Book of Horrors (Nightmare Hall) (11 page)

“Are you absolutely sure you don’t have any lasting effects from that fall down into the well?” he asked her anxiously. “I mean, it was a long way down.”

“I’m sure,” Reed answered honestly. “I was really lucky. I wish you’d quit feeling bad about it.”

“Okay, if you say so. Anyway, I wanted to tell you, the fan club was a neat idea. McCoy isn’t much of a people person, but she’s always liked talking to people about her work. I shouldn’t have freaked out like that when I saw you guys there. Sorry.”

“No problem … are you going to be a writer, too?”

“Not in this lifetime. I’m going to do something fun, like digging ditches or stringing fence wire across a desert.”

Reed laughed. “Your mother seems to love it.”

“I know.” He shrugged. “To each his own. Me, I couldn’t stand the isolation. I’m a people person. She’s not.”

Reed remembered thinking Rain was shy and reclusive, like McCoy, when she’d first met him. Probably everyone thought that, at first. Now she knew he liked to have fun, just like everyone else she knew.

“I’m glad you joined the club,” she said sincerely.

He grinned. “Even though it’s hard talking about McCoy’s books with me there?”

“We’ll get used to it.”

“Good,” he said as he left her at the door to Lester. “I’d like that. Having you get used to me, I mean.”

Reed’s step was light as she hurried to her room.

The telephone was ringing as she yanked the door open.

Link, Reed flushed guiltily, remembering Rain’s comment about wanting her to get used to him. Link would probably hear something weird in her voice and call her on it.

But when she said hello, no one answered.

She said hello again, more sharply this time.

“Is this Reed Monroe?” a soft, almost inaudible voice asked.

“Yeah. Who’s this?”

“Karen Overmeyer. I’m calling from Baracca. Are you alone?”

Reed’s jaw dropped. Karen Overmeyer? “Yes. Yes, I’m alone.”

“Good.” The voice was so faint, Reed had to strain to hear it. “My sister Lindsey called me. She said you’re working for Victoria McCoy.”

“Yes, I am. I talked to your sister last night.” Reed sank down on the bed, holding the receiver so close to her ear that it hurt. It was the only way she could hear the voice on the other end. “You worked for her, too?”

There was a long silence on the other end. Just as Reed thought the girl had hung up, the breathy voice whispered, “Listen to my sister. She knows what she’s talking about.”

“But
I
don’t,” Reed said and added urgently,
“Tell
me.”

Her only answer was a final-sounding click.

And although she quickly called Information in Baracca and then dialed the number she was given, and waited as the phone rang a dozen times or more, there was no answer. Karen Overmeyer had said all she was willing to say.

W
HEN
R
EED ARRIVED AT
the McCoy house the following day, she hesitated. Link hadn’t shown up to walk her to the pine grove, and she’d enjoyed being alone. But now, looking up at the door and remembering the call from Karen, her stomach felt as if gremlins were gnawing at her. At the same time, she couldn’t wait to get inside. Strange, conflicting feelings. Shaking her head, Reed hurried into the house.

She was halfway through the first of two thick stacks of fan mail when she heard the noise for the first time. A rustling sound, like crisp October leaves brushing against each other. At first, Reed thought it was Poe, awakening in his cage. But when she got up and walked over to listen, she heard nothing. He was still asleep beneath the covering.

She went back to the desk, but didn’t begin typing again right away. When she had listened for a few moments, head cocked, and heard only silence, she picked up the second pile of fan mail envelopes and began flipping through them, stopping with a frown as she realized that one of the envelopes didn’t have a personal return address label on it like the others.

She pulled the envelope from the pile and studied it. The return address was a business address. “The McIntyre Group,” the label read, followed by a San Diego address.

Someone must have written McCoy a fan letter from their place of business. Maybe on their lunch hour. Or maybe when they were supposed to be working.

Reed slid the letter from its casing and unfolded it.

The heading, centered at the top of the crisp white page, read, “The McIntyre Group” and underneath that, “Quality Medical Care for Those You Love.”

