Psychopathia: A Horror Suspense Novel Read Online Free

spot watching. It grew bigger as it came, a swirling, misty grey glob of light that stretched as though reaching for them, moving faster and faster, there was no way they could outrun it, though Toby pulled Tully back with him, turned, got his feet moving, dragging her with him.
    But it was faster, and by the time it was on them, it was the size of a man. Tully screamed, maybe Toby did too, she wasn’t sure. He stumbled though, and tripped, falling to the ground, Tully coming with him, landing half on top of him, knocking the air from his lungs, leaving him with only a gasp instead of a scream as the mass passed right over them.
    It disappeared. Evaporated. Gone as soon as it touched them. Left only an impassive moon, and the hard glitter of stars looking down on them as they lay in the grass, smelling the waft of sea breeze from down the hill.
    Toby lay back and stared at the sky. He could feel Tully’s eyes on him, knew they were wide and frightened. His own felt as though the lids had been peeled back permanently. He felt around in his mouth for enough saliva to wet his tongue, to speak, but he couldn’t think of any words.
    ‘I am never going ghost hunting again,’ Tully said, pre-empting him. He tried a nod in agreement. ‘What was that thing? I’ve never seen anything like it.’ She moved, and knelt over him, her fair head blocking out the moon. ‘What was it, Toby?’
    He didn’t have any answers. It had all happened so fast – had it even been real? Tully bent her head and fiddled with something in her hands. Her phone. Her torch lay forgotten in the grass beside them, the light an elongated oval on the ground.
    ‘I got it!’ she said. ‘I caught it on my camera. Look!’
    Toby didn’t want to look. He slithered out from under her and stood up, eyes going automatically to the tree line. Had they really seen something? Had something really chased them out of the forest and across the clearing? The Enchanted Forest. He didn’t know about enchanted, but definitely haunted.
    ‘Let’s go,’ he said. ‘Find the others, and go.’
    Tully was standing too, head swivelling. She reached out and touched Toby. ‘My hands are shaking so bad,’ she said.
    He nodded. ‘Everything on me is shaking, I think all my screws have come loose. It feels like all my screws have come loose.’
    Tully’s hand clenched on his sleeve. ‘It went right through us, or would have if we hadn’t fallen.’ She was looking back at the trees again. ‘I want to go home.’
    ‘Right now,’ Toby agreed, and picked up the torch, sent the beam swinging around the clearing, paused it where they’d come crashing out of the woods. None of the trees were shaking. He was though. The light trembled in his hand, and with his other, he smoothed down his hair, rubbed his neck. ‘I want a shower,’ he said. ‘That thing touched me. I want a shower.’ A hot one. A really hot, long one, and he thought he might use a whole cake of soap getting rid of the dirty, contaminated feeling. ‘Let’s go.’
    No disagreement from Tully. She walked close to him, huddled into his side, phone clutched in one hand. Toby didn’t know if he’d ever be ready to see the photograph she’d caught of the thing that had ambushed them. He was glad this had put his sister off her ghost hunting.
    ‘I never expected to see anything,’ she whispered. ‘Not really. Not here. It was just a lark. When you said let’s come up here, it was just for a laugh. That’s all.’
    Toby knew she was talking mostly to herself, and let her without answering. He’d never expected to see anything either.
    Matt and Lara were sitting in the grass where they’d left them, clothes back on, cigarettes in both their mouths. They looked up and grinned when they saw them approaching.
    ‘See anything? We heard you guys screaming.’ Lara’s teeth shined in the moonlight.
    Toby reached down and plucked up her pouch of tobacco, set about rolling one. He couldn’t feel the tissue