All the Pretty Dead Girls by John Manning

Author:John Manning
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Mystery, Murder, Psychological fiction, Gay, Serial murders, Mystery & Detective, College students, American Mystery & Suspense Fiction, Fiction, Psychological, Women college students, General, Suspense, Thrillers, Fiction - Psychological Suspense, Crime & Thriller, New York (State), Horror fiction, Thriller, Women
ISBN: 9780786017980
Publisher: PINNACLE BOOKS
Published: 2009-03-31T04:13:07.651000+00:00

30

Tish Lewis had become very good at hearing things in the dark.

She had learned to discern voices, even at a great distance, from somewhere far off in this place where she was being held. The voices drifted through cracks in the wall, seeped in through the floorboards above her head. Tish had determined she was in a basement, and from the voices she heard, she believed she was still on the Wilbourne campus.

That’s Dean Gregory’s voice, Tish had realized a few days earlier. And that’s his wife. And that’s the nurse from the infirmary, Poppy Cochrane…

They were chanting. Exactly what they were chanting, Tish couldn’t make out. But it was some kind of ritual. The same kind of ritual during which she’d heard her roommate Joelle scream some time before.

They killed her, Tish thought.

Dean Gregory and the others killed Joelle.

Even worse.

They had drunk her blood.

They were drinking blood out there. Two phrases had floated down to Tish’s ears quite clearly: “Take this and drink” and “The blood is our life.” It had taken Tish a long time to decipher what they were saying, but now it was clear. Each person said it in turn. Each time she heard it, Tish retched.

The horrible truth had dawned on her. They were passing around a cup and drinking the blood of girls they had killed.

But they’re keeping me alive. Why?

Twice every day, the red-robed figure brought Tish bread, vegetables, and water. They’re keeping me alive, Tish reasoned, so they can kill me, too, when the time is ready.

And drink my blood.

They probably expected her to go mad in her cell. And who wouldn’t, trapped in this place, so small, so dark? The only light filtered through the small slats above her head, a dim, dusty, golden light that allowed Tish to make out the rough contours of her hands, of the metal pail she used as a toilet, and the walls that enclosed her. Crawling around the earthen floor, Tish had estimated her cell was almost square, about five feet by five feet. No bigger than a closet. They expected she’d go mad in such a small space. They expected her to lose her mind, so when her time came, she wouldn’t be able to fight them, wouldn’t be able to put up a last-ditch defense of her life.

Well, Tish though to herself, they’re wrong. They hadn’t reckoned on dealing with a strong-willed Southern girl.

She kept her wits by thinking. Constantly thinking. Listening for sounds, and identifying them. That’s a refrigerator coming on above me, she realized. That’s the creak of a floorboard. That’s the opening of a door. She learned to listen so carefully that she could determine how many people were in the house, walking above her, each of their footsteps having a different sound.

And she listened for voices. Some she didn’t know, but she forced herself to listen and examine each one. She identified four.

Dean Gregory. Mrs. Gregory. Nurse Cochrane. And that new woman on the board of trustees, Nancy Wallison, who’d spoken to Tish’s civics class just last month…

Joelle had been right.

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