The Devil in Gray by Graham Masterton Read Free Book Online Page A

of Jerry Maitland, saying, “There was nobody there … there was cutting and cutting but there was nobody there.”
    He wondered if he ought to call Hicks to take a look, but he decided against it. Hicks needed his sleep and—besides—Decker didn’t want to give the impression that he was losing his grip. He had seen it happen too many times before, detectives subtly falling apart. Their breakdowns were mostly caused by the steady erosion of suppressed grief, after one of their partners had been killed; or after their marriages had broken up, and they had lost custody of their children; or after they had been called out to one too many grotesquely mutilated bodies. They always thought that they were keeping their emotions under control, while all of their fellow officers could see that they were as brittle as an automobile whose bodywork had rusted right through to the paint.
    Decker took his Polaroid camera out of the bookcase, loaded it with film, and took six or seven pictures of the kitchen counter. Then he cleared all the meat and fruit into the sink, and pushed them into the waste disposal. The knife he picked up by the tip and dropped into a plastic food bag.
    He looked around the kitchen one more time. He cleared his throat and said, “Cathy, sweetheart, if what I heard was really you, why don’t you give me a sign? Why don’t you tell me why you’re here? Why don’t you let me see you for a minute? Why don’t you let me touch you?”
    He waited but there was no answer and no sign. Maybe he was going crazy. Maybe he was simply overtired.
    In the end he switched the lights off and went to bed.
    As soon as he fell asleep the nightmares began. Nightmares more frightening than any he had ever had before.
    He dreamed that he was struggling through thick, lacerating underbrush. It was nearly dark and he knew that he had to hurry. Off to his left he could see fires burning, and he could hear men shouting to each other.
    The branches caught in his clothing and lashed against his face. His feet were bare and every step was prickly with briars. The fires began to leap up higher, and he could smell smoke on the wind, and hear the crackling of burning bushes.
    He was shaking with exhaustion, but he knew that if he stopped for even a minute the fires would cut him off, and he also knew that there was somebody close behind him, somebody who wanted to do him serious harm. He looked over his shoulder. He couldn’t see anybody, but he was sure that they were very close behind.
    Somewhere ahead of him, in the gathering darkness, a hoarse voice called out, “Muster at the road, boys! Muster at the road or we’re finished!”
    He heard a rattling that sounded like rifle shots, and a man screaming. How could he muster at the road when he didn’t even know where the road was? He couldn’t see anything but densely tangled undergrowth and thornbushes.
    He tried to go faster by leaping over the bushes in awkward galumphing bounds, but his face was ripped by the branches and he was terrified of having an eye torn out. He lifted one arm in front of his face to protect himself. His woolen mittens were snared by briars, and his fingers were scratched, but it was preferable to being blinded.
    The fires were coming closer, and he felt gusts of furnace-like heat. Another man was screaming, and then another. Then he heard something else: a thick rustling noise, very close behind him, very close. Somebody was catching up with him fast.
    He turned around, and a huge figure in a dark cloak was almost on top of him. It came rushing toward him and it didn’t stop, so that it collided with him. He found himself struggling in a cage of bones, trapped, unable to get free. The cloak closed around him and he was imprisoned in airless darkness, desperately trying to disentangle himself from ribs and shoulder blades and knobbly vertebrae.
    â€œ Can’t breathe! ” he screamed.