Page 100 of The Midnight Knock

“Imaginedme?” The man whispering in his ear—theimaginaryman, the man who couldn’t really be here, who couldn’t fuckingbe here—sounded almost hurt. “But Stanley, I warned you all of this was going to happen, didn’t I? Earlier tonight, back in your room, I warned you that Sarah was already dead.”

No. No. Stanley didn’t want to remember. He didn’t like being scared.

Stanley didn’t behave well when he was scared.

“Fine, Stanley. Have it your way. Pretend thatwasn’tme you saw in your wardrobe’s mirror. Me in my best suit. Me with my hand on your shoulder. Me whispering into your ear. Pretend I was lying when I said Sarah Powers was a fool meddling with forces she didn’t understand. Pretend I was lying when I said thatIknew your mother, thatIcould bring you to see her again.”

It was no good. Remember or not, Stanley was very, very afraid. He screwed his eyes shut. He thrashed in the chair, desperate to escape this creeping, insinuatingvoicecrawling into his ears into his skull into hismind.

“Pretend you didn’t glance over your shoulder when Fernanda left your room. Pretend you didn’t see me there, Stanley. Waiting for you. Smiling in your mirror, so keen to speak with you at last.”

“Go away. Goaway.”

“Was I so terrifying, Stanley? You haven’t even seen me in my splendor. You haven’t seen what this place candoto a man.”

That creeping sensation on the back of Stanley’s neck had climbed to his scalp. It had become colder, sharper. It started to prickle along the flesh of his head. It started toscrape.

“What are you doing to me?” Stanley said, pulling at the ropes with all his strength. “That hurts. That hurts!”

“It won’t for long.”

“Stop!Stop!”

“I really don’t need your permission, Stanley. Maybe if you’d listened to me before dinner we wouldn’t be in this situation.”

“You told me…” Stanley didn’t want to remember what the man in the gray suit had told him, back in his room, back before dinner. He didn’t want to remember, but as the scraping sensation along the back of his head grew stronger, he found he couldn’t think of anything else.

“You told me… to kill everyone.” Stanley could barely bring himself to say it. “You told me to killPenelope.”

“Because she’s always hidden herself by the time I arrive. Somethingkeepsme from finding her. If you’d killed her when you hadthe chance, you wouldn’t be in this chair. You wouldn’t feel what’s about to happen.”

“What are you doing?What are you doing?”

“What am I doing?” Stanley heard a smile in the voice. “This.”

That awful burning cold: it pierced Stanley’s skin. It pierced Stanley’s skull. The sensation was so horrible and strange all he could do, all Stanley could do, was moan.

He found he couldn’t move his lips. He moaned again, the sound leaking out of him, bringing with it a ribbon of drool that eased down his chin and piddled in his lap. He twitched, like a fish on a dock. He mumbled, “Hurts. Hurts.”

And Stanley felt fingers—long, sharp fingers—burrow into the deepest recess of his brain. Felt them close around his mind. Felt them squeeze.

Whatever essence made up Stanley Holiday, whatever calcified detritus formed his soul: it broke in that moment. Broke and flowed away, like splinters of shattered ice dissolving into water. When the door of the supply room opened a few minutes later and a friend stepped inside, it wasn’t Stanley they found lashed to that chair. Not really.

Stanley’s eyes opened, but another man gazed out.

“Did you bring it?”

The new arrival shivered in the cold, shivered at what he saw before him. He was clearly terrified. Ashamed.

But resolved. He knew what was at stake, even if he was too stupid to realize its consequences.

The new arrival stepped into the supply closet, carrying with him the knife he’d thrown under the porch earlier in the evening, when he’d cut the Odyssey’s tires. Most nights, Jack Allen retrieved this blade himself after kicking off the fun in the office, but tonight—tonight was a new story.

At last.

The arrival cuts Stanley’s ropes. Blood flowed into the feet and hands. The new arrival passed over another item, this one stolen from the junk in Sarah Powers’s room: a grooved stone egg.

“Well done, Thomas,” Stanley said, though of course he was Stanley no longer. He pocketed the egg, took the knife.