CHAPTER ONE from
The Skull Ring by Scott Nicholson:
I locked the door.
Julia’s sweating palm gripped the doorknob, the click of the tumblers still echoing inside her skull. Would he be inside, waiting, his lungs holding a hateful breath? The years fell away, and for a moment, she was a child again. A scared little helpless—
No.
That was Memphis, this was Elkwood. This was the new and improved Julia Stone, the one who was on the path to healing. Imaginary creeps no longer stalked the alleys of her mind. Thanks to Dr. Forrest.
She glanced behind her at the woods, which seemed to have crept closer to the house since yesterday. The Appalachian Mountain shadows reached out like fingers, and she searched there for movement, any sign that people were watching. That he was watching.
Julia let the door swing open and squinted into the dark throat of the house. Nobody home. Nothing to fear, just the bland patterns of her furniture to welcome her. Just another day in her new normal life.
Nonetheless, her hand went into her purse and touched the cool canister of mace. She went inside, not letting herself look back. When you were cured, you didn't care what was behind you. Forward was all that mattered. Coat rack, recliner, sofa, television. Forward, another step, even though something was wrong with the coffee table.
At first she thought they were small boxes of food, maybe delicate chocolates or caviar, arranged in a line across the table. Something Mitchell would buy her to make up for a slight. But how did the packages get inside?
Her legs carried her closer, her fist clenched around the mace. The row of squares weren't boxes. She touched them in the dimness, let her fingers track over the raised surfaces. A child’s wooden blocks.
She picked up the nearest one, her breath catching. Tilted toward the window, the embossed letter caught enough light to show its cruel hook, its sharp teeth.
J.
She placed the block back on the table, casting a look down the shadowed hall. Nothing there but dark and darker.
Her hand trembled as she picked up the next block in line. She lifted it six inches before she dropped it, and the wood clacked against the table’s surface and tumbled under the couch like an oversized dice.
She didn't need to read the letter to know what it said. Because the next block was the same, and so was the next.
O.
She slapped the blocks off the table and knelt on the carpet, her heart playing her ribs like a mad xylophonist, the melody broken, the rhythm spastic, the blows landing much too hard.
A noise behind her, louder than her heartbeat. Nothing, she knew. She would be strong, because this was Elkwood, North Carolina, and bad things couldn't follow her here. She wouldn't look, because cured people didn't jump at every imagined sound.
Kurr-chack chack.
Nothing but the wind pushing branches against the house.
Chack.
Only in her head. She couldn't help it. She turned.
The creep stood on the porch, six-foot two.
Metal glinted in his fist.
The fish-eye lens of panic both distorted and magnified her vision. Julia tried to scream but had no breath, she rose, glanced frantically for the canister of mace she had dropped, knowing it was too late, it had always been too late, they’d had her since she was four.
The creep's hulk blocked the doorway, a belt loaded with weapons circling his waist. His eyes were hot and steely, his mouth open in passionate rage.
He had long, long fingers.
The blade flashed, quivered.
Her heart had been set afire and shot from a catapult.
The past had reached her, despite all her running and hiding and pretending. It was here, now, come to towering, fire-breathing life. She would never make it to the bedroom door in time. If she fled, his pleasure would only intensify, and her legs were like stacks of wooden blocks shot through with string.
Why fight any longer?
The Creep was silhouetted against a backdrop of sun and light blue sky, the wild colors of autumn wreathing his head like a halo.