if we think the book sucks?
(Murmurs of assent)
PETER: I think we need to keep the piece in perspective. To the modern reader, Bunyan’s language might seem—
HANDSOME BOY: But that’s what we are. Modern readers. Is that, like, our fault or something?
PETER: I didn’t say—
HANDSOME BOY: It’s like you’re trying to convert us. I mean, not everyone is a Christian. Haven’t you ever heard of religious freedom?
PETER: Um…
Peter reached the yellow bulb, which flickered portentously in the broad, dank stairwell. The flashlight clutched a bit tighter, Peter continued down the stairs and shook his head as if the motion alone could scatter the memory of the handsome boy’s smarmy face and gleaming shark teeth. The boy—Peter
couldn’t remember his name straightaway—was yet another example of what Melissa would call a “hater”. Yes, the boy was a hater. And what did Melissa always say about haters?
Haters are going to hate.
A grim smile formed on his lips as Peter’s steps quickened on the descending stairs. Yes, haters were common in this world, but the good guys did sometimes win. They had to, or what was the point?
And this, Peter thought as he tromped deeper into the bowels of Castle Blackwood, would be one of those resplendent occasions when the haters would be disappointed. Because he, Professor Peter Allan Grant, would be proven correct. Not only about the history of this lonely isle, but about the nature of Gabriel Blackwood as well.
But first things first. He could now see the immense gray door leading into the pit. Just as he had imagined it! Even the sere gray surface bore the proper sinister aspect it always had in his imagination. Funny, Peter thought, drawing nearer, his heart hammering in his bony chest. How could a board sheltered down here from the elements appear weathered? No matter. It was merely the thing’s age showing. He hustled down the last flight of stairs and glided across the final landing. He feared for a moment the door might not work, but perhaps because the others had trodden this path earlier, the enormous door swung open easily, though its ancient iron hinges shrieked. The sound was delightful! And the pit…
Peter began to tremble with joy. The pit was precisely as he had envisioned. Peter’s middle name had been chosen by his English teacher father to honor Edgar Allan Poe. And as Peter now aimed his flashlight’s beam into the stygian darkness of the pit, he recalled many of his favorite Poe tales. “The Cask of Amontillado”. “The Pit and the Pendulum”.
“The Premature Burial”.
No, he thought. Not that one.
Stepping through the doorway and allowing the beam to knife through the tenebrous caul before him, Peter made out the stone walls, the grimy floor. And the smell, he thought, nose wrinkling. Yes, the smell in here was revolting. How had he not noticed it before? His eyes began to water as he inhaled the stench, which reminded him of both a petting zoo and a public restroom.
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