Psychopathia: A Horror Suspense Novel by Kate Genet Page A

his head, rubbed at his gritty eyes and got to work. The light first. It dangled from the unfinished roof, strung along a convenient beam, and hung down unshaded into the room. Unshaded was good though.
    Toby unzipped his bag and pulled out one of the light bulbs he’d picked up at the supermarket on their way home. Tully had raised an eyebrow at the stock of bulbs he put on the conveyer, but she was too pissed at having to go back home to ask him about them. She’d just turned back to her own frowning thoughts.
    He had to drag the bed out from the wall and stand on it to change the light bulb. The one already in there was sticky with dust and gunk. He wiped his fingers on his pants and screwed in the new bulb, nodding to himself with satisfaction. 200 watts. The brightest he could find. Wouldn’t be many shadows with this baby blasting from the middle of the room.
    The dust tickled his nose, but he wasn’t done yet. Besides, he didn’t give a shit about a bit of dust. If this was Tully’s room, she’d be complaining how their dad hadn’t even bothered to clean it or make the bed, but Toby really didn’t mind. He didn’t want anyone to come in, for starters. He wanted to be able to organise things just the way he wanted it. But girls were different, he supposed. Sometimes though, everyone seemed different. Or maybe it was just him.
    The extension cords were new too. He’d ducked into the hardware store while Tully waited for him in the car. Said he’d need a few things if he was going to live above the garage until uni started again. She’d just shrugged, still brooding about Lara and Matt leaving the cabin, even though they’d given them the car. But Toby was glad to be out of the cabin. Things had been getting worse there, and Tully knew it too. She just hadn’t liked calling up their dad to say they had to come back home. It felt like failure to her, he knew, and Tully wasn’t good with failure.
    Hammer and nails, Toby had found downstairs. Standing on the bed again, he pounded a nail into the beam in the corner of the ceiling, and draped one of the extension cords over it. He’d plugged a light fitting into the end of it, and now he screwed another bulb into it. That worked. No shadows in that corner of the room.
    By late afternoon, all the corners were strung with bulbs and when he flicked all the switches, the room filled with a broad swath of white light from one end to another. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and sighed in relief. It was good. It was going to work.
    Except for under the bed. Under the bed was still going to be dark. His gaze wavered on the dark rectangle under the bed base and he shuddered. If he set one of the bright bulbs under there, it would probably work, but it might also singe the bottom of the bed. He leapt forward and tugged the mattress from the base. It flopped down onto the floor, and he nodded again, then upended the base and dragged it to the door. There couldn’t be any shadows under the bed if the bed was on the floor. He opened the door and shoved it out. It could be hauled down to the garage later.
    His stepmother had given him a washing basket of sheets, blankets and pillow. The sheets were still in cellophane wrappers. Brand new. They were grey . He would have preferred bright white, but maybe he could get white ones some time. These would do for now. The blankets were okay. A duvet with a cover to match the sheets, but he didn’t put the cover on. The duvet was better without it, a nice, clean white. He made the bed. It would be fine. Everything would be fine.
    But then there was the chest of drawers. Toby tipped it on its side and unscrewed the legs, but when he put it up the right away again, it wasn’t right, even though it sat flush on the ground now. There were no shadows lurking under it, but he didn’t even have to look to know the drawers were full of them. He touched the wood, fingers tentatively on the knob, then withdrew, tucked his hand under