Charnel House by Graham Masterton Page B

superstition.
    He lit his cigarette. “You were right about the birds.”
    â€œThey’re still up there?”
    â€œThousands of them, all along the roof.”
    I stepped up to the window and looked out. They were there, all right, ragged and fluttering in the Pacific wind.
    â€œThey’re like some kind of goddamned omen,” he said. “What’s the matter with them? They don’t even sing .”
    â€œThey look like they’re waiting for something,” I said. “I just hope that it’s nothing more portentous than a packet of birdseed.”
    â€œLet’s go take a look at Machin. I could use some light relief,” Dr. Jarvis suggested.
    â€œYou call what happened to Dan light relief?”
    He took a last drag at his cigarette and nipped it out between his finger and thumb. “After what happened just now, a funeral would be light relief.”
    We walked along the corridor until we came to Dan’s room. Dr. Jarvis looked through the small circular window in the door, and then opened it.
    Dan was still in a coma. There was a nurse by his bedside, and his pulse and respiration and blood pressure were being closely observed. Dr. Jarvis went across and examined him, lifting his eyelids to see if there was any response. Dan’s face was white and spectral, and he was still breathing in that same deep, dreamless rhythm that had characterized the breathing in Seymour Wallis’s house.
    As Dr. Jarvis was checking Dan’s body temperature, I said, “Supposing—”
    â€œSupposing what?” he said, preoccupied.
    I came closer to Dan’s bedside. The young boy from Middle America was so still and pallid he might have been dead, except for his hollow, regular breathing.
    â€œSupposing Bryan was trying to get here , to see Dan.”
    Dr. Jarvis looked around. “Why should he want to do that?”
    â€œWell, each of them has one of the sounds that used to haunt Seymour Wallis’s house. Maybe the two of them have enough in common that they want to get together. All that Indian stuff that Jane was talking about, you know, returning by the path of many pieces, well maybe that means some kind of reincarnation by numbers.”
    â€œI don’t follow.”
    â€œIt’s pretty simple. If this power or influence or whatever it is that’s haunting Seymour Wallis’s house was all kind of split up, you know, breathing in one place and heartbeat in another, then maybe it might try to get itself back together again.”
    â€œJohn, you’re raving.”
    â€œYou’ve seen Bryan walking around with no skin on his skull and you tell me I’m raving?”
    Dr. Jarvis made a note of Dan’s temperature on his chart and then stood up straight. “There’s no point in trying to find farfetched answers,” he said. “Whatever’s going on, there has to be a simple explanation.”
    â€œLike what? One man goes crazy and another man loses the skin off his head, and we have to look for a simple explanation? James, there’s something planned and deliberate going on here. Somebody wants all this to happen. It’s as if it’s all been worked out.”
    â€œThere’s no evidence in favor of that,” he said, “and I’d rather you called me Jim.”
    I sighed. “All right, if you want to take it the slow, logical, medical way, I don’t suppose I blame you. But right now I feel like talking to Jane and Seymour Wallis. Jane has a theory that’s worth listening to, and I’ll bet you two Baby Ruths to six bottles of Chivas Regal that Seymour Wallis knows more than he’s told us.”
    â€œI don’t drink Chivas Regal.”
    â€œWell, that’s okay. I don’t eat Baby Ruths.”
    I took a taxi down to The Head Bookstore just after noon. As I was driving away from the hospital, I couldn’t help looking back at the birds on the roof. From a