Read Online The People Next Door by Christopher Ransom - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Christopher Ransom
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falling.
The cold wind sailed around him, and the squirming figures beneath him enlarged, magnified, resolved.
They were his family members, white as Roger’s back had been, naked and dead. Their eyes were fleshed over and their mouths
were open in the manner of infants mewling in the newborn wing of a hospital. But if that soft warmth was their beginning,
this was their end. He knew they were dead, even as they writhed in agony, their bodies animated by unholy energies whose
purpose was pure pain and endless chaos and the sucking of human souls.
Amy. Kyle. Briela.
They were suffering in a purgatory of lifelessness outside of time and he fell to meet them, knowing it was too late, he had
been tricked, and they had fallen for his mistakes. His failures, his weakness, his sins. It was too late to save them, or
himself. Mick screamed in everlasting despair as he slammed into the blackness.
15
Mick dozed in and out of the morning light, too comfortable to get up for another hour, until his lower back was stiff and
throbbing. He forced himself to rise and made his way to the shower.
Stepping under the rain spout’s hot spray, he felt strangely rested and upbeat, ready to move on from the disaster that was
yesterday. He knew he was supposed to take it easy and avoid stress, Dr Amy’s orders, but he thought he would whittle away
the morning until she left for school, then sneak by the restaurant for an hour or so, just to make sure everything was functioning
smoothly.
The hot water beat against his forehead, the steam opening his sinuses, loosening his shoulders. He was in less than a minute
when his knees began to sting and spots around his elbows began to burn. He reached for the lever to adjust the temperature
and froze. His mouth fell open in sigh of stunned remembrance. He rotated his left arm so that he could see his elbow.
The scrape was the diameter of a baseball, with a comet streak of red up his tricep. His knees were alsoraw, one of them bleeding a pink trail down his shin, across the pebbled shower floor.
Sleepwalking, it had to be, and yet Mick had never been a sleepwalker, not even as a child. He exited the shower and wrapped
a towel around his waist, then walked the length of the hall, flicking on the lights to inspect the carpet.
A single wet footprint waited for him outside his bedroom door. The blot of it had faded but was still visible in the low
wool blend. He touched it with his hand. The dark spot was moist, if not wet. He stood and held his naked size ten over it,
heel and toes hovering less than two inches above the gray outline. His foot was at least two sizes too small. This print
belonged to a man with a size twelve, maybe a thirteen. Someone heavy, solid, maybe six-two or six-three.
Kill them. Kill them in their beds, destroy them, before they come for you
.
Of course the water might have soaked in and spread, making the print appear larger than the foot that had made it. There
were no other prints in the bedroom or hall. If Roger had actually been here, there would be more of them, a trail. Mick might
very well have made this print less than a minute ago, when he was inspecting the hall.
But then again, summers in Colorado were known to be very dry. Nights when Mick came home from work feeling hot and filmy,
he often showered before bed, and then again in the morning, and the same towel would be nearly dry after hanging on the rack
for only eight or ninehours. So it was impossible to say when this print had been made, and a person could go crazy thinking about such unprovable
details. The worst nightmare you’ve ever had doesn’t make it more than a nightmare. The real world does not allow for things
like he had experienced last night. Whatever had happened to the dentist, Roger and his warnings were the product of Mick’s
traumatized subconscious, his mind’s way of working through the stress of his drowning accident.
Such were the
The cold wind sailed around him, and the squirming figures beneath him enlarged, magnified, resolved.
They were his family members, white as Roger’s back had been, naked and dead. Their eyes were fleshed over and their mouths
were open in the manner of infants mewling in the newborn wing of a hospital. But if that soft warmth was their beginning,
this was their end. He knew they were dead, even as they writhed in agony, their bodies animated by unholy energies whose
purpose was pure pain and endless chaos and the sucking of human souls.
Amy. Kyle. Briela.
They were suffering in a purgatory of lifelessness outside of time and he fell to meet them, knowing it was too late, he had
been tricked, and they had fallen for his mistakes. His failures, his weakness, his sins. It was too late to save them, or
himself. Mick screamed in everlasting despair as he slammed into the blackness.
15
Mick dozed in and out of the morning light, too comfortable to get up for another hour, until his lower back was stiff and
throbbing. He forced himself to rise and made his way to the shower.
Stepping under the rain spout’s hot spray, he felt strangely rested and upbeat, ready to move on from the disaster that was
yesterday. He knew he was supposed to take it easy and avoid stress, Dr Amy’s orders, but he thought he would whittle away
the morning until she left for school, then sneak by the restaurant for an hour or so, just to make sure everything was functioning
smoothly.
The hot water beat against his forehead, the steam opening his sinuses, loosening his shoulders. He was in less than a minute
when his knees began to sting and spots around his elbows began to burn. He reached for the lever to adjust the temperature
and froze. His mouth fell open in sigh of stunned remembrance. He rotated his left arm so that he could see his elbow.
The scrape was the diameter of a baseball, with a comet streak of red up his tricep. His knees were alsoraw, one of them bleeding a pink trail down his shin, across the pebbled shower floor.
Sleepwalking, it had to be, and yet Mick had never been a sleepwalker, not even as a child. He exited the shower and wrapped
a towel around his waist, then walked the length of the hall, flicking on the lights to inspect the carpet.
A single wet footprint waited for him outside his bedroom door. The blot of it had faded but was still visible in the low
wool blend. He touched it with his hand. The dark spot was moist, if not wet. He stood and held his naked size ten over it,
heel and toes hovering less than two inches above the gray outline. His foot was at least two sizes too small. This print
belonged to a man with a size twelve, maybe a thirteen. Someone heavy, solid, maybe six-two or six-three.
Kill them. Kill them in their beds, destroy them, before they come for you
.
Of course the water might have soaked in and spread, making the print appear larger than the foot that had made it. There
were no other prints in the bedroom or hall. If Roger had actually been here, there would be more of them, a trail. Mick might
very well have made this print less than a minute ago, when he was inspecting the hall.
But then again, summers in Colorado were known to be very dry. Nights when Mick came home from work feeling hot and filmy,
he often showered before bed, and then again in the morning, and the same towel would be nearly dry after hanging on the rack
for only eight or ninehours. So it was impossible to say when this print had been made, and a person could go crazy thinking about such unprovable
details. The worst nightmare you’ve ever had doesn’t make it more than a nightmare. The real world does not allow for things
like he had experienced last night. Whatever had happened to the dentist, Roger and his warnings were the product of Mick’s
traumatized subconscious, his mind’s way of working through the stress of his drowning accident.
Such were the
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