It wasn’t a letter. It was a bill. For medical care for one Victoria McCoy of La Jolla, California, at a facility called Brooklawn.

Embarrassed, Reed quickly refolded the bill and slipped it back inside its envelope. Then she didn’t know what to do with it. She couldn’t very well stick it in with the fan mail. If she did, it would get mailed without the check required. But if she left it sitting off all by itself on a corner of the desk, wouldn’t McCoy know she had opened and looked at it?

Well, so what? It wasn’t
her
fault the letter was mixed in with the fan mail.

Reed set it aside and began typing again.

When the sound came again, it was still distant, but loud enough to reach her ears over the clickety-clack of the old typewriter. A rustling, scratching sound. Squirrels, maybe? But not on the roof. This sound came from somewhere in the room. No, not
in
the room.
Below
it. Was there a basement? An old-fashioned cellar?

Squirrels in the cellar, was that what she’d heard?

There was a long, narrow window directly behind Reed’s desk. It was flanked on both sides by precariously tilting bookshelves. When she stood up, the brass raven looking down upon her from the top shelf caught her eye. If she had a ladder, she’d climb up it and turn the bird around so that she could no longer see its glittering eyes. But she didn’t
have
a ladder.

She walked back to the window and slid it open several inches to listen for squirrels scampering across the roof.

She heard nothing.

But the fresh air was a relief, diluting the damp, mildewy smell. Leaving the window open, she returned to her desk, donning her ski jacket against the cold.

She heard no more rustling sounds, only the noise of campus activities from beyond the trees. Tires squealing, an occasional shout, the marching band practicing. Those sounds were reassuring, telling her she wasn’t as isolated as the house made her feel.

When she had finished, boredom quickly set in. Only three-twenty. She could write a letter to her parents. Or file her nails. Maybe leaf through one of the hundreds of books slopping over the floor-to-ceiling shelves.

Or …

Reaching down, she pulled the bottom desk drawer open again. But she found no more notes.

She turned her attention to the bookshelves. She hadn’t looked for the missing photo album yet. Maybe McCoy had absentmindedly placed it on the shelves.

Reed got up and began fingering through the disordered books. The minute she touched them, two or three fell to the floor with a noisy thunk. When she bent to pick them up, one spit out several newspaper clippings.

She was about to stuff the clippings back into one of the books when a headline jumped out at her.

STUDENT DIES UNDER MYSTERIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES.

Reed picked up the clipping and read it. The text, beside the picture of a smiling, pretty girl wearing glasses and a Salem University sweatshirt, read:

Police in this community are baffled by the unexplained death of nineteen-year-old Katherine (Sunny) Bigelow of Massapequa, Long Island, a student at Salem University. Bigelow’s body was discovered on the riverbank behind Butler Hall, the administration building, three days ago. The fatality was at first believed to be the result of an accidental drowning.

Police now speculate that foul play may have been involved, but will have no further information until the medical examiner returns from a seminar in Buffalo.

The investigation is ongoing.

University officials say the student was popular and had no known enemies. She was an honors student, a member of the marching band, and a part-time employee of Salem’s writer-in-residence, Victoria McCoy. When asked to comment, Ms. McCoy praised Bigelow and was quoted as saying, “Who would do such an awful thing?”

Reed let the clipping fall from her hand. Her heart began pounding wildly, and her spine tingled. A girl who worked for McCoy had died mysteriously on campus?

When?

She picked up the clipping again with her fingers clammy, and read the date.

September. Early September.

Before Carl.

Before Karen.

Before Reed.

There were two more clippings. Reed took them back to the desk and sat down to read them. She checked the dates, circled at the top in black ink, to make sure she was reading the news releases in the correct chronological order.

The second read:

There are no further developments in the Bigelow case. Police say they have received dozens of leads, none of which have panned out.

But it has been reported that Victoria McCoy, the writer who employed Bigelow, has been called to the Twin Falls police station several times in the past week. Police deny that McCoy is a suspect.

