Walkers: chilling horror from a true master by Graham Masterton

Author:Graham Masterton
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781786695574
Publisher: Head of Zeus
Published: 2017-05-18T07:00:00+00:00

8

A dishrag dawn was smearing the sky by the time he reached Karen’s house and parked. He climbed out of the station wagon and stretched his back. He felt as if he had been bruised and pummeled all over.

He leaned over the hood and inspected it carefully, just to make sure that he had left no telltale streaks of blood. He had managed to scoop most of Essie’s remains into the bushes, where he hoped that they would be eaten by worms and wild animals. The rain had washed the rest of the car clean.

He was worried now that the police might be looking for him. Father Bell would have been reported missing from his senior citizens’ home in Green Bay, and Olive Estergomy would certainly be missed from her house at Sun Prairie. In both cases, the last person who would have been seen with them was him.

He rang the doorbell four times before Karen came to the door. She was wearing a black baby-doll nightdress and her hair was done up in curlers. It was stale and gloomy in the living room. On the artist’s-palette-shaped contemporary coffee table, next to the capo di monte statue of a weeping child, there was a bottle of Smirnoff vodka, nine-tenths empty, and a single lipstick-smeared glass.

Karen put her arms around his neck and kissed him. Her breath smelled of stale alcohol. “I’ve been worrying myself sick,” she told him.

He peeled off his coat and sat down on the white vinyl settee. “I don’t know what the hell to do next,” he said. “It’s been nothing but sheer bloody murder.”

“I’ll make some coffee,” she suggested. “Come on, tell me about it. What are friends for?”

He told her what had happened, trying not to sound hysterical, trying to sound sane and collected and reasonable, trying not to leave anything out. She sat beside him with her hand on top of his. Her crimson nail polish was chipped. She said, “Uh-huh, uh-huh,” and “Uh-huh?” but she didn’t interrupt him or ask any questions, and he wasn’t sure that she believed him.

“Well, you sure don’t want to tell the police now,” she said once he had finished. “That would be—you know—like suicide. Cutting your own throat.”

“I don’t know what else to do.”

“Jack, honey, all you have to worry about is getting Randy back.”

“But, Karen, they’re going to kill thousands of people—literally thousands—that’s if they haven’t started already.”

“Jack—it’s not your fault. You’ve done what you can.” But Jack shook his head. “It’s my goddamned fault, all right. It’s my fault that Joseph Lovelittle died and it’s my fault that Father Bell died and it’s my fault that Olive Estergomy died. Karen—it’s my fault! They wouldn’t have gone anywhere near that building if it hadn’t been for me.”

“But why did you go near it? Because Quintus Miller wanted you to. I mean whatever this little white girl is, she must be something he can control, you know like thought control.”

“That doesn’t make me any the less responsible.”

“Well, maybe it does and maybe it doesn’t.

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