The World House Read Online Free PDF

that; she could feel the throbbing on the side of her head where his fist had smacked her in the temple. She suspected that she had passed out at that point, for certainly there was nothing between that and her next memory: the feeling of the door-panelling cold on her cheek and the sound of tearing fabric. At that point she couldn't say whether it was her clothes being torn or Dolores'. She could hear her friend moaning, a wet, bubbling sound, delirium and fear pushed through a broken mouth. She had a feeling that she had tried to reach for the door handle – either that or Chester had kicked her in the kidneys for fun. It was possible: it seemed clear that there was no behaviour too unconscionable for him. There was another gap in her memory at this point, a jump-cut to the sound of Chester grunting and a high-pitched giggling that she could only assume was the driver. She remembered the man's strange grin as he had closed the door and a terrible sense of stupidity grew in her, a certainty that she should have seen this coming, should have known something was wrong. But then horrible things like this just didn't happen to people like Penelope. It was this thought that followed her into unconsciousness but it offered no comfort. The next thing she knew, Chester was talking.
      "…about world-shaping," he was saying, "the willingness to make changes, both moral and physical. You can't build without breaking boundaries. The things I've seen…" There was a wistful quality to his voice, a gentility that one might expect in a discussion of a view or landscape painting, or perhaps a piece of gentle pastoral music. She turned her head to look at him but couldn't tell if the blood on his face was hers or Dolores'. She hoped it was the blood of her friend and the guilt that followed that thought stung almost as much as the bruise on the side of her head.
      Chester was still talking. "This is not it. This is not the limit. There are worlds on top of worlds, on top of worlds…" He was holding up a wooden box – a cigar box perhaps? "I just want to explore." He looked at her. "You'll help me, won't you, Penelope?" He punched her in the face, his expression the calmest she had ever seen it. Gone was the nervous socialite, the awkward would-be lover. She had found what made Chester comfortable, what made him utterly at ease in his own skin. She'd always known she could bring him out of his shell.
     
    "There's no breeze." Penelope had appeared at the French windows and her voice made Miles jump. He had been thinking the same thing, that the air here didn't feel right. It was empty, breathable but tasteless.
      "There's nothing," he replied but even as he said it he knew it wasn't true. There was something out here, he could sense it if not see it. It was an animal instinct. There was no noise, no obvious clue to a presence, yet he knew it was there as surely as if he were staring at it.
      "Get back inside," Penelope said. Did she feel it too?
      Whatever it was, this thing in the dark, it began to push towards them.
      Miles was more scared now than he had been with Gordon Fry on his doorstep, though unable to say precisely why. It was as if the invisible force heading toward him were fear itself, and the closer it came, the more Miles was unable to move. Closer, closer, closer…
     
    When Penelope woke again she was mortified to see she had been stripped. She drew herself as far away from Chester as the space in the car would allow, which was not far. Dolores was gone and it took a few moments of hearing the noises from the driver's compartment to guess where. Her friend was silent; the driver was not.
      "You're awake," Chester said, as gentle as a man greeting a wife from a night's sleep. He was playing with the box, turning it over in his hands, rubbing his fingers along the edges. "This is breathtaking," he said, though she couldn't be sure whether he was referring to the box or the general situation. The car was