Psycho Thrill - Tell-Tale Twins E-Book

Robert C. Marley

• Herausgeber: Bastei Lübbe
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Serie: Psycho Thrill: Chilling Tales of Horror
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Seitenzahl: 94

Beschreibung

Bruised and battered, Edgar Allen Poe awakens in a basement dungeon. There, he meets a mysterious man who looks like an older version of himself. Within a week, Poe will attend his own funeral as a spectator, but that’s not the most horrific encounter he’ll have with a twisted fate. The clock is ticking, and his life is on the line...again.

-- PSYCHO THRILL is a series of horror novellas - from classic ghost story to psychological thriller and dark fantasy. Each of the novellas was first published in German and has now been published for the first time in English. Among the writers are popular German authors, as well as newcomers to the scene. Each story is self-contained. PSYCHO THRILL is produced by Uwe Voehl.

-- For fans of Stephen King: Dark Tower series, Neil Gaiman: Fragile Things, and the American Horror Story TV series.

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

What is PSYCHO THRILL?

The Author

Psycho Thrill — Tell-Tale Twins

Copyright

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

What is PSYCHO THRILL?

PSYCHO THRILL is a series of horror novellas — from the classic ghost story to the modern psychological thriller and dark fantasy. Each of the novellas has been first published in German and has been translated into English for the first time. Among the writers are popular German authors, as well as newcomers to the scene. Each story is self-contained. PSYCHO THRILL is produced by Uwe Voehl.

The Author

Robert C. Marley (1971) is a writer, crime historian, master goldsmith, manufacturer of magicians’ props, and member of the Magic Circle. He has always loved Edgar Allan Poe and Sherlock Holmes; he even has his own crime museum. When not writing, inventing new magic tricks, or traveling in Great Britain, he teaches self-defense techniques to children and teenagers. He lives with his wife and their two sons in a very old town in eastern Westphalia.

Tell-Tale Twins

ROBERT C. MARLEY

BASTEI ENTERTAINMENT

Digital original edition

Bastei Entertainment is an imprint of Bastei Lübbe AG

Copyright © 2014 by Bastei Lübbe AG, Schanzenstraße 6-20, 51063 Cologne, Germany

Written by Robert C. Marley

Translated by Toby Axelrod

Produced by Uwe Voehl

Edited by Amanda Wright

Project management by Lori Herber

Cover illustration: © shutterstock/ Willem Havenaa /Eric Isselee

Cover design by Christin Wilhelm, www.grafic4u.de

E-book production: Urban SatzKonzept, Düsseldorf

ISBN 978-3-7325-4760-9

www.bastei-entertainment.com

1

Baltimore, October 8, 1849

On the night after his funeral, the man who had once been Edgar Allan Poe stood leaning on his walking stick at the wharf, looking out over the dark water toward the ships anchored in the port of Baltimore, under an overcast sky.

If someone had told him a week before that within seven days he’d have to fight against a horde of black, worm-like demons and attend his own grim funeral, he would probably have died laughing. But he didn’t feel at all like laughing anymore. Because that’s exactly what had happened: his struggle with the demons and hasty burial, no love lost. He felt empty and depressed, not unlike a figure from one of his own stories. It defied common sense. The worms were bad enough, but the funeral had shaken him to the core.

The day had been dreary, wet, and cold, and hidden among the large numbers of onlookers, he himself had watched as his own plain oak coffin was lowered into the ground. There weren’t many mourners among the crowd. His cousin Neilson Poe was the only relative who had made his way to the Westminster Presbyterian Cemetery. Henry Herring had come along with his daughter, Elizabeth. Also Collins Lee, a former classmate from his university days in Virginia, and Thomas Adams, president of the New York Insurance Society; the latter probably just to ensure that Edgar Poe really was dead and that the insurance payment was truly inevitable. A few doctors and a handful of students from the Washington Hospital had shown up as well.

The only one who seemed truly saddened by Edgar Poe’s early demise was his old friend Doctor Snodgrass, whose eyes brimmed with tears.

One Reverend Clemm delivered a short and impassive graveside eulogy. He had barely concluded when the small group of mourners began to disperse quite hurriedly and the gravediggers began their vigorous shoveling. The entire ceremony hadn’t lasted more than a few minutes and was strangely surreal.

Poe — his face disguised behind a full, red beard, a top hat pulled low over his forehead — turned away, his hands deep in his pockets. Then suddenly he saw it — a black shadow on the edge of the gravesite — and his heart leapt to his throat.

At first glance, he still thought it could be the shadow of a passing bird. But then he looked more closely. And drew back in horror. It was a thing of the darkest black, long and shiny like a giant worm, whose head appeared from the shadow of the grave, and sought the light.

What in God’s name are you? Why are you tormenting me?

No, it was in fact no worm. Poe observed how this thing, thin and dark as an eel or snake, crawled directly out of the grave, slithered between the legs of the clergyman, and disappeared with its twitching tail behind a gravestone.

No, it didn’t creep. Rather, it seemed to flow. Like a thin rivulet of ink accidentally spilled. Only it did not flow downhill, but appeared rather to flow upward from the dark, earthen walls of the tomb. Its strange consistency reminded him of the black, mercury-like creature that had appeared to follow him a few days earlier and that had attacked him several times already. It looked exactly like the thing he’d seen crawling from the dead cat’s mouth, in Barnham Street.

But what most astonished him, even threatened to overwhelm him with horror, was the fact that no one else present seemed to notice this creature at all.

In fact, the thing had appeared and disappeared so quickly that he suspected it might have all been a figment of his overwrought senses. But he remained uneasy.

Still, there was no time to dwell on such matters. He had work to do. He felt for the papers in his coat pocket, lest they too were a figment of his imagination. And then he turned to leave.

Europe would be his destination; he simply had to solve a few puzzles. Something he’d always been good at.