The Haunted
Authors: Bentley Little
“Bentley Little keeps the high-tension jolts coming.”
—Stephen King
“On a par with such greats as Stephen King, Clive Barker, and Peter Straub.”
—Midwest Book Review
Praise for the Novels
of Bentley Little
The Academy
“A tightly allegorical piece of horror.”
—
Publishers Weekly
The Vanishing
“A plethora of gore and perversion.”
—
Publishers Weekly
The Burning
“Stephen King–size epic horror.”
—
Publishers Weekly
Dispatch
“Little has the unparalleled ability to evoke surreal, satiric terror … should not be missed.”
—Horror Reader
The Resort
“An explicitly repulsive yet surrealistically sad tale of everyday horror.”
—
Publishers Weekly
The Policy
“A chilling tale.”
—
Publishers Weekly
The Return
“A master of horror on par with Koontz and King … so powerful that readers will keep the lights on day and night.”
—
Midwest Book Review
“If there’s a better horror novelist working today, I don’t know who it is.”
—
Los Angeles Times
The Collection
“A must-have for the author’s fans.”
—
Publishers Weekly
“Little’s often macabre, always sharp tales are snippets of everyday life given a creepy twist.”
—Booklist
The Association
“Haunting … terrifying … graphic and fantastic … will stick with readers for a long time. Just enough sex, violence, and Big Brother rhetoric to make this an incredibly credible tale.”
—
Publishers Weekly
The Walking
“Wonderful, fast-paced, rock-’em, jolt-’em, shock-’em contemporary terror fiction with believable characters and an unusually clever plot. Highly entertaining.”
—Dean Koontz
“Bentley Little’s
The Walking
is the horror event of the year. If you like spooky stories, you must read this book.”
—Stephen King
“
The Walking
is a waking nightmare. A spellbinding tale of witchcraft and vengeance. Scary and intense.”
—Michael Prescott, author of
In Dark Places
“Flowing seamlessly between time and place, the Bram Stoker Award–winning author’s ability to transfix his audience … is superb … terrifying. [
The Walking
] has the potential to be a major sleeper.”
—
Publishers Weekly
(starred review)
“Little possesses the uncanny ability to take everyday situations and turn them into nightmares.”
—
Publishers Weekly
The Ignored
“This is Bentley Little’s best book yet. Frightening, thought provoking, and impossible to put down.”
—Stephen King
“A singular achievement by a writer who makes the leap from the ranks of the merely talented to true distinction with this book. This one may become a classic.”
—DarkEcho
“Little is so wonderful that he can make the act of ordering a Coke at McDonald’s take on a sinister dimension. This philosophical soul searcher is provocative.”
—
Fangoria
The Revelation
Winner of the Bram Stoker Award
“I guarantee, once you start reading this book, you’ll be up until dawn with your eyes glued to the pages. A nail-biting, throat squeezing, nonstop plunge into darkness and evil.”
—Rick Hautala
The Store
“Frightening.”
—
Los Angeles Times
The Mailman
“A thinking person’s horror novel.
The Mailman
delivers.”
—
Los Angeles Times
University
“By the time I finished, my nerves were pretty well fried, and I have a pretty high shock level.
University
is unlike anything else in popular fiction.”
—Stephen King
A
LSO BY
B
ENTLEY
L
ITTLE
The Disappearance
His Father’s Son
The Academy
The Vanishing
The Burning
Dispatch
The Resort
The Policy
The Return
The Collection
The Association
The Walking
The Town
The House
The Store
The Ignored
The Revelation
University
Dominion
The Mailman
Death Instinct
Bentley Little
A SIGNET BOOK
SIGNET
Published by New American Library, a division of
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,
New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto,
Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)
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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices:
80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
First published by Signet, an imprint of New American Library,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
First Printing, April 2012
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Copyright © Bentley Little, 2012
All rights reserved
ISBN: 978-1-101-58018-9
REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA
Printed in the United States of America
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.
If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
Table of Contents
One
“They’re here again, Dad.”
Julian came out of the kitchen, coffee cup in hand, and walked across the living room to where his son, James, was holding on to the edge of the curtains, peeking through the crack and out the front window. Julian reached for the cord to pull open the drapes.
“What are you doing?” James cried, panicked. He flattened against the wall so as not to be seen.
Ignoring him, Julian opened the drapes. Sure enough, three skateboarders were on their driveway, one of them flipping his board into the air and then landing on it, the other two preparing to race down the sloping concrete to the street. It was the second time in two days that this had happened, and though theirs was the only driveway on the street not blocked by permanently parked cars or pickups (their vehicles went in the garage), that didn’t give neighborhood punks the right to use it as their own personal skate park. Angry, he started toward the front door.
