his first bestseller. He smiled as the cold crawled onto his wrist. He had a soft spot for cold spots.
The sensation of cold increased suddenly and he pulled his tingling hand back, shaking it, realizing he shouldn't let it consume any more of his energy. The very fact that it had grown in strength surprised him because it meant it had actually managed to draw from him, and that was something that had only happened once before.
While researching Dead Ernest, he'd spent the night in a notoriously haunted house in Boston. He'd been fighting off a miserable case of the flu, was working under a deadline from hell, and had recently broken off with Lorna Dyke, the woman before Melanie, and she'd spent the last several weeks screaming at him by phone, sending him suicidal letters, and driving by his house at all hours of the day and night. He should have listened to Amber, he realized later. She'd told him that Lorna--an unpublished (and unpublishable) poet who worked in a gas station-was a psychopath, and she'd been right. The night he broke it off, she'd even threatened to kill him.
So, when he decided to sleep in the most haunted room in the most haunted house in Boston, he'd been a little stressed out--a little under the weather, as it were. He hadn't been physically or mentally up for the experience, but he refused to put it off. He awoke at three in the morning, trembling because of a nightmare about swimming in a room filled with blood, and shivering from the cold. The whole room was frigid even though the little space heater nearby glowed red. The manifestation simply ate the heat. When he stood, he found that his legs would barely hold him up and, as he staggered toward the door, an apparition appeared. Fascinated he watched it- it was his first visual ghost--and it floated toward him, nothing but a pale amorphous ovoid. Just before it touched him, he panicked and tried to run for the door, which seemed to take forever because he hardly had any strength left and because a telescoping phenomenon--an effect that made the door look like it was a million miles away--impeded him. But he had made it out before the apparition touched him. To this day, he wondered what would have happened if he hadn't woken when he did, even though, intellectually, he thought he was being a superstitious idiot. Not only did the experience frighten him badly, but he ended up in the hospital with pneumonia. The fever dreams became an integral part of Dead Ernest, his fifth book, and his first bestseller.
Now he caught a faint whiff of jasmine, and he smiled. After Dead Ernest, he arranged to secretly witness a black magic ritual that was to be held in an abandoned warehouse in Chicago. The building had been the scene of a horrendous gangland slaying in the thirties and, naturally, it was supposed to be haunted. From everything he'd read, he'd believed it probably was--but that was nothing compared to the ritual. It so horrified him that he was glad he was hidden too far away to see everything in detail, but it taught him that reading or writing about such a thing and actually witnessing it were very different experiences. The energy the cult members expended was eaten by the haunting and soon he began to feel the unnatural cold, even up on the catwalk where he hid.
Below, he saw vapor issuing from the mouths of the cultists as they chanted. Then something happened that scared him as badly as the Boston haunting had: first he heard--felt, really--the rush as the air pressure changed, hurting his ears just as it had in this room last night. Then suddenly the catwalk started swaying and his microcassette slid off the narrow metal walkway. The cultists heard it and looked up.
Fortunately, he'd come prepared with colored smoke bombs and, as he rose, he began dropping them to hide his escape. The catwalk swayed harder, slowing him down, and the air pressure played havoc with his inner ears, almost causing him to fall several times. By the time he got
The sensation of cold increased suddenly and he pulled his tingling hand back, shaking it, realizing he shouldn't let it consume any more of his energy. The very fact that it had grown in strength surprised him because it meant it had actually managed to draw from him, and that was something that had only happened once before.
While researching Dead Ernest, he'd spent the night in a notoriously haunted house in Boston. He'd been fighting off a miserable case of the flu, was working under a deadline from hell, and had recently broken off with Lorna Dyke, the woman before Melanie, and she'd spent the last several weeks screaming at him by phone, sending him suicidal letters, and driving by his house at all hours of the day and night. He should have listened to Amber, he realized later. She'd told him that Lorna--an unpublished (and unpublishable) poet who worked in a gas station-was a psychopath, and she'd been right. The night he broke it off, she'd even threatened to kill him.
So, when he decided to sleep in the most haunted room in the most haunted house in Boston, he'd been a little stressed out--a little under the weather, as it were. He hadn't been physically or mentally up for the experience, but he refused to put it off. He awoke at three in the morning, trembling because of a nightmare about swimming in a room filled with blood, and shivering from the cold. The whole room was frigid even though the little space heater nearby glowed red. The manifestation simply ate the heat. When he stood, he found that his legs would barely hold him up and, as he staggered toward the door, an apparition appeared. Fascinated he watched it- it was his first visual ghost--and it floated toward him, nothing but a pale amorphous ovoid. Just before it touched him, he panicked and tried to run for the door, which seemed to take forever because he hardly had any strength left and because a telescoping phenomenon--an effect that made the door look like it was a million miles away--impeded him. But he had made it out before the apparition touched him. To this day, he wondered what would have happened if he hadn't woken when he did, even though, intellectually, he thought he was being a superstitious idiot. Not only did the experience frighten him badly, but he ended up in the hospital with pneumonia. The fever dreams became an integral part of Dead Ernest, his fifth book, and his first bestseller.
Now he caught a faint whiff of jasmine, and he smiled. After Dead Ernest, he arranged to secretly witness a black magic ritual that was to be held in an abandoned warehouse in Chicago. The building had been the scene of a horrendous gangland slaying in the thirties and, naturally, it was supposed to be haunted. From everything he'd read, he'd believed it probably was--but that was nothing compared to the ritual. It so horrified him that he was glad he was hidden too far away to see everything in detail, but it taught him that reading or writing about such a thing and actually witnessing it were very different experiences. The energy the cult members expended was eaten by the haunting and soon he began to feel the unnatural cold, even up on the catwalk where he hid.
Below, he saw vapor issuing from the mouths of the cultists as they chanted. Then something happened that scared him as badly as the Boston haunting had: first he heard--felt, really--the rush as the air pressure changed, hurting his ears just as it had in this room last night. Then suddenly the catwalk started swaying and his microcassette slid off the narrow metal walkway. The cultists heard it and looked up.
Fortunately, he'd come prepared with colored smoke bombs and, as he rose, he began dropping them to hide his escape. The catwalk swayed harder, slowing him down, and the air pressure played havoc with his inner ears, almost causing him to fall several times. By the time he got
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