Others by James Herbert Read Free Book Online

shuddered.
    ‘All right, I’m coming up,’ I called out reluctantly, wanting to give whoever or whatever the chance to make a getaway. I didn’t want trouble - my fee didn’t warrant it.
    I began to climb, the damp stair-carpet spongy beneath my feet. Mildew had already begun to set in and the smell was unpleasant. Come on, make a break for it, I said to myself, a voiceless plea to the intruder above, and the dusty stair-rail was shaky under my grip (in their rage, the vengeful builder and his tribe had obviously tried to loosen it).
    Half-way up and the noise came again, only this time even louder, almost like the sharp report of a pistol being discharged. It brought me to a halt.
    Dust motes swirled in the beam of light from the torch as I aimed it at the landing ahead. Did I really want this? Did I need it? Much better to retrace ray steps and leave the house entirely. Inform the police of the break-in and let them get on with it. like I said, I wasn’t paid enough to put myself in danger. Unfortunately, if nothing else, I’m a pro. Part of my contract with the Halifax was to make the building secure, so it was my responsibility to keep the place free of intruders. Although right then I tried to resist the idea, I knew I had a duty towards my client. God damn it, why hadn’t I gone straight home from the office?
    The thought suddenly occurred to me that perhaps the debtor himself had returned to reclaim something he’d forgotten during his moonlight flit. I prayed that was not the case. He’d already unleashed his wrath on the building itself and I didn’t want what was left over taken out on me. The graffiti had been enough to deal with.
    Then I thought, what the fuck, and headed on upwards again, working up a steam of anger as I went. Yes, I hoped it was the bastard builder and I hoped his sicko son was with him, because I had something to tell him about his particular artistic gift, a whole lot to say about his mean-minded, bigoted, self-fucking-expression in gloss paint. I stamped the stairs, squelching liquid from the carpet with my heavy footfalls, and pulled at the fragile banister rail, causing it to rock to and fro.
    Where are you? I called out in my mind only. Don’t mess with me, I warned, still in my mind. Don’t be fooled by my appearance, I can handle myself all right. Ah, the power - the self-deception! - of anger.
    I rounded the bend in the stairs, reached the landing, looked this way and that, craning the whole of my upper body in that awkward movement of mine.
    ‘Come on you bastards!’ I shouted aloud this time, invigorated (or fooled) by my own temper. ‘You want trouble, you’ve got it!’ All bravado, of course, but it had carried me through before under similar circumstances; a bit of bluster could sometimes save you a whole lot of hassle.
    But the landing was empty. The evening sun shone through the grimy window at the far end, reflecting off the wall over the stairs with its word-graffiti, the Neanderthals’ imagination obviously having run out of ideas for illustrations by the time they’d reached the upper level. Even so, the scrawled letters were equally obscene.
    There were three open doorways along the landing, one behind me, the other two on my left. The cracking sound exploded again and I almost hopped into the air.
    It had been even louder than before and seemed to come from the middle room. I stayed a moment or two, trying to analyse the sound. It was brittle, acute, a sound that cleaved the still, damp air, now more like the crack of a whip than a pistol shot. I made for the open doorway.
    And stopped at its entrance, shocked rigid by what I saw across the darkened room.
    Then, as the large cracked mirror on the wall opposite fragmented into a thousand more pieces, I stumbled backwards, terrified and aghast by what I’d seen in its fractured reflection, the hideous images, the grotesques mouthing silent screams, curious oddities whose malformed limbs seemed to claw at