Petrified by Graham Masterton Read Free Book Online Page A

could hear crackling and smell smoke. The trees not only looked as if they were on fire, they were on fire. Flames were leaping up and down like hysterical dancers, and the bushes began to sparkle and shrivel up. The wind rose and blew even more strongly, and Braydon suddenly realized that if he didn’t move faster the fire was soon going to encircle him, and he wouldn’t be able to escape. Burned to death in a boneyard, that would be ironic.
    He jogged faster and faster, panting. He jogged past marble cenotaphs and polished granite slabs and statues of weeping angels. The trees were burning more and more fiercely, and now the grass itself was on fire, and the flames were rushing after him as if a fiery rip-tide were coming in.
    As he neared the cemetery gates, he saw that they were closed and locked, and that there was no way out. Black smoke was rolling across the cemetery in dense, choking clouds, and everything was blazing, even the statues of weeping angels, as if they were made of white wax instead of stone.
    Braydon turned around and around, frantically trying to work out how he was going to escape.
    It was then that he heard Sukie’s voice. ‘ Daddy ?’ she was calling. ‘ Daddy, where are you ?’
    â€˜I’m here, sweetheart!’ Braydon called out. ‘Daddy’s right here!’
    â€˜ I need you, Daddy ! Please, Daddy, come save me ! Please !’
    â€˜I’m coming, darling! Don’t be frightened! Daddy’s right here!’
    Braydon flailed his way through the thickening smoke, coughing and wheezing. He tripped over the low cast-iron fencing around somebody’s granite sepulcher, and stumbled through the flower vases in front of somebody else’s headstone. But then the smoke cleared a little and he saw Sukie standing on a white marble plinth, holding Binkie tightly in her arms.
    â€˜I’m here, sweetheart! I’m right here! Let’s get you out of this horrible place!’
    Sukie was wearing the same red sweater and the same OshKosh dungarees that she had been wearing when he had kidnapped her from Miranda’s parents’ house. Her dark hair was parted in the middle and braided into pigtails, with red ribbons tied in a bow. To Braydon’s bewilderment, though, her eyes were closed.
    â€˜ Daddy ! I need you, Daddy ! Please come save me !’
    â€˜I’m here! Open your eyes, sweetheart! I’m right here in front of you!’
    â€˜ Save me, Daddy ! Save me !’
    As he came nearer, Sukie opened her eyes. Braydon said, ‘Oh my God! Oh, sweet Jesus!’ Both of her eyes were completely blood red, and translucent, as if she were a vampire.
    Braydon had been ready to reach out and scoop her up, but now he hesitated. ‘What’s happened, Sukie? What’s happened to your eyes?’
    â€˜ Save me, Daddy ! Don’t let me burn !’
    â€˜I won’t, sweetheart. I promise.’ He coughed, and he coughed, and for a while he couldn’t stop himself from coughing, and he ended up by retching. ‘Here – let’s get the hell out of here, before it’s too late!’
    But it was already too late. Sukie’s cherubic, heart-shaped face was beginning to melt – as if she, too, were molded out of wax. Her cheeks slid slowly downward and her lips curled, and then her eyelids drooped like a very old woman.
    â€˜ It hurts, Daddy ! It hurts so much !’ she repeated, but her throat was constricted and her words were thick and sticky and Braydon could barely understand her. He stayed where he was, unable to move. His brain simply couldn’t work out what messages to send to his legs and his arms to make them work, and go to her, and pick her up.
    Sukie’s forehead collapsed, and then her doll Binkie caught fire, and started to blaze fiercely in her arms. The flames from Binkie’s nylon hair licked at Sukie’s face, and she started to burn, too. Her skin, her flesh, her