Black Christmas Read online

“Christ! Send them back to the station. I’ll talk to them there. No pictures of any of the bodies. We’ll be leaving for the station in a minute, tell them. I’ll make a statement there, on camera. That’ll get them to leave.”

  “Right.”

  The doctor stood up and came to the two men in the doorway as Nash started down the hall. At the top of the stairs Mr. Harrison stood watching the ambulance men move the mutilated body down the narrow stairs.

  The doctor said, “God, this is unbelievable. We’ve got a mass murder on our hands. The most grisly thing I’ve ever seen.”

  Mr. Harrison suddenly began to moan and crumbling he grabbed onto the edge of the railing. Before he could fall to the floor Chris was beside him holding him up. His body went limp and he made a faint whimpering sound as the doctor rushed to his side, threw his head back and examined his eyes.

  “He’s in shock. Help me get him downstairs. He may be having a coronary. Hold one of those ambulances. We’ll have to take him to the hospital.”

  They lifted him to his feet and slowly carried him down the stairs as Chris said, “She’ll be all right, Mr. Harrison. I really believe that. She’s going to turn up.”

  The doctor said, “He can’t hear you.”

  The floor was empty except for Jess’s sleeping body as Fuller, Nash, Chris and the doctor helped Mr. Harrison down to where one of the ambulance attendants was waiting with another stretcher. They loaded him onto it and Chris and the attendant, followed by the doctor and Sergeant Nash carried him to the waiting ambulance.

  “McCloskey,” Fuller called to the uniformed man who held the door open for them.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Keep an eye out. No one’s to come in here, especially any reporters. The girl’s asleep. Her parents will be here in a couple of hours. The lab boys from the Capitol are expected but they’re the only ones to go in. Got that?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Okay. I’m going to headquarters to make a statement. I’ll send you some relief as soon as the day men come on.”

  Fuller turned and closed the door, then went to his car trailed by two reporters who were trying to get a statement ahead of their colleagues. McCloskey watched them out of sight and then leaned back against the wall of the house.

  Upstairs, Jessica Bradley slept peacefully unaware of the muffled sound coming from the attic. Up there a mad voice drifted out as the man spoke to himself.

  “Nasty Billy! Nasty Billy!”

  The voice changed to that of a woman saying, “Bruce, where’s the baby? Where’s Agnes? I can’t find my baby!”

  The little boy answered, “I can find her, Mommy! You wait here. I’ll go get her.”

  The woman answered him in a relieved voice. “Oh, what a good boy you are, Billy. You’re such a good boy to your mother. Such a nice boy.”

  The trapdoor moved almost imperceptibly and then began to creak on its rusty hinges until it was wide open. A shaft of light from the hall below illuminated Clare Harrison’s dead face and Mrs. MacHenry’s body still hanging from the rafters. A shadow moved across the face and the body and then something dark and subhuman began to creep down the stairs from the attic to the second floor.

  Standing outside, Officer McCloskey lit a cigarette and walked a few feet from the house, staring up at the windows on the second floor, then to the first where, through the broken window of the front door he could hear faintly from inside the dark house the ringing of the telephone.