The Waiting: A Supernatural Thriller(86)

29





The house was quiet except for the wind pushing against the eaves.

Mist beaded on the windows, throwing pinpoint shadows against the floor. The air was still. Dishes sat in the kitchen sink, the food particles drying, milk and juice in the bottoms of glasses hardening. Clothes hung in closets, motionless. The gray light was constant and baleful.

The basement stood silent, a rectangular strip of tape on the floor. A layer of thin glass shards pointed up like leavings of hatched eggs. Pages of diagrams were strewn about, their edges overlapping. A doll’s disembodied head lay in the darkness, its sapphire eyes staring at nothing.

A crumbled pile of black wood was against the far wall, jagged splinters in a halo on the floor. A steel disk with a crescent moon protruded from the top of the mound, the moon’s open eye burned black, elongated, as though exposed to some great heat. Four timing hands were scattered amongst the debris, the pile no more than kindling, good for firewood but not much else. Bright cogs, their minuscule teeth rounded, poked out like hungry fish rising through a dark sea.

A chime came from inside the rubble, once, onerous. It stretched out, filtering throughout the basement, and then faded into silence.





Author’s Note

First off, I hope you enjoyed the ride.

I hope you were entertained, at times your eyes widened with fear, and possibly tears. All in all, I hope I did my job as a storyteller.

This particular tale came so strong and fast that I barely had a chance to finish my previous novel before it spilled out onto the page. The basis for the story is very close to my heart, maybe too close in some instances, and I pray that shined through in the writing. As I’ve done many times in my other works, I took musings from my everyday life that scared me silly and sewed them into the fabric of the story. If you’ve ever held someone’s hand in the middle of the night and wondered if it really was theirs, then you know what I mean.

As always I want to say thanks for spending some time with me and I appreciate any feedback you have to offer, whether it be in the form of a review or simply an email to tell me what you thought. I hope you’ll come back again and we can set off on another journey together. There’s always one more road to walk down and your company makes the trip worth every step.



Joe Hart

November, 2013