Read Online The Ninth Nightmare by Graham Masterton - Free Book Online

nothing else for him to hold on to. He wasn’t aware of any sound, no banging or clattering, although the noise of the collapsing fire escape must have been a deafening cacophony of falling metal.
    All he heard was the rush of air in his ears as he dropped toward the alley below him, as if he were an angel dropping from a great height. He didn’t even hear himself hitting the ground.

FOUR
    Rooms 237 and 239
    K ieran was sitting up in bed watching Paranormal Activity and eating handfuls of chili peanuts when Kiera came in through the connecting door in her bright pink knee-length pajamas.
    She climbed on to the bed next to him and said, ‘What are you watching this crap for? You have enough trouble sleeping without watching scary movies.’
    Kieran clapped another handful of peanuts against his mouth. ‘It’s good. It’s all about this girl who thinks she’s being stalked by this demon and she can’t get away from it.’
    â€˜The same way that I am, you mean, by Mickey Veralnik?’
    â€˜Mickey Veralnik isn’t a demon. He’s just a crappy two-bit pain-in-the-ass promoter. You shouldn’t pay him any mind.’
    â€˜But he’s always there , right in my face, isn’t he? When has he ever missed one single concert? Or one single promotion? Or one single TV special? Don’t tell me he won’t be sitting in the front row tomorrow night. I’m sick of the sight of him grinning at me and giving me those winks and those little finger-waves. And those endless text messages. “Kiera I know you’re a twin but you’re the true star! You could shine so much more brightly if you only dumped your brother and let me handle your meteoric rise to fame and fortune!”’
    Kieran shrugged. ‘Maybe you should go solo. You always sang a hundred times better than me.’
    Kiera scruffed up his thick blond hair and gave his shoulder a shove. ‘We’re the Kaiser Twins, stupid! And even if I did split up with you, I wouldn’t let Mickey Veralnik handle me. I mean, like, yuck ! That comb-over! And bad breath or what?’
    Kieran continued to chew for a while. Then he said, ‘What if I was to split up with you ?’
    â€˜What do you mean? You don’t seriously want to split up with me, do you?’
    â€˜I don’t know. Yes. No. I guess I’m just bushed, that’s all. All this fricking traveling. I don’t even know which city we’re supposed to be in.’
    â€˜Cleveland, Ohio. Tomorrow we open at the State Theater at Playhouse Square for three alternate nights and then we’re off to not-so-sunny Cincinnati.’
    â€˜Cleveland. Jesus. To think we got famous to wind up in Cleveland – the Mistake on the Lake. If that’s not a fricking paradox, I don’t know what is.’
    The twins sat on the bed in silence for a while. They were seventeen-and-a-half years old, although Kiera was actually older than Kieran by thirty-one minutes. They had blond hair and faces that were almost ethereally good-looking, with wide green eyes and straight Grecian noses and sensual lips. Their manager Lois Schulz often said that they reminded her of the very young Elvis Presley and his twin Jessie – ‘Well, they would if Jessie had been a girl instead of a boy, and if he hadn’t been stillborn.’ Lois often came out with remarks like that.
    In actual fact they looked like their mother Jenyfer Kaiser, who had died of an apparent stroke only two hours after giving birth to them. Their father Jim had raised them as if they were the most precious children on earth – and to him, of course, they had been. They were the living reminder of the woman he had loved so much and lost.
    Kieran and Kiera had always sung songs together, ever since they were very small. They used to swing on their swing set at the end of their yard in Brentwood, harmonizing Puff, The Magic Dragon. To them, singing together was