John Sinclair - Episode 7 (eBook)

A Long Day In Hell

Gabriel Conroy (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2016 | 1. Aufl. 2016
110 Seiten
beTHRILLED (Verlag)
978-3-7325-1615-5 (ISBN)

Infos

No one comes back from hell. Except John Sinclair. But he didn't come back alone ...

When John Sinclair's dying body is brought to the emergency room at St. Bartholomew's Hospital in London, the unthinkable happens: Minutes after his death, he jolts back to life, screaming in agony. The doctors have no rational explanation for his recovery. But Sinclair didn't come back alone. There are voices in his head, and one of them belongs to Laura Cody, an eleven-year-old girl who is trapped with her brother in a crumbling mansion outside of London, about to be sacrificed to an ancient evil ...

Detective Chief Inspector John Sinclair works for Scotland Yard's Special Division, an elite unit that deals with extraordinary cases. DCI Sinclair is a battle-hardened veteran of Afghanistan, a man who's been to hell and back. This time, he's not just fighting to save our world. He's fighting for his soul ...

'John Sinclair' is the reboot of Europe's longest running horror series. Originally conceived in 1973 and still running strong, the 'John Sinclair' novellas are firmly rooted in the finest pulp tradition, true page turners with hair-rising tension, exquisite gore, and a dash of adventure. 'John Sinclair' combines the dark visions of Stephen King, Clive Barker, and the 'X-Files' with the fast-paced action and globe-trotting excitement of James Bond.

'A hero so suave and dashing, he makes James Bond look like a grubby detective sergeant, a plot that reads like it came straight from the great vaults of Hammer, and enough action and derring do to keep even the most ardent pulp fan smiling with glee ... Highly recommended.' Ginger Nuts of Horror.

Gabriel Conroy was born in Los Angeles, California, in 1967. After high school, he joined the armed forces and was stationed in Germany for several years. He discovered his love for writing while traveling through Europe. When he returned to the States, he studied Journalism at Los Angeles City College and UCLA, and currently works as a freelance journalist, writer, and translator. Mr. Conroy is married and has a dog and a cat.

Textauszug

 

Longford-on-the-Thames, 18 miles east of London. 8:49 p.m.

Jimmy Cody was an adventurous boy. He had a remarkable talent for rule-breaking. He and his sister Laura were supposed to be in bed, not sneaking around a graveyard.

“You’re not scared, are you?” Jimmy said, an urgent whisper in the dark.

“Of course not!” said Laura. Right now, however, she felt a little out of her depth. Not scared exactly, that much was true, but uneasy.

A soft wind was blowing. Their footsteps were rustling through the leaves on the ground. Her older brother—older, but no wiser, she thought—had always been fascinated by the old cemetery. The marble tombs, overgrown with weeds, the stone angels that seemed to be watching your every move.

The cemetery was at the end of a dirt road, no more than a mile behind their house, and hardly anyone ever came here anymore. Except, of course, for Jimmy and his no-good friends. They liked to hang out here, Frankie and the others. They were trouble, Laura thought. A bad influence on Jimmy, that’s what Mom always said, and Laura was inclined to agree, even though she rarely agreed with Mom on anything these days.

“Jimmy …” she said nervously, “maybe we shouldn’t be here.”

“Oh, don’t be such a baby!” Jimmy said, his voice a tad too high-pitched, a tad too loud. Then he stopped and looked around, alert, like a dog picking up a scent. He pointed at something in the darkness.

“There it is!”

“What?” Laura said. “I don’t see anything.”

Jimmy slowly approached one of the large tombs by the side of the path. A square, white marble pavilion. It looked, Laura thought, like a small house … a house for the dead.

“See that?” Jimmy said, and he was unable to hide the triumph in his voice.

“What?” said Laura, not entirely without suspicion.

Jimmy pointed to the rusted steel door at the entrance to the mausoleum.

“It’s open,” he said. His voice was quiet.

So it was. Just a crack, though. It didn’t seem all that remarkable to Laura. Still, the sight of the half-open door, that sliver of tantalizing darkness, deepened her sense of unease.

“So?” she said with a sneer.

“It wasn’t like that yesterday,” Jimmy explained, as if talking to an idiot. “Somebody must have opened it. I was here with Frankie and the others, we were messing around, and it was closed then.”

He looked at her intently.

“Someone must have opened that tomb,” he said, and Laura felt a chill run down her spine.

“So what, who cares?” she said and crossed her arms.

“So let’s go in!” Jimmy said. He was fourteen, a small, skinny boy with unruly black hair, and something even more unruly in his eyes. Laura was a year younger than him, but taller, more poised. She felt, unfairly perhaps, that she was well on the road to adulthood whereas Jimmy still had quite a way to go.

No, she didn’t particularly relish the idea of sneaking into an open tomb at night. And yet she was curious. Maybe just a little, but something was definitely tugging at her, some deeply rooted urge to explore, to cross boundaries that hadn’t been crossed before. She enjoyed reading books about famous explorers, like Edmund Hillary, the first man on Mount Everest, or Ernest Shackleton, who made it all the way to Antarctica.

Admittedly, snooping around cemeteries wasn’t quite in the same league as discovering a new continent, but still, it was an adventure of sorts. A delicious little adventure.

She looked at her brother and grinned. Then she slowly approached the metal door. Her steps were solemn, as befitted such an occasion. A new world awaits, she thought.

