Psychopathia: A Horror Suspense Novel Read Online Free Page A

paper in his numb fingers.
    ‘You heard us screaming and didn’t do anything?’ Tully was hugging herself, and looking around, nervous. ‘We saw something all right.’ She glanced at Toby. ‘Let’s get out of here.’
    He nodded, managed the neat little twist that rolled the tobacco into the cigarette paper and licked the sticky edge, handing the pouch back to Lara. Not waiting for any of them, he turned for the car. Tully followed him.
    ‘Hey, wait up!’ Lara jumped up. ‘You really saw something?’
    ‘I photographed something,’ Tully said.
    ‘What?’
    ‘There’s no such thing as ghosts,’ Matt said.
    Toby’s skin prickled as the path entered the woods again. He could feel it pull tight over his bones, and patted his pocket for a lighter. The act of lighting a cigarette calmed him, and he sucked the smoke into his lungs with deep concentration.
    He waited by the car as the others argued over the existence of ghosts. At last Lara unlocked the doors, and they piled in. Tully leaned forward and shoved her phone between the seats at her best friend. Toby reached up and pushed down the door lock.
    Lara looked at the photo, then turned wide eyes towards Toby’s sister. ‘What is it?’ she asked in a hushed, awed tone.
    Tully just shook her head. ‘I don’t know. But it was the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen.’ She turned to Toby. ‘What about you?’
    There weren’t the words to answer that question. He shrugged and turned back to the window, smoking and eyeing the trees.
    ‘Let’s get out of here,’ Lara said, passing the phone over to Matt. ‘I can’t believe we were out there while that thing – whatever it was – was out there. It could have been looking at us. I was naked for Christ’s sakes!’ She shot a look at Matt. ‘That’s the last time we do the wild thing outdoors.’
    ‘ This could be a photo of anything,’ Matt said and twisted around in his seat to look at them in the back. ‘It’s just a blur. You took a photo of the moon for all I can tell.’
    Tully snatched the phone from him and hunched over the screen. ‘You wouldn’t be saying that if you’d been there, Matt. It was terrifying.’ The car took a sharp turn around a corner, and Tully was thrown against her brother. She looked at him. ‘You tell him, Toby. Tell them what happened.’
    He shook his head, and concentrated on his cigarette. He didn’t want to think about what they’d seen. He much preferred ghosts in the abstract.
    Straightening up, Tully held up the phone with the picture on the screen. ‘We were just having fun,’ she said, and Toby wondered how many stories started with that – we were just having fun. ‘I was chasing Toby through the woods, when we saw something.’ She paused and shook her head. ‘It was freaky, real freaky. Everything was still, right? And then this bush started shaking as though there was a bloody elephant hiding in there.’ She chewed on her lip in the dimness of the car. ‘No, not an elephant. A lion or something. Something with sharp teeth and claws made for ripping.’
    Matt snorted, and from the driver’s seat, Lara thumped him. Tully just shook her head.
    ‘Don’t worry about it. I know how it sounds.’ She hunched deeper into herself.
    ‘I believe you,’ Lara said. ‘What else happened?’
    ‘I don’t want to talk about it. Just get us home, Lara? I need a drink or something.’
     

4.
     
    The sun pushed in between the curtains and Tully rolled over in the bed to squint at the slice of sky she could see. It was a rich blue and she flopped back against the pillow and dragged in a deep breath, then twisted to grope around under her pillow for her phone. She scrolled through the gallery, and found the series of photos from the night before, lying back and staring at them one after the other.
    They were all blurred and there was no detail, just a misty blob surrounded by a whole bunch of black, and Matt was right, it could have been a picture of