The womb of God....

This is how it feels to be reborn.

But even now, clambering down the stairs, he couldn’t surrender to the mystery. If God had taken Beth just to have another warrior on the front lines, Wayne saw no grace or mercy in it. Just the endless cycle of desire, merry-go-rounds of good and evil, little games to validate the fallibility of mortals.

You’re saving my ass, but you’re a sorry bastard, God.

He almost wished God would summon his wife home and grant her peace, even if it meant his death. At least then he would have sacrificed something. And it would prove God was listening.

But all he had was the will to live, and a daughter to raise, and a second chance—

“Lock the door and throw away the key,

Stay and play with Mommy and me.”

The kid stood below him, on the first-floor landing, his back against the door.

As he squinted through the angel haze and black smoke, two more kids emerged from the walls. They were dressed in ill-fitting, archaic clothes.

They chanted in unison as he descended, knowing Beth’s shield couldn’t long withstand the pressure. If he hesitated, they might yet win.

And Kendra would never know....

“Play with your goddamned selves,” he said, plowing toward the door, throwing his shoulder into it. The wood yielded and the door creaked open, the night pouring in and feeding the flames, pulling Beth away in the updraft of flames, screams, and the vanity of God.

DECEMBER

“Too bad all the equipment burned up,” Cody said.

Wayne didn’t think it was bad at all. Some things were better left as mysteries. He didn’t want to spend the rest of his life reviewing audio files and video clips, trying to determine what was real and what wasn’t.

The inn was a brittle, black skeleton, wobbling on a few support beams as if a strong wind would push it over. December was underway, a few snow flurries twisting in the air among the ashes. That should do the trick.

Nine bodies had been found in the wreckage. All were considered victims of the fire, including three staff members and the manager, Janey Mays. Rodney Froehmer’s injuries had been caused when a pipe burst from the basement ceiling, and the initial investigation pointed to Rodney as the cause of the fire. He’d been messing around with accelerants, and for some unknown reason had been trying to start a fire in the old rusty furnace below.

“The court would take everything anyway,” Wayne said. “Once the civil trials start.”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Kendra said.

Sure, it was. In ways you’ll never know.

“That doesn’t matter, honey,” he said. “People always need somebody to blame.”

He should know. He had God to blame. Not that it was getting him anywhere. Maybe one day he’d get on his knees, or get out an Ouija board and look for Beth again, make a few more promises.

The three of them stood behind the yellow tape that marked off the investigation scene. The fire had scorched the lawn, and the wind played through the surrounding trees, bare branches clashing and tangling.

They were sequestered at the Holiday Inn in Boone, waiting for the authorities to finish identifying the victims. It could take a while. They might even be spending Christmas in the mountains.

“Do you think it was Margaret?” Cody said. The investigators had discovered the bones of an adult woman walled off in the basement. In her abdominal cavity were the tiny bones of a fetus. The bones were old, and the DNA tests conducted on them had yet to return a match.

“Probably.”

“Why don’t you guys let it go?” Kendra said. “All we know is what we saw. Everybody thinks we sucked down too much carbon monoxide.”

“They have a way of covering their tracks,” Cody said. “They’ve been doing this awhile.”

“Demons,” Wayne said. “What do you expect?”

Two members of SSI had been killed, and the group’s Web site had been visited so many times the server had crashed. Three networks had already called with offers, but they were more interested in Cody than Digger. Paranormal enthusiasts around the world had posted their own theories about what had happened at the White Horse Inn. All of them were wrong.

“Let’s roll,” Wayne said. He climbed behind the wheel of the SSI van and closed the door. Kendra got in the passenger seat and Cody bounded into the cargo area.

Kendra was already opening her sketch pad. He’d bought her a new one the day after the fire, while she was recovering. She was busy with Big Fattie, wearing out the last of the lead. She had developed a new set of characters with gruesome, demonic faces, and she could hardly wait for Emily Dee to kick them back to the far side of hell.

Cody had suffered a few second-degree burns and minor lung damage, but, as he put it, it would have been a lot worse if that Bruce kid hadn’t led them through the blinding smoke.

Wayne glanced at his daughter, wondering whether her halo would come in black or gold.

She looked up from her sketch pad and caught him. “Dad, how did you know I was in 318?”

“I saw you in the window.”

“But you were in the back of the hotel. I was at the front window.”

Wayne started the engine. She looks a lot like you, Beth.

“Where there’s a demon, there’s an angel to balance it out,” he said. “Or so the theory goes.”

“Hey,” Cody called from the rear of the van. “I thought you were finally a believer.”

“Prove it.”

As he wheeled down the drive to the highway, he glanced in the rearview mirror at the charred bones of the White Horse. He half expected to see Beth’s face, or the smoky shape of a laughing spirit, or perhaps just a hole in the sky that led to heaven.

Nothing.

Just like always.

THE END

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About Scott Nicholson:

Scott Nicholson is the international bestselling author of more than 20 thrillers, including The Home, McFall, Disintegration, Liquid Fear, and The red Church. His books have appeared in the Kindle Top 100 more than a dozen times in five different countries. Visit AuthorScottNicholson.com or his Amazon Author Central page

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Other Kindle Novels

After: First Light

After: The Shock

After: The Echo

After: Milepost 291

The Scarecrow (Solom #1)

The Narrow Gate (Solom #2)

The Home

McFall

Creative Spirit

Disintegration

The Red Church

The Skull Ring

Drummer Boy

The Harvest

Kiss Me or Die

Liquid Fear

Chronic Fear

Cursed (with J.R. Rain)

Bad Blood (with J.R. Rain & H.T. Night)

Ghost College (with J.R. Rain)

The Vampire Club (with J.R. Rain)

Spider Web (with J.R. Rain)

Meat Camp (with J.T. Warren)

October Girls

Crime Beat

The Dead Love Longer

Fangs In Vain

Burial to Follow

Story Collections

Curtains

Flowers

Ashes

The First

Zombie Bits

Head Cases

Gateway Drug

Missing Pieces

These Things Happened

American Horror

Children’s Books

Bad Day for Balloons (with Sergio Castro)

If I Were Your Monster (with Lee Davis)

Too Many Witches (with Lee Davis)

Ida Claire (with Lee Davis)

Duncan the Punkin (with Sergio Castro)

BOX SETS

Ethereal Messenger

Mystery Dance

Horror Movies: Three Screenplays

Ghost Box: Six Supernatural Thrillers

Scott Nicholson Library, Vol. 1

Scott Nicholson Library, Vol. 2

Scott Nicholson Library, Vol. 3