Dark Screams: Volume Two by Robert R. McCammon, Graham Masterton, Richard Christian Matheson Page A

say, “Dawn? Dawn? It’s Jerry! Are you awake?”
    “Jerry!”
she called out, but the black-faced man immediately covered her mouth with his horny, clawlike hand.
“Mmmffff! Jerry! Jerry!”
    Jerry rapped again. “Dawn? It’s me, Jerry! Are you awake?”
    The black-faced man hesitated for a few seconds, and then he heaved himself off her, and stood up, pulling up his trousers and buckling his belt.
    “I’ll get my revenge on you one day, you bitch!” he told her. “You just wait and see!”
    With that, he stalked back round to the wardrobe, opened the door, and climbed inside. He closed the door behind him and Dawn heard the key turn.
    Shaking, she slid off the bed. She knelt beside it for a moment, breathing deeply, and then she managed to stand up.
    “Dawn? Are you there, Dawn?”
    Unsteadily, barely able to keep her balance, she went to the window. Jerry was standing outside, precariously perched on the edge of a wooden planter so that he could reach up and rap on her window.
    “What is it?” he shouted, through the glass. “What’s happened?”
    Dawn pointed toward the bedroom door to indicate that she would let him in. He jumped awkwardly down from the planter and she went to the front door and opened it for him. She put her arms around him and clung to him and sobbed so hard that it hurt.
    Gently, he walked her through to the living room and sat her down on the couch.
    “What’s happened? Look at you, your nightie’s all torn! And look at your face! You look like somebody’s been hitting you!”
    “He came out again. That black-faced man. There’s no way he could have unlocked that wardrobe door—not from the inside. But he
did,
and he came out again. And I dropped my phone and I tried to get away but the key got stuck. He pushed me onto the bed and he was going to rape me.”
    Jerry stood up. “Right,” he said. “I’m going to settle this, once and for all.”
    “Jerry, no! He’s really, really strong. He’ll hurt you.”
    “We’ll see about that. Where did he go? Back into your wardrobe? I bet it has a false back, or some secret compartment, and he’s been hiding in it.”
    “Please, Jerry, no! Let’s just go back to your place and come back tomorrow. Then we can see if he really is hiding in the wardrobe, and if he is, we can call the police.”
    But Jerry said, “Sorry, Dawn. I’m not letting anybody get away with hurting you and trying to rape you. I don’t care how bloody strong he is! I don’t care if he’s King bloody Kong!”
    With that, he went through to the bedroom, marched up to the wardrobe, and hammered on it, hard. “Right! You in there! I’m warning you! You’ve got a count of three to come out and show yourself! If you don’t I’m coming in after you, and I’m going to find you, mate, even if I have to chop this wardrobe up into firewood!”
    Dawn stood in the bedroom doorway, watching him as he turned the key in the wardrobe door and opened it. The wire coat hangers softly jingled for a while, and then stopped jingling.
    “Right, then! You’ve got one—two—
three
!”
    He waited, but no black-faced man stepped out of the wardrobe. Almost half a minute went by, but all they could hear was the traffic outside in the street. Dawn said, “Perhaps
this
was a dream, too. Oh, God. Perhaps I need to see a psychiatrist.”
    “You can’t slap your own face, Dawn, especially in a dream. Look at you. In the morning you’ll have two black eyes.”
    He reached into the wardrobe and parted Dawn’s dresses and coats. He banged on the back of it, much harder than he had the night before. Then took out all of Dawn’s shoes and boots and thumped with his fist on the floor.
    “If you’re hiding under there, you’d better show yourself, quick!”
    He thumped on the floor again, and then turned to Dawn and said, “Bring me a knife, would you? Any old knife.”
    Dawn went to the kitchen and came back with a carving knife with a broken tip that she always used for