House (7 page)

Leslie ducked behind the registration table and peered over the top of it.

There was a
clank
like a dead bolt sliding home.

Randy raised the chair above his head.

The shadow remained for a moment, then retreated from the glass. The boot heels clicked across the boards, down the steps, dropped to the flagstones, and went away.

There were audible sighs of relief in the room, but Jack felt no safer, not yet, and he did not part with the vase stand. He asked Betty, “Who was that?”

“It was him,” Betty said.

“Who's
him
?” Randy demanded.

“The devil himself.”

Leslie stood up behind the desk, her voice professionally calm. “Betty, it's all right. Just tell us who he is and what he wants.”

“You'd better start prayin' that lawman friend of yours shows up, is all I can say.”

Randy checked the lock.

The knob broke off in his hand.

He cursed. “He did something to the door.” He stuck his fingers through the resulting hole, jiggled the latch. The door held fast. Randy banged on the door, kicked it, banged it again. It would not open.

Jack set the stand down and tried to find any crack he could pry into with his fingers. No good.

“You have
got
to get us out of here, Jack,” Stephanie cried.

Randy and Jack looked at each other, speaking the same thought—“The back door!”—at the same time, the screen door to the enclosed back porch squeaked.

The men ran through the house, through the dark, groping, skidding at the corner, through the dining room, through the hall, into the light of the kitchen, and across to the back door.

The lock was creaking when they got there.

Jack slammed against the door, grabbed the knob, and tried to twist it.

A stronger hand on the other side torqued the knob against him.

Randy's hand wrapped around his, and together they tried to turn the knob, tried to pull the door open.

Through the pane, Jack saw the drooping hat and, just under the brim where a face should be, a plate of steel with ice-cold eyes watching him through two jagged holes.

There was a
clank
like a dead bolt sliding home.

The knob broke off in their hands, throwing them off balance.

They recovered in time to see the figure crossing the back porch and going out the tattered screen door, the shotgun slung over his shoulder.

Randy exploded in a stream of profanity and grabbed up a broom, ready to dash the handle through the glass. Jack stopped him. “Easy now, easy. Don't lose it.”

Randy stood down, got a grip, and threw the broom aside.

The lights in the kitchen flickered, dimmed, and went out.

Another stream of expletives.

Jack stood still and remained quiet, trying to think.
What would happen next? What did this creep have in mind?

Clumsy footsteps clattered and galloped into the kitchen, and he could see the others as dark shapes against the cabinets.

“Jack?” Stephanie cried.

“Over here,” he answered.

She made her way toward him, and he took hold of her hand. She pried it loose but stayed close.

Leslie asked, “Did you see who it was?”

“He was wearing a mask,” Jack said, “some tin contraption.”

Stephanie groaned and slid down a cabinet to the floor.

Randy pushed himself away from the wall and strode up to Betty and Stewart. “Now you are going to tell us exactly what's going on. Who is this guy?”

“I think he's here to kill us,” Betty answered.

The stunned silence lasted only a moment.

“Are you in on this?” Randy got in Stewart's face. “Did you rig the locks to break off?”

Stewart's eyes locked on him like a tiger on its prey. Jack touched Randy's arm but spoke to Betty, “How do you know?”

“Is he connected to the spikes in the road?” Randy demanded.

“You think you're better off stumbling around in the dark?” Betty asked.

Stumbling around . . . ?
“Better off than what?” Jack asked.

“Help me find that lamp,” Randy ordered no one in particular. “Get me some matches.”

Jack, Randy, and Leslie groped about the counter in the dim light until Randy found the lamp he had brought in before dinner. Betty produced a box of matches from a drawer. Soon they all stood in the orange glow, the flame casting eerie, dancing shadows across their faces.

Jack looked toward the windows. He saw faint orange reflections from the room, but outside there was only blackness. “We'd better make sure the house is secure. Just make sure we're safe for the time being, and then we can—”

“Secure the house!” Randy said. “Check the doors, check the windows, and let's get some lights back on.”

“Do you have a gun in the house?” Jack asked the strange family.

“Got my shotgun,” Stewart replied. “And buckshot.”

“Then let's get it—”

Something bumped and creaked above their heads.

They froze in the glow of the lamp, eyes turned upward, listening.

A thump. Another creak. A succession of thumps—like footsteps.

“He's on the roof,” Betty whispered.

Randy kicked a cupboard door and started pacing in a show of some bravado, but Jack noticed the sheen of sweat on his forehead. “He's trying for an upstairs window.”

Betty looked toward the kitchen windows. “What's wrong with these?”

Randy grabbed the lamp. Jack and Stewart followed him as he took off down the hall toward the stairway, leaving the women in the dark.

“Jack!” Stephanie shouted. “Jack! Don't you leave us here!”
Gone again. If you make me cope alone one more time, I'll . . . I'll . . .
She covered her face.

“Stephanie, come on now, it's time to be brave,” Leslie said. “There's a time for feelings, and there's a time for strength. This is a time for strength. You have to find it.”

Stephanie had no more country-girl smiles left in her tonight. “Don't you talk down to me, Dr. Shrink. I am not your patient.”

“Stephanie—”

“And I'm no helpless little bimbo either, if that's what you're thinking, and just for the record, Jack and I are still married.” Leslie touched her shoulder, but Stephanie jerked away. “Don't touch me!”

They could hear the running, frantic footfalls of the men upstairs going from room to room, apparently checking all the windows.

“The men are still between us and . . . whoever he is,” Leslie offered.

“
Humph
,” grunted Betty, only a shadow in the dark kitchen. “If he wanted in, he'd be in.”

