House (19 page)

Susan motioned to the shadows on their left. “There's a shaft over there. The house is wrong, remember that.”

“You mean—”

“I mean evil.”

Evil. Haunted. He didn't know what to think about that. Sure,
evil
, but what was evil, really? Right now he was more concerned with surviving people who had meat cleavers and shotguns.

“Okay, I'm just going to take a look. I'll be right back.” He lifted the latch.

“Jack?”

“What?” he whispered.

Her hand touched his. “Promise you won't leave me.”

Jack turned and saw that her eyes were misted with tears.

He drew her head close and kissed her hair. Another image of his own daughter crossed his mind. “I won't leave you. I promise. Just like I won't leave Leslie. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Don't go anywhere.”

Jack pulled the door open and stuck his head into the closet. Junk was piled up on both sides. Some stale-smelling jackets and overalls hung directly in front of him.

Jack withdrew his head. “I'm going in so I can see past the clothes.”

Susan didn't say anything.

He eased into the closet, parted two old jackets. He could see light from a dozen thin cracks in the door paneling now. Could hear the sound of a man's muffled voice. Pete's.

Which meant Leslie was probably in there.

Jack glanced around again for a weapon—anything that would come in handy. Saw a board with a handle. A cricket bat. He didn't know why a cricket bat would be here, and he didn't care; he only knew it was here if he needed it.

He stepped gingerly past the coats, willfully stifled his breathing, and pressed one eye up to a thin crack.

At first he saw only Pete, sitting on the side of the bed with his back to the closet, mumbling. But then Pete stood and crossed out of Jack's sight, leaving him a direct view of the bed.

Leslie was strapped to the bedposts by her wrists and ankles. Still in her white slacks and the red blouse. She was shaking with sobs.

Jack stared, momentarily overwhelmed.

“You have to be a good wife and eat,” Pete said, passing the door with a bowl in his hands. He scooped some paste out. He'd tied her down and was trying to force her to eat something!

Jack didn't know what had reduced Leslie to the quivering form on the bed, but it occurred to him that he was shaking too. With revulsion.

Not just revulsion. With rage.

19

STEPHANIE HAD FOUGHT BACK THE TEMPtation to leave the closet in search of Jack a hundred times when the loud
thump
sounded in the dining room. She jumped. Had she dozed off? A muffled call reached her.

“Stephanie!”

Who was that? She peeled her eyes wide in the blackness, fully alert. Who was that? That was Jack!

Something creaked. She held her breath. That was where the wall was, right? The closet door was on her left, and the wall was on her right.

There was a long creaking that ran on like a fingernail being slowly drawn down a chalkboard. It stopped.

She could hear feet running down the stairs. Jack was leaving?

“Jack!” she screamed. Her voice rang loud in the closet. “Jack!”

Now Stephanie was faced with a decision. She could get out of the closet and find the others, or she could sit here like she had for the last—how long had she been here? Minutes or hours? Her cell phone was still in her purse in the living room somewhere.

“Jack, don't you dare leave me again!” She swore.

He was gone.

She set her jaw and rage began to overtake her body, one limb at a time. First her hands and face, then her whole body. The anger didn't feel natural, but it brought her a sliver of warmth and courage, the empowering kind that came from taking charge of a bad situation. Her breathing was heavy, but for the moment she didn't care who heard her. She reoriented herself to the space. Coats. Boots. Back of closet. Sides. She brushed something cold and metallic, and it fell over, scraping the wall and landing with a thud. She picked it up. Examined it with her fingers. A crowbar, maybe.

An image of the ax hammer crossed her mind. Only it was in her hands, not Stewart's. She was swinging it. Maybe at Jack's gut. Maybe at his head. Maybe—She stopped herself. Someone was whispering. Outside the door. Jack?

But she knew it couldn't be Jack because it was more than one voice, and it was coming from more than one direction.

Something tickled her ankle. Slid up her leg. A long, thin reptilian slither.

Oh God oh God oh God!
It was a snake, and it was working its way up her leg!

