House of Bones by Graham Masterton Read Free Book Online

it quietly, but it suddenly popped open with a sharp bang, and the door juddered in its frame. He took three deep breaths, and then he opened the door wide and looked inside.
    A damp roll of bathroom carpet lay at the bottom of the shower-tray, covered in greyish mould.
    John almost laughed in relief. But as he stepped back, he thought he glimpsed something in the mirror over the washbasin. A quick, furtive shadow – as if somebody had just been standing close behind him but had now darted out of the room.
    He went back out into the corridor, and looked left and right, but there was nobody there. He called out, “Lucy? Are you OK?” but there was no reply.
    He walked along to the next door and opened it. The room was gloomy, and smelled of mothballs. John was reluctant to go inside, and stayed in the corridor with his hand on the doorknob. “Hello? Mr Rogers? Is there anybody there?”
    No answer. Which was hardly surprising, if he were tied up and gagged – or worse, if he were dead. John waited for a moment and then opened the door a little wider. “Hello? Mr Rogers?”
    Still no answer. He cautiously stepped into the room and looked around. It was a bedroom – obviously not the master bedroom, but large enough for two single beds. The yellowish chintz curtains were drawn tight, so that the room was illuminated only by a thin, sickly light.
    On one side of the room stood a huge walnut-veneered wardrobe. The veneer had been cut so that the grain formed strange wolfish faces, with knots for eyes. Even the roses on the curtains looked as if they were misshapen dwarves. Between the two beds hung a large damp-spotted etching showing a line of monks shuffling towards a ruined abbey, their faces completely concealed by their hoods.
    John was about to leave the room when he saw that one of the beds had been made up completelyflat, with nothing but a blanket and a single pillow on it, while the other bed was humped up, as if somebody were lying in it, sleeping.
    It must be a bolster, he thought. Or maybe just a heap of bedding. But he knew that he would have to go and make sure. There was no point in looking for Mr Rogers if he didn’t look everywhere.
    He stood beside the bed and looked at the hump beneath the blankets. It didn’t seem to be moving, so whatever it was, it wasn’t asleep. He leaned closer and held his breath, in case he could hear it breathing, but there was nothing. Only the faint sound of the traffic, and Lucy, closing a bedroom door on the opposite side of the house.
    He took hold of the top edge of the blanket and drew it a little way back. A bird suddenly landed on the gutter outside the bedroom window and he dropped the blanket in fright. But then he picked it up again, and slowly tugged it aside. Underneath, there was a shape swathed in linen sheets.
    Please don’t let it be a body
, he prayed.
Whatever it is, please don’t let it be a body
.
    He started to unwind the sheets. Whatever was wrapped up inside them was very heavy – almost
too
heavy for a body. Yet he thought he could feel shoulders, and arms – and as he pulled back the top of the sheet he revealed something that made him feel as if cold centipedes were crawling down his back.
    It was a face. An utterly white face. Its eyes were open and it was staring at him. It looked like a man in his thirties, quite handsome in a thin, unusual way, but with a sheen on his skin that wasn’t at all natural, and an expression of terrible calmness that frightened John more than anything he had ever seen in his life.
    He tried to say, “Lucy,” but his mouth didn’t seem to work.
    The man continued to stare at him and said nothing. Was he alive? Was he dead? John didn’t want to touch him but he didn’t want to leave him, either. Supposing he jumped up from the bed and came running after him?
    John leaned forward and whispered, “Are you—?” but even as he leaned