House (29 page)

“The attic!” Stephanie said, panting from the run up the steps. “Find the attic.”

Randy ran into one of the rooms, ax hammer in hand, and threw open the closet door. Nothing on the ceilings that showed an entrance to any attic.

“Watch out.”

He took a swing at the window, knowing it would be useless. And it was. Crashing glass. Bone-jarring jolt against the bars. He tried another swing, at the wall this time.

The full force of the blow ran up his arms and rattled his teeth. He cursed. Now if that was flesh and blood, like someone's head, the ax would slice clean through, not bounce. They were swinging at the wrong things.

Randy had left his shotgun in the kitchen at Law-dale's insistence—this wasn't the time to go around wasting ammo. Use the ax, the crowbar, and a sledgehammer that Jack had found in the pantry. The guns stayed in the kitchen for now.

And Randy wasn't happy about it. Not the least bit.

“Where's the attic?” Stephanie asked.

“Shut up!”

She was too frantic to show any reaction. She ran for another room. Randy lumbered into the upstairs hall. Time was running out.

Maybe he'd just do Stephanie in and call it good. Slam, bam, thank you, ma'am. One dead body . . .

But the businessman in him was suggesting a few things. If he did Stephanie and the rest of them managed to live as White promised, who would be stuck holding the bag for murder? If he killed Stephanie and the FBI got ahold of it—which they would—he'd fry.

Unless he left no witnesses—killed all of them. But he wasn't sure he could do that.

“In here!” Stephanie screamed out. “I found it!”

Crawling into an attic without light was about the stupidest thing he could think of right now. She'd actually found it?

Stupid. A wedge of panic forced itself into his mind. Time was running out. What if Jack snuck up here and blew his brains out first?

Feet pounded on the stairs, and Randy spun to see the cop coming up, two steps at a time.

“Anything?”

“She found the attic,” Randy said.

The officer rushed past Randy, carrying a lit lamp. What about him? Take down the gunslinging cop and testify that he mistook Lawdale for Tin Man in the bad light. One dead body.

Could he kill a cop? If it came right down to it, he just might have to. But would Tin Man accept Lawdale? He wasn't one of the original four.

Five. Susan. Betty had made it abundantly clear that White wanted Susan dead. Maybe he should kill Susan.

Randy hurried into the room and found Lawdale on steps he'd pulled down from a hatch that opened into a dark attic. He scrambled up, lamp first.

“Get up here.”

Randy was headed up ahead of Stephanie, holding on to the ax, when it occurred to him that the ax was almost as good a weapon as a gun. He wasn't sure he
could
, but it
would
work. He felt for the knife at his waist. A knife might almost be easier.

The attic had a wood floor piled high with junk along the sides. The sloping ceiling was made of old gray boards. The single square window in the gable was barred.

The man hurried over to Randy, grabbed the ax, and shoved the lamp at him. “Hold this.”

Before Randy could protest the man had traded tools—Randy's ax for a useless light. Of course, with control of the light, he could break the lamp and have control of the situation, so maybe that was a good thing.

He knew he was slipping, really slipping this time, but he let himself go. He needed to slip. It was slip or die.

Lawdale hefted the ax and swung at the sloping ceiling.

Bang/bounce
. Naturally.

What was unnatural was the sudden
groan/screech
that split the air after the blow, loud enough for Randy to feel it in his chest, as if the attic was the source of the groans they'd heard all along.

Stephanie screamed, almost as loud, and Randy came within an inch of grabbing something—anything—and slam-bamming her right then and there. Instead, he reached out and slapped her with the light still in his hands. “Shut up!”

She did. The house fell quiet with her. The look in her eyes reminded him of the moment she came out of Pete's lair.

“Gimme your knife.” Lawdale tucked the ax under one arm and held out his other hand.

“What for?” Randy pulled the knife out but didn't want to give it up too quickly.

“For heaven's sake, just give it to me!” Lawdale snatched it from him, started digging with it at the seams between rafters and roof. It barely penetrated. The tip broke off with a snap, leaving a notch in the end of the blade. Lawdale swore and hooked the knife into his belt, took up the ax again.

