The Right Hand of Evil

  Except that they weren't. Reaching out to steady himself against the bookcase built into the wall next to the clock, he peered around at the room. Even through the haze of alcohol, he could see the curling wallpaper and peeling paint, and the stains in the carpet. What the hell had Janet been doing all day? Couldn't anybody but himself do anything?

  His eyes shifted back to the clock.

  A couple of minutes past midnight.

  Not thirteen o'clock at all.

  Stupid. Stupid idea, thinking it could be thirteen o'clock. Musta just miscounted. Reaching up to the glass door that protected the face, he fumbled with it for a second, then managed to pull it open.

  He pushed the minute hand forward until it pointed at the three.

  But instead of striking the quarter hour, the clock once more began chiming the hours.

  Once again, Ted counted.

  Again the clock struck thirteen times.

  Ted backed away from it, though his eyes remained fixed on its face, as if held there by some unseen force.

  As he watched, the hands began to move, and once again the clock began to strike.

  A trick! It had to be some kind of trick!

  The hands couldn't be moving as fast as it looked like they were—it was impossible.

  But as the minute hand came around to the nine, the clock once again tolled thirteen times.

  Still unable to tear his eyes from the clock's face, Ted watched as the hand moved inexorably toward the twelve. Unconsciously, he held his breath as the clock began striking for the fifth time. As the deep chord reverberated through the house—once, twice, then thrice—Ted realized that something else was wrong.

  The clock still read midnight.

  But the minute hand had made a complete revolution! He knew it had! He'd watched it!

  —five, six, seven times the clock struck.

  Broken. That was it—the thing was just broken!

  —ten, eleven, twelve—

  Ted waited, his breath still trapped in his lungs, as the note faded away and silence descended. Finally, when he could hear it no more, he slowly exhaled. Turning away, he raised the bottle once more to his lips.

  And once more the clock began to strike.

  The bottle dropped from his hand. "Janet?" His wife's name slipped unbidden from his mouth. Then he whispered it again: "Janet, help me."

  The last tolling of the clock died away. Before it could start again, Ted snatched up the bottle—half of the contents had already drained out onto the carpet—and stumbled out of the living room, pulling the doors closed behind him.

  He moved across the huge foyer and into the dining room, pushing its doors tightly closed.

  Safe.

  Even if the clock started to strike again—

  Even before the thought was fully formed he heard it again. But not muffled—not like it was coming from another room at all.

  He whirled around.

  And there was the clock! Standing against the opposite wall, between the two windows that looked out toward the wilderness behind the carriage house. Ted's heart raced as he told himself it wasn't possible, that the clock was still in the living room, that there wasn't any clock in this room, at least not one like this.

  Its tolling grew louder, echoing through the room. Once again Ted dropped the bottle and clamped his hands over his ears, but the striking of the clock grew ever louder—so loud that with every chord it felt as if spikes were being driven into his ears.

  Crazy!

  He was going crazy!

  Fumbling with the latch on the heavy dining room doors, he finally threw them open again, and fled back into the huge entry hall. But the sound followed him, and he realized his mistake—now he was hearing both clocks.

  "Janet?" he called out again, instinctively invoking the name of the one person he'd always been able to rely on. "Janet, where are you?"

  Upstairs. She was upstairs, in their bedroom.

  Got to get there! Got to get upstairs!

  He started up the flight, stumbling on the first step and barely catching himself on the mahogany banister. A wave of dizziness swept over him as he pulled himself back upright. His stomach felt queasy.

  Drank too much. Drank just a little too much.

  Hanging onto the banister with both hands, he pulled himself up a few more steps.

  And the tolling of the clock struck him again.

  Sagging to his knees, he peered up into the gloom, and there, on the landing, he could see it.

  The clock!

  The same clock that had been in the living room and the dining room.

