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  'Where have you seen them?'

  'In the garden. Around the office. But always at night.'

  'Have you ever found any physical evidence?'

  'Like what? Footprints? That kind of thing?'

  Connelly nodded.

  'No,' said Ward. 'Never.' He sat back in his chair and laughed. 'And you wonder why I drink?' he said bitterly.

  Connelly regarded him indifferently. 'How much do you know about this house?' he asked.

  Ward looked vague.

  'Its history,' Connelly continued. 'Who lived here before you?'

  'Oh, come on.The fucking house is new. It had been standing empty for two years before I bought it. It's not built on some fucking Indian burial ground or a cemetery or any of that kind of Hollywood bullshit. Its a new house. I was the first tenant. Nothing happened here before I moved in, Martin. The house is not haunted.'

  There was another long silence finally broken by Connelly.'And these . . . apparitions?' he said.'You think they'll come again tonight?'

  'I don't know.'

  'Could they be linked with what's happening though?'

  'I don't know,' Ward said a little more loudly.

  The two men locked stares.

  'This is like something you used to write,' said Connelly.

  Ward didn't answer. He merely got to his feet and dropped the dirty plates into the sink. 'Want a drink while we wait?' he said. 'Wait for what?' Connelly asked. 'For the night to come,' Ward said.

  TIME TO SPARE

  4.29 p.m.

  'What do you think this means?' Connelly held up the sheets of handwritten paper.

  'I told you, I don't know,' Ward rasped, sipping his drink.

  'Perhaps the answer is in here somewhere. The answer to all of this. It can't hurt to go through it.'

  Ward shrugged. He watched as Connelly spread the sheets of paper out on the coffee table, gazing at each one in turn.

  '"Reality and fantasy become inseparable",' Connelly read.

  'It's a pity they don't. I'd write a novel about an author who wins the fucking lottery,' sneered Ward.

  'Is that what you think this means? That what is written eventually becomes fact?'

  'Who knows? The point is not what it means but how it got in my office in the first place. We need to know who wrote it, not what they're trying to say:

  Connelly read more. 'It talks about confrontation,' he said thoughtfully. 'How conflict is good. How power is good and weakness is bad.'

  'Perhaps my office is haunted by Nietzsche,' chuckled Ward.

  'I'm glad you find it funny, Chris. I wonder if the police will be laughing when they see that video.'

  'Are you threatening me, Martin?'

  'Why? What if I was? Are you going to do to me the same as you did to her?'

  'Fuck you.'

  'I'm trying to help. You asked me to help. That's what I'm trying to do.'

  Ward regarded him balefully for a second then refilled his glass. 'All right, go on,' he murmured.

  'It's this last bit. "There are others." I wonder if it means others like you.'

  'Murderers, you mean?'

  'What do you think it means?'

  'I told you. I don't know and I don't fucking care. All that bothers me is how it got into my office.'

  'Are you sure you didn't write it?' Connelly was growing agitated.

  'How many more times? I told you—'

  'Are you sure?' shouted Connelly.

  'It's not my writing. It's not the way I write. I'm sure!

  Connelly got to his feet and wandered over to the French windows that looked out on to Ward's back garden. In the sky, clouds were building steadily like gathering formations of troops preparing for a final onslaught.

  'It looks like there's another storm coming,' murmured Connelly.

  Ward didn't answer.

  THE COMING STORM

  6.42 p.m. Rain hammered down unrelentingly, falling from the seething banks of black clouds in torrents.

  Ward gazed out of the French windows and watched the droplets pounding against the concrete outside. Part of the garden near one of the oak trees was already under half an inch of water. Elsewhere on the grass, other puddles were growing larger as the downpour showed no sign of abating.

  The first distant rumble of thunder rolled across the sky like artillery fire.

  When Ward turned his head, he saw that Connelly was also looking out of the window. The agent looked a little apprehensive.

  'If this keeps up it'll be dark in an hour,' said Ward.

  'And then?'

  Ward shrugged. He sat still a moment longer then got to his feet.

  'I'm going out to the office,' he said. 'Just to shut the computer down. Turn off the monitor. I'll lock it up for the night.'

  'Do you want some company?' Connelly asked, also rising.

  'No. I'll only be a couple of minutes. Pour us some more drinks.'

  The agent nodded.

  Ward stepped out of the room.

  Outside, a brilliant white shaft of lightning tore through the clouds and illuminated the sky.

  Think hard and consider the situation in which you now find yourself. Contemplate the possibilities and mull them over in your mind for there is but one outcome. When first our union was sublimated there was no questioning. There were no doubts or remonstrations. The terms were accepted. The price was set. A valuation put upon that which is ordinarily thought to be above remuneration. Consider this and also contemplate what has been given and accepted without question. For all deeds and acts there is a manifest set of circumstances. An outcome. Irrevocable and irretrievable in its finality. Terms were set. Accepted. Acted upon. Now is the time for payment.