Lawdale began banging at the wall in a rage.
Bang, bang, bang, bang
. Right along the wall, then on the gable with the window.
Crash, crash
, against the glass.

Nothing.

The cop stood facing the clear black sky outside with his back to Randy and Stephanie, breathing hard. He let the ax down slowly till it hung from one of his hands, solid head just above the floor.

The house groaned softly.

Lawdale breathed heavily.

Randy and Stephanie stared, taken aback by this, the second of the cop's furious banging episodes.

“We're all going to die,” the cop said, still looking out the window.

He turned around and faced them. “The Tin Man's never left a victim alive, never failed, never left a clue to his identity, even though he's blazed a trail as wide as the Mississippi through the country in house after house. Now we know why, don't we? But there's no way we can tell the rest of the world.”

“What do you mean, we know why?” Randy asked.

The cop looked at the ceiling he'd just lambasted and spoke with more urgency. “It starts with knowledge; it always does. You have to know the game before you can beat it. The world has to know what they're dealing with.”

“Well, good luck getting the word out.”

Lawdale looked him in the eye. “The killer's game is as much spiritual as physical. The FBI—whoever lies in Tin Man's path—has to know that he can be beat only if they understand the power behind him, that's what I mean. They're not looking at this right. They need to shift paradigms, or he'll go right on killing and leaving a path they'll never understand.”

Whatever,
Randy thought. “Time's running out,” he said.

“Are you listening to a thing I'm saying, boy?” The officer paced. “There's no way out! This”—he gestured at the ceiling, studying the boards, searching for the right words—“this thing, this whole killing spree of his, this house . . . it's about good and evil and about what's inside. But the world doesn't know that!”

They did not have time for this philosophical mumbo jumbo. Lawdale should go find Leslie if that's how he wanted to spend their final minutes. He shone the light in Lawdale's eyes. “Well, unless we beat White, they never will. Got any real ideas? Or are you just talk?”

Lawdale hesitated. “Maybe Tin Man's right. Maybe someone has to die.”

Randy felt his heart pound harder.

“Someone has to be sacrificed. We need a sacrificial lamb. The Tin Man wants fresh blood. Innocent blood.”

“Who?”

The cop blinked, thought a moment, then shook his head. “I don't know. One of us may have to volunteer.”

“What?” Stephanie said. “You actually believe someone will volunteer to die for the rest?”

“Not just the rest of us,” Lawdale snapped. “The world out there has to know what's going on!”

“It'll never happen,” Randy said.

The cop stared at him for a long time, mind spinning behind those sparkling eyes.

“We'll see,” he said. “Think about it. We're running out of time. If someone doesn't die, we all do.”

Lawdale picked up the ax. “There's no way out,” he said.

Randy swallowed. “We
know
.”

The cop nodded. He left the attic without another word, taking the ax with him.

32
5:40 am

JACK AND LESLIE HAD RUN FROM ROOM to room on the main floor, looking for any structural feature that appeared even remotely weak. A seam in the walls, an unbarred window, a place where plumbing had been ripped free to expose the night outside.

The patrolman's plan wasn't much more than a last gasp, but Jack couldn't think of a better plan, so he attacked the search with frantic urgency. But the wood, the rebar, the siding, the plaster—the house and all of its materials refused to break.

All the while, the third rule kept drumming through his mind.
Give me a dead body . . .

They were in the pantry off the kitchen, the last room to search on this floor, as far as Jack could tell. But there was nothing here that looked hopeful. He took a swing at the shelves anyway.

Empty jars and cans crashed. The sledgehammer bounced off the wall. Nothing. He stopped and stared, mind numb. Now what? They'd wasted how much time?

Ten minutes, at least.

Leslie stood behind him in the doorway—he could hear her steady breathing. The house moaned again. Louder this time. He looked up. Now what?

“We're going to die,” Leslie said.

