PROLOGUE
The
creak of the rocking chair didn't bother Gwen Holcomb anymore. As she
sat on the couch, she ignored the sound and stared at but not really
reading the book in her hands. The chair had been making that awful
sound on its own for the past forty years. No sense in getting
nervous about it now.
But
tonight was different in many ways. Gwen knew this. Gwen dreaded
this.
Still,
she put any creeping, horrible thoughts out of her mind and tried to
focus on something outside of her internal fears and the external
ambiance of the evening. The atmosphere almost felt afraid. The air
quivered with the nervous anticipation that something was coming.
Something terrible.
Gwen
cleared her mind, doing everything she could to think of nothing.
Nothing at all. Because only nothing could keep her from dreading the
horror that was inexorably marching toward her. Such a quiet evening
to be pondering such horrible ideas.
Gwen
looked up from her book to the window across the living room,
thinking she might have heard a noise from that direction. After
several minutes of staring at the window, however, the only noise in
the room was the constant creak of the rocking chair, which was still
moving on its own. She returned to the book, still not having read a
word of it, and realized she was holding her breath.
She
exhaled, but almost as though it were a premonitory response to her
sudden relief, the room instantly fell to an awful chill, her
escaping breath misting, dissipating visibly as it left her lips.
“I'm
not ready,” Gwen pleaded. As though it was giving an angry reply,
the room began to shake, old pictures on the wall began to vibrate,
and the air grew from chilled menace to a threatening and frightening
aura.
“You
have no choice,” an unhappily
familiar voice announced. “You've run out of time.”
Gwen
closed her eyes, for she knew who would be arriving shortly. Knew
what would be arriving.
