Spawn of Hell (35 page)

But the closer she got to her house, the more she realized that such peace and safety was not to be. The coffee she had drunk had sobered her up enough to enable her to drive. She had thought that she would not have cared whether she got home in one piece of not, that this terrible fear she lived with would have made her welcome death. But instinct had prevailed, and she found herself fighting her intoxication every inch of the way, sobering more each mile, so that she could traverse this lonely stretch of highway with the greatest of care. She didn’t know why she was being so cautious; there was nothing waiting for her at home but more unending terror until the dawn broke through; and even then, there was the loneliness. She would have stayed alone longer in Joey’s Bar and Grille had her sense of propriety not balked at the very idea. She’d stayed for almost two hours after Clair and Eleanor had left, pretending that she wanted to “catch her breath” before embarking. She’d watched the TV set over the bar, nursed the cups of coffee, and listened to the coarse, vulgar voices of the men drinking beer. A lady did not do such things. That was for drunks and teenagers.

She saw the lights of her house—she always left a few on, not so much to scare off burglars, but to light up the way—as she turned onto the side road leading up the mountain. She thought for a moment that she’d seen something in the light of her car as the auto swerved around the corner; a person, a boy really. She hadn’t gotten a very good look. But no, what would a boy be doing out here at this time of night? It could have been a trick, thieves waiting to ambush her on the road.
Or perhaps the ghost of the boy who died in the Harper home that horrible night.
Only he had been much younger.

She turned into her driveway, which was well-lit, and parked the car outside the garage. She could not bear the thought of driving it in there at this hour. Of leaving an entrance to her home wide open for the few minutes it would take for her to drive in, get out and pull down the heavy door. No, she would leave the car out here tonight. She disembarked and ran for the front door.

The noise of the crickets seemed unnaturally loud. A warm breeze rustled the leaves of the trees, and a distant howl of an unseen animal sent a chill through her body.

The house was a large, rectangularly shaped structure, the front higher than the back, constructed of brick and wood and glass. The living room was almost entirely enclosed by huge windows which looked out onto the forests stretching down into the valley. Although it was not really that high up on the mountain, the view was still quite breathtaking, particularly on clear, sunny days. A terrace ran around three sides of the house, hanging over the undergrowth below them. A stone fireplace was set in the middle of the wall, between glass doors leading out to the terrace.

The house was closer to the Harpers’—now an empty, ugly death house—than anyone else’s in Hillsboro. It was just as isolated—the woods around it just as thick and as capable of masking the approach of a hundred careful and clever killers—as the Harpers had been.

And there was no one—absolutely no one—nearby.

Eleanor got the key in the lock in one swift stroke, turned it, and pushed the door open, shutting herself safely inside.

She stood there for a moment, letting out her breath, trying to relax. Her small nose, large brown eyes, tiny mouth all turned as one as her head darted around the foyer, looking for something, someone, some
sign.
She could feel the effects of the liquor again, warm and tempting, but she kept little booze in the house and did not intend to have any more. It might put her to sleep, true, but she wanted to be in possession of all her faculties, in case . . . in case a sound in the night woke her up and she had to prepare herself for them, prepare herself for the intruders when they came up the stairs to kill her the way they had killed the Harper family. She was living on borrowed time, and she knew it. Everyone said their murderers were far away from town by now, but she knew that criminals always returned, they waited until everyone’s guard was down, and then they returned, to plunder once more, to get the same “easy pickings” that had led them to the neighborhood in the first place. It was only a matter of time.

She walked into the living room, which was already well-lighted, and sat down on the couch. She wondered about retiring early, or about reading a book, or making herself a cup of hot tea. Or more coffee. She wanted to sleep tonight, but did not feel like sleeping. Perhaps it
would
be better if she slept through it all, if she never woke to hear them approaching, to see them enter her bedroom, to feel them as they butchered her. Better to sleep through it all, to never wake up, if she was doomed to die anyway. But what if there was a chance, a small chance of escape? She asked herself why she clung to the idea of life so doggedly—was it mere instinct—or did she still feel there was yet a chance for happiness, to get something further out of life? If only she could think, could see things clearly. Ever since the murders she had come unglued, caught in a depression that refused to yield or budge an inch, refused to allow her the luxury of rational, unemotional thought. She had not been this bad off since her husband’s death. This was worse. Fear for the future was bad enough even when one was well-provided for; but fear of losing life itself, coldly, brutally, was far, far worse. And in one’s own home, too. She just couldn’t deal with it.

She was giving herself the creeps again. She felt naked and vulnerable there in the living room with the lights on and those huge windows reflecting herself and her surroundings, but not permitting a glimpse into whatever might be waiting out there for her to put out the light. It seemed as if images of herself were spying on her, invading her privacy, entreating her to come join them in their ghostly mirror land. How she hated this horrible room. What had possessed them to put in such huge windows?

They were too big for blinds and they had never bought curtains or drapes. “There’s no one way out here to spy on us,” her husband had said. During the day they had that wonderful view, and at night the moonlight, or the pitch blackness, had contrasted nicely with the warm glow of the room. They had never considered ruining the effect by covering up the windows. Now Eleanor realized she should have done something long ago, certainly after the murders. Drapes, curtains, blinds—anything would have been better than this. Even so, she would still be aware of how easy it would be for someone to look in, even with the drapes up, and how much easier it would be for them to creep up next to the house unnoticed. Perhaps with the windows uncovered like this and the lights on, the criminals might be deterred? No, they would realize that the reflection prevented her from seeing outside.

She had made up her mind to go to bed when she heard the first noise. It had come from outside, near the end of the driveway. Like something falling and hitting the ground. Then she did something remarkable, something she never thought she would have done.

She turned out the living room lights.

