Season said, as they passed through El Encanto Heights, ‘I guess I should never have left you, really. I guess it was foolish of me.’
Ed smiled at her, not forgivingly, because she didn’t need forgiving, not for anything; but with that kind of love that sometimes feels like sorrow, because it’s so close, and yet it’s never quite close enough.
They pulled off the road a little further on, at Gaviota, overlooking the ocean; and they opened up a can of Mexicorn. The wind blew warm and fresh, and for the first time in days Ed began to relax. He felt impossibly tired.
They were almost ready to move on when they heard a low, vibrant, thrumming noise. It grew deeper, and louder, and closer, and within a few minutes they saw a formation of four-engined airplanes, turbo-prop bombers, approaching from the sea.
Thunderously, the bombers passed low overhead, and they shielded their eyes against the sun to watch them. Ed tried to count them, but there must have been more than fifty or sixty. All of them were camouflaged in khaki and blue; all of them left behind them long white vapour trails which scored the western sky long after they had headed eastwards over the Sierra Madre. All of them bore the red star of the Soviet Air force.
Ed looked down at the glittering ocean, at the spray on the California shore. Then he turned to Season and said quietly, ‘Well, we’d better get moving. We’ve got a life to lead.’
About the author
Graham Masterton trained as a newspaper reporter before beginning his career as an author. Graham’s credits as a writer include the bestselling horror novel The Manitou, which was adapted into a film starring Tony Curtis. He is also the author of the Katie Maguire crime series, which became a top-ten bestseller in 2012. Visit grahammasterton.com
More Horror from Graham Masterton
BLACK ANGEL
DEATH MASK
DEATH TRANCE
EDGEWISE
HEIRLOOM
PREY
RITUAL
SPIRIT
TENGU
THE CHOSEN CHILD
THE SPHINX
UNSPEAKABLE
WALKERS
MANITOU BLOOD
REVENGE OF THE MANITOU
IKON
SACRIFICE
THE SWEETMAN CURVE
WHITE BONES
BROKEN ANGELS
RED LIGHT
TAKEN FOR DEAD
BLOOD SISTERS
BURIED
LIVING DEATH
DEAD GIRLS DANCING
DEAD MEN WHISTLING
THE LAST DROP OF BLOOD
SCARLET WIDOW
THE COVEN
GHOST VIRUS
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Copyright
First published in the United Kingdom in 1981 by Sphere Books
This edition first published in the United Kingdom in 2020 by Head of Zeus Ltd
Copyright © Graham Masterton, 1981
The moral right of Graham Masterton to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781838935757
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