  Many others have walked the same path. Many more will do so. There are others. Others who seek what you have sought. Who will attain what you have attained and who will pay as you must pay. With the passing of the years has come no remembrance. No recollection of what was desired and what was offered in return. Something offered more priceless than the treasures of the ages.

  Consider the following and prepare to settle that which must be accounted tor: 12 12 84 the choice was made. Now must come the reckoning.

  COMMUNICATION

  Martin Connelly heard a sound from inside the study. He approached the door slowly.

  'Chris,' he called.

  No answer. Just that insistent noise he'd heard a moment earlier. Like . . .

  Like what?

  Like the mechanical and electronic sound made by a printer as it transfers the images from a computer screen on to paper.

  He pushed the door wider and stepped inside the room.

  The computer was indeed on. The monitor was active. Connelly could see words spreading across it. He crossed to the machine and stood staring at the screen.

  Names. Hundreds of them.

  And the printer dutifully transferring them on to paper.

  Connelly read them:

  Dante Alighieri Ludwig van Beethoven Adolf Hitler

  Napoleon Bonaparte Bram Stoker Hieronymus Bosch Christopher Marlowe

  And still they continued.

  He was still gazing at the screen when Ward walked in, his hair and clothes dripping. A single sheet of paper gripped in his fist.

  'What the fuck is going on?' Ward said, looking at the names dancing across the screen.

  Connelly could only shake his head.'It just started,' he said, indicating the computer.

  Ward stared at the names.

  Edgar Allan Poe Caravaggio Frank Sinatra John Dillinger Stalin

  He was still staring half an hour later.

  The rapidity and profusion with which the names continued to appear showed no signs of stopping.

  'What do we do?' Connelly asked.

  Ward could only shake his head. He held out the piece of handwritten paper he'd found in his office.

  Connelly took it and read it.

  'It was there when I got to the computer,' Ward told him.


  'Any idea what it means?' said Connelly.

  Ward shook his head.

  The computer continued to rattle off an increasingly long list of names. And it showed no signs of stopping.

  AN INVENTORY

  9.34 p.m.

  'Seventy-six pages,' said Ward.

  The names on the sheaf of paper he held were in non-alphabetical, random order. Many he recognised, many more he didn't.

  Connelly was also flicking through some of the printed sheets.

  'These names don't have anything in common,' Ward said.'Not as a whole. There are groups of them that you can match up. Musicians. Writers. Artists. Even some sportsmen. Some are old, some are new.'

  'What do you make of it?'

  'Christ knows. What the fuck do Edgar Allan Poe and Madonna have in common? Or Christopher Marlowe and Lenny Bruce for that matter? Joseph Goebbels and Bill Gates?' He shook his head. 'There are hundreds of names on here that I don't recognise either. They're not well-known people.'

  'Perhaps if we looked them up,' Connelly offered.

  'Where, Martin?'

  Connelly merely shrugged.

  Ward continued looking at the names. 'Jesus,' he whispered.

  'What is it?'

  'These names sound familiar,' said the writer. 'Declan Leary. Melissa Blake. Joe Hendry.'

  'I don't get it.'

  'They were all characters in that book I've just finished. They all died.'

  Connelly stared at the list. 'What was that about imagination becoming reality?' he said quietly. 'In one of those handwritten sheets.'

  Ward nodded. 'But I created those characters. Why are they on this list?' he asked. 'They weren't real.'

  'Somewhere they might be. Somewhere in this world there are probably people with the names Declan Leary, Melissa Blake and Joe Hendry. The names aren't that uncommon, Chris.'

  'We'll see,' Ward snapped and hurried out to the hall. He returned with a copy of the phone book and flipped it open, running his index finger down the list of names. 'There's an M Blake,' he said. 'A J Hendry and a D Leary.'

  'I said they weren't uncommon.'

  Ward scribbled down the numbers.

  'What are you doing?' Connelly wanted to know.

  'I want to speak to them.'

  'Chris, what for?'

  Ward was already heading for the hallway. He snatched up the phone and dialled the first number. And waited.

  No answer.

  He tried the number for J Hendry. It rang.

  And rang.

  Then was finally answered. 'Hello.' The voice at the other end was that of a woman. Subdued, barely audible.

  'I'd like to speak to Mr J Hendry, please,' said Ward.

  Silence.

  'Hello, I said I'd like to speak to—'

  'Yes, I heard you,' the woman said softly. 'I'm sorry. Joe died two days ago.'

  Ward put down the phone. He tried the number for Leary.

  A young man told him that Declan Leary had been killed in an accident two weeks earlier.

  Ward exhaled and wandered back into the sitting room. 'Two of them are dead,' he said.

  'It must be a coincidence,' Connelly told him.

  'What if these other names are names of characters I've created in the past? Characters I've killed off.'

  Connelly shook his head. 'Art mirrors life?' he said. 'Not that literally. Anyway, you didn't create all the names on this list. Also a lot of them are still alive.'

