CHAPTER SEVEN
September 2017
BETH
Beth Greer hung up the phone and put it on the bed next to her. Then she stared into the darkness.
She was in the master bedroom of the Greer mansion. Forty-five years ago, this had been her parents’ bedroom. This very bed had been their actual bed. Beth had never replaced it. That was strange, she knew. The bed was old now, with a musty smell. The blankets were gray from hundreds of washes. On the nightstand was her father’s ashtray, huge and heavy glass, and on the dresser was a jar of her mother’s cold cream, nearly fifty years old now, long dried out and desiccated. At least Beth’s pajamas were her own, fine silk ones that were the best money could buy. They were kept in a dresser drawer atop her mother’s old nightgowns.
Beth drew her knees up to her chest, hugged them. She hadn’t taken a sleeping pill tonight; she’d been on the internet on her laptop, reading Shea Collins’s article about her, and she’d lost track of time. Now it was late, too late. She could take a pill now, but she’d still hear the noises before she dropped to sleep.
It was best to take the pill before the noises started, so you didn’t hear them at all.
Something moved in the hallway outside. It was a soft sound, and Beth’s fingers squeezed the blanket, a reflex. She was used to the fear—she’d been living with it for so long. Decade after decade. For as long as she could remember, really. All the way back. She didn’t know what a life without fear would look like. Beth knew the contours of fear intimately, its shifting shapes, its taste and its smell.
You’re not leaving.
You’re not talking.
Those were the rules. But she was about to break the second one, wasn’t she? She was going to talk—to Shea Collins, who had read so much about her. Who knew everything and nothing at all.
There was a footstep in the hall outside the room, and a dragging sound. Beth closed her eyes, even though it made no difference in the pitch-blackness. She had turned the lock on the bedroom door. She had. She remembered doing it, remembered the cool feel of the latch against her fingers. Or was she remembering last night? Or the night before?
The pills were on the nightstand, but she couldn’t take one now. Not until she was sure about the door. Because if the door was unlocked, she didn’t want to be asleep when the thing outside came in.
So she waited, listening.
The dragging sound came again, and then there was the soft click of a doorknob, followed by the creak of a door. That was the bathroom down the hall. The dragging again, the click, the creak. That was Beth’s teenage bedroom. One by one, each door was being tried, opened. Then the next. Then the next. Until it came to the door of the master bedroom, at the very end of the hall.
Beth knew she should get up, run to the door, and make sure it was locked. But it was too late now. She couldn’t make herself move.
The dragging sound came closer now. Then the click. The doorknob to the master bedroom, being tried. Moving one way, then the other.
Beth closed her eyes.
You’re not leaving.
You’re not talking.
But things were changing. The fever of madness was about to break after all this time, and it was going to be messy. People would get hurt. That was what happened when you were touched by madness. You got hurt.
Beth knew all about madness.
Click. Click.
The doorknob turned one way, then the other. Then one way again. Then the other.
It didn’t open, because the door was locked.
Beth lunged for the bottle of pills on the nightstand as a voice rose in the hallway. A wail of despair, rising up and up. Then weeping.