Ultimate Supernatural Horror Box Set

Chicago, Illinois

Tom

After four hours of troubled sleep, Tom reached for his cell phone next to the bed and hit redial.

It went straight to Roy’s voicemail.

Peering at the nightstand clock, he judged 8am to be late enough to call Roy’s ex-wife. Tom located the number in his address book, and she picked up on the second ring.

“Hi, Gladys. It’s Tom Mankowski.”

“Is Roy with y’all? Fool missed his visitation time with his daughter.”

Hell. Tom went into cop mode. “Does he do that often?”

“Not without calling he don’t. And he didn’t call. She was really upset, Tom. I was, too. I had plans. Tell him we’re both extremely disappointed in him. He hook up with some hoochie mama and lose track of time? Now he’s playing you to smooth things over?”

Hoochie mama? “I don’t know where he is, Gladys.”

“Really? This isn’t a game?” Glady’s voice had shed its ghetto attitude, and Tom sensed the concern.

“Apparently he’s been missing since last week.”

“A week? Oh, Jesus, Tom. I… what do we do?”

“I’m going to look for him, Gladys.”

“Thank you. Please keep me posted, okay?”

“Sure thing. And if you hear from him, please call.”

“I will. What should I tell Rhonda?”

Double hell. Rhonda just turned five. Old enough to wonder where her daddy was.

“I don’t know, Gladys.”

“You think it’s one of his old cases? Or a new one?”

“I don’t know. Did he mention going anywhere to you?”

“No. Nothing. He usually calls the day before he picks up Rhonda, which was supposed to be Wednesday. But he didn’t. His phone goes straight to voicemail.”

“Did he say anything about a haunted house? Or a reality show? Or getting some money?”

“I haven’t heard from him since he took Rhonda to a Cubs game, over two weeks ago. Do you think… do you think he might be…”

Then he heard it. A sniffle.

Gladys was crying.

“You know, Tom, that son of a bitch makes me angrier than anyone I’ve ever met. But if anything has happened to him…”

“I’ll find him, Gladys.”

“Rhonda needs her father.”

“I’ll find him. My love to Rhonda.”

Tom hung up. Listening to women cry was almost as bad as informing next of kin that someone close to them had died. And Tom had to wonder if that’s what he just did with Gladys.

He found the FedEx invitation and dialed the number, using his land line. A machine picked up, the voice synthetic. One of those text-to-speech generators that just missed sounding human. Futurists called it the uncanny valley. A sense of revulsion that people felt when they experienced something that was almost human, but not quite. It was thought of as a survival mechanism, to help people avoid those who looked or sounded strange. Tom could understand how that worked, on a genetics level, because procreating with those who had some sort of defect meant potentially defective children, and avoiding someone who was odd decreased the chance of getting whatever disease they had. At least that’s how the futurists explained it.

But listening to the voice, Tom realized it could help humans survive in another kind of way. By helping them avoid things that almost looked human, but weren’t.

Things like ghosts.

“Please say or punch in your reservation number, followed by the pound sign.”

Tom used his phone keypad.

“Hello, Tom Mankowski,” the creepy robotic voice said. “You are invited to spend the night at the haunted Butler House in Solidarity, South Carolina, where you will participate in a fear experiment. The house is located on 683 Auburn Road. You are expected to arrive on Saturday, before noon. You can bring whatever items you’d like, including weapons, religious paraphernalia, and ghost detecting equipment. If you take any prescription medication, please bring it along. The experiment will end Sunday at 4pm. Informing others about this experiment will disqualify you from your million dollar participation fee. Polygraphs will be administered to ensure compliance. Have a nice day. We’ll see you soon.”

Tom held the phone, trying to understand the weird feeling that had come over him. The instructions were straightforward and polite, but the call hadn’t left him with warm, fuzzy feelings.

Quite the opposite, he was experiencing something that only happened rarely. like when a perp ducked down an alley, and Tom had to follow. Or the second just before he had to kick in a suspect’s door.

Fear of the unexpected. Also known as dread.

He shook his head, trying to brush off the feeling. But the dread clung there like cobwebs.

Tom startled when the off-hook tone began to beep from the handset.

“If you’d like to make a call, please hang up and dial again. If you need help—”

He hung up.

Tom considered calling Joan, but the two hour time zone difference would have meant waking her up. Instead, he padded over to the shower and turned it on, hot as he could stand it. Then he stared into his bathroom mirror and began to scrape the stubble off his face. His beard, like the hair on his head, was turning prematurely gray. He also needed a haircut.

The mirror began to steam up, and Tom raised his hand to wipe it off, but stopped before his fingers touched the glass.

The fogging had revealed words, handwritten on the mirror.

I’M WATCHING YOU