House (34 page)

Randy looked around at the empty hallway, saw that he was alone. Silent. Empty, like himself. An odd numbness settled over him. Hollow and numb and a little dizzy.

He grunted and jogged into the open doorway after the Stewart. The Stewart who was his father.

I'm home. Really home.

39
6:09 am

THEY RAN SINGLE FILE FROM THE LIVING room into the hall, Susan leading, always leading, then Stephanie, then Jack.

The hall was wide again with the stairs rising to their immediate left.

Jack ran blindly on numb legs, Susan his only guide. Through the door, down the hall, desperate to stay ahead of the pursuit. Madly trying to make sense of what was happening but hardly able to string together the conscious thoughts required to do so.

Susan sprinted down two halls. Each time they turned a corner, the pounding of feet thundered from behind. Where was she taking them? White was going to burn the house down at first light, he said. If the fog burned as well as the sample he'd lit upstairs, the house would go up like a can of gasoline with them trapped inside.

The house had become their own hell. But ahead of them ran a young woman who knew far more than she had any business knowing. The notion that he had ever thought she was somehow complicit with White now struck Jack as ludicrous. Susan was their only hope. If she died, they would die.

Follow me, she said, so he followed her, completely at her mercy.

They entered the boiler room, locked the doors, and were halfway up the ladder to the vent when the sound of axes striking at the door echoed through the room.

“Hurry!” Jack said, breathing hard. “Go, go!”

Stephanie grunted and clambered up. “Where are we going?”

“Just hurry,” Susan said.

“They will die, right?” Jack asked. “I killed Betty! Why is she still alive?”

“They can die,” Susan said. “But demons don't die easily.”

“Demons? Real demons? But how—”

“Hurry. Quietly!”

The crawl space outside Pete's room was knee-deep with the black fog and crowded with Jacks, wandering around, peering past their tin masks into the shadows.

Jack climbed from the vent shaft and stared at the Jacks, who clearly couldn't see them in the deep shadow. Stephanie was trembling beside him. He reached for her hand in the darkness, touched her fingers, held her tightly. She stepped closer.

The sound of Jacks climbing up the ladder behind reverberated through the vent. Susan motioned for silence and crept along the crawl-space wall, deep in darkness, to the exit hatch. Jack raised it gently and could see the hall. Crowded with Jacks. They had come the back way and avoided most of the undead, but by all appearances all the main sections of the basement were now flooded with Jacks and Stewarts, prowling, hunting them. No matter where they went, they would face an army of evil.

Jack was about to draw Susan's attention to this fact when she lifted herself out of a second hatch he hadn't noticed. He helped Stephanie out, then they squeezed through a narrow passageway that spilled into another hall.

No fog. No Jacks.

Perhaps the house seemed to know that White planned on burning it down, because with each passing minute its moans took on more urgency, lower and higher tones entwined into one terrifying wail that ebbed and flowed.

“This way!” Susan darted down the hall to a wood door curved at the top. This was one of the doors into the dark hall in which he'd found Susan.

The safe place.

But with one match, White could change that.
Would
change that.

They slipped into the passageway, sealed the door quietly behind them, and stood panting in the dark.

“What now?” Jack asked.

“We just made a circle around the main part of the basement,” Susan said, winded. “The door that sucked you in earlier leads into the study.”

“That door's locked . . .”

“No, it's not. You just thought it was. But we have a bigger problem.”

“What?”

“We have to go
through
the study to get to the exit tunnel.”

Their voices echoed gently off the close walls.

“So if we can get to it, we can get out through the back door?” Stephanie asked.

“That one
is
locked,” Susan said.

“And the hall?” Jack asked.

“Is where he's probably waiting for us with more of them than you can count.”

“That back door's the only way out?” Jack asked, shocked by her frank admissions.

“It's the only way.”

“That's impossible! There's no way we can get past him!”

Silence settled in the dark passage.

“He's going to burn the house down,” Stephanie whispered.

“Follow me,” Susan said, taking their hands.

She led them quickly forward into the darkness. Running was one thing, Jack thought, but heading straight into them?

He pulled up, panting now as much from fear as from their run. “This is crazy. They'll kill us!”

“They might,” Susan said. “And they
will
if you don't start dealing with them on their terms.”

“I'm supposed to head into a mob of these with my bare hands?” He knew that's not what she meant, but he felt he should point out the considerable imbalance of power.

“He's right,” Stephanie said. “We don't stand a chance.”

Susan pulled them forward. “Stop thinking about them. You're giving them more power than they really have.”

They were speaking in hushed tones, very quickly moving deeper into the tunnel.

“But they're real,” he said. “Their axes are real—”

“Of course they're real. I'm not saying you should walk right into them. But there are greater powers beyond what you can see.”

“God? You're saying this is about God? Some huge whatever in the sky set this up?”

“
You
set it up.”

“What are you talking about? We were just driving by when White slashed our tires and lured us to this hellish house.”

“It's your house.”

“That's crazy.”

“It draws most of its power from you. We've been over this! Accept it, Jack. You're at the heart of the battle between good and evil.”

“I've prayed to God,” Stephanie said. It sounded like a question.

“Prayed? But do you even believe? Really believe? And do you know how to love, really love?”

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart,” Jack said quietly. “Love your neighbor as yourself. Isn't that a famous teaching? Jesus?” He hesitated, meaning settling in his mind like a falling snow. “So what's love look like in a house of horrors?”

“The same way it's always looked,” Susan said. Then added after a pause, “It's not just what you do, it's who you are. You've got to change who you are. That's how you change the house. You'll have to see it; words don't mean much at times like this.”

One of the far doors opened without warning, flooding the passage with light. One of the Jacks stood backlit in the opening. He issued a grunt and ran in, followed by others.

