Charnel House by Graham Masterton

Author:Graham Masterton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
Published: 2016-03-29T04:00:00+00:00

FIVE

I was hardly conscious. A chunk of door jamb had struck me on the left side of the head, and my legs had given way beneath me. I was lying against the side of the corridor, shrouded in tattered carpet, and it seemed that the whole world was coming down around me. The hot hurricane howled and shrieked, and pieces of debris tumbled and flew down the corridor. Over it all, as Coyote approached us, I heard a noise like someone screaming down an endless echoing pipe; a hopeless dreary screaming that frightened me more than almost anything else.

Screwing up my eyes against the scorching wind, I tried to look up. I could see George Thousand Names sprawled against the opposite wall, and Lieutenant Stroud huddled beside him. Jim was further away, his hands clutched over his gingery hair, but I couldn’t see Dr. Weston at all.

Then the very air itself seemed to darken, and out of the darkness came something that wasn’t much to do with Bryan Corder and Dan Machin anymore. It was a spectral manifestation, a ghost made of eerie density and contorted flesh. It had a kind of negative glow to it, the glow of deep shadows or gloomy rooms, and it glided darkly down the corridor, the skull with its hideous grin, and behind it a rippling and loathsome cloak of half-substantial flesh. The screaming grew drearier and louder as Coyote went by, but there was yet another sound that accompanied his passing. It was the flap of dead skin, like flacid tarpaulin on a deserted warehouse roof. It was almost more than I could bear.

The noise and the wind seemed to drone on forever, but suddenly I raised my head again and I became aware that Coyote had passed us by without harming us. I looked up a little more and turned around to check behind me, and the demon had vanished.

George Thousand Names whispered dryly, “I think it’s all right now, at least for a while. He’s gone to search for his blood.”

“How do you know that?” asked Lieutenant Stroud.

“Because he would have killed us otherwise, and taken great pleasure in raping Dr. Weston. He needs his blood to stay alive, and if he doesn’t get it in one moon’s rising and descending, he’ll be banished back to the underworld.”

Lieutenant Stroud, clutching his back, stood up against the wall. “Well, that’s the first piece of good news I’ve heard all day. All we have to do is keep Coyote away from innocent bystanders for twenty-four hours, and that’s the end of that.”

George Thousand Names brushed off his windbreaker. “I’m afraid not, Lieutenant. Whatever you do, Coyote will make sure that he finds his blood.”

“What about his face?” I said. “His face was on the doorknocker.”

“He’ll go searching for that too.”

“But I just sent Jane off to get that.”

George Thousand Names stared at me, and his face was totally grave. “You sent Jane to go get the doorknocker? You mean that?”

I felt panicky. “Well,

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