Fatal Error
The Dark at the End
Nightworld
Quick Fixes – Tales of Repairman Jack
The Teen Trilogy
Jack: Secret Histories
Jack: Secret Circles
Jack: Secret Vengeance
The Early Years Trilogy
Cold City
Dark City
Fear City
The LaNague Federation Series
Healer
Wheels Within Wheels
An Enemy of the State
Dydeetown World
The Tery
Other Novels
Black Wind
Sibs
The Select
Virgin
Implant
Deep as the Marrow
Mirage (with Matthew J. Costello)
Nightkill (with Steven Spruill)
Masque (with Matthew J. Costello)
Sims
The Fifth Harmonic
Midnight Mass
The Proteus Cure (with Tracy L. Carbone)
A Necessary End (with Sarah Pinborough)
Short Fiction
Soft & Others
The Barrens & Others
The Christmas Thingy
Aftershock & Others
The Peabody-Ozymandias Traveling Circus & Oddity Emporium
Quick Fixes – Tales of Repairman Jack
Sex Slaves of the Dragon Tong
Editor
Freak Show
Diagnosis: Terminal
The Hogben Chronicles (with Pierce Watters)
Omnibus Editions
The Complete LaNague
Calling Dr. Death (3 medical thrillers)
HAUNTED HOUSE
A novel of terror
Jack Kilborn & J.A. Konrath
Are You Brave Enough?
BEYOND AFRAID…
It was an experiment in fear.
Eight people, each chosen because they lived through a terrifying experience. Survivors. They don’t scare easily. They know how to fight back.
BEYOND TRAPPED…
Each is paid a million dollars to spend one night in a house. The old Butler House, where those grisly murders occurred so many years ago. A house that is supposedly haunted.
BEYOND ENDURANCE…
They can take whatever they want with them. Religious items. Survival gear. Weapons. All they need to do is last the night.
But there is something evil in this house. Something very evil, and very real. And when the dying starts, it comes with horrifying violence and brutal finality.
There are scarier things than ghosts.
Things that torment you slowly and delight in your screams.
Things that won’t let you get out alive.
HAUNTED HOUSE
People are just dying to leave.
Jack Kilborn, author of AFRAID, TRAPPED, and ENDURANCE, brings back some favorite characters from those earlier novels and puts them through his own unique brand of hell. One that hurts real bad. One that will scare you to death.
Are you brave enough?
HAUNTED HOUSE
Copyright © 2013 by Joe Konrath
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the authors.
May 2013
This novel is for Maria
Prologue
Roy Lewis cleared the doorway, then spun as something in the darkness lunged at him.
He fired, a double-tap at the approaching center mass, but it kept coming. Before he could flinch away the thing hit him in his outstretched Glock.
It took Roy milliseconds to process what it was, and then revulsion coursed through him.
A body bag.
Black plastic with a silver zipper. Hanging from a chain.
But something was wrong with it. The weight was… off.
Roy aimed his flashlight up at the ceiling, the tactical beam cutting through the ever-present dark of the house, and saw the rail system that had swung the bag into him. Pulleys and springs and a steel track, all automatic. Probably triggered by a motion sensor.
He reached out and gave the bag a tentative squeeze.
Foam rubber.
Not a real body. Just a goddamn Halloween prop.
Roy chewed his inner cheek, heart hammering, realizing he’d wasted two valuable bullets on a dime store scare.
Only one bullet left. Then he was out of ammo.
Roy checked his watch. Not even 4am yet. Hours to go before dawn. Might as well be days.
Breathe. Remember to breathe.
He took in air through his nostrils, tried to let it out slowly. His hands were shaking, and sweat was stinging his eyes despite the cool temperature. Roy holstered his sidearm, and drew his KA-BAR knife from his belt sheath, clutching it to his chest.
Okay, stay calm. Find a place to hole up. Someplace you can defend. Where they can’t sneak up behind you.
A snort escaped his nose before Roy could stop it. All damn night he’d been searching for a safe place in this hell-on-earth. But there were no safe places. Every room, every corridor, in this damned house was lethal. Maybe, if the others were still alive, they could have protected each other. But that hadn’t worked out, and Roy was pretty sure he was the only one left.
He thought back to his military days, before he became a cop. The Q course for Special Forces, the hardest training in the world. Desert Storm in Iraq. Then over a decade on the street, working his way up from beat cop to homicide detective. He was good, and his past had prepared him for a lot.
But not for this.
Nothing could have prepared him for this.
Roy sucked in another breath through clenched teeth. The air was musty, foul, like old running shoes mixed with…
Body odor.
Strong, noxious body odor that wasn’t coming from Roy.
He flinched.
Roy knew that smell. Knew where it came from.
That’s when he heard it.
Giggling.
High-pitched. Almost childlike.
But that’s not a child.
“Oh, no,” Roy whispered. “Not this again.”
Roy waited, hoping, praying, it had been his imagination.
The darkness remained silent.
You’re freaking out, man. Imagining shit. You need to keep it together if you want to—
“Hee hee hee hee.”
Not imagination. This was real.
Real, and coming somewhere in the unlit room.