House (10 page)

Boom!
The gun discharged, blowing a hole in the floorboards. Stephanie screamed.

Randy, where are you?

After an eternity, Randy pounced on Stewart, riding his back, trying to bring him down, arms groping. “Get the gun, get the gun!”

All three men had a death grip on the shotgun as the barrel swept the room. Leslie and Stephanie dropped to the floor. Jack kept his hand locked on the shotgun's pump action to keep Stewart from chambering another round. Stewart spun, smashing Randy's body against the wall. Jack tripped over Stewart's leg and fell, still clinging to the shotgun even as Stewart's boot came down on his rib cage.

“Run!” he screamed to Stephanie and Leslie. “Get out of here!”

“STOOO-WART!” Betty screamed.

Leslie jumped across the room and took hold of Betty's right arm just as Betty's fist closed around the handle of a meat cleaver. The woman possessed surreal strength, bucking, twirling, and pummeling Leslie's head and face with bony knuckles like little hammers. Leslie, with both hands clamped around Betty's right arm, could only duck, wrestle, and use a knee when she got the chance.

“STOOO-WART!”

Stephanie leaped for the door and threw her weight against the latch plate. The plate depressed, releasing the latch outside. The big door creaked open, and she stumbled into the kitchen, slipping on the fog-dampened floor. Before any thought arose in her mind, she was crossing the kitchen for the hallway, running into deepening shadow.
Get away, girl; get away! Run!
Betty's screams, Stewart's roar, and the sound of blows and struggle chased her up the hallway.
Faster!

Stewart kicked Jack in the gut hard enough to separate Jack's will from his hands. His grip on the shotgun fell away. Stewart gave a mighty backward thrust with the shotgun butt and sent Randy backward, doubled up in pain. Jack heard the pump action chamber another round.

Leslie clung by sheer force of will to the tireless, whirling machine that kept screaming and swinging a meat cleaver. Much more of Betty's bony fist in her face, or just one more violent body slam against the rough planks, and Leslie's strength would fail. A blur that was Randy's body collided with the wall behind her and doubled over. Jack was still on the floor, trying to get his feet under him while—Stewart aimed the shotgun at Jack's head.

Leslie couldn't end Betty's violent struggling, but perhaps she could redirect it. She planted a foot, extended her other leg to trip Betty, and let both of them tumble headlong into Stewart, slamming him against the wall.

Boom!
Splinters of wood flew up from the floor.

A tangle of bodies, kicking legs, groping arms. Leslie lost her grip on Betty's arm. She looked around—

The meat cleaver thudded into the floorboards inches from her shoulder.

Stewart lurched from a kick to his midsection. Jack was still alive.

Betty bent over Leslie, trying to wrest the meat cleaver from the floor. Leslie brought both legs up and kicked Betty's stomach with enough force to throw her against the opposite wall.

Stephanie skidded to a halt in the blackness, then turned and realized she was alone. No one had escaped with her.

Worse yet, she was unsure of where she was.
Was
she in the hallway? A flash of lightning painted momentary streaks on the floor and walls, disguising corners, distorting angles, changing features.

“Jack!”

The sound of the struggle had dropped to a distant rumble, as if behind a wall. She set out to find it, arms extended, feeling her way. She contacted a wall and followed it to a corner. She made the turn, followed farther, and came to another corner. Wasn't there a door somewhere? How had she gotten here?

“Jack.” She could hardly whisper.

An outside corner led her into a space that seemed larger, but there was no light to show her the smallest patch of surface. She moved along the wall, groping for a piece of furniture, any object she might recognize. As far as she might reach, she felt nothing. Fear began turning her guts, making her tremble. She felt faint.

She stopped breathing and listened.

Nothing.

No sound. No light.

She was lost.

9

RANDY WAS SURE HE WOULD NEED SURGERY to repair his bowels, stomach, and liver, but first he would put Stewart down. Jack was still wrestling with the man for possession of the shotgun, slamming against the shelves, careening off the walls. Randy maneuvered, waiting for Stewart's head to pop out of a shadow—

Betty blindsided him, bit him on the hand, took hold of the ax hammer. He screamed in pain.

Leslie came up behind Betty and dashed the back of her skull with a sizable chunk of ice. The ice shattered in all directions and the woman's jaws relaxed, allowing Randy to twist free. “Get her out of here.”

Betty went limp as Leslie pulled, wrestled, and dragged the heavy woman toward the locker door. It was a vital mission. With Betty out of the picture, Jack and Randy could deal with Stewart two-on-one. If Leslie could remove Betty permanently, she could return to help, making the match three-on-one. Divide and conquer.

Just inside the locker door, Leslie felt Betty's body go from sack-of-potatoes cooperative to wild-tiger deadly. Screaming like a great cat, Betty lurched, spun, and flung Leslie through the door as if she weighed nothing. Leslie floated through space for an instant, no up, no down—

Her body—head, hips, elbows—hit the floor, and she tumbled over the tile. Her head was spinning when she came to rest, dizzy in the dark. She oriented herself to the dim light of the oil lamp that still burned, righted herself. She was in the kitchen.

She heard the big door shut, slamming with a wooden thud and the clank of the latch falling into place.

Darkness.

Breathing.

“Betty?”

The breathing was through a large windpipe. Not Betty. She heard phlegm rattling, then a low, wheezing chuckle. Three slow footsteps shuffled toward her, and then a flash of lightning through the small window over the sink illuminated a face that seemed to float without a body.

Pete.

“You can't hide from me,” the man's thick voice yelled.

Leslie pushed herself to her feet. Another flash of lightning illuminated the archway out of the kitchen and into the hall. She dashed that direction as the light vanished, running madly into the dark unknown.

He shuffled after her.

Jack was losing. He could feel his hands slipping from the shotgun. His ribs screamed in pain with every breath. He tried kicking Stewart—again. He missed—again.

Betty had thrown Leslie out, locked her out. She came rushing to Stewart.

Clunk!
Stewart's head jerked sideways, struck by the ax hammer in Randy's hands. The man staggered. Jack lost his grip on the shotgun and let him fall—Just in time for Jack to see a wild-haired, bulb-eyed wraith charging into the lamplight.

“Randy!”

Randy was still holding the ax hammer at shoulder height. Betty's own momentum brought her forehead dead center with the blunt end, and she bounced off it.