Der Schädelring: Thriller (German Edition)

faces in the stuff we ought to forget?"
    Julia said nothing. She watched the shadows dancing in the firelight along the ceiling. The rain had eased to a slow but steady downfall. If only the rain would wash the whole world away.
    Walter went to one of the small windows and peered out. "I'm sorry," he said, subdued. "We shouldn't be arguing. We're supposed to be on the same side."
    Maybe Walter was right. Did knowing the truth make the wounds heal, or only keep them fresh? Yet even after Dr. Forrest's bizarre behavior, Julia wondered how she'd face her problems without her therapist's help.
    "Look," Walter said, sitting down beside her. He fumbled in the backpack and took out the baseball cards that had been lying on her coffee table. "I brought these. I wasn't thinking too clearly, or I'd have grabbed something useful. I got kind of scared when I saw Hartley snooping around."
    Julia took the cards and flipped through them. The ludicrousness of their situation struck her like a cold slap. Holed up in a tiny cabin in the woods, not knowing whom to trust, unable even to call the cops because the cops were Creeps. Nothing to do but wait for the boogeyman to come claim her. Unless she went insane first.
    She moved aside so Walter could put more wood on the fire. Exhaustion hit her all at once, and she yawned.
    "Go on up in the loft," Walter said. "Might as well get some sleep."
    Julia wondered if he would try and join her in the tiny loft. She didn't want to deal with any more emotional entanglement than they had already been thrown into. Still, it would be nice to have someone close by, just in case the bad dreams and panic came in the night. And maybe, just maybe, she could summon up some small comfort and warmth to offer Walter. "What about you?"
    "I'm going to stay up a while," he said. He went to an old cedar chest in the corner and took out some quilts. He shook them and tossed them up on the loft. "I'm pretty sure they wouldn't be able to follow us in the dark and the rain, but I'm not too sleepy, anyway. I'll just keep the fire going for a while. Got my sleeping bag here if I need it."
    Julia moved wearily to the ladder and climbed as if someone else were controlling her tired muscles. The quilts were spread over what felt like a thin foam pad at the top of the loft. The bedding smelled faintly of smoke and leaves. Julia rolled onto the quilts and bundled herself up.
    She inched to the edge of the loft and looked down at Walter. He was turning their wet clothes over so they could finish drying. His hands were oddly gentle with her clothes. When he finished, he returned to his vigil at the hearth and opened his Bible.
    "Walter?" she murmured.
    "Yeah?"
    "Thanks. For everything."
    He looked up at the loft. "It ain't nothing. Sweet dreams."
    She recalled the image of the meadow that Walter had helped her summon when she panicked at the gas station phone. She watched the shimmering clouds floating around in her imagination, and her breathing fell into a slow, even rhythm. Once, she saw the barn of her childhood rise in the midst of the meadow, but she was able to drive that horror from her visions.
    I am a mountain. They can't break me .
    And behind the mountain was a face, swirling in mists and clouds. She tried to focus, to believe, and though its features were veiled, she sensed a gentle smile.
    Sleep soon drifted over her like a thick fog.
    A noise awoke her in the night, the creak of wood. She opened her eyes to utter darkness. Her feet were cold. Something was touching her, tugging the quilts from her body.
    Some one was touching her.
    She tried to sit up, but her arms were pinned. Then the thing was on top of her, crushing her breath from her lungs. She couldn't even cry out. Two glowing red specks appeared in the darkness inches from her face, and the smell of rotten eggs and matches flooded her nostrils. The specks grew brighter, and in their glow she could see the face that wore those impossible eyes.
    The skull ring.
    The skull had taken flesh and now was coming to get her for good. She wrestled an arm free and clawed at the eyes. Her fingernails sank into meat and she ripped. The face came away in her hands, like a rubber mask, but still the eyes blazed.
    Beneath that face was her father's, unshaven, cruel, leering, the way Dr. Forrest had made her remember him. His tongue snaked in and out between rotted teeth. A goatish scrap of beard sprouted from his chin, and his hot breath slavered across her cheeks.