  "Nooo..." he wailed, his voice cracking as a sob of fear choked his throat. Turning away from the tolling clock, he stumbled back toward the foot of the stairs, but missed his footing completely on the third step, reached for the banister, missed again, and tumbled down the stairs, his right shoulder wrenching painfully as he sprawled out on the floor of the entry hall. Ignoring the pain in his shoulder, Ted scrambled to his feet, stumbling from one room to another, searching for some place—any place—that would be free of the terrible striking of the clock. Everywhere he went the clock was there, tolling the impossible hour time after time until it felt as if every part of his body was being subjected to the blows of the hammer.

  Finally there was only one door left, and Ted stumbled through it.

  He was at the top of a steep flight of stairs leading into the basement. The darkness below him yawned like the gaping mouth of some great beast, and Ted fumbled for a light switch, found one, and flipped it on.

  The darkness below was pierced by a beckoning light. His heart still pounding, the terror of the impossible chimes still battering at him, Ted lurched down the stairs until he came to the bottom.

  And still the terrible tolling found him.

  "Stop it," he whispered, jamming his hands against his ears, but now the sound seemed to come from inside his head itself, throbbing inside his skull, falling into rhythm with his heart.

  A stroke!

  That was it!

  He was having a stroke!

  The pain in his head ballooning, he stumbled through another door. Once again he tripped, and this time when he fell to the floor an agonizing knife-twist shot through his right wrist. Screaming, Ted clutched at his wrist.

  Another wave of dizziness hit him, and his belly heaved. As the contents of his stomach shot from his mouth, he dropped to the floor and felt the heat of his own vomit on his cheek.

  The rancid fumes caused him to puke again, and then, rolling over onto his back, he began to sob.

  "No—" he pleaded, his voice breaking and choking.

  "Don't want to die. Don't want to."

  But he was going to die—lying in the dark chamber with only a few rays of light leaking through the door. He knew it.

  With Janet asleep upstairs, he was going to die.

  Die alone, die drunk.

  Dead drunk.

  "No. No. Nooo." A whisper. A sob. "Help me ... please, help me. Someone, please help me."

  He retched again, and then again. He struggled to move, at least to slither away from the pool of vomit in which he lay, but any movement he made was pure agony.

  Then, from somewhere deep in the darkness surrounding him, he saw something.

  From somewhere hidden in the darkness a mist was rising. A mist that seemed to be illuminated from within, as if a thousand candles were burning unseen in the strange fog. As he stared at the fog, a face began to take shape.

  A powerful face, with glowing eyes that bored into the depths of his soul.

  A hallucination.

  That had to be it—he was hallucinating.

  Or dying.

  That was it—his life was ebbing away, and this was a spirit come to lead him into the mists of death.

  "Help me," he whispered once again. "Please help me."

  The mist itself seemed to reach out to him, and he felt a touch—a burning touch—on his cheek.

  A vo
ice spoke. A whisper. Neither a woman's voice nor a man's, something unearthly yet distinct. "Will you give me whatever I ask?"

  Ted stared up into the glittering eyes. "Yes," he whispered. "Oh, God, yes."

  The terrible tolling in Ted's head eased.

  The nausea in his belly calmed.

  "Anything," he pleaded once again. "I'll do anything. Just help me."

  Once again he felt the searing touch.

  In an instant the pain in his wrist and shoulder were gone.

  In the sudden silence Ted Conway fell into sleep. But just before he surrendered to blankness, he knew that something inside him had changed.

  Nothing, he knew, would ever be the same again.

  CHAPTER 13

  Jared?" The sound faded into the silence that surrounded him. At first Jared wasn't really sure he'd heard someone calling his name. But then it came again, faint, barely audible. "Jared!"

  His father's voice.

  Though he could barely hear it, Jared recognized it immediately, rasping with the anger that was always there, even when his father was sober.

  Was he sober now?

  Jared couldn't tell.

  Then the voice came again, and this time it carried a note of command. "Jared!"

