Page 75 of Shiver

He looked at her and smiled, suddenly looking normal again. Suddenly looking as if he were in complete control and knew exactly what he was doing. “No one will find you. I’m going to take care of everything, just like always.”

Confusion twisted around her and pulled tight.

“Devra Miller disappeared a long time ago, and Devra Morgan doesn’t exist.”

“But Riley—”

He laughed. “That foolish cop only thinks about his mommy. He doesn’t know she walks beside him all the time, looking sad, looking heartbroken. Don’t you see it will set them both free? Then they can be together, they can be happy. Like us. Like families should.”

He got out of the SUV and walked around to open her door. She didn’t move. Couldn’t. Something cold had taken control of her limbs. Was it possible? Were the dead constantly around us? Could he really see them?

He grabbed her arm and pulled. She almost fell out of the vehicle, found her footing, and righted herself. “Please,” she whispered. “Please don’t make me go in there.”

Blood. If she closed her eyes, she could see it inching across the floor, filling the seams, darkening the wood.

He pushed her toward the door, opened it, and forced her in. The floor wasn’t golden or gleaming, it was old and weathered and beyond repair. A rat scurried across the room, making her skin crawl.

“We can’t live here,” she cried. A dark corner of her mind beckoned. A deep abyss where there was no light, no thought, no visions. It was someplace she could go, her mind whispered, someplace she could hide.

He continued toward the kitchen. She stood rooted in the doorway, refusing to move. Then she saw the table set up in the corner, with the lace tablecloth and wooden bowl. So much like the one Tommy was carrying that day. Something red stained the inside of the bowl. Raspberries? Blood?

Next to the bowl sat a baby dress and hairbrush, an old stuffed bear and a music box, the kind with a crank where the lid opens and a clown pops out. As she stared at the box, a chill worked its way inside her and she began to tremble. “Please,” she whispered.

“Mama, Papa, we’re home!” he yelled.

Horrified, she stared at her brother. “They’re not here,” she insisted.

He turned to her. “Of course they’re here. They’ve been waiting for you.” He grabbed her arm and pulled.

Please don’t let them be here.

The room shifted and as she moved closer to the kitchen doorway, she could almost see her mother lying on the floor, her long golden curls resting in a puddle of blood.

Her brother turned to her, his eyes glazing over—the blank dead stare of a corpse. “They’re right there in front of you. In the kitchen, can’t you see them?”

The warped music box began to play.

“No,” she whispered, shaking her head.

“We’re a family again, now that I’ve brought you home.”

A shudder passed through her.He was never going to let her go.

“Let’s go into the nursery and play.”

As he reached for her, images from the past circled round her. Suddenly she couldn’t tell which were memories and which were fragments from his shattered mind. “Stay away from me.”

He tugged harder. “Come on, Devy! Let’s play.”

“No!” she screamed, placing her hands over her ears to block out the music box, to block the screams of a toddler crying for her mommy.

The room spun.

She turned and ran out the door, away from the house, away from the nightmare.

Away from him.

“You can run, but you can’t hide, Devy! I always find you!”

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