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Back Devil in the Darkness
Chapters (25)
  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright Page
  4. Introduction by Greg Gbur
  5. Epigraphs
  6. Author's Note
  7. 1
  8. 2
  9. 3
  10. 4
  11. 5
  12. 6
  13. 7
  14. 8
  15. 9
  16. 10
  17. 11
  18. 12
  19. 13
  20. 14
  21. 15
  22. 16
  23. 17
  24. 18
  25. About the Author

Bourne smiled slightly.

‘Very ingenious. And the tower of dishes?’

Carol shrugged. Paul remembered his own feelings of claustrophobic confinement in the cellars while they searched them. He felt the sickness return.

‘What about the other things?’ Joyce asked. ‘They were quite different. That thing in your bed.’

Carol shuddered.

‘That’s what I mean. That thing, and what happened to Sir Henry Fraser’s little boy. And Bernard Gray.’

‘And the attempt to destroy us all,’ Ann interjected.

‘Yes. They were something else. What is your opinion on that, Mr Meredith?’

‘I don’t think I have one beyond a few vague speculations, Mrs Wilson. Howard, Adams and Metcalfe’s deaths were violent, mind-crazing and unspeakably horrific. They were buried alive in total darkness. If they didn’t suffocate they probably suffered torments of thirst and hunger. They were probably delirious at the end, their minds disintegrating under their agonies. Hate and lust for revenge were certainly ever-present factors. In his account, Peter Cavendish quoted Othello. Let me also quote Shakespeare. From Hamlet.

‘ “To sleep, perchance to dream. Aye, there’s the rub

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come.”

‘Remember Dr Wickland and his ideas. Is it conceivably possible that this mysterious world, about which we know so little, allows such nightmares to exist and in certain circumstances affect the living? Who knows?’

Paul twisted round, opened the car door and got out. The air was cool and fresh with the promise of better weather. He walked round the bonnet of the Volvo and stood facing the smoking ruins of Ardvreck House. A faint whirring noise came to his ears. In the pale sky an approaching helicopter caught his attention. Someone on the other side of the sea-loch must have spotted the blaze last night and informed the authorities. Behind him the other doors of the car opened and the others came out. He put his arm about Carol’s shoulders and watched the aircraft beat nearer. Like Carol he hoped Meredith was wrong. Wrong about lots of things. But he was not sure that he was.

About the Author

About the Author