The Wells of Hell

by Graham Masterton

A voice said: ‘Every hour is numbered.’ We both looked up. There was nobody there. Dan frowned and said: ‘Was that Mrs Thompson?’ ‘I don’t know,’ I said, uneasily. ‘It didn’t sound like her.’ I scraped back my chair and stood up. I heard another voice, softer, saying: ‘Yes, I remember those days.’ I licked my lips nervously. After all, hadn’t Mrs Thompson just told us about strange people glimpsed in other rooms, and alien voices that talked among themselves? I listened and listened, hoping to catch the shuffle of a foot, a cough, just something that would have betrayed the presence of somebody human and real. ‘The time seems close,’ someone whispered, out in the cluttered hallway. I looked down there, to the sepia window through which the last light of the day was filtering through to the staircase, but there was nobody in sight. One of the coats hanging on the pegs by the umbrella stand might have stirred, but I couldn’t be sure. I turned back to Dan. ‘They know we’re here,’ I said tensely. ‘Whatever these voices are, they know we’re here.’ ‘They probably know why we’re here, too,’ said Dan. ‘But they’re only psychic manifestations of Quithe. They’re not real. So don’t let them bother you.’ As he said that, there was a terrible crashing and smashing in the kitchen.