Free Psychopathia: A Horror Suspense Novel by Kate Genet

from the other rooms. Matt’s voice. ‘What the fuck was that?’ The sound of bedroom doors opening. His sister’s voice, too low for him to make out the words, but he heard the fear in them.
    The scream again. Outside. Someone outside was screaming. Toby launched himself from the bed, but the sheets tangled around his feet, tripping him up, and he landed on the floor, breath knocked from his chest. Heaving in a lungful of air, he twisted, pushing at the ropes of sheet tied to his ankles, kicking out with his legs, turning.
    He froze. There was something under the bed. From outside came another scream that pierced the night, cut a great rift in it , but he barely heard it, staring at the eyes looking back at him from under the bed. He was sure they were eyes, twin glowing globes, milky blue, lit from within, staring at him, looking at him, seeing him, stripping his very flesh from his bones with their gaze, digging deep under his skin, probing within him, into every crevice and thought, learning everything there was to learn about him. He opened his mouth to cry out against it, but his vocal chords were frozen. Something hot spilled against his thigh, and he whimpered as he wet himself.
    The eyes blinked, winked out and he howled, scooting backwards from the bed, from the darkness that lurked under it, from the eyes that any moment now, might open again and stare into his soul. He scrabbled on the old floorboards, scrunching up the mat he’d landed on, found his knees at last, his feet, but his legs barely held him, and he lurched backwards until he felt the door behind him, the knob biting into his spine. He stared at the deeper slice of darkness lurking under the bed.
    More screams from outside, filtering their way into his shocked brain, movement outside his window. He blinked , scrabbled behind his back for the knob, grasped it and twisted, pulling the door open and falling through into the hallway, and slamming it shut behind him.
    The sounds outside the house were frantic whisperings wrapped around the screams. Toby staggered down the hallway and through the house. He could see the others, huddled together. Someone, Matt, had a torch. He was shining it out over the water.
    ‘Who’s screaming?’ Toby asked, and his voice felt rusty inside his throat. He swallowed. ‘Who’s screaming?’
    Tully turned to him and her eyes were impossibly wide. He looked away from them, and tracked the erratic dance of the torchlight over the waves.
    ‘Who’s screaming?’ he asked again.
    ‘There’s no one there,’ Matt said, and Toby saw him cringe as another scream tore the night apart. ‘It’s coming from over the water, but there’s no one out there.’
    ‘It sounds like someone being murdered,’ Lara said, and Toby saw she was holding up her camera. Filming. He wanted to put his hands over his ears, and when the screaming continued, he did just that, pressed his palms against his ears. He wanted to close his eyes as well, but if he did that, he’d see those milky pupils again, staring at him, burrowing into him with their gaze, seeking out all his most secret thoughts and tearing them to shreds.
    Tully put a hand on his arm and he saw her mouth move. She was saying something but he couldn’t hear what it was. He could still hear the screaming though, it went on unceasing. She tugged one of his hands away from his ear.
    ‘I don’t think anyone else can hear it,’ she said, pointing at the dark house to their left.
    ‘You’re recording this, right?’ Matt asked, and Lara nodded. ‘It has to be some sort of animal. We can ask around at uni, find someone who can identify it.’
    Toby shivered in a stray breeze from out over the water. His pyjama pants flapped against him, wet and cold. Another scream, high-pitched, frantic and Toby shook his head. That was no animal. A woman, maybe a man in extreme terror, crying out into the night, over and over and over, but there was no one there. Toby thought about finding