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

cutting up vegetables. She handed it to Jerry and said, “He’s not actually in
there,
is he, under the floor? There’s not enough room, surely.”
    Jerry dug the broken knife blade into the side of the wardrobe’s plinth. Carefully, he pried a board upward, but underneath there was only a dark, empty space, containing nothing at all, not even spiderwebs. He peered inside and then shook his head. “Not in here,” he said, his voice sounding hollow. “Wouldn’t really be room enough, anyway. You’d have to be a bloody midget to hide in here.”
    “You see?” said Dawn. She felt as if her brain were bursting apart into a thousand glittering fragments, like a mirror being smashed in slow motion, and she had to sit down on the side of the bed. “I
was
dreaming it. Or else I
am
going mad. I think I’m going mad.”
    Jerry sat down next to her and put his arm around her. “No, sweetheart, you didn’t dream it, and no, you’re not going mad. To be honest, I wasn’t too sure if I believed you yesterday about this black-faced man, but I was lying in bed tonight and I couldn’t sleep because I was thinking to myself, Dawn’s not the hysterical type, not at all. In fact you’re the most levelheaded girl I ever went out with. Why do you think I came round here at two o’clock in the morning? I just wanted to be sure.”
    Dawn gave him a kiss and snuggled in closer to him. “But if I’m not
dreaming
him, and I’m not going mad, then what is he? He felt real and he really hurt me, but how can he be real if he can disappear like that? Perhaps he’s a ghost or an evil spirit or something. He kept saying that I was a bitch. He said he’d got the blame for something I’d done, but I couldn’t really understand what he meant. Something to do with a baby.”
    Jerry said, “I’m sure that it’s something to do with the wardrobe. How long have you been living here now?”
    “It’ll be a year at the end of September.”
    “And when was the wardrobe delivered?”
    “A month ago. Less than a month.”
    “And you didn’t see this black-faced man before then?”
    Dawn shook her head.
    “I’ll tell you what we’re going to do,” said Jerry. “Tomorrow we’re both going to throw a sickie and we’re going to drive up to Oxford and see your aunt what’s-her-name.”
    “Selina. But what for?”
    “Let’s find out where she got this wardrobe. Maybe it used to belong to a coven of witches. Or a stage magician. I’ll bet that’s it. I’ll bet you it belonged to the Great Lumbago or somebody like that, only he got trapped inside it.”
    “So why is he all burned like that? I could feel the hair on his legs was burned. It was all crunchy and horrible.”
    “Maybe he was waiting for somebody to let him out of the wardrobe and he lit up a cigarette to pass the time, and he accidentally dropped it.”
    Dawn sat up and gave Jerry a slap on the shoulder. “Be serious, will you, Jerry? I’ve never been so frightened in my life. If you hadn’t knocked at the window he would have raped me.”
    Jerry said, “I know, sweetheart. I’m sorry. I’m trying to make a joke of it because I’m just as frightened for you as you are. I don’t believe in ghosts and spirits and stuff like that, I really don’t. But I believe you’re telling the truth and I can’t find any black-faced man hiding in that wardrobe, so what else can he be, except a ghost or a spirit? Or maybe some kind of horrible creature that we’ve never even heard of?”
    —
    As they arrived outside Aunt Selina’s antiques shop, it started to rain almost laughably hard, drumming on the fabric roof of Jerry’s BMW so loudly that they could hardly hear themselves. Times Gone By stood on a corner of Windmill Road, a long depressing street of semidetached Victorian villas in Headington, a suburb of Oxford. Jerry parked in Margaret Road and opened the passenger door so that Dawn could scamper into the antiques shop doorway with her jacket held over her