HORROR THRILLERS-A Box Set of Horror Novels (53 page)

Her kitchen was
left as she found it, not even a dishwasher installed to modernize
it. There were open cabinets displaying a collection of Japanese
Nippon dishware and on the wall she'd hung handwoven baskets she
bought from local Mexican artisans.

She knew the house
and every crevice and corner in it. It was her sanctuary and the most
beloved possession she owned. So when the intruder appeared, she knew
it even before he spoke.

She had her back to
the room, her hands deep in sudsy water washing the dinner dishes.
She stiffened and turned her head to look behind her. "Who are
you?" she asked in a strong voice. She did not ask how he had
got into her home through the locked doors. She knew immediately that
he was not human and was in fact something obscene and unnatural. She
had felt it the moment she knew he was there, standing behind her on
the oval hooked rug in the center of her kitchen.

Unlike Westerners,
she had no prejudice against the idea of the supernatural. Though she
had attended American universities and was a scientist, she saw no
reason to discard the centuries of wisdom that had come down through
her family from their ancestors in Japan. The man who had appeared
out of thin air in her kitchen might be a spirit of the house only
now making itself known to her. Her little home had been built in the
late 1800s, and she had wondered if any of the people who had lived
in it before would want to communicate with her. But for ten years
they had remained silent. Until now.

She was not afraid.
She wiped her hands dry on a dish towel, planted her feet apart, and
faced the being.

He had not yet
spoken. Again she asked, "Who are you? What do you want?"

"You're not
afraid," he stated, a little surprised.

"Why should I
be? Or. . . should I be?"

"You know I'm
not someone from the neighborhood who has broken into your house?"

She nodded. "Yes,
of course I know." She gave him a scornful look as she put the
dish towel aside on the counter. She took two steps closer to him,
wondering about him. "You're not quite real," she said. "I
know that much."

He smiled, and she
stiffened again, but this time with mounting fear. There was
something wrong with the smile, something wrong with the shape of his
teeth . . . his eyeteeth. She sucked in air slowly and now she knew a
greater fear that crept up her spine and insinuated itself into the
lizard part of her brain.

"But you don't
know who or what I really am, do you, Bette?"

She sagged a little
and reached for the counter to steady herself. "I thought you
might be . . .”

"A ghost.
Someone from the past who occupied this old house before you."

"Yes,"
she whispered.

"I'm sorry to
disappoint you. I am not a ghost. I am as solid as you. As real as
you. Would you like to touch me and see for yourself?"

She shook her head
quickly. She waited for him to go on. What could this thing want with
her? If it had not come from the many memories imprinted on the
floors and walls and ceilings of her house, then where had it
originated?

It was after
sunset, and the bright overhead light in her kitchen made him appear
to be as solid as any man, just as he'd claimed. If it had not been
for the glimpse of his teeth when he'd smiled at her, she knew she
would not feel this uncommon fear rising as a tide inside her mind.
She fought back the edge of panic and glanced about for something she
might use against him to protect herself. The small iron skillet on
the stove burner? The heavy glass teapot on the counter? She doubted
she would ever get the drawer open so she could reach for a sharp
knife.

"There's no
point in doing any of that," he said, as if reading her mind.

She snapped her
gaze back to him. "What are you and why do you want to talk to
me?"

"We must have
a meeting of minds," he said, coming closer to her. "A
mingling of minds, Bette."

She stepped back
until the base of her spine hit the sink's edge. She brought up both
her hands as if to ward him off. He was old, probably eighty or more,
but she knew his age was deceptive. She could feel his power as if it
were an electrical current springing out and touching her like a
force field. It was causing small electrical shocks all along her
arms and chest and face. If anyone else would have touched her at
that moment, she thought he would have been electrocuted.

"Don't,"
she pleaded, tearing her gaze from his depthless eyes and staring at
the floor. "Please, don't."

"I have no
choice, Bette. You'll be in great danger if I don't do this."

What he said made
no sense to her and yet in some way her intuition knew what he was
about to do was irrevocable. He was primed to do something horrible,
she knew that, but did not know exactly what. It wasn't a physical
threat; she did not fear for her flesh or her life. He thought
whatever he was going to do would keep her from further danger. But
what he meant to do to her was far worse; something he was about to
unleash would invade and change her. She would fight with every ounce
of her energy and strength against it.

"You can't,”
she whispered in terror, cringing away from him so that she was
leaning backward over the sink, gripping the edges with her hands
until her knuckles turned white. She turned her head as far away from
him as possible.

She had been born
with some psychic skills she had never questioned because they were
always there, always present. She could sometimes divine the future.
She often had dreams about colleagues and friends and the dreams
would come true later.

She could sense
life beneath the surface of the world, as if there was an alternate
reality just beyond the five senses, and although she had never
penetrated that world, she had a feeling it couldn't possibly be as
dangerous and alien as was the event unfolding in her spare kitchen.

Just as the old man
stepped closer to do whatever it was he was determined to do, she
heard a knock at the front of the house. Her head snapped back, and
she held the being's gaze with her own. "Someone's here,"
she whispered in newfound joy. She knew he must be alone with her to
"mingle with her mind," as he'd put it.

"Yes,"
said the man, stepping back again. His hands hung at his sides, and
she thought she detected disappointment and then sadness creeping
over his old wrinkled face. "I'll come back," he said,
stepping back once more so that he was at the same spot where he'd
been standing when she'd first seen him.

