Basilisk by Graham Masterton

Author:Graham Masterton
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Publisher: Severn House Digital
Published: 2009-04-30T22:00:00+00:00

THIRTEEN

Inferno

He had hardly spoken when they heard a sharp fusillade of splintering cracks, just above their heads, and they were showered in fragments of glass. They stepped back, and looked up, and Nathan could see that all of the windows along the second-story corridor had burst open. Only a few seconds later, six or seven windows on the right-hand side of the rest home exploded, and pieces of white-painted sash scattered on to the driveway. Smoke began to pour out of the windows, filled with sparks and cinders and pieces of blazing drapes.

Nathan took out his cell and pressed 911. ‘Fire department! There’s a really serious fire at the Murdstone Rest Home, in Millbourne! And we’re going to need the EMS, too. There are elderly people here, at least thirty of them!’

‘Just look at this sucker,’ said Richard. More windows exploded on the third floor, and then the fourth, and woolly gray smoke was already piling out of the building’s seven chimneys and up into the morning-blue sky. The Murdstone Rest Home looked like the Hindenburg going down.

‘Richard!’ Nathan shouted, as yet another row of windows burst open, one after the other, and flames began to wave out of them, like orange banners. ‘I’m going in there!’

‘What?’

‘I’m going in there! Doctor Zauber could still be inside!’

‘You’re crazy! The whole place is full of smoke!’

‘But he’s the only one who knows how to get Grace out of her coma!’

‘I don’t know that for sure! Jesus – you probably know more about basilisks than he does!’

‘Well, that’s a risk I’ll have to take.’

He opened the back door. Inside, the corridor was hazy with smoke, but it wasn’t too thick yet. He lifted one of the monk-like coats off its coat hook, and struggled into it. There was a plaid scarf tucked in the pocket, which he pulled out and tied around the lower part of his face.

Richard caught at his sleeve. ‘You can’t go in there, Professor! It’s too dangerous!’

‘I don’t think I have any choice, do you?’

‘But who’s going to breed those Cee-Zees, if you don’t?’

‘Is that all you care about? Goddamn it, Richard, you’re even more obsessed than I am!’

He tugged himself free, and set off along the corridor. Behind him, silhouetted against the smoky sunlight, Richard called out, ‘I’m sorry! I’m really, truly sorry!’

He opened the staffroom door. There was nobody in there, although the TV was still on, playing a Spongebob Squarepants cartoon. He went further along the corridor, opening every door that he came to. A closet, filled with blankets and laundry. An empty bedroom with a bare bed in it, and no drapes at the windows. A staff toilet, with the seat up.

The smoke began to grow thicker and more eye-watering, and Nathan started to cough. All the same, he pulled down the scarf for a moment, and shouted out, ‘Zauber! Doctor Zauber! Are you in here anyplace?’

There was no answer, only the crackling of the fire in the upper stories, and the twang-snap! of windows breaking in the heat.

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