'Gee,' Rory said, having turned to watch that letter rob its neighbour of the light. It continued to glow, if somewhat fitfully, as the metal doors parted below the display. The inside of the lift seemed dim, perhaps by contrast with the street, where the window of a taxi caught the sunlight, flaring in his eyes. The blank patch it left on his vision appeared to loiter behind Charlotte as she stepped into the lobby, so that he couldn't immediately tell whether somebody was at her back. No, the gaping gloom was deserted, and in a moment the doors shut before the light shifted to the lowest number. Rory rested his hands on the upholstery to push himself off the settee, so fast that the blank patch engulfed his vision. He mustn't start imagining that it had wiped out Hugh and their cousins or the editor, let alone the place Rory had taken ages to reach. 'Now we're all here,' he said.
The Grin of the Dark
by Ramsey Campbell
Tubby Thackeray's stage routines were so deranged that members of his audience were said to have died or lost their minds. When Simon Lester is commissioned to write a book about the forgotten music-hall clown and his riotous silent comedies, his research plunges him into a nightmarish realm where genius, buffoonery and madness converge. In a search that leads him from a twilight circus in a London park to a hardcore movie studio in Los Angeles, Simon Lester uncovers a terrifying secret about Tubby Thackeray and must finally confront the unspeakable thing he represents.
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