The knock at her
door was insistent. She could not move. The being before her was
winking out of existence, rippling the way a sheet waves in a wind.
"Go!" she whispered breathlessly. "Go away!"

And as suddenly as
he'd appeared, he was gone. She was alone in her kitchen, clutching
hard at the sink's edge, trembling uncontrollably. She felt tears
rise in her eyes and blinked hard to clear them.

The knocking at her
door had not let up. It was as if whoever was outside knew she was in
imminent danger and was about to break the door down if she did not
answer it.

She stumbled across
the kitchen, down the narrow hall, and to the front door. She held
onto the dead bolt lock for long seconds trying to find a reserve of
strength to turn it. Finally she had it unlocked and the knob turned
and the door standing open to the night. Her entrance light was on
and in the flood of light outlining the front steps stood Alan Star,
his face twisted with anxiety.

"I saw your
car here and the lights on. I was worried something was wrong when
you didn't answer."

"Oh, Alan!"
She fell into his arms, so weak she nearly buckled at the knees. He
caught her and stepped inside, half carrying her. He reached back and
shut the door behind him.

"What
happened?"

"I . . . I . .
. there was . . ." She couldn't get it out. She didn't know what
to tell him. He would think her crazy.

"Someone was
here?" He had guessed it. He led her into the living room and
lowered her to the sofa. He turned immediately and hurried down the
hall to the dining room, then out of it and into the kitchen. He came
back, puzzled, and looked up the stairs to the loft that lay in
darkness beyond the landing. "Up there?" he asked, about to
take the stairs. "Is he up there?"

"No, he's
gone."

Alan acted as if he
didn't believe her, and then she saw his shoulders slump with the
relief of his own tension. He came and sat at her side, taking her
hands into his own. "What did he do?"

"Noth . . .
nothing. He didn't do anything."

"But if I
hadn't come, he might have hurt you! Did he have a gun or something?
Was he going to . . . rob you?"

Bette put a hand
over her eyes. Rape her, he had almost said. She could not stop
trembling. Alan had really thought she'd had a rapist in her house,
although he hadn't been capable of saying it. He was not far from
wrong, except the power the being had held over her had not been for
rape of the body, only of the mind.

She felt Alan's arm
come around her shoulders and hug her over into his chest. "It's
all right," he said. "I'm here now. I told you long ago you
ought to move out of this neighborhood.”

How could she tell
him it wasn't that? It hadn't been a drugged-out Hispanic or a Black
man intent on killing or raping or robbing her. Her neighbors were
her friends and watched out for her. She had been accepted as one of
them, a minority, one of society's outcasts, no matter what the white
population of the country thought of the forward steps that had been
made in the name of equality. Deep in their hearts, they all knew
they were not truly accepted.

It was normal for
Alan, a white man, to think she had been menaced by someone of color,
someone who could not find work and so turned to dealing drugs and
guns in order to live. In his world that was what people were trained
to think. He had no notion of how really protected she was in the
racially-mixed neighborhood, how loyal all of them were to one
another. If there were robberies, they would be committed far from
the confines of her home. At least, that was the way it was in this
neighborhood, she thought. She was safer here in her little home than
anywhere in the city. Safe until the stranger with the frightening
smile and the apparent ability to read her mind showed up in her
kitchen, that is.

She removed a shaky
hand from her eyes and looked at Alan. When he was perplexed, he
squinched up his eyes so that there was a furrow between his brows.
He was almost comical to her with his large blue eyes and thin lips,
but she could not smile.

"Someone
appeared in my kitchen just before you came."

The furrow
deepened. "Appeared?"

She nodded her
head. "I know you won't believe this, Alan, but it was some kind
of man who wasn't human. He wasn't a ghost either. I don't know what
he was, but he came to do something to me, something . . . really
bad."

"Wasn't human?
You mean, like, he as an . . . alien? Is that what you mean?"

With each word his
voice had risen because his understanding could not encompass beings
that were not human. Even asking her if the apparition was an alien
was another way of dismissing what she had experienced. Friends with
her since medical school, Alan knew she was born in Japan and had
come to the states as a child. He also knew she kept a statue of
Buddha on a small altar in her bedroom and that she held beliefs that
any Western scientist would scoff at. But trying to explain to him
what manner of beast had come to her in the kitchen was not going to
be simple.

"It wasn't an
alien, Alan. I don't believe in aliens."

He sighed a little,
letting out a relieved breath. She mentally cringed at what she would
have to tell him. The reality would put the idea of aliens to shame.

"It was some
other kind of being. Something supernatural and very powerful. He
just appeared in my kitchen while I was doing dishes, and then when
he heard you at the door, he left again, twinkling out like smoke. He
had a mission that has to do with me, but I don't know what it is. I
didn't feel that he was going to kill me. But he was going to do
something to my mind. I don't know how, but if you hadn't come, I
wouldn't be the same person you have always known. He would have
changed me some way. He . . . he promised he'd be back."

Alan didn't say
anything. He sat back on the sofa and let go of her hands. The furrow
was still between his eyes. That meant he was trying to digest what
she'd told him. How could she expect him to understand? Who would?
She hardly understood herself, having never come across such a being
as this. She hadn't even heard stories of them or of what would cause
one of them to be a threat to her.