Susan flew toward a door along the wall now illuminated by the light. He looked into shadows beyond them, frantic for anything. The closet that he'd found Susan in—he couldn't see it, but he knew it was there, farther from the door that led into the study, for which Susan was now headed.

“The closet!” he whispered.

The Jack yelled something. They'd been spotted.

“We don't have time to hide,” Susan snapped. “He's going to torch the house!”

But Jack sprinted for the closet anyway. He had to get his mind straight. Susan hesitated only a brief moment, then followed his lead. They ran into the shadows, into the large closet, closed the door, and stilled their breathing as best they could. With any luck they had entered unseen, covered by the darkness.

“He's going to burn the house,” Susan said. “You should have followed me.”

“We're powerless out here!” Jack whispered.

She put her hand on the knob. “Watch me. When I go, you go, hard and fast. Just try to get a weapon. Anything. Okay?”

He could hear their feet slapping as they approached. With any luck they hadn't been seen entering the closet in the deep shadow. Without that element of surprise, they would be overwhelmed.

“Jack?”

“Shh . . .”

“Jack, I can't do—”

He put his hand on Stephanie's mouth. “Shh . . . shh . . . shh. Yes, you can. We have to trust her.”

“I don't know—”

“Shhhhhhhh . . .”

The feet were slapping closer, closer. And then they were there.

Past them. Susan waited a moment longer.

“Now!” she whispered.

She shoved as hard as she could, grunting loudly. The door crunched into a body. A clang of door against tin mask resounded down the passage.

Susan leaped out and sized up the situation. Jack saw it all as if in a dream. Three copies of himself wearing Tin Man masks. Two of them ten feet to the right. One right in front of Susan, surprised by her bold entrance. The ax he'd been carrying fell to the ground.

For a moment they all stood frozen by indecision. And then Susan moved, quickly, soundlessly.

Jack watched as she snatched up the fallen ax before the Jack had time to react. She swung the blade with all her strength as the Jack recovered and tried to jump back.

The blade connected with the man. Sliced into his chest. Through his body. Into thin air, as if the man had been made of all flesh and no bone.

The man roared with pain. The throaty cry immediately rose to a high-pitched scream that hurt Jack's ears. Then the man was sucked into himself and became a twisting pillar of black fog. The fog, heavier than air, collapsed under the tin mask, which clanged to the concrete floor with the man's ax.

No blood. It occurred to Jack then that these copies of himself must come from the fog.
Were
the fog in this haunted place empowered by his heart. The fog of evil.

Human nature.

The two Jacks who'd passed the closet door started back, roaring with fury, wielding knives. The sound was enough to stop Jack's heart.

One of the Jacks threw his knife. It was a large blade, maybe a foot long, and Jack watched it turn lazily in the air, glance off his shoulder, and tumble to the floor.

Pain flared down his arm. “Hurry!” Susan ran for the door that Jack had first been sucked through. They didn't needed any encouragement.

That moment came two seconds later when Susan pulled open the door into the study.

As far as he could see, there was only one person in the room. But this wasn't a Jack. This was Stewart. And Stewart was armed with a shotgun.

Jack pulled up abruptly, barely aware of Stephanie's collision with him from behind.

“Go!” Stephanie cried. “They're coming!”

Jack went.

40
6:12 am

SUSAN SLAMMED THE DOOR BEHIND THEM the moment they were through, twisting the lock and for the moment protecting their backs.

But their backs were now the least of Jack's worries.

The first and most immediate was Stewart. And his shotgun. He faced them from the middle of the room, amused more than stunned.

Black fog covered the floor to his ankles.

Jack's second concern was a dread that came from his still-dawning realization that the threat facing him was somehow coming from him. From his own heart.

“I believe,” he whispered. “I believe; I swear I believe.” But he still wasn't sure what that meant.

Stewart still hadn't brought his gun up. He was clearly as aware as Jack that one ax in the hands of a girl was no match for a shotgun at this distance.

Stephanie's cry of frustration upon seeing Stewart was like a dagger.

Susan stepped forward, ax in both hands. She faced Stewart, putting herself between him and Jack. Stephanie pressed close behind.

Somewhere in the house a dozen doors began to bang in unison.
Bang, bang, bang, bang!

But Stewart made no move. Susan faced him, eager neither to attack nor retreat. They'd run into a dead end.

Jack wanted to ask what was happening, what he should do, what she was doing, but his mouth wasn't forming the words.

For an extended stretch, they faced off. The floor shook with each bang of the doors beyond. It was as if the house was sending its own signal to all inhabitants.

We have them; we have them; we have them; we have them!

Then Stewart calmly brought the shotgun up and aimed it at Susan. The doors stopped banging in unison. A soft grin nudged the man's lips.

“There's more, isn't there?” Susan said.

The man's smile flattened slightly before he recovered his confidence.

“This is our house now,” he said.

“Is it? Do you know who I am?”

“One of them.”

“Are you sure?”

Stewart didn't answer.

The door opened and Betty walked in. And behind her, Pete. Betty's head was bandaged with red rags. Jack was quite sure that she was made of more than mere flesh and blood. Either possessed or the stuff of possession.

Still, these monsters could be killed; Susan had made that clear.

Mother and son walked up to Stewart's side and stared at Susan. Pete's eyes locked on Stephanie over Jack's right shoulder, consumed with lust.

“There she is, Mama,” he said.

This demented oaf knew only one thing. He had the emotional dimensions of a lump of coal.

Betty ignored him. “Remember, he wants these three alive.”

“You're going to die today,” Stewart said. “All three of you. They always die.”

“That's what you told me three days ago,” Susan said. “I'm still alive.”

“Drop the ax,” Betty said.

Jack fought panic. How was he supposed to get out of this? He thought about taking the ax from her and going straight at them.