Graham Masterton - Revenge of the Manitou

Maybe tonight would be a night without bad dreams. Maybe the man in the long white coat would vanish and never appear again. But somehow, depressingly, it seemed to Neil as if they were all caught up in a strange and mysterious event over which they had no control. He had a feeling of impending trouble, and it wouldn’t leave him alone. He tapped his fingers on his rolltop desk and tried to think what all these signs and drawings and dreams could mean.

He wondered if it might be worthwhile taking Doughty’s advice, and driving over to Calistoga to see Billy Ritchie. If Billy Ritchie knew about the old days in Napa and Sonoma, then maybe the name Alien would mean something to him. Maybe he’d heard tales of a notorious man in a white duster, and perhaps he could tell him what

“Ta-La-Ha-Lu-Si” and “Kaimus” meant, too.

Susan called from the kitchen: “Do you want to try one of these cookies while they’re still hot?”

“Sure thing,” said Neil. He got out of his chair, but just as he closed the door behind him he heard a shriek from upstairs that made him jump in nervous shock. It was a high-pitched, terrified shriek. It was Toby.

Neil ran up the stairs three at a time, bounded across the landing and hurled Toby’s door wide open. The boy was standing in the middle of the room, still clutching his bulldozer, but staring in paralyzed terror at his wardrobe. There was an oddly nauseating chill in the room, a chill that reminded Neil of a butcher’s cold storage. It must have been an illusion but the floor seemed to be swaying, too, as if there were slow, glutinous waves flowing under the carpet.

“Toby,” Neil said shakily. “Toby, what’s wrong?”

Toby turned to him with slow, spastic movements. There seemed to be something wrong with the boy’s face. The outlines of it were blurred, almost phosphorescent and, even though his lips were closed, he appeared to be speaking. It was his eyes that frightened Neil the most, though. They weren’t the eyes of a child at all. They were old, flat, and as dead as iron.

A deep, turgid grbaning noise shook the room. It was a groan like a ship’s timbers being crushed by pack ice. A groan like Jim had given when the Buick collapsed onto his chest, hugely amplified. Neil reached out his hand for Toby, but his son seemed to have shrunk miles and miles beyond reach, and there was a cold wind blowing that stiffened the father’s limbs and slowed him down.

Neil turned and looked toward the wardrobe. What he saw then almost convinced him that he was going crazy, that his mind had finally let go. In the wood itself he could see a fierce, feral face, like a face under the surface of a polished pond. It stared at him with such viciousness and malevolence that he couldn’t take his eyes away from it. But far more uncanny and terrifying was that a hand was reaching out of the flat walnut veneer, a hand that was made of shiny wood, yet alive. It clawed toward him, sharp-nailed and vicious, and it ripped at his shirt as he lunged toward Toby and tried to pick the boy up in his arms.

He didn’t look any more. If he looked, he knew that his strength and his sanity would break down. He lifted Toby over his shoulder, and blindly turned back toward the bedroom door, shielding his face from the sight of that wolfish face in the wardrobe.

Susan was halfway up the stairs toward them as Neil collapsed on the landing, and Toby rolled to the floor beside him. Neil screamed, “The door! Close the doorl” and she quickly slammed it and turned the key.

“Toby! Neil! What’s happening?” she said. “There was such a noise up here, I didn’t-”

Neil held her arm. “It’s in there,” he told her. His voice was unsteady and feverish.

“What Toby saw in his nightmare, it isn’t a nightmare. It’s real, and it’s in there. There was a face, Susan. A goddamned face in the wardrobe. And a hand that came right out of the wood. Right out of the damned wood!”

He climbed to his feet. She tried to steady him, but he was too jumpy to be touched and he pushed her away. She knelt down beside Toby, who was shivering and quaking, and held him close.

“Listen,” whispered Neil. “Listen, you can hear it.”

They were silent. They heard a soft, peculiar noise, like a wind whistling across a mountain. Then they heard a sound that made Neil press his hands against his face, a sound so unnatural and frightening that they could scarcely bear to listen.

Across the floor of the bedroom, wooden feet walked. Stumbling, uncertain steps.

And wooden hands groped across the walls, fumbling for the door.

After a few minutes, the noises stopped. They waited breathless-on the landing for almost ten minutes, but there was silence.

Susan asked quietly, “What was it? Neil, what was it?”

He was very drawn and pale. He felt as if his brain had been given a severe electric shock. His lips and his tongue didn’t seem to coordinate properly, so that when he spoke, he jumbled his words.

“I don’t know. It was like a devil. It came right out of the wood, and it must have been made of wood. A wooden devil, walking about.”

“Neil-things like that just don’t happen. It must have been the wind blowing the door or something. Maybe you saw your own reflection.”

Neil, leaning against the wall, shook his head slowly and deliberately.

“Well, maybe it was some kind of hallucination,” Susan suggested. “I mean, Neil, things like that just don’t happen. They don’t exist. A man made of wood stepping out of the wardrobe door? It’s insane.”

Neil looked down at her sharply. She realized what she’d said, and she reached up to hold his hand, and squeeze it. “Oh, Neil, I didn’t mean-”

He pulled away from her, and ran both hands through his hair. “You don’t have to say you’re sorry,” he told her, hoarsely. “You’re probably right.”

“Neil-”

He turned back toward her. “How’s Toby? He looks as though he’s getting his color back.”

Toby had opened his eyes now, and he smiled up at his daddy faintly. Susan stroked his forehead, and said, “It’s all right, darling, you can sleep with us tonight, in our room. You won’t have to sleep in that nasty room again.”

Neil hunkered down beside Toby and touched him affectionately on the nose. “How are you doing, tiger?”

“Okay,” said Toby. “I was scared, that’s all.”

“Can you remember what happened?” asked Neil.

“Neil-” protested Susan. “He’s only just gotten over it.”

Neil said, “Honey, we have to know what happened in there. It was out of this world.

If we’re going to have to fight some ghost or other, then I think we have to know what it is.”

“I think we ought to go downstairs, calm down, and call Doctor Crowder,” said Susan. “I’ll put on the kettle and we can have some strong black coffee.”

Neil said, “Toby-all I want to know is, what happened?”

Toby’s eyes flickered for a moment, and then he said softly, “I was just playing with my bulldozer. Then I heard that man talking again. He sounded real scared. I saw his face in the wardrobe. Then it wasn’t his face anymore, it was Alien’s face. Then it was Alien, and there was somebody else there. He was terrible. He was very tall and he scared me, and he came right out of the wood.”

“Do you know what he was? Or who he was?” Susan said, “Neil, please, he’s almost unconscious.” “Susan, we have to know,” insisted Neil. “If we don’t know, then we can’t protect ourselves. Toby-who was it? Who was the man in the door?”

Toby’s lower lip started to turn down, and tears filled his eyes. He said, “I don’t know.

I don’t know,” and then he shook with uncontrollable sobs. Susan held him close, and soothed him, and Neil slowly got to his feet. “I’m going to call Doc Crowder,” said Neil. “This is one time I don’t believe we can help ourselves.”