Rook: Snowman by Graham Masterton Read Free Book Online Page B

Santa’s grotto. He followed Tibbles Two into the kitchen and dropped the rest of the deck into the trash.
    He was just about to take a shower when the doorbell rang. He peered through the spyhole and saw a grossly distorted version of Mervyn Brookfeller, who lived across the hallway. He opened the door and said, “Hi, Mervyn. I was going to take a shower. Then I was going to come over and thank you for cleaning up my apartment. You did a fantastic job.”

    Mervyn was six feet three inches and wore platform soles which made him look even taller. He also sported an immense golden quiff which probably took him over six feet five. He wore a white satin vest embroidered with poppies and tight white satin pedal-pushers. His nails were as long as a woman’s, and immaculately painted with purple polish. Although he was only a tenant like everybody else in Jim’s apartment block, he had somehow appointed himself unofficial super, fixing everybody’s fuses, levering the teaspoons out of their sink disposal units, keeping the hallways hoovered and listening to everybody’s problems. He sang in cabaret at The Slant Club on Abbot Kinney Boulevard, under the name of Chet Sideways.
    He stalked into Jim’s apartment and looked around at all the ripped-up fragments of card. Then he turned to Jim with his arms held out wide, wordlessly seeking an explanation.
    Jim said, “I’m sorry. You did a terrific job, really. But when I got home, there was kind of an event.”
    “An event? It looks like you got married. Congratulations. Who’s the lucky girl?”
    Tibbles Two came out of the kitchen licking her whiskers.
    “You married a cat! How different! I mean, most men are always hankering after a little pussy … but you had the nerve to make it legal!”
    “Shut up, Mervyn,” said Jim. “Something happened here … something weird.”
    “In that case you’d better pour me a stiff drink.”
    Jim poured him out a large glassful of Jack Daniel’s. He took a mouthful and shuddered, as if a goose had walked over his grave. “That hit the spot! So tell me what’s been happening here.”
    “I don’t know … but I feel like somebody’s tryingto tell me something.” He told Melvyn all about the frozen drinking fountain and the iced-up washroom and the dancing Tarot cards.
    “You’re being warned,” said Melvyn, emphatically. “There’s no question about it. You’re being warned from beyond. My Aunt Minnie kept seeing toads in her yard, and the next thing she knew she met my Uncle Irvine. And my brother Aaron had a sign. His electric kettle shorted out, and left a burn mark on his kitchen wall in the shape of a bearded man. The next day he went out and he was run over by a bearded man in a Buick Electra.”
    “And?”
    “And what? He died. He was only twenty-three.”
    “Are you kidding me?”
    “That was my brother, Jim. Do you want me to show you a picture of him?”
    “No, don’t worry.”
    “But he had a warning, just like you’re having a warning now. Very low temperatures, that’s always a sign of impending evil. Didn’t you ever see The Exorcist ? And things that whirl around, all on their own. Very bad news. And all that ripped-up paper, looking like snow.”
    Yes, thought Jim. That was exactly what it looked like. Snow. Four figures toiling through a snowstorm. Somebody was trying to tell him something about cold and ice and snow; and somebody was trying to warn him that something terrible was going to happen to him.
    Mervyn flitted around, picking up little pieces of playing card. He bobbed down by the coffee-table, where there was only one card left, face-down, the card which Jim hadn’t had the time to turn over. That which crosses you – that which stands in your way.

    “Don’t touch that!” said Jim, as Mervyn bent forward to pick it up, but it was already too late.
    “This is a bit grim, isn’t it?” said Mervyn, waving the Death card between his manicured fingertips.

Four
    The next morning