  He sounded nearer now, and Jared tensed. His eyes flicked first one way then the other, trying to catch a glimpse of his father. But he saw nothing. Then, as his father called out to him yet again, Jared realized he was lost. But that was crazy—he knew exactly where he was: in the big house in St. Albans, in his room on the second floor. Except now he wasn't. He was in a room—a big room—but there was nothing in it. No furniture, no carpets, nothing hanging on the walls. One of the walls, though, was pierced by two windows. Jared moved close enough to the glass to look out.

  Nothing.

  It was as if a thick fog had fallen beyond the window, and when he tried to peer into it, his eyes found nothing to focus on. A weird disorientation fell over him, causing him to lose his balance. Staggering, he instinctively reached out to steady himself against the window frame.

  His right hand plunged through it, disappearing into the gray morass beyond the boundaries of the room. Jared froze in shock.

  He jerked his arm back, and for a single terrible instant thought his hand was gone. But no! It was there, and it didn't hurt, and—

  What the hell had happened?

  For several long seconds he stood perfectly still, his eyes fixed on the spot where his hand had disappeared. Then, as if drawn by some unseen force, his hand started moving once again toward the same spot.

  "No!"

  The word jabbed his consciousness like the stinger of a hornet, and Jared jerked back to life. He sprung around, certain his father was standing right behind him. The room was still empty.

  He whirled around again. Now the gray fog beyond the window had vanished. Instead there was a blackness that seemed to go on for all eternity. But it was a blackness that was not empty.

  As he gazed into it, his heart pounding, he felt something reaching out to him.

  Something that wanted to touch his soul.

  A strangled cry rising in his throat, Jared backed away from the window, then turned and fled through the room's single door.

  He found himself in a corridor, a long, broad passage that seemed to stretch on forever in both directions. He looked one way, then the other. Which way should he go? Panic began to rise in him. One way looked exactly like the other.

  But he had to make up his mi—

  He stopped.

  Something was close to him. Very close.

  He held his breath, listening.

  Silence.

  Yet it was there. He could feel it; it was edging closer.

  The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end, and a shiver passed through him.

  Behind him! It was behind him, and now he could almost feel its touch.

  If it touched him, he would die.

  Die, and disappear forever into the terrible blackness he'd glimpsed beyond the window.

  Then, once more, he heard his father calling to him. This time Jared followed the voice, racing down the hall, for a moment certain he'd escaped.

  Then he felt it again. Still there—the unseen thing that had emerged from the darkness beyond the window crept across the room and reached out to him.

  It was behind him again.

  He tried to run faster, but no matter how fast he ran, or how far, the passageway stretched endlessly away. Then it forked, and forked again, and again Jared felt a surge of hope. He turned and started down a new corridor. Abruptly, out of nowhere, his way was blocked.

  Sister Clarence, pointing at him accusingly, her eyes flashing with daggers of fury.

  Turning back, Jared ran in the other direction.

  But this time Father MacNeill blocked his path, screaming curses at him and holding a crucifix high, as if trying to ward off the Devil himself.

  He whirled again, but now a huge black man, grinning wickedly at him, reached out to grasp his throat. Once more Jared spun away and ran. He dodged in one direction or another, but everywhere he turned the nun was waiting for him, or the priest, or the black man who wanted to strangle him.

  Then, once more, he heard his father's voice. "This way! Come this way." Again he dodged this way and that, always following his father's voice, his unseen pursuer drawing ever closer. Urged on by his father's voice, Jared ran until finally he could run no longer. Lungs burning, heart pounding, he collapsed to the floor, his breath coming in gasping pants. Terror and exhaustion overwhelmed him, and he began to sob.

  Then, through the overpowering fear, he felt the force from the darkness encircle him, grasping and enclosing him in the dark, suffocating despair he was too tired to resist.

  Couldn't run.

  Couldn't hide.

  Couldn't escape.

  It was over.

  After what might have been a second or an eternity, Jared heard his father's voice once more.

  "Open your eyes, Jared."

