Hotel Midnight Read Online Free PDF Page A

dark shapes themselves . Merely faceless silhouettes.
    That was the moment the lights went out. The streetlight died, too.
    So now they’d cut the power. My escaped big cat theory shrivelled and died. We were under attack. That was the honest-to-God truth.
    My first instinct was to rush back to the house. But my wife and son would be safe there, I told myself firmly. The windows and doors were locked tight.
    On the other hand, my daughter, my beautiful seventeen-year-old daughter, would be alighting from that bus in about sixty seconds’ time. She’d walk this way alone. Who knows what she might encounter on this solitary stretch of roadway.
    Still I held off with the torch. Bright starlight touched the street with a phantom fire; it glinted off cats’ eyes and road signs, revealing the road as a grey strip before me. I moved through that virtual darkness like a swimmer diving into unknown ocean depths. And once more my mind turned to the darkness in the freshly opened pit that yawned like a new grave. In my mind’s eye I saw a tide of absolute dark welling up from the chasm; I saw it spilling out over the cornfield, oozing through the hedge into the garden. I saw it flow like oil into my house to engulf my terrified wife and son. I clenched my hand around the torch. Grit crunched beneath the balls of my feet. Now I moved forward somewhere between a walk and a run. My eyes constantly roved the fields at either side of the lane. I was looking for a black, sleek shape; I was hunting for a pair of eyes that burned an evil yellow. I willed a car to come. But there was only silence … and that ominous darkness . Above me, stars burned. I saw them as cold, unfeeling eyes. They watched with callous half-interest as yet another fragile human being enacted yet another scene in creation’s play. They’d watched children mutilated; men and women marched into ovens; innocents nailed to trees. If all this turned into tragedy they’d watch with that cold impassive glare. They’d seen it all before; they’d see it all again.
    Alert, I scanned ahead, looking for the lights of the bus as it rumbled on its way to Wakefield. Then that cold starlight might, with luck, reveal the fair hair of Paula as she rounded the corner. I heard a noise above me. It was that same swishing sound I’d heard before; a noise like a bamboo cane slashing through the air. It came again and again. I pictured a lunatic perched on top of a telegraph pole swishing a cane left and right. I looked up. Stars burned with their witchfire as bright as before, and yet, just for a second, some small section of starry sky vanished. A blot of darkness had moved across the heavens, blocking those points of light.
    The cane sound swished louder. Touching my lips came a breath of air that smelt of wet soil: then it was gone. Mystified, I glanced up as I walked, the torch ready in case it came again. But only silence returned to press its dead weight against my ears. Still no bus lights in the distance. With luck it was late. I’d meet Paula as she stepped off it. Then we’d hurry back to the safety of the house. In her bag would be the mobile phone.
    The swish came again. This time it sounded close against my ear. It was rhythmic now. Instead of a stick slashing at the air I thought of wings. Great wings.
    I swung the torch upward, thumbing the switch as I did so. Instantly light blasted from the bulb, catching a shape that twisted above my head. I glimpsed muscular movement; sensed its predatory power. Then with a slashing movement it speeded away. I tried to track it with the torch but I was pitifully slow. It had already gone. The thudding beat of wings faded into the night sky.
    Yet the mental image stayed clear. I retained the picture of not fur, nor feathers, but skin; a skin that was as glossily black as patent leather. And, most clearly of all, wings. Vast membranous wings.
    I accelerated to a full-blooded run. This time I didn’t trust my life to star-shine. I