Nest

by Terry Goodkind

  Copyright © 2016 by Terry Goodkind

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Skyhorse Publishing, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

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  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

  Cover design by Brian Peterson

  Print ISBN: 978-1-5107-2287-3

  Ebook ISBN: 978-1-5107-2288-0

  Printed in the United States of the America

  To Jeri, the love of my life, for her unwavering support and for waiting so patiently for this very special book to finally be brought to life.

  CHAPTER

  ONE

  For the past three weeks, John Allen Bishop had been keeping the devil chained in the basement. What, exactly, the devil had been doing in Chicago John didn’t know and the devil wasn’t saying. What John did know was that over the past several days the situation had been getting increasingly worrisome.

  At first, the threats yelled up from the basement had been the most vile things imaginable—things that John would have expected to hear from the devil. But in the last few days something had changed. In those long, hushed moments as the sun went down and the world went still, John had found himself shuffling closer to the basement door, carefully leaning in, stretching his neck to put his ear close to the narrow crack in the door that led to the darkness down below.

  That was when he had first heard the whispers.

  Since the floor squeaked, the devil knew whenever John was in the kitchen, near the top of the stairs. When John put his ear close to the crack in the door, the devil always greeted him by name. Sometimes the devil chuckled softly to himself. The whispered promises never failed to make John’s mouth go dry.

  But now the menace in the basement had inexplicably fallen silent. The silence worried him more than the whispers had.

  He paced from the refrigerator to the sink and back, debating what to do. He didn’t relish the thought of going down there again. The chain was strong enough, he was sure of that, and he knew how far it could reach. He knew to the inch. Still, he didn’t want to go down there any sooner than he had to.

  As he paced, the fluorescent light hummed above a sink full of disorderly stacks of dirty dishes. A clump of crusted forks waiting to be washed stuck up from a cracked green plastic tumbler. Ordinarily, John prided himself on being tidy, but with the dire turn of events he certainly didn’t think he could be blamed for ignoring the dishes.

  The dishes would just have to wait; the devil was more important.

  John turned away from the mess in the sink and paced back toward the refrigerator, following the same track he’d been walking for the past hour as regret kept building, bringing on the familiar weight of indecision. He didn’t know how he had ever gotten such a crazy idea in the first place.

  He hadn’t thought it through. He realized that now. He should have thought it through. People always told him to think things through.

  But what else could he have done? It had been so unexpected. He had to do something. The devil knew things—too many things.

  It had seemed simple at first. Chain up the devil; the world would be safe.

  Kate would be safe.

  It was turning out to be not so simple.

  John told himself that he should go down and bash in the devil’s head. He knew he should. There were tools in the basement—beyond the reach of the chain, of course. There was a sledgehammer that could do the ghastly job.

  But John didn’t have that much courage. He should have done it in the beginning, when the devil had been unconscious, but he hadn’t had the courage then, either. Even as he tried to summon the courage to do what needed doing, he knew that his chance had passed.

  John wondered if he should call Detective Janek. From time to time she would come to see him, to show him the pictures. She was nice. He liked helping her.

  He glanced over at the phone on the wall in the hallway. Detective Janek’s card was sitting on the top of the phone, leaning against the wall. She had left it there one day when she’d told him that he could call her anytime, day or night.

  He wondered if maybe he should do that now.

  John didn’t like to use the phone, though. He didn’t like to call people. He got confused on the phone.

  He feared that this was different from the times she’d come to see him. He feared that this time she might not believe him.

  He might even get into trouble.

  Fear and doubt welled up. What if he lost his job?

  His sister had helped him get his job. She’d told him that he could do it, told him to do his best. It was the first job that he’d ever had. He liked his job of fitting the colorful plastic pieces together, but mostly he liked that it made him independent. Having his job meant he could pay the bills and take care of himself.

  Kate helped him when he got confused, but he could do most things on his own. She said that she was proud of him, of how well he was doing.

  He liked being on his own. He didn’t want to lose his job. He didn’t want Kate to be disappointed in him.

  John didn’t ever tell his sister about Detective Janek. He didn’t want her to be afraid. It was the only way he could protect her.

  He knew that it was wrong to chain people in the basement, of course, but this wasn’t a regular person. This was the devil.

  Still, he feared that even Detective Janek might not believe him.

  He suddenly wondered if he might even be put in jail.

  John wiped his sweaty palms on his pant legs. He swallowed in terror at what might happen to him if he was arrested. The very thought of going to jail and having to look into the eyes of all those men nearly made his knees give out.

  His attention was snatched by his own shadow falling across the refrigerator. He drew his collar tight at his throat and told himself that he had things under control. He just had to keep them that way, that was all.