  He obeyed, but saw nothing at all. It was as if he'd been drawn into the blackness beyond the window of the room he'd fled, been sucked so deep into its vortex that no light would ever again penetrate his world. Then, deep in the blackness, twin embers began to glow. At first they were no more than pinpricks of light, but as Jared watched, they grew larger and larger, burning brighter, moving toward him. Slowly, they began to take on form.

  Not lights, but eyes.

  Glittering, golden eyes, their pupils not round, but slitted. They seemed to be lit from within, and as they drew closer, the light grew bright enough to show him the face from which they peered.

  The face was dark, and covered with scales, and from its mouth—an angry gash between the two dripping holes that were its nostrils—a slithering tongue darted forth. As if hypnotized by the terrible visage, Jared remained where he was, immobile.

  The face drew closer yet. Now Jared could feel the tongue flick against his cheek, then move across his jaw and down his body.

  Everywhere it touched him, it felt as if a razor had sliced his skin. But instead of blood oozing forth from his wounds, an icy chill crept inward.

  The tongue kept moving, creeping over every part of him, and slowly the cold took hold, reaching into him through every pore, like the tendrils of some vile plant growing within him. As it spread he knew there was nothing he could do to throw it off. For the first time since the nightmare began, Jared opened his mouth to scream.

  But it was too late.

  The ice had already captured him, the darkness taken possession of his soul.

  It was as if an electric charge had shot through Kim. She jerked awake, her body convulsing, throwing off sleep like a dog shaking water from its coat. "Jared?" she heard herself cry out. "Jared, what's wrong?"

  Why did I do that? The question popped into her mind even as the reverberation of her words died away, and for several seconds she sat perfectly still in her dark room, listening
.

  Nothing.

  Nothing, at least, except the sound of an owl hooting in the distance, some insects chirping, the normal creaking of the house, and the comforting ticking of the old-fashioned wind-up alarm clock she kept by her bed.

  Nor could she find any remnants of dreams clinging to the corners of her consciousness. One moment she'd been sound asleep, and the next wide-awake. Wide-awake, and worried about Jared.

  The Twin Thing.

  But that didn't make sense. Why would it have happened now, in the middle of the night? She picked up the clock and tipped it toward the window, where a little moonlight was seeping in. A little after three-thirty in the morning. Usually, when the Twin Thing happened, she and Jared were both awake. In fact, most of the time, they were together when that sudden understanding passed between them. But she'd read about other twins who had experienced powerful connections. Like knowing when the other was in some kind of trouble. Hurt, or sick, something like that. Could it happen when you were asleep?

  Getting up, Kim pulled on the old cotton bathrobe she'd appropriated from her brother when he outgrew it, and went to her door. She listened again, but this time it was for her father. What if he hadn't passed out yet and was still drinking? If he spotted her, he'd yell at her, or want her to stay up and talk to him. Except he wouldn't want her to talk at all—he'd want her to listen while he went on and on about how unfair everything was.

  Like anybody ever said life was supposed to be fair. At least she and Jared had figured that one out a long time ago.

  Finally, she opened her door a few inches and peered out through the crack. There was enough light coming up from one of the rooms downstairs so she could see all the way across the broad entry hall to Jared's room, opening off the opposite wing of the mezzanine.

  His door was closed, and no light showed from the crack beneath it.

  Kim paused to listen again. Hearing no sounds drifting up from the floor below, she quickly padded around the mezzanine to her brother's door. "Jared?" she whispered. "Jared!"

  She heard a soft whining.

  Scout?

  But Scout always slept at the foot of Jared's bed, and it was Jared who had to wake the dog up every morning, not vice versa. She twisted the knob, felt the latch come free, eased the door open, and peered inside. Instantly, Scout jammed his muzzle in the gap, demanding to be scratched. "What is it, boy?" Kim asked. She pushed the door open wider and knelt down to rub Scout's neck, massaging his shoulders the way she knew he liked it. But a second later Scout pulled away from her and darted to the open window, where he reared up, braced himself on the sill with one paw, and scratched eagerly at the screen with the other. "Oh, no," Kim whispered. "That's how Muffin got—"