Stephanie clung to her anger. She called up her mental catalog of Jack's offenses toward her and started thumbing through them.
You are so insensitive to me, always leaving me alone . . .

“Can't we get the lights back on?” she heard Leslie say.

. . . and you have never understood what I really need.

“Nope,” Betty replied.

Stephanie recalled the anniversary of Melissa's birthday . . .

“There was another oil lamp on the mantel,” Leslie said.

. . . when Jack completely broke down. Abandoned her again. I want to move on, but you just can't, Jack.

“Come on,” Betty said.

You loved Melissa more than you ever loved me. It wasn't my fault.

“Stephanie.”

It wasn't my fault.

“Stephanie.” Leslie's voice jerked her out of her mental tirade. Leslie and Betty were leaving the kitchen. Stephanie followed, placing her hands on the walls to guide her as she moved into the hall.

“Wait a minute,” Leslie said. “Where's Pete?”

Betty kept moving, leading them into the foyer, which now felt like a subterranean cavern—limitless, unknowable, so dark. Stephanie not only felt the wall, she was sure it felt her. Her fingertips tingled.

Leslie asked again, insistent this time, “Betty, where is Pete?”

“He likes to hide,” Betty said.

“Hide?” Stephanie saw Leslie look back over her shoulder and stumble.

“Oh, are we having
feelings,
Doctor?” Stephanie said.

“Not at all!”

Stephanie found her ruffled tone quite satisfying. Dr. Shrink had a chink in her armor.
Ha. Dr. Shrink has a chink.
That was something to sing about.

Betty rounded the corner into the living room and threaded her way through the furniture while Leslie and Stephanie followed with the cautiousness of unfamiliarity. Stephanie could barely discern the huge fireplace, but Betty had no trouble finding and grabbing a second oil lamp from the mantel.

The flare of the match was blinding. Stephanie squinted while Betty lit the lamp and placed it on the hearth. The room appeared in the soft yellow light.

Stephanie and Leslie scanned the sofa, the chairs, the coffee table, and the bookshelves, looking for anything out of place. Stephanie didn't see any shapes or shadows that could be Pete, but this room offered an abundance of places to hide.

A dancing, swinging light shone into the foyer from above, casting elongated shadows of the stair railing and three men on the walls and floor. The guys were coming down the stairs.

“We think he's off the roof,” Randy reported. “He didn't get in.”

“Considering the locks, I'm beginning to wonder if he wants to keep
us
in,” Jack said.

Stephanie asked, “Did you find the gun?”

Leslie leaned close and predicted, “Randy will have it.”

Randy led the trio into the living room, carrying the shotgun, loading cartridges. Jack carried the lamp. Stewart brought up the rear, as grim as a thundercloud, boots clomping down the stairs. “He may have left, but we can never be sure,” Randy barked. “The upstairs is secure for now.”

“None of the windows will open,” Jack reported grimly.

“There are seven of us and only one of him,” Randy said. “Isn't that right, Stewart?”

Stewart didn't answer, maybe just to spite him.

Betty dug through a stack of newspapers in a basket on the hearth and pulled out a section. She crouched, then flattened it open next to the lamp. “So you want to know who he is?”

She tapped a news article on the front page and stepped aside.

COUPLE FOUND DEAD

Stephanie crowded in with the others, skimming the key phrases: “. . . man and wife, found dead in abandoned house . . . possible suicide, but authorities have not ruled out homicide . . . similarities to other deaths . . . dead for almost two weeks before they were found . . .”

Oh, dear God.

“Seems like it's been going on forever,” Betty whispered, her eyes glistening in the lamplight. “People going into old houses and never coming out, and when somebody finds 'em, they been dead so long it's hard to tell how. But me and Stewart, we know it's him.”

No, it's not him, right? It can't be him. Not here, not now.

“Who is he?” asked Randy.

“The cops are still trying to find out. We call him White, after the first family he took down. He's been busy in these parts. We were wondering when he'd get around to us.”

“Well, nobody's going to die in this house,” Randy said. “We'll assign guard posts and hold him off until someone finds our cars—”

Right. Nobody's going to die. Everything's going to be all right. Always all right . . .

A distant thumping. Some creaking. All eyes went toward the ceiling.

“He's still up there,” Leslie said with a side look at Randy. “He's still on the roof.”

Randy pumped the shotgun once.

“Why the roof ?” Jack asked. “Why the roof when any window on the main floor would be easy enough to break through? This guy has to be following a plan.”

Then came a sound: a weird, tinny rattling like a soda can falling down a narrow well, careening, pinging, and clinking off the sides. It was close, maybe in the room. Stephanie ducked and swiveled, her hands raised to protect her head. Randy swept the room with the shotgun, making Jack and Stewart duck.

“Pete?” Leslie said, her voice tight with alarm.

“No,” Betty said.

Poof.
Something landed in the fireplace, sending up a little cloud of ash. It bounced onto the hearth, rolled forward with a gritty, metallic sound, and came to rest inches from the edge.

Jack brought his lamp closer. Betty approached it.

“Don't touch it,” Stephanie said.

Betty leaned in for a closer look. “You're right, writer boy. He doesn't want in.”

Jack reached down and picked it up.

It was an old soup can, the label faded and half-gone, the print now obscured by a bold message scrawled in black marker. Jack sat on the hearth, set down the lamp, and rotated the can as he read aloud:

Welcome to my house.
House rules:
1. God came to my house and I killed him.
2. I will kill anyone who comes to my house as I killed God.
3. Give me one dead body, and I
might let rule two slide.
Game over at dawn.