  It was getting late and he knew that he needed to get down there. He didn’t like taking food down to the basement, but John just didn’t have it in him to kill, either by a quick blow or by slow starvation. He couldn’t stand it when people hurt, even if the hurt was hunger.

  Distantly, through the tumbling fragments of thoughts pulling him this way and that, it seemed that there was something not right about the refrigerator. Something different.

  In the dim light he surveyed the newspaper clippings that he had carefully cut out and taped to the door. They were all still there. John hated the stark look of the white refrigerator, so he frequently taped items that interested him on the blank door, after he had carefully folded over the pointed corners. He didn’t like sharp points.

  He changed the clippings often, whenever something new caught his eye. It didn’t have to be anything especially meaningful. Pictures of animals, headlines about holidays, or sometimes even just a single word that was pleasing—anything to cover the nakedness of the refrigerator.

  There were photos as well, their corners also carefully bent over, stuck on the refrigerator door with word magnets. He smiled back at his siste
r smiling out at him from a sunny beach, from behind the wheel of her first car, from the couch in his living room.

  He scanned the newspaper headlines about parades and holidays and sunny forecasts, looking for something new, something that might have changed. Some word. Some sign.

  Then, he spotted what wasn’t right.

  There were dozens of little magnets attached to the door. They’d been a birthday gift from his sister. Each magnet was a white word on a black background. He liked to arrange the words so that they rhymed, or so that they said something cheerful. The words stuck to the white metal door always seemed welcoming, offering a friendly greeting when he came home and went to get himself something to eat—or, like now, when he went to get the devil something to eat.

  The last message he’d made from arranging the magnets was still there: A CASTLE KEEPS YOU SAFE.

  He’d made the saying with the magnets some time ago, after he had heard that a man’s home was his castle. Except for going to work and the store, John didn’t like going out. He liked to be inside. Safe. Home was safe. Home was his castle.

  Chaining up the devil was the most daring thing John had ever done in his whole life.

  But now the little magnets that he had so carefully arranged into A CASTLE KEEPS YOU SAFE were no longer in a line by themselves the way they had been.

  All the spare words that had been pushed off to the right side were now arranged into a circle, leaving a cleared, round, white patch near the refrigerator door’s handle. A CASTLE KEEPS YOU SAFE sat in the middle of that circle.

  But now there were new words arranged in a neat line below, as if in answer.

  The new words said NOT ANY MORE.

  CHAPTER

  TWO

  John leaned closer and peered at the new words.

  NOT ANY MORE.

  He hadn’t put those words there.

  He glanced over at the basement door. It was a thick, six-panel pine door. Here and there, faded blue peeked through the peeling cream-colored paint. John remembered happy times playing on the floor in the kitchen when that door had been all blue.

  The door was open a little, at the top corner, because it was warped and wouldn’t close properly.

  The door had a lock, but John didn’t have a key for it. It was one of those old-fashioned keyholes, like he’d seen in cartoons and the movies. When he had been little, John used to peer through the keyhole and pretend that he was a spy watching for danger. Now, he knew what sort of danger waited on the other side of that door.

  Through the slit of the partially open door he could see inky blackness. The devil down below in that darkness was silent. Not even a whisper came up from the basement. John wondered if that was a good thing or not. He stood still as stone, leaning in, listening.

  John reconsidered calling the police. He glanced again at the card that Detective Janek had set on the top of his wall phone, after she had carefully folded over the corners so the points wouldn’t scare him.

  She had always been nice to him, always believed him, but he wondered if she would believe him this time. If Detective Janek went down in the basement and saw him, if she just looked into his eyes, wouldn’t she know?

  John had looked into the devil’s eyes. John knew.

  As he stood motionless, watching the sliver of blackness from below, he realized that his castle wasn’t as safe as he had thought it was.

  That was what the words on the refrigerator meant. This place wasn’t safe anymore. Not since the devil had come into it.

  John stole another glance at the aqua-colored phone hanging on the floral-papered wall at the side of the stairwell leading upstairs, just around the corner from the basement door. Maybe he should call Detective Janek. The police would want to know that the devil was in Chicago.

  Or maybe he should call his sister.

  The devil knew her name. She ought to know that—that the devil knew her name.

  He should call Kate and tell her. He wanted her to be safe.

  If he called her she might know what to do. The police might not listen to him, might not believe him, but Kate would believe him this time. She had to.

  All at once, the solution seemed clear. He would call his sister and tell her everything, tell her what had happened, tell her that the devil knew her name, too, just like he’d known John’s name. She would know what to do.