  Ward ran a hand through his hair. 'Perhaps there's an answer in this,' he said, holding up the piece of handwritten paper. 'Like this date. Twelve, twelve, eighty-four. Twelfth of December, 1984.'

  'Does that date have any significance for you?' asked Connelly.

  'Not that I can remember.'

  'What about some of the other things mentioned?'

  '"The terms were accepted,'" Ward murmured. 'Terms of what? "Now is the time for payment".' He took a sip of his drink. '"Many others have walked the same path." Which path?'

  'You work it out.'

  'Twelve, twelve, eighty-four,' Ward whispered. 'Jesus Christ. If those numbers are a date, then I recognise

  them and so should you. It was the date I signed to your agency. The day you became my agent.'

  'Can you remember what you said when you signed? You said you wanted to be so rich it was obscene. You said you wanted everything. The world.'

  'I was rich. But not any more.'

  'Terms were set,' Connelly said quietly. 'Nothing lasts for ever, Chris.'

  'That still doesn't explain the names on this list.'

  'Run through them again. Just the first three or four.'

  'Napoleon Bonaparte. Beethoven. Christopher Marlowe.'

  'A general who became an emperor. A composer who wanted immortality,' Connelly began.

  'And a writer who wrote about a man who made a pact with the Devil,' Ward added.

  'I had to let you work it out, Chris.'

  'I still don't understand.'

  'What was Marlowe's most famous work?'

  'Doctor Faustus!

  'Remember the story?'

  'A man who wanted wealth and fame sold his soul to the Devil in return for it. He had to face a reckoning. So did Marlowe himself. He was murdered in a pub in London.'

  'He was paying his debt.'

  'What the fuck are you talking about?'

  'Marlowe wrote about a man who sold his soul to the Devil. A man like himself. Like all the others on that list. How do you think they got what they wanted? Everything's got a price, Chris. Anything can be attained if you've got the right goods to barter. All those people

  had. Some wanted fame. Some wanted power or money. Some wanted entire nations, the world. They all signed. And when the time came, they all paid. But it doesn't have to be as grand as fame and power. Some of those on that list just wanted little things. "Can you let my sick child live?" "Can the results of the biopsy I had be benign?" Just little things, Chris. Because not everyone prays to God. And even those who do get fed up with him never answering them. So they look for alternatives. And I don't ask a lot in return for what I give.'

  'Who the flick are you?'

  'I would have thought that was obvious by now.'

  Ward was suddenly aware of a smell in the room. A cloying acrid stench that made him cough. It was the noxious odour of hydrogen sulphide. Bad eggs.

  Sulphur.

  Connelly got slowly to his feet and walked towards the rear of the room, to the French windows which looked on to the garden. Slowly he pulled the curtains open so that Ward could see out into the rain-drenched darkness.

  'What are you doing?' the writer asked. 'What's going on?'

  'A reckoning, Chris.'

  There was movement close to the windows and Ward saw several familiar shapes there. One was scratching at the glass with its ape-like hand.

  For the first time he saw them up close. Three of them. Bent low to the ground. Their weight resting on their front legs. They looked like the bastard offspring of a dog and a baboon.

  'Not apparitions, Chris. Messengers,' said Connelly.

  'And all those names on that list, the hundreds you recognise and the thousands you don't, they all saw them or will see them when their time comes.'

  Ward's heart was hammering against his ribs. Was this another hallucination?

  The three creatures threw themselves at the glass.

  'The line does blur between fantasy and reality,' said Connelly. 'Every name you've ever used in one of your books has been a real name and the possessor of that name has died within weeks of you using it. That's been part of the agreement. You just never knew it. But it was all part of the bargain. It was just necessary that you were the one to discover that, Chris. I don't like loose ends.'

  Connelly unlocked the French windows, allowing them to open slightly.

  'You've known from the beginning what's been going on,' Ward stammered. 'Everything.'

  'I'm just glad you finished the book. It'll
be a monument. And sales always get a boost when the author dies.'

  Ward took a step towards the sitting-room door.

  'Don't try to run, Chris,' Connelly admonished. 'At least face it with a little dignity. After all, it is only the repayment of a debt. Nothing much. Just think what you've had. I don't ask for much in return.'

  Connelly fully opened the windows.

  The creatures bounded in. Screams, howls and maniacal growls rose in one deafening cacophony.

  Outside the rain continued to fall.

  SOUTH BUCKS EXAMINER

  August 18th

  Police are still investigating the disappearance of writer Christopher Ward who vanished from his Buckinghamshire home almost two weeks ago.

  Ward was the author of a number of bestselling novels in the horror/thriller genre.

  Film rights to three of his newest books had recently been purchased and Ward was expected to write the scripts for at least two of them.

  His disappearance was discovered after his agent, Mr Martin Connelly, visited the writer's home and found it in what was described as a 'derelict' state.

  Ward was single and lived alone.

  The police do not suspect foul play and the search continues.

  Nothing's all right, nothing is fine. I'm running and I'm crying . . .

  Papa Roach