Stephanie couldn't move to yank it out. The closet filled with a terrible, raw scream. Hers.

The floor under her hands moved. Slithered. The closet floor was crawling with snakes; skinny snakes, cold and slippery snakes.

A place deep in Stephanie's psyche rose from the dead. The place where horror and rage collide with the drive to survive. The place were there are no rules, no absolutes, no God, no devil. Only Stephanie. The place where even great risk of death can be braved if it means the chance to save one's self.

Her scream became a snarl. She dropped the crowbar and she moved.

She slammed into the door. She cranked the handle and leaped out of the closet. Then spun back and looked at the floor, ready to stomp the snakes. But the closet was empty. They'd fled. She yelled at the floor for good measure.

Stephanie became aware that she was in the hall by the dining room, where the whispers had come from. She turned slowly. They too had fled. Or never had been.

The house creaked, the long creaking sound that she'd heard in the closet, only now it came from all four walls.

Stephanie made her decision then by a reasoning too complex for her to understand. But having made her decision, she moved quickly. She walked to the basement door, twisted the knob, and jerked. It was locked. A dead bolt. She disengaged the bolt. Then she threw open the door and marched down the stairs.

Jack was down here, and she was going to tell Jack a thing or two about what was happening. About how she'd had enough. About how it was time to go home, killer or no killer. About how he could take his self-righteous bull—

The door behind her slammed shut. The sound of the dead bolt snapping into place was what it was. She couldn't pretend it was anything different.

She stopped on the steps and blinked. Her courage fled.

“Oh God oh God oh God . . .”

20

HE WASN'T SURE THAT HE REALLY INTENDED to rush out of the closet wielding a cricket bat, but he needed a weapon in his hands to satisfy his rage, so Jack reached back and grabbed the cricket bat.

But in his exuberance to get the thing in his hands, he pulled too quickly. And when the bat pulled free it dislodged something else.

That thing clunked.

For a moment everything came to a standstill. Pete stopped his mumbling. Leslie stopped her struggling. Jack stopped his breathing.

He could hear his watch ticking faster than it ought.

His plan of action became clear in that moment. He had to go, and he had to go now.

Jack dived at the door, shoulder leading, cricket bat already back, ready to swing. Whatever mechanism held the door closed snapped under his weight. He leaped across the room and swung the bat before reaching his target.

Pete didn't have time to throw up a guard. The thick board swooshed through the air and smashed against his skull with a loud
crack!

He grunted and staggered. Fell to his hands and knees.

Jack reached the bed and ripped the frayed rope that bound both of Leslie's ankles to one bedpost. But her wrists were each tied to either post by her head, and Pete was already pushing himself to his feet.

Jack took another swing at the thug.

Smack!

The stalk hit Pete in his gut, hardly the kind of blow that would send him reeling. But it surprised him.

Jack cocked the bat. “Get back!”

“Hit him again!” Leslie screamed. “Kill him!”

Jack flinched. Kill? He'd never lined a bat up on someone's head with that intent. Not that he didn't have every justification.

Leslie was trying to free her wrists.

Pete took a heavy step forward, like an ox.

Jack swung. The bat bounced off the man's arm and swung low into his right knee. Something cracked, and it wasn't the bat.

Pete blinked. He looked down at his knee.

“Move!” Jack snapped. “By the wall.”

“Kill him, Jack!”

“Stop shouting!”

He had to think. He couldn't just beat the man to death. But maybe he could disable Pete and leave him strapped to the bed.

“Kill him!” Leslie was still frantic. One of her wrists started to bleed.

“Hold on!” he snapped. Then to Pete again: “Move!”

Pete limped to the large dart board. “She's . . . she's my wife,” he said.

“Shut up!” Jack crossed to the bed. “Don't move.”

He worked Leslie's tethers with one hand.

“You have to kill him, Jack,” Leslie whispered. “You can't just leave him!”

“Shh, shh, it's okay!” One wrist free.

“No, it's not.”

He ran to the other side of the bed and worked the rope with his free hand, eyes on Pete. The man was edging closer to the door.

