Chapter 1

“Ever hear the dead knocking?”

Leland Hugh watches the psychiatrist ponder his question, no reaction on the man’s lined, learned face. The doctor lists to one side in his chair, a fist under his sagging jowl. The picture of unshakable confidence.

“No, can’t say I have.”

Hugh nods and gazes at the floor. “I do. At night, always at night.”

“Why do they knock?”

His eyes raise to look straight into the doctor’s. “They want my soul.”

No response but a mere inclining of the head. The intentional silence pulses, waiting for an explanation. Psychiatrists are good at that.

“I took theirs, you see. Put them in their graves early.” Deep inside Hugh, the anger and fear begin to swirl. He swallows, voice tightening. “They’re supposed to stay in the grave. Who’d ever think the dead would demand their revenge?”

From outside the door, at the windows, in the closet, in the walls—they used to knock. Now, in his jail cell the noises come from beneath the floor. Harassing, insistent, hate-filled, and bitter sounds that pound his ears and drill his brain until sleep will not, cannot come.

“Do you ever answer?”

Shock twists Hugh’s lips. “Answer?”

The psychiatrist’s face remains placid. The slight, knowing curve to his mouth makes Hugh want to slug him.

“You think they’re not real, don’t you?” Hugh steeples his fingers with mocking erudition. “Yes, esteemed colleagues.” He affects an arrogant highbrow voice. “I have determined the subject suffers from EGS—Extreme Guilt Syndrome, the roots of which run so deep as never to be extirpated, with symptoms aggrandizing into myriad areas of the subject’s life and resulting in perceived paranormal phenomena.”

He drops both hands in his lap, lowering his chin to look derisively at the good doctor.

The man inhales slowly. “Do you feel guilt for the murders?”

“Why should I? They deserved it.”

He pushes to his feet.

He pushes to his feet. He slumps back in his chair.

He slumps back in his chair. He aims a hard look

He aims a hard look

The psychiatrist.

Hugh’s hands fist,

He cannot

He can only

He

XXX

“Aaghh!” I smacked the keyboard and shoved away from my desk. All concentration drained from my mind like water from a leaky pan.

The characters froze.

I lowered my head, raking gnarled fingers into the front of my scalp. For a time there I’d almost had it—that ancient joy of thoughts flowing and fingers typing. In the last hour I’d managed to write three or four paragraphs. Now—nothing.

Absolutely nothing.

King of Suspense. I laughed, a bitter sound that singed my throat. Ninety-nine novels written in forty-three years. Well over a hundred million copies sold. Twenty-one major motion pictures made from my books. Countless magazine articles about my career, fan letters, invitations to celebrity parties. Now look at me. Two years after the auto accident and still only half-mobile. And wielding a mere fraction of the brain power I used to have.

What good is an author who can’t hold a plot in his head? …