GRAHAM MASTERTON
BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF SPIRIT
DEVIL IN GRAY
HIGH PRAISE
FOR GRAHAM MASTERTON!
"One of the most consistently entertaining writers in the field."
—Gauntlet
"Graham Masterton is the living inheritor to the realm of Edgar Allan Poe."
—San Francisco Chronicle
"Graham Masterton is always a lot of fun and he rarely lets the reader down.... Horror's most consistent provider of chills."
—Masters of Terror
"Masterton is a crowd-pleaser, filling his pages with sparky, appealing dialogue and visceral grue."
—Time Out (UK)
"Masterton is one of those writers who can truly unnerve the reader with everyday events."
—Steve Gerlach, author of Rage
"Masterton has always been in the premier league of horror scribes."
—Publishing News
KILLED BY NO ONE
George was soaping his chest when he felt something cold sliding down the inside of his left leg. Looking down, he saw that he was bleeding from a long thin cut that ran all the way from his testicles to the side of his knee. Blood was already running down his calf, mingled with foam and water, swirling down the drain.
How the hell...?
George reached out of the shower for his towel. He could tell that the cut must be deep as well as long, because the blood was a rich arterial color, and it was flowing out in thick surges.
"Jean!" he shouted. "Jean, I need some help here!"
He tugged his towel off the rail and wound it around his thigh as tightly as he could. All the same, it was soaked scarlet in a matter of seconds.
He lifted his right hand to turn off the water, but as he did so he felt an intense slice across his knuckles, and another cut appeared, so vicious that it almost severed his little finger. He cried out in bewilderment more than pain, and thrust his hand into his mouth, so that it was filled up with the metallic taste of fresh blood.
George staggered sideways. He slid down the wall until he was down on his knees. His back was cut in a series of diagonal slices that went right through to his shoulder-blades and his ribs. He actually felt the blade sliding against the bone. He flailed around with his bleeding hands, trying to stop his invisible assailant from cutting him any more, but there was nobody there....
Other Leisure books by Graham Masterton:
THE DOORKEEPERS
SPIRIT
THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT PREY
GRAHAM MASTERTON
DEVIL IN GRAY
LEISURE BOOKS NEW YORK CITY
A LEISURE BOOK October 2004
Published by
Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc. 200 Madison Avenue
New York, NY 10016
If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed" to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this "stripped book."
Copyright © 2004 by Graham Masterton
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.
ISBN 0-8439-5361-6
The name "Leisure Books" and the stylized "12' with design are trademarks of Dorchester Publishing Co., Inc.
Printed in the United States of America.
Visit us on the web at www.dorchesterpub.com.
DEVIL IN GRAY
CHAPTER ONE
Downstairs, the long-case clock in the hallway struck three. One, pause, two, pause, three, as if it were dolefully counting out how many lives would be lost before it struck again.
Jerry finished slapping paste onto the second-to-last roll of cornflower-patterned wallpaper and began to climb up the stepladder with it double folded over his arm. Three more lengths and the nursery would almost be ready for baby—just as soon as baby was ready for the nursery, anyhow.
He had been decorating the nursery for over a week and he had transformed it from the poky, neglected little box room it had been when they first moved in. Now the paint-work shone glossy and white, the pine door had been stripped and waxed and the doorknob polished. Once he had finished pasting up the wallpaper, there would be nothing more to do than hang the matching flowery drapes, lay the pale blue carpet, and move in the crib and the chest of drawers.
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Jerry had never felt so buoyant in his life. Less than four months ago he had been promoted to full partner at Shockoe Realty, with a $17,500 hike in salary. At last he and Alison had been able to move out of their single-bedroom apartment on the second floor of Alison's parents' house south of the river and buy this tall, narrow Victorian house in the historic Church Hill district—a rare fixer-upper that hadn't come on the market for over forty-five years. Admittedly, "fixer-upper" was an understatement, because the elderly couple who had lived here since 1959 had let the rain soak into the left-hand side of the eaves since the closing days of the Nixon administration, and they hadn't changed the kitchen fittings since Buddy Holly died. But Jerry was a home-improvement buff who was in his element when he was sawing and painting and wiring and putting up shelves. Alison complained that he suffered from "fixamatosis."
He was a well-built young man of thirty-one, with cropped blond hair, a snub nose, and a cheery, obliging face—almost a natural-born Realtor. Apart from decorating he enjoyed football and hockey and white-water rafting on the James River rapids, and barbecues. He had a taste for khaki Dockers and red-checkered seersucker shirts.
As he climbed the stepladder he was singing to himself "Have I Told You Lately That I Love You?" It was Alison's favorite song. He had fallen for her the moment he first saw her that summer lunchtime three and a half years ago sitting alone on a bench by the Kanawha Canal, eating a ciabatta salad sandwich and reading a book. He thought she looked so darn fresh. She had bouncy blond hair and wide blue Doris Day eyes and she wore sleeveless blouses with turned-up collars and tight blue jeans so that she looked like the next-door sweetheart from a 1960s sitcom.
She wasn't dumb, though. The book she had been reading by the canal was Ulysses, by James Joyce. Jerry had sat
2
down next to her and bent his head sideways so that he could read the spine. "Hey, Ulysses. I saw the movie of that, with Kirk Douglas." She had laughed; and they had started talking; and she had never found out that he hadn't been joking. He had found the book early last year and opened it, and read the words "History," Stephen said, "is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake," and shook his head in a silent admission of bewilderment.
Alison called up the stairs, "Jerry, sweetheart, your chicken sandwich is ready. Do you want a beer with it?"
"Sure. Give me a minute, could you? I'm just—"
Balancing on top of the stepladder, he positioned the paper against the wall and butted the edge to the previous piece. He creased the top against the ceiling with the handle of his craft knife and started to cut it.