Ravenous Ghosts by Kealan Patrick Burke Read Free Book Online Page A

hallway, his eyes swiveling toward the window again. She was coming right towards him. Surely she 'd see him if she came close enough?
    He listened to the clip-clop of her high heels on the tile, imagined her peering in at him and gasping, running to fetch someone to break the window, or to come round and kick in the door of the bitch 's apartment, untying him…
    The spit had long since dried in his throat but he tried regardless. Nothing, of course. He began to whisper promises that if he somehow escaped this he would never again cheat on his wife. It wasn 't worth it; adultery was becoming a lethal practice.
    The woman drew nearer the window and now he saw how tall she was.
    She'll see me , he thought, allowing rays of his own personal sunshine to chase the shadows off his brain . She'll call someone and they'll get me out of this goddamn chair. I'll be in pain for days but anything will be better than…
    The woman was so close now that he could see how pretty she was and how wrong he 'd been in assuming she was tall.
    She wasn 't tall, she was enormous. Impossibly so and the closer to the window she came, the more anxious he became until anxiety dissipated under the sheer weight of horror that descended upon him, teeth bared.
    Her face filled the window. Or rather, her eyes did.
    He felt like a bug, someone in the front row of the theater, a doll in a dollhouse, a little boy looking at the doctor's magnified eye, an insect… He felt like prey. Anything caught beneath an eye that big must surely be the victim, be it insanity or the supernatural wielding the upper hand.
    His whole being erupted in a trembling panic but never moved; wouldn 't move. Everything he was faltered in the face of what must surely be a god or a giant or a product of incredible trickery. It made a mockery of his hope, an idiot of his sanity.
    This is wrong. Something is dreadfully wrong.
    The face moved back from the window, the expression on that porcelain countenance one of disgust, of confusion as if unable to understand how he had ended up in—
    " This painting…" a booming voice said suddenly, sending pulses of sound vibrating through his body and his heart ceased fuelling his torture for a moment as the loft thrummed along with the speaking giant. "…It's hideous. Why would anyone want to hang such a thing on the wall of a public building? If this is what's passing as art these days then it's no wonder the world has gone to hell."
    Another voice, another giant chuckled. It felt like hands clapping against his ears. His guts roiled.
    Who are these…things?
    " I thought a picture of a man bound would have appealed to you, Detective Chambers," roared this new voice.
    Detective? A picture? What are they talking about?
    "Funny. You have breakfast yet?"
    " Not unless you count coffee. I've been down to Flaherty's Tavern on Third. The barman says he remembers the guy leaving with a dark woman, blonde hair, dressed kind of funny."
    Bill 's brain pulsed with agony, ears near-bursting as the glass rattled between him and the giants.
    No, they 're not giants. It's a television screen. I'm watching a television screen that bitch set up to scare me.
    The room began to vibrate again as the man 's thundering voice continued. "Kind of funny?"
    " Yeah, her clothes were stained with paint but the barman couldn't swear on it. Says it might have been part of her costume. Good-looking broad, weird eyes; says she wore some odd gold symbols around her neck too, one like a crooked pentagram, the other of a bound man."
    They both looked in at Bill, who summoned the last vestiges of strength from where they had pooled somewhere in the depths of his pain-ravaged body and tried to scream. Silence filled his throat, sweeping aside the tears, ushering them away to wherever his voice had gone and in the end he sat still, motionless. Watching.
    The floor continued to hum.
    " Like this guy."
    " Yeah."
    " Looks like he wants to scream."
    " Gives me the creeps."
    " I guess.