She placed her hand on the cold steel and peered into the tomb, but it was too dark, of course, and she couldn’t see anything.

And then she heard it.

The voice was barely a whisper, no louder than the wind.

She screamed. Her body trembled as she stumbled backward.

Jimmy stared at her, wide-eyed.

“Are you all right?”

“Did you hear that?” she asked. Her heart was pounding like a jackhammer.

“Hear what?” he said.

“That woman.”

He looked at her and blinked a few times. Then he shrugged his shoulders.

“What woman?” he said. “There’s no one here.”

“Jimmy,” Laura said. “Let’s go back. I have a bad feeling about this place.”

“Don’t be stupid. I want to have a look … everything’s fine.”

***

Jimmy Cody should have listened to his sister. He should know to trust her intuitions.

“Help me,” he said.

Together, they pulled open the heavy door. It made a loud screeching sound that seemed to vibrate through their bones.

“Let me have the flashlight,” he said.

She took off her pink backpack and rummaged around for the flashlight she had taken out of the drawer by the front door, where Mom kept the spare keys.

She handed it to him.

He turned on the light and shone it into the marble tomb. The beam crept over the dusty floor, then up the marble casket and then …

Jimmy gasped.

“What?” Laura asked.

He backed away from the door and pointed inside. Her gaze followed the beam of the flashlight, and then she saw it.

One of the marble squares in the floor had been removed.

“It’s some kind of secret passage,” Jimmy said excitedly.

They pushed through the open crack of the door and entered the tomb. Jimmy quickly walked toward the black, open rectangle, then went down on his knees and shone the flashlight down.

“Stairs!” he said. “I can see stairs leading down.”

Laura approached more slowly. She cast an uneasy glance at the large marble casket next to her. She wondered who was in it. And she wondered if she and Jimmy had any right to be here. This place, she felt, wasn’t for the living.

“Please, Jimmy …” she said. “Don’t …”

But it was no use. He simply wasn’t going to listen. He was, she felt, truly an explorer now. A little Shackleton.

“Let’s go,” he said, and without waiting for a response, he began descending the stone steps that led down into the darkness.

Laura followed him. She felt a wave of foreboding wash over her. As if someone or something inexplicable was waiting for them down there.

“Please, Jimmy,” she said. “Let’s turn back.”

He grinned.

“Have you been talking to Mr. Knock-Knock again? You know you’re not supposed to do that.”

“Shut up!” she yelled. “Don’t make fun of me.”

Jimmy had never been able to see Mr. Knock-Knock. No one could. Dr. Anderson had said Mr. Knock-Knock was simply her “imaginary friend”, perfectly common, apparently, in children that age. But she knew that wasn’t true. For one thing, she hadn’t invented him. He had come from somewhere else, but she wasn’t quite sure from where. Dr. Anderson said she would grow out of it, but she hadn’t. She still spoke to him, especially in her dreams. She wasn’t even sure if he was her friend. Not at all. He frightened her. Sometimes he showed her things, things that scared her. And then, just as unpredictably, he could be rather friendly and helpful.

Like that day three years ago, when Grandma’s wedding ring had gone missing. She always took it off when was baking, but on that day, no one could find it. Later that night, he came to her in a dream and he showed her where it was: at the bottom of the steps. That’s where they had found the ring.

And at that moment, Jimmy screamed.

He dropped the flashlight, and she was engulfed by darkness. It took her a moment to realize that Jimmy had tripped.

He had fallen down the stairs.

She saw the flashlight by his side, and she ran down the last few steps, toward him, unconcerned with her own safety.

“Are you all right?” she said, terror in her voice.

“I’m fine,” he said, but he didn’t sound fine. He sounded rattled, though he didn’t want to show it. “I just slipped,” he said with nervous laughter.

“Here … let me help you up.”

She grabbed the flashlight and helped him to his feet.

“Are you hurt?”

“Of course not,” he snapped, and then he looked around.

“What is this place?” Laura asked nervously. Her fingers were holding on tightly to Jimmy’s shirt. She was only a step or two behind him, afraid of letting go. Her breathing was quick and shallow.

“It’s where the dead people are,” Jimmy said.

They were in a large, rectangular underground chamber. There were stone caskets on both sides of the wall.

“I don’t think we should be here …” she said in a hushed whisper. “You’ve had your fun. Now let’s go back, Jimmy.”

“No, I want to see what’s here.”

“It stinks in here!”

Laura held her breath. The air inside the underground chamber was stale. It smelled, Laura thought, of centuries past. A thick layer of dust covered everything. She was thinking of Mr. Knock-Knock. Sometimes he warned...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 27.9.2016
• Reihe/Serie: John Sinclair: A Horror Series
• Reihe/Serie: John Sinclair: A Horror Series
• Verlagsort: Köln
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Krimi / Thriller / Horror ► Horror
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• Schlagworte: 20. - 21. Jahrhundert • Cemetery • Demon • demon hunter • England • Europa • fantasy series • Graveyard • Harry Dresden • Horror • horror series • Horror, supernatural fiction • Jim Butcher • john Sinclair • paranormal detective • paranormal series • supernatural crime • supernatural detective • Supernatural Fiction • supernatural series • Undead • Urban Fantasy • Vampire • werewolf • Zombie
• ISBN-10: 3-7325-1615-6 / 3732516156
• ISBN-13: 978-3-7325-1615-5 / 9783732516155