“And I hope you find your dog!” she shouts. “For all we know, he might be making his way back to find you! One night he might suddenly appear from the darkness!”
“He might,” I mutter with a faint flush of sadness.
“Bye!” she calls out. I can just about make out her arm waving in the darkness, but soon the boat is out in the middle of the canal and I can't see any hint of the towpath.
“Goodbye!” I shout back to her. “And Angela, you really should try to go home, okay? I'm sure you can do it, if you really try!”
I wait for a reply, but now there's only darkness and silence.
“Angela?” I call out.
Nothing.
“Huh,” I mutter, taking a deep breath and feeling a flash of sadness now she's gone. Reaching to the control panel, I cut the boat's motor, allowing myself a moment of silence to listen out for any hint of her as she trudges along the towpath, but the entire scene is now absolutely quiet, almost as if she was never there in the first place.
Finally, after a couple of minutes, I re-start the engine and turn the steering arm. Checking my watch, I see that it's 4.38am, which means the night is almost over. I could find somewhere else to moor, but there hardly seems much point when I'd just have to get moving again after a few hours. Once I've got the boat pointing in the right direction, therefore, I gently push the gear selector forward and start making my way along the canal.
“It's going to be a long day, Baxter,” I call out, glancing back down into the kitchen, where the light is now on again. “We didn't get much sleep tonight, did we?”
I wait, but a moment later I spot his red rubber bone on the floor, and I remember that Baxter hasn't been with me for a long time now. Angela said that he might show up one night, but I'm not sure I can really rely on that. Then again, I suppose one shouldn't count anything out.
Except ghosts.
And then I see him, curled on the sofa, snoozing the way he always used to sleep after a busy night. I can't help smiling as I realize that somehow he found me again.
Taking a deep breath, I finally start laughing. After a moment, the laugh grows and I find myself chuckling at my own stupidity. I honestly cannot believe that I allowed young Angela to fill my head with so much nonsense. I've always considered myself to be a smart, serious-minded chap but I actually let her convince me that I might be dead. Of course, now that I'm alone again, I know that the whole idea is ludicrous. I can feel the cold metal of the steering arm against the palm of my hand, and a light breeze is rippling the dark water and ruffling what little hair I still have on my head, and Baxter is taking a nap.
“Ghosts, indeed,” I mutter, still smiling at the idea. “As if.”
Angela was just some foolish girl who tried to play a prank on me. Maybe she was even in cahoots with those other two, to make the whole thing seem more possible. Whatever, I don't know exactly what was going on, but I'm absolutely positive that both of us are made of flesh and blood. I've never been a religious man, and I believe that when I die, I shall simply cease to exist. It's truly hard to believe that I let Angela convince me, even for a couple of hours, that I might actually be dead.
And I can't help laughing.
Ahead, there's only the void of night, but I know the sun will rise again soon. It has to. The sun will show its face, and that will be all the proof I need that this whole night was just one big charade. My wrist creaks a little as I adjust the steering arm. There are no ghosts on the towpath, and even if there were, I'm most certainly not one of them. I'm just an old man on an old boat, with his dog, drifting along the canal and heading into the darkness, waiting for the light.
Also by Amy Cross
THE NURSE
“Twenty years ago, something very bad happened in this house. But it's over now. I promise.”
When Rachel moves to a new house with her mother, she immediately realizes that something isn't quite right. Although she's blind, Rachel can tell that the stories about the house's past don't add up. And slowly, she starts to worry that someone or something from that past might still be around.
Soon, Rachel learns the story of the house's previous occupant, a troubled nurse who spent every waking moment caring for a sick old man. The nurse eventually lost her mind, resulting in a series of horrific murders, but have the events of that awful time truly been left behind? Or is something stirring in the night, something that only Rachel seems to notice?
The Nurse is the story of a girl who finds herself trapped in a sinister house, and a woman who believes she's being haunted by the ghost of a long-dead child. Contains scenes of violence.
Also by Amy Cross
“We'll bury her so deep, even her ghost will have a mouth full of dirt!”
