The Ninth Nightmare by Graham Masterton Read Free Book Online Page A

‘Damn,’ and then, ‘ damn ,’ and hung up. He thought maybe he should try his cellphone just once more. If he couldn’t manage to talk to Grace then at least he should be able to send her a text message.
    He looked around the room. Where the hell had he left his cell? Then he remembered. He had put it down beside the hand basin in the bathroom, and forgotten to pick it up.
    He went back to the bathroom and opened the door. He had opened it only two or three inches, however, before he stopped himself. He had made a point of leaving the light on, but now the bathroom was dark again. Not only that, he could smell that appalling stench of blocked drains and ageing urine and whatever that terrible sweetness was.
    He hesitated for a very long time. Then he reached his hand inside the door and groped around for the light cord. He found it and tugged it but it didn’t work. The fluorescent tube must have burned out.
    Come on, Linc. Just go in and pick up your cell. You’ve seen for yourself that there’s nobody in there.
    He opened the door wider and stepped inside. But there was no cellphone lying beside the hand basin because there was no hand basin, only that old-fashioned bathtub with all of its splashes and drips and its dozens of handprints. He hunkered down to see if his cell might have dropped on the floor, but there was no sign of it. It must be here in this bathroom in some reality, he thought, but it sure isn’t here in this reality.
    He stood up. He didn’t have any choice now. He would have go to the reception desk, not only to see if he could get through to Grace, but to ask them if he could change rooms. There was no way he was going to sleep next to this bathroom, not in a million years. It was not only filthy, it was scary, too. How could it be daylight in here when it was dark outside? How could it be raining when he knew for sure that it wasn’t?
    He turned back toward his bedroom, but now this had changed, too. The bedside lamps had disappeared, and the room was lit only by a single bare bulb hanging by a frayed cord from the ceiling. The queen-sized bed with its green tapestry throw had been replaced by an iron-framed bed with only a soiled striped mattress on it. The thick green carpet had vanished, and now there was only dirty beige linoleum covering the floor. The walls no longer had pictures on them, and there were no drapes hanging at the window. There was a strong musty smell of rats’ urine.
    Outside the window, he could see gleaming wet rooftops, with gray clouds hurrying over them, and iron fire escapes. This was Room 104, on the first floor, and yet it looked as if it were three stories up, at the very least. It could even be higher. He could hear the soft patter of rain, and police sirens wailing in the distance.
    Lincoln thought: You got to get out of here, now. You’re going crazy . He crossed over to the door and tried to open it, but it was locked. He jiggled the handle up and down, and pulled at it, but still the door refused to open. He hammered on it with both fists and shouted out, ‘ Help! Let me out of here! Help! ’
    He paused, and listened, and he was sure that he could hear telephones ringing and people laughing. He banged on the door even harder and screamed, ‘ Help! I’m trapped in here! ’ until his throat felt raw, but still nobody came to let him out.
    He stepped away from the door, panting. He gave it a hard kick, and then another. He cracked one of the lower panels but the door was much too solid for him to break down. He knew better than to take his shoulder to it. He had done that, years ago, after an argument with Grace, and he had dislocated his left arm.
    Agitated, breathing hard, he paced backward and forward up and down the room. He couldn’t understand how or why it could have altered like this. It was not as if he recognized it. The apartment in Brightmoor in which he had been brought up as a boy