Read Online Fire Spirit by Graham Masterton - Free Book Online Page B

like a kid.
    Without warning, there was a sharp knock on the door, which made her jump.
    â€˜Pizza guy!’
    â€˜OK, OK. Wait up a second!’ She squinted through the peephole. All she could see was a man wearing a white Papa Joey’s cap and a red T-shirt. He was holding up a Papa Joey’s pizza box. Normally, she would ask the delivery boy to show his order number, but of course this pizza had arrived unordered.
    For three slow heartbeats, she wondered if it was safe for her to open the door. But the man was wearing the proper Papa Joey’s uniform, and where would any of the neighborhood kids have found one of those?
    She unfastened the deadlocks, and opened the door, although she left the safety-chain on. ‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘You can pass it through here.’
    â€˜Sorry, ma’am, have to keep it flat. Company policy. If I tilt it sideways, all of your pineapple’s going to fall off, right?’
    â€˜Oh, OK.’
    She drew back the safety-chain. Immediately, the man slammed the door wide open, and collided with Tilda so hard that she fell over backward, on to her glass-topped coffee table, which collapsed underneath her and shattered. He swung the apartment door shut behind him and slung his pizza box across the room. He pulled off his Papa Joey’s cap, too, and threw that aside.
    Tilda was winded at first, but then she sat up and screamed out, ‘ Help ! Somebody help me ! Etta !’
    The man barked, ‘Shut up, you fat bitch!’ and forced her back on to the wreckage of her coffee table. He gripped her by the neck, half-strangling her, and at the same time he dug his right knee deep into her stomach, so that she sicked up undigested chicken and onion strings, some of it through her nostrils, and almost choked.
    She was shaking with shock and dread. What terrified her the most was the man’s face, which was covered by a dead-white mask. Whatever his real expression was, his mask was fixed into an expression of maniacal glee, as if he couldn’t wait to make more mischief, and humiliate her even more.
    She spat out chicken and gravy-colored mucus. ‘Please . . .’ she begged him. ‘I’m going to puke again. Please.’
    The man stayed where he was, with his knee buried in her stomach, and she could see his eyes behind the slits in his mask.
    â€˜You have to swear on your life that you’re not going to scream.’
    â€˜Please, I can’t breathe.’
    â€˜Did you hear me? You have to swear on your greedy, bloated life that you’re not going to scream!’
    â€˜I swear,’ coughed Tilda. Her stomach was going into nauseous convulsions, and her mouth was filling up with bile. ‘Please, get off me. I swear to God I won’t scream.’
    The man hesitated for a few seconds, and then released his grip on her neck and stood up. Tilda rolled over on to her side and vomited up the rest of her chicken-dinner-for-two. After that, she stayed where she was, sniffing miserably.
    â€˜Look at you,’ said the man, with complete contempt. ‘You’re just like she was, you miserable lump of suet.’ He spat on her, and then he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
    â€˜What do you—’ Tilda began, but she had to cough up more chicken before she could get her words out. ‘What do you want?’
    â€˜What do I want? What do I want? I don’t want nothing at all, ma’am. Not from you, especially. But what I want, that’s beside the point.’
    â€˜Please don’t hurt me. I have to take care of my mother.’
    â€˜You think I give a shit about your mother? Why should I give a shit about your mother? This is human destiny we’re talking about here. This is history . Things have gone wrong and now they have to be put right.’
    Tilda looked up at him. He was highly agitated, and he kept pacing from one side of the room to the other. On the opposite side