When Rebecca Wallace arrives at Auercliff to check on her aged aunt, she's in for a shock. Her aunt's mind is crumbling, and the old woman refuses to let Rebecca stay overnight. And just as she thinks she's starting to understand the truth, Rebecca makes a horrifying discovery in one of the house's many spare rooms.
A dead body. A woman. Old and rotten. And her aunt insists she has no idea where it came from.
The truth lies buried in the past. For generations, the occupants of Auercliff have been tormented by the repercussions of a horrific secret. And somehow everything seems to be centered upon the mausoleum in the house's ground, where every member of the family is entombed once they die.
Whose body was left to rot in one of the house's rooms? Why have successive generations of the family been plagued by a persistent scratching sound? And what really happened to Rebecca many years ago, when she found herself locked inside the Auercliff mausoleum?
The Body at Auercliff is a horror story about a family and a house, and about the refusal of the past to stay buried.
Also by Amy Cross
THE GHOST OF SHAPLEY HALL
“Georgette Shapley died outside this house. Her ghost has spent the past century trying to get back inside so she can be reunited with her child.”
James Spence doesn't believe in ghosts, so he has no worries about going with his girlfriend Rachel to visit an old, abandoned country home.
Rachel, meanwhile, is convinced that a weekend at Shapley Hall will make James change his mind. After all, she knows from bitter experience that the the house is haunted by a woman who once died in the most horrific manner possible, and who now waits to be reunited with her long-lost child.
As the weekend continues, however, James starts to realize that maybe ghosts are the least of his problems. Rachel's behavior is becoming increasingly erratic, and it soon becomes clear that she'll stop at nothing to fulfill a promise she once made to a dead woman. Did Rachel imagine a terrifying experience during her childhood, or are the hallways of Shapley Hall really haunted by a terrifying, vengeful creature?
The Ghost of Shapley Hall is a horror story about two people who venture into a dark, abandoned house, and about the echo of a terrible crime that still haunts the Shapley family to this day.
Also by Amy Cross
THE PRINTER FROM HELL
It's just a printer.
That's what Steve Holland tells himself when he brings the machine into his family's home. Even when he struggles to get the printer working, he tells his wife that there's no reason to worry. After all, a printer can't actually hurt anyone.
And then the bruises start to appear on their son's arm.
Soon it becomes apparent that the printer has brought something dangerous into the apartment. Hideous photos start to emerge from the machine, photos that can't possibly exist. Yet somehow they do exist, and they show scenes from a nightmarish world. A world much like our own, but filled with more blood, pain and misery than any human could endure. And when his wife and son disappear from the apartment, Steve is forced to join a madman's quest to save his family.
The Printer From Hell is a horror story about a man who makes one small mistake, and ends up fighting to save his
family from a horrific monster. And all because he bought the wrong printer.
OTHER BOOKS
BY AMY CROSS INCLUDE
Horror
The Body at Auercliff
The Haunting of Blackwych Grange
Perfect Little Monsters and Other Stories
The Printer From Hell
The Farm
The Nurse
American Coven
Annie's Room
Eli's Town
Asylum
Meds (Asylum 2)
The Night Girl
Devil's Briar
The Cabin
After the Cabin
Last Wrong Turn
At the Edge of the Forest
The Devil's Hand
The Ghost of Shapley Hall
The Death of Addie Gray
A House in London
The Blood House
The Priest Hole (Nykolas Freeman book 1)
Battlefield (Nykolas Freeman book 2)
The Border
The Lighthouse
3AM
Tenderling
The Girl Clay
The Prison
Ward Z
The Devil's Photographer
Fantasy / Horror
Dark Season series 1, 2 & 3
The Girl With Crooked Fangs (Vampire Country book 1)
Grave Girl
Graver Girl (Grave Girl 2)
Ghosts
The Library
Thriller
The Girl Who Never Came Back
Other People's Bodies
Dystopia / Science Fiction
The Dog
The Island (The Island book 1)
Persona (The Island book 2)