It was a simple declaration of fact. Jack knew precisely how she felt, because he felt exactly as she did. There were times when bravery only mocked reality.

“It's coming after me,” she said. “It's forcing me to do what I hate the most.”

What was she talking about?

“I'm a whore, Jack. That's what this is about. I hate myself, and I'm powerless to stop it. It knows that.”

“Who's
it
?”

She looked around, eyes wide and watery. “Me.”

He didn't contradict her, but he didn't think she was right.

The house shook violently for a moment, then quieted. More jars toppled from the shelves and shattered at their feet. Cans clattered about them. It felt like the house was being shaken by an earthquake.

“Do you believe in God, Jack?” Leslie whispered.

He'd thought about the question a hundred times already that night, but only in passing. He wasn't sure he believed in God.

“I don't know,” he said.

“If he exists, where is he tonight?” She swallowed. “There's evil in this house; there's supernatural entities I never believed in until tonight; there's a serial killer with his sick, demented game. But where is God?”

“In a cathedral somewhere,” Jack said. “Taking money from the poor.”

“There
is
no God,” Leslie said.

“Maybe not,” he said. “Not one that can help us.”

From somewhere in the house, Susan began to yell. Leslie jerked her head around. The girl was shouting something, running down a hall or through the dining room.

Where had she been? She'd started out with Jack and Leslie, making suggestions that weren't particularly helpful in their search. Jack hadn't noticed when she left.

Doors slammed somewhere deeper in the house. Wood thudded and crashed. Susan screamed again.

“She's in trouble!” Jack said. He snatched up the sledgehammer and led Leslie through the kitchen, through the hall, past the basement door, into the dining room.

“Susan!”

Her cries were louder now. She was screaming something at them from the front of the house. Jack ran into the main foyer.

All of the furniture in the adjacent living room looked as though it had been tossed by a tornado, half of it toppled and shattered. Several pieces seemed to defy gravity, stuck to the wall, like the unbroken chair that sat against the wall halfway up by the fireplace.

Susan stood in one corner, pressed against both walls. The large armoire that had once stood across the room was now six feet from her, moving slowly closer. Its doors were opening and banging shut, not rapidly, but in response to her moves, as if to cut her off.

“Jack!” she screamed. “You have to listen to me! You have to stop it!”

The chair on the wall flew across the room toward Jack. He jumped back and swung the sledgehammer at the flying chair. The weighted head crashed into wooden spindles and effectively redirected the chair's flight, but one of the legs struck him in the shoulder, sending him reeling back into Leslie.

“Listen to . . .” Susan's cry was covered by the sound of a dozen doors slamming together. Not just once, but repeatedly.
Bam, bam
! Every closet, every room, every cabinet in the house, it seemed, repeatedly opening and slamming shut in perfect unison.

Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam.

The armoire that trapped Susan stopped five feet from her. Jack jumped forward, drew his sledgehammer back, and had just started to swing at the armoire when the right-hand door swung open and struck him broadside.

He staggered, fell, dropped his weapon.

Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam.
The doors thundered.

“The sledge, Jack!” Leslie cried. “Watch out!”

His sledgehammer had flown into the air and was floating across the room, cocked at a forty-five-degree angle.

He scrambled back. It flew unaided toward the armoire.

Toward Susan.

Bam. Bam. Bam. Bam.

“Jack!” Susan was crying out something behind the armoire, but he couldn't see her now.

The hammer was now over the armoire, over Susan, intention unmistakable.

Bam. Bam. Bam
.

Boom!

Gunfire exploded around them. The sledgehammer was hit broadside by a full load of buckshot. Its handle splintered just below the head, which slammed into the wall and dropped from sight behind the armoire.

Lawdale leaped over Jack, swept up his fallen sledge by the stubbed handle, and was into a full swing before Jack fully knew it was him.

His first blow shattered the armoire's right-hand door.

The second door began to flop, and the lawman took it off with another swing. Raging like a bull, he threw himself at the heavy piece of furniture and toppled it with a loud grunt.