Reed read on, the third and final clipping:

Twin Falls police captain Erik Lansing has announced that the medical examiner’s conclusion in the death of Salem University student Sunny Bigelow is accidental death. No further details were available at press time.

Although Bigelow’s parents have publicly expressed dissatisfaction with the investigation, police captain Erik Lansing has announced that the case is closed.

When Reed had read all three clippings, she laid them on the desk in front of her to study them again.

“Accidental death.” The girl named Sunny Bigelow had died accidentally.

That should have been reassuring. But there was that added phrase, “No
further
details were available at press time.”

Did that mean there
were
other details?

None of the information rang a bell with Reed. She couldn’t remember hearing anything about the death of a student early in the first semester. She had never heard of Sunny Bigelow. But that time on campus had been so horrendous, trying to get acclimated to a new place, a new schedule, rush week. Hectic. If there had been rumors, she hadn’t heard them. Since the death had been declared accidental, there might not have been that much of a fuss.

Maybe there were more clippings.

Reed got up and moved back to the bookshelves flanking the window. She chose the left side and began flipping through one book after another, shaking the pages in search of more clippings.

A thick, dog-eared copy of
Roget’s Thesaurus
seemed promising. She picked it up and turned away, intending to carry it back to the desk. As she turned she felt, rather than saw, movement above her. She looked up to see the brass raven’s eyes on her face, and then, as she took a step backward, the wings seemed to spread outward, like the wings of the vulture in her dream.

Even as Reed realized that the shelves were pulling away from the wall, that a shower of books was about to rain down upon her, she remained transfixed by the heavy brass raven tilting forward above her.

She took another step backward, her heart pounding wildly in her throat, her eyes fixated on the brass bird. The head tilted toward her then, and as the shelves toppled and came away from the wall, sending the contents flying out into the air, Reed thought that she heard a shrill, bloodcurdling shriek coming from the open mouth of the brass bird as it swooped down, down, straight for her.

I
N A DESPERATE ATTEMPT
to escape the weight of the falling raven, Reed dove toward the desk. The top of her head slammed into the heavy wooden wall of the kneehole. Something heavy slammed into her exposed left anklebone. She screamed in pain as books rained down upon her with a thunderous roar.

When the last book had fallen, the room was seized by a sudden, heavy silence, as if in shock.

Reed waited. The pain in her ankle was excruciating, making her dizzy. When she could stand the pain no longer, she backed out of the kneehole.

A cackle to her left. She turned and found herself looking straight into a pair of bright, glittering eyes. Reed screamed and scuttled backward on the carpet until she was at a safe distance.

Wings flapped crazily, another caw, then a shrill, “Get out, get out, get out!”

Poe.

His cage had been overturned by the falling shelves and the door had come open, granting him freedom.

Her ankle hurt.

It was bleeding profusely. The other bird, the heavy brass one, lay near the desk, blood on its beak.

That’s my blood, Reed thought dully. The bird
had
attacked her, after all, landing on her exposed ankle when it dove off the shelves.

“Alert, alert, alert!” Poe screamed, and began flying around the room, flapping his wings wildly.

Reed expected to hear McCoy’s voice at any moment, shouting, “What have you
done?”
Even earphones couldn’t have drowned out the noise of those bookshelves crashing to the floor.

But, though Reed sat on the floor surrounded by chaos for what seemed a very long time, the author remained closeted in her office.

Reed’s head throbbed. Her ankle had stopped bleeding, but was beginning to swell.

It could have been so much worse, Reed told herself, using the desk chair to pull herself to her feet. If the desk hadn’t had a kneehole, if I hadn’t heard the sound, if I hadn’t moved fast enough. The bookshelves were metal, and very heavy.

She sat on the floor, holding her injured ankle, looking up at the wall where the shelves had been stationed. That bird, the statue … it had moved first,
before
the shelves gave way. She’d seen it move with her own eyes. Its head, its wings, as if it were about to fly off the shelf.