“Don't move!”

From the corner of his eye, he saw movement at the door. Two dead bolts were engaged on this side. Both had flat brass knobs.

Both knobs were silently turning at the same time. Opening. Seemingly on their own.

He froze. How—Pete grunted and staggered toward the door.

“Jack!” Leslie screamed.

The door swung in. Betty faced the room with a shotgun leveled hip-high. There was something about her face that looked different. Something wicked in her eyes. The look of a woman who was done playing hostess.

“Back,” she said softly.

Jack dropped the bat and lifted his hands. “Okay.”

It was all happening too quickly. She was going to pull the trigger.

“Stewart's right. You're all sinners,” she said.

Pete dived at his mother. He struck the barrel with both hands as it discharged a load of lead that blasted the bedpost on Jack's right to smithereens.

Leslie tugged at her remaining tether. “Jack!”

“Don't kill my wife!” Pete roared.

Betty lifted the shotgun and brought its butt down on Pete's head.
Thunk!
He dropped to his knees just as Jack ripped the rope free from Leslie's wrist.

“They both have to die!” Betty said.

A soft voice from the closet stopped them all. “No, they don't.”

Jack swiveled his head. Susan stood in the open door, staring at Betty, whose face had blanched with shock.

“White's the one who should die,” Susan said, stepping into the room. She spoke calmly, but her eyes were wide.

Jack held out his hand. “Susan . . .”

Susan addressed Betty. “You know that if you kill me, White won't have any reason to let you live,” Susan said. “As soon as I'm dead, he'll kill the rest of them. Isn't that his deal? And once the rest are dead, he's going to kill you too.”

Betty stood like ice.

Susan looked at Jack. “But she can't kill me yet, because White still needs me for his game.”

Slowly Betty relaxed. Began to scowl.

Susan threw herself forward.

“Susan! Don't!”

She collided with Betty, who staggered back into the hall.

Leslie rolled off the bed toward Jack, landed squarely on the floor, and broke toward the closet.

Jack stood frozen by the odd sight, this frail girl dressed in a tattered summer dress, throwing herself at the much larger woman. Three days in the basement had clearly redefined her need for self-preservation.

The bedroom door slammed shut behind Susan and Betty.

The shotgun discharged in the hall beyond.

“Jack!” Leslie warned.

Pete had pushed himself up and was plodding toward Leslie.

Jack leaped over the corner of the bed, slammed into Pete. The man crashed into the wall.

“Through the closet!” Jack shouted.

Leslie was already in. Through the back. Into the crawl space.

“On the right!” Jack whispered, racing past. “Follow me!”

He grabbed Leslie's hand and ran crouched, fleeing the roars of Pete, who was ignoring his wounds and smashing his way into the closet.

They found a grate that covered a three-foot-wide shaft. Right where Susan had indicated it would be. An air duct or something similar. Jack pulled the grate free.

“Go!” he whispered.

She scrambled past him, stuck her head in the hole, then looked back at him, eyes wide. “Don't leave me.” She was breathing heavily, still frenzied.

“I'm right behind you.”

She ducked in.

Jack glanced back just as Pete barged into the crawl space. The oaf looked around, failed to see them, then headed in the opposite direction.

Jack entered the shaft, pulling the grate closed after him.

21
3:02 am

STEPHANIE WALKED THROUGH THE BASEment so utterly terrified that her fear rekindled her rage.

Room to room, hall to hall, not caring about the paintings or the improbable decor or the pentagrams. In fact, she had to ignore it all so that she could stay focused, because she knew that she was only one snake away from racing back upstairs, and upstairs was locked.

She realized that she might run into Stewart before she found the guys, but she accepted the risk. Or Randy or Jack, though at the moment she thought she would prefer finding Randy.

Or was she just wrong about that? Jack was as stubborn as any man who lived on the planet. He wouldn't back down, never did. In all truth, she needed him now, if for no reason other than to survive.

Randy, on the other hand, was the kind of man who would do anything to get ahead, which meant that if Jack failed her, Randy might be her ticket.