Teresa paled in the half-light of the passage. She had heard an insistent voice calling her name, a voice touched by hysteria. She stood still, heart hammering. She was alone that evening.
Someone was coming, and she knew with absolute certainty that they were dead.
The entire house was plunged into pitch blackness. She felt her throat close up. She tried to laugh, an attempt hurriedly abandoned because she could feel that it was a nervous laughter that might turn to weeping—dreadful, hysterical weeping that one couldn’t control. She felt the presence of a stranger in the room. Horror came over her in waves. Two soulless black eyes were watching her.
What happened next was a phantasmagoria of horror and mystery. But I can’t stand around chitchatting. There’s blood caked an inch thick on the walls, and until we clean up and lay down the new carpet, it’s going to look a little rough around the edges.
Sources: New Oxford American Dictionary, Collins English Dictionary, Macquarie Dictionary
The guesthouse was erected in the eighteenth century, half-hidden in the trees like a reclusive, timorous creature. I took the job with the idea of getting some money together, but now I felt decidedly off. It was outside my experience and beyond my ability. As he turned the brights on and we drove along the dirt road, a flash of lightning illuminated the house. It was obvious that something had gone adrift. A flicker of movement caught my eye: A misty, out-of-focus silhouette. A fiend in human shape. Peter swore under his breath.
The door was wide open. We walked inside, and I suddenly felt desolate and bereft. The wind howled about the building. Rivulets of water coursed down the panes, puddling on the sill. He swung his flashlight in a wide arc, and all at once the noise stopped. I felt the sting of the cold, bitter air. A profound loneliness, an oppressive emptiness.
It wasn’t until I saw the photograph that everything clicked into place. It was clear that we were in a trap.
The creak of a floorboard broke the silence, a voice high in pitch but rich in timbre: The time is approaching when you will be destroyed. He sleeps beneath the silver birches. He sleeps beneath the silver birches. He sleeps beneath the silver birch—
Sources: New Oxford American Dictionary, Collins English Dictionary
He is, in brief, the embodiment of evil. He’s a deeply sick man from whom society needs to be protected. He’s an egotistical, mean-spirited, abusive man. He’s a lying, cheating snake in the grass. He’s a treacherous, brain-damaged old vulture. He’s emerged as a racist and an anti-feminist. He’s a self-absorbed egotist. He’s a blackmailer and an extortionist. He’s a shameless publicity-seeker. He’s arrogant and opinionated. He’s lazy and unreliable. He’s all talk. He’s a bumbling fool. He’s a real character. He’s a bit of a womanizer. He’s by no means the only senior politician who has mislaid his moral compass. He’s being unfairly ganged up on. He’s as devious as a politician needs to be. He is shrewder than his disparagers would credit. He’s a good guy at heart. He’s a very strong leader, very presidential in his performance. He’s the ideas man, and the others do the day-to-day work. He’s very much a man of the people. After a while, you get used to it.
Source: New Oxford American Dictionary