She had felt too exposed under their glare, and though being in darkness had always been one of her greatest fears, she now found it preferable to standing out in the surrounding blackness as if she’d been holding a beacon. Now she had the advantage. They could no longer see in. She went close to the window which formed the left wall and peered outside, trying to distinguish something moving or standing near the trees where the sound had come from. There!—What was that? She thought she’d seen something moving slowly through the grass towards the terrace. What could it have been—a man crawling on his hands and knees perhaps?

Her hand went up to her mouth and she stifled a cry. It was happening, finally happening.
Stay calm, try to stay calm.
She must get something to protect herself with. She must call the police. Maybe they would get here in time. She must do something!

There was a scratching sound at the front door. Whatever she had seen was not alone. Someone else was trying to get in. Had she locked the door? My God, had she locked it when she’d come in, or had she been too drunk, too damn drunk to remember? She wanted desperately to check, but the scratching had become more furious and she was afraid to go near there.
Force yourself, force yourself; it will get in.
Why wasn’t it trying the doorknob, testing the lock? Why was it scratching like that?

She ran to the door and checked it, relieved to see that she had locked it and put the chain in place. Yet it seemed so flimsy. Then she heard something crack under her feet. She looked downwards. A jagged mark had appeared in the door frame, loose slivers of wood fell onto the floor by her shoes. Something protruded from a hole in the door. She screamed out loud, stepped back, then came to a halt.
Now they would know someone was inside.
The same tools they had used to enter could be employed to murder her. She turned and started for the kitchen, for the precious phone she would use to call for help.

Before she had moved two feet there was a burst of activity behind her and she felt musty air on her back. She was covered with sharp splinters of wood. She turned and saw that the door had practically been torn from its hinges. Something was crawling into the foyer. She wondered if she would see the face of her killer before he destroyed her.

It was then that she realized that whatever was coming into her house that moment was definitely not a man; there was nothing human about it. It pulled itself towards her, and though she tried to run, she was caught, held tightly by fear and fascination; death did □ot seem important. She had to see what this thing was! She had to see!

But as it came closer, she realized that there were others just like it following in the rear. All of them looked alike, except that a few of them—very few— had pale white appendages at their very front tips, instead of the darker, bulkier growths that the others had. They all emitted the same disgusting noise, a sort of
pop pop pop,
a kind of repulsive clicking sound. There were about a dozen of them clustered outside her door. They had some kind of short limbs, and spiny sharp outgrowths grew out of their backs, and their bodies were long and narrow, tapering at the far end. Perhaps the most horrible thing about them was their odor.

She collapsed onto the carpeted floor of the hallway as they advanced upon her. One of them was near her leg. She did not even bother to pull the limb out of reach. There was nothing to be done. She knew what they wanted with her, and even if she had reached the phone, no one would have come in time, no one would have believed her. She shook and sobbed, but did not scream. It would have done no good. She was too shocked to do a thing to save herself.

As the first and second of them started gnawing on her leg, she noticed what the white appendages were that some had instead of the dark, knob-like heads. They were like
faces.
Human faces. Yes, some of these monstrosities had human faces, although nothing else about them was at all related to the human species. She recognized some of the faces, too. They all looked familiar, like people she had once known, people she still knew. But it wasn’t possible. These things weren’t human!

It was not clear exactly when her mind snapped for good, when she was mercifully consigned to an oblivion in which she was incapable of taking notice of the things as they tore away her garments, feasted on the flesh and bone, and sucked up blood with their oddly shaped mouth-parts. It might have been when she saw that one of the creatures had a face that looked just like her late husband’s, like Frank’s. But most certainly the final moment of her sanity came when the creature with her
own
features stared directly into her eyes, opened its mouth—and dripping viscous fluid—began nibbling on her face.

Chapter Thirteen

They sat in the den, sipping a sweet liqueur, telling each other stories from their past. David occasionally brushed a hand through his tousled hair and gave his lovely Anna an affectionate squeeze. Both of them had lost track of time. They pulled apart from a particularly lengthy clinch and David asked Anna if she were hungry.

“We just had dinner. Didn’t we?”

“That was hours ago.”

She studied him. “You know I bet you’ll still be cute even when you’re fat.”

He laughed, and rubbed his lip lingeringly with an upraised thumb. “Cute and jolly. A winning combination.”

“I haven’t had this much fun since I went necking with Eddie Pester in the Runlake drive-in when I was seventeen.”

“Who did Eddie pester? You?”

She groaned. “If that’s what hunger does to your sense of humor, you better have something to eat. I’ll settle for another glass of this liqueur.”

He grabbed the bottle from the table in front of them and poured some of its contents into her tiny glass. He look some more himself, then settled back into his seat. Mugging, he affected a Brooklyn accent and said, “Hows about another kiss, babe?”

She gave him one.

David and Anna almost spoke their lines automatically, reliving scenes from their youth, their early days of heavy petting—or rather what they imagined those days would have been like had they had the active social lives their teenage friends had had. David had not been much of a Lothario, and Anna—although she’d been rather attractive even in those early developing years— had not been hot stuff with the boys. Each of them felt as if they were finally catching up with what they’d missed, getting a “steady” to go with at last, a date for senior prom. Derek had not given Anna, and Janice had not given David, what they had really needed. Passion. Romance.
Excitement.

Both of them wondered if there were any more to their relationship other than the fact that they both desperately needed one at this point in their lives. Sure, they were comfortable together—but was there anything else? Anna knew that with David she felt much more than mere physical attraction—that had been the mainstay of her feelings for Derek, that and the fact that he had radiated the kind of casual glamor she had always found attractive in others and desirous in herself. There was no glamor in David, and she found herself equally excited by that. Or was it just a reaction to her lousy marriage—a compensation?