The Playroom: A Horror Novel by Wallace Henry

Author:Wallace Henry [Henry, Wallace]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-09-26T00:00:00+00:00

17

JASON

If Jason thought really hard about it, he could divide his life into two distinct halves: before he glanced into the trunk, and after.

At the time, he didn’t realize he was on the precipice of the rest of his life, but there he was.

And the old man seemed to be fully aware of this fact, too, because when he next spoke, his voice was filled with an odd and perverse tone.

“Let’s have a look, shall we?” he said.

He was like a carnival barker with a trick up his sleeve. A coy game show host waiting for the right moment to ask the toughest question.

But Jason knew he was neither of those things. He knew what the old man was, even if he wouldn’t say it aloud.

The old man—he was a killer.

Jason didn’t know how he knew that, nor did he know what to do with it, but he was aware of something, some kind of force bearing down on him.

It wasn’t until he got the urge to peek up at the old man that he realized the strange, hideous monster was glaring down at him.

Surveying him.

Relishing him.

Waiting for the right moment to strike.

Jason didn’t want to look up, to peer into this thing’s eyes. (He no longer considered him to be a man.)

But he thought maybe it was the only way to break the spell, the only way to turn and run and never look back.

And so he did.

He looked up.

And froze.

What he saw was not a decrepit old man at all, but a woman. Or at least he thought it was a woman. There was an obvious deformity about her—or at least the face the old man was putting on, like a mask—and it was the stuff of nightmares.

Specifically, it was her mouth. Or, rather, her jaw.

Her jaw hung incongruously down from her face—like a loose door knocker—and she was bloodied and bruised on each and every square inch of her face.

It was horrifying.

And it was all an illusion. When the sun passed overhead, and the sun flare which had temporarily blinded him passed, he once again saw the old man, who was smiling contentedly down at him.

“Okay,” he said, tilting his head toward the trunk. “And a here. We. Go!”

The old man popped the trunk.

Irony was, it broke the spell, and Jason—once he realized he was seeing what he thought he was seeing—tried to back up, to run away.

But he couldn’t.

He ran smack dab into the old man, and there wasn’t much of a thing he could do.

Except look.

And that’s precisely what he did.

The girl was the color of new porcelain against the backdrop of the fabric in the trunk.

That she wasn’t moving didn’t immediately tell him she was dead. (He only knew of death in the most vaguely metaphorical terms.)

No, she still looked very much alive, as if she had been encased in some rarefied air to preserve her gentleness.

And the thump. He’d heard her, after all, and he hoped against hope she would pop up and flee the scene.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.