Ultimate Supernatural Horror Box Set by F. Paul Wilson, Blake Crouch, Scott Nicholson, Jeff Strand, Jack Kilborn, J. A. Konrath, Iain Rob Wright, Jordan Crouch

standard mental relaxation techniques.
    Again, nonsense.  Arthur came to realize that the Lord had become an integral part of his life and was working through him.  To bind himself closer to Him, he went to Bible study groups, prayer meetings, healing sessions, immersing himself in the new Christian Fundamentalism and becoming one of its more visible members.  And when he sold his company and decided to run for the Senate, he discovered that his new beliefs guaranteed him a huge, ready-made constituency eager to help propel him to the Capitol.
    Surely anyone with half a brain could see the hand of God at work in all this.
    He opened his eyes as he heard the rattle of the bridge timbers under the wheels.  He leaned against the window and stared down over the edge of the narrow, one-car span.  Afternoon sunlight dazzled and danced on the cascading surface of the brook one hundred feet below.
    Emilio guided the Bentley from the bridge onto a path that wound through the pines for half a mile, then they broke from the shade into the light.  Before them stretched a lush garden of flowering fruit trees surrounded by sprays of forsythia and rhododendrons and azaleas.  Wild flowers bloomed in the interstices.  No grass.  Just ground cover and natural mulch.  Arthur spent tens of thousands of dollars a year to keep the garden looking wild and untended and yet perfect.  Beyond the garden stretched the western sky.  And two hundred feet straight down—the Pacific Ocean.
    Emilio pulled into the bower that served as a carport.  Arthur opened his own door—he disliked being waited upon—and stepped out.  The fresh, salt tang of the on-shore breeze felt marvelous after the fumes of New York. 
    Every time he returned from a trip he appreciated anew Olivia’s wisdom in naming their home Paraiso.
    Then he thought of his son and his mood darkened.  Yes, their home looked like a paradise.  If only it could be a paradise.
    “Where’s Charlie?”
    “He was still asleep when I left,” Emilio said.
    Arthur nodded.  Time for the showdown.  He didn’t want this.  And when he’d left New York he hadn’t known what to do.  But during the flight he’d prayed and placed the problem in God’s hands.
    And praise the Lord, by the time the Gulfstream had landed he had the solution.
    He strode toward the low dome that was the only part of the house visible from the garden.  He tapped the entry code into the keypad and the door swung inward.  He passed the door of the waiting elevator, preferring the extra time the spiral staircase would afford him.  As he descended to the top floor, the endless grandeur of the Pacific opened before him.
    Arthur had built the house downward instead of up, carving it into the rocky face of the oceanfront cliffs.  It hadn’t been easy.  When he finally found a suitable coastal cliff south of Carmel that was an extrusion of bedrock instead of the soft clay that dominated the area, strong enough to support his dream house, he ran up against the California Coastal Commission.  Many were the times during his epic battles with those arrogant bureaucrats that he’d wished he’d never started the project.  But he was determined to see it through.  After all, he’d promised Olivia.  It took threats, bribes, and in one case, plain, old-fashioned blackmail to get all the permits.  It was during that period that he learned the power of government, and decided that the only way to protect himself from it was to join the club and wield some of that power himself.
    But Paraiso was finally built, exactly to his specs.  The entire front was a dazzling array of floor-to-ceiling windows, enticing the sky and the sea indoors, making them part of the interior.  From the sea, Paraiso appeared as a massive mosaic of steel and crystal—a three-story bay window.  At night it glowed like a jewel set into the cliffside.  On sunny weekends the waves below were acrawl with a bobbing horde of boats, private