  Springing into action, John hastily pulled all the pictures of his sister off the refrigerator door. The magnets holding them rained down, clattering on the floor. Rather than slow to pick up the magnets, he started stuffing the photos in the front pocket of his work pants. He was worried that the devil might look at Kate’s pictures. He didn’t think it would be a good idea to let the devil get a look at his sister.

  John didn’t want evil looking at her.

  Once the photos were all tucked safely into his pocket, he hurried into the hallway to call her.

  Just as he reached for the receiver, the phone rang.

  His heart pounding out of control, John snatched up the handpiece and put it to his ear, listening. He feared that it might be the devil calling him from the basement.

  “Hi, Johnny. It’s me.”

  John felt a wave of giddy relief wash through him at hearing his sister’s familiar, cheerful voice. He clutched the tangled cord with his other hand as he sagged against the wall.

  “Hi, Kate,” he said in an expectant pant.

  He glanced toward the slit of darkness under the basement door.

  “I’m back from my trip a day early and the driver is about to drop me at home.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “What’s the matter? You sound winded. Did you just run up the front steps?”

  John needed to tell her about the devil. Kate would know what to do. She was smart. His sister always knew what to do. She always helped him. He missed her. Right at that moment he missed her more than anything in the world. He cupped the phone close with both hands so that the devil couldn’t hear.

  “Uh … no.”

  “Hey, listen,” she said, not pressing. She was the only one who didn’t get impatient and press him. “I got a call from a lawyer.”

  John blinked. “A lawyer?”

  “Yeah. Remember Mom’s half brother who lived out west—Everett—remember him?”

  John wasn’t sure he did. With all the things racing through his mind as he stared at the basement door, it was hard to think.

  “Uh …”

  She breathed a lighthearted laugh. “Me neither, really. We went there, once—to his trailer out in that little town in the desert. He wasn’t the friendliest guy. You were little at the time. I wouldn’t expect you to remember him. I hardly remember him myself. Anyway, I’m afraid he died.”

  John turned his eyes from the dark slit. “Died?”

  “Yeah. The lawyer said it was about three weeks ago—”

  “Three weeks?”

  “Yeah, three, well, almost four weeks ago.”

  John wiped a tear from his cheek as he listened to her breathing for a moment before she went on.

  “I know how it bothers you when people die, John, but he was really old. Don’t be too sad. He never left that place of his and I bet it was because he loved it just like you love your house. I bet he had a good life there, a good long life.”

  “What did he die of?”

  There was a long moment of silence before she said, “He was old, John.”

  She didn’t want to tell him. He knew that sometimes Kate didn’t want to tell him things, so she would say something simple.

  “Anyway, the lawyer said that we’re the only relatives and Everett left his place to us. He doesn’t think the estate is worth a great deal but it belongs to you and me, now. I’m going to have to go out there and handle it. I guess I’ll have to see about selling the place or something.”

  John glanced back at the basement door. He needed to tell her before anything else happened. He swallowed as he gathered his courage, determin
ed to tell her the whole story from the beginning.

  “I went to the cemetery,” he blurted out.

  “You did?” She paused, seeming surprised. “Alone?”

  John nodded and all of a sudden started talking faster, trying to get it out all at once. “I went to the store and bought flowers and then put them on Mom and Pop’s grave, by the headstones—like you showed me—in the vase the way the cemetery people like it done. I put your name on the card, too.”

  “That’s so sweet.” Her voice had turned soft. “Thanks. I bet Mom and Pop liked the flowers.” She cleared her throat. “When did you go to the cemetery?”

  He’d never gone there alone before. John wiped the back of his hand across his nose, trying not to cry. “Three weeks ago.” He felt another tear run down his cheek. He had to tell her. She would know what to do. “I—I—I was there, and someone was watching me—and then when I got home I—”

  The basement light snapped on.

  John froze.

  He stood motionless, staring wide-eyed at the slit of light stabbing up from below the door.

  “John, it was probably just someone else putting flowers on a grave,” his sister said in his ear.

  He couldn’t make himself talk. In his head, he was screaming Tell her, hurry, tell her, but he couldn’t make the words come out. His voice wouldn’t work. He was afraid to make a sound.

  And then something else came up from beyond the doorway—a low voice speaking his name. His whole name, the way people used to do when he was little and he’d gotten himself into trouble.

  “John Allen Bishop.”

  He watched the shafts of light from below shifting lighter, darker, and lighter again.

  “John?” Kate asked. “Is there someone there in the house with you?”

  He desperately wanted Kate’s help. But what if the devil could get to her through the phone? He didn’t want danger coming near his sister.

  The hiss of a voice from below called his name again—but just the first part—then again, coming closer, moving up the stairs. The door creaked as it started to open.

  “John? What’s that sound? Do you have company? John?”