Husk (25 page)

Across the room, BJ screamed for her. She swiveled around, trying to push away the throb in her foot and the wetness spreading over her scalp. The headless monster closed in on BJ, the carving knife held forward.

“
Stay away,” he cried. “Lori, don’t let him take me.”

Empowered by his pleas for help, she clawed through the mess of fireplace tools until her hands closed around the handle of a wickedly pointed stoking rod.

“
Get away from him,” she screamed.

She charged across the room with a bestial howl and slammed the pole down on the thing’s arm, knocking the knife away. The black terror swung toward her, but she’d already pulled back for a second attack, this time jabbing forward with the tool’s pointed end.

She lunged into the creature with all her might, thrusting the metal tip into its body. The rewarding noise of ripping nylon arose in the dark. She drove the beast to the wall, feeling the stoker’s hooked end erupt from its back and penetrate the sheetrock.

The creature grabbed for her, but she jumped out of reach. It grappled with the stoking rod, pinned to the wall by the tool’s flared hilt.

Taking BJ’s hand, she rushed to the sliding glass door and went for the lock release Mr. Wiess had pointed out earlier. She pressed the small switch with her thumb, but it wouldn’t budge. She pressed harder, pressed until it felt like her thumb would break off.

“
You’re not getting out that easily, bitch.”

Lori clapped both hands to her head and each word hammered into her mind.

“
I won’t let you.”

The creature pushed away from the wall, letting the rod’s handle rip though the hole she’d made in its body.

“
Run, BJ.”

With those two words spoken, she realized that she should’ve been more specific. BJ ran, all right, but not across the kitchen and toward the garage like she’d been thinking. Rather, he broke right, the direction of the front door, then made another right and descended into the basement.

“
No,” she yelled, hurrying after him.

Holding firm to the railing, she plunged into the oily blackness of the stairwell. On the upper floors there had been the trifling glow from the nighttime sky outside, but in the basement, darkness ruled every corner.

From overhead the tread of footsteps resumed, moving with purpose.

Lori navigated past the landing using the stairwell wall for a landmark. Like a ship set loose in an uncharted ocean, she drifted into the room with nothing to guide her.

She probed the air ahead in uncertain sweeping motions, convinced she’d smash another foot on something hidden in dark, or knock over an item that would give away her position.

The headless thing will have found its knife by now and be here any second.

Just then, a small light clicked on ahead of her. She found BJ perched at a half-open doorway along the right-hand wall, a penlight in his hand.

He must have grabbed it back in his room, when his nightstand light went out.

Now she could see that the room was virtually empty, save for a few unpacked boxes in the corner, and she almost laughed at her previous worry of a collision.

Without a word, she went with the boy, all the while paying heed to the sound of strained floorboards overhead. BJ led her into the back half of the basement, where a small utility room seemed to be their only source of shelter.

They crept inside and pulled the door shut, listening to the staircase steps rumbled under the monster’s tread.

And it was at that crucial moment when Lori looked to the doorknob of the utility closet and saw no lock on the inside.

* * *

The Killer reached the closet just moments after the two children, knowing they huddled inside by way of its natural ability to sense the life force of all living things.

It still inhabited the clothing it forged into a body in the attic, having elected not to waste the energy it would’ve required to abandon the vessel, pass through the floor, and construct a new form in the basement. Its ever-increasing powers had far surpassed mere knife-throwing, but the children currently had nowhere left to run, making the meager lead they’d gained all the more insignificant.

It threw open the closet door.

In its gloved hand, it once again held the knife Lori knocked from its grasp, having recovered it from the family room. With it, the entity would make the babysitter’s death a long and painful ordeal, thus showing BJ the consequence of his insurrection.

Lori cowered against the wall, peering up in terror. It relished her fear, anticipating the rush of energy that would spurt from her flesh when it cut the life from her.

It halted.

Glittering slivers of glass lay at the girl’s feet; above her head, the empty frame of a ground-level window opened into the night.

She got the boy out of the house!

With no time to waste, the entity shed the winter clothing for its true, incorporeal state and rushed out the window in pursuit of the child.

CHAPTER 32

Mallory leaned between the two front seats of Derrick’s car and directed him along the back roads that led home. Every now and again he gave her an enticing smile in the rearview mirror, and when he did, she tried her best to hold his stare without blushing.

She sat back in her seat once more when they pulled into the driveway and glanced to Tim. During the ride home, he’d sat quietly at her side, gazing out the window, oblivious to everything but the night. Twice, she’d asked him if his head felt any better, and both times he simply shrugged in response. Only once did he even look at her when he did.

Everyone piled out after Derrick switched off the engine, and Mallory frowned up at the house, not finding a single light in any of the windows.

Behind her, Troy’s battered Bronco parked along the curb and the rest of the group hopped out onto the lawn.

She turned her attention back to Tim. He lingered in the driveway, face expressionless, gazing at his mother’s car.

“
So, how are you feeling?” she asked.

“
I’ll be fine,” he answered. “I think I’m going to walk home instead of waiting for my mom, though. I’ll talk to you later.”

And with that, he started away.

“
Wait a second,” she said, stopping him before he could take another step. “Walk home? That’s like two miles. I can’t let you do that.”

“
I’ll be okay,” he began, but she wouldn’t let him finish. He’d paid for her entire evening, she’d had a fabulous time, and she wouldn’t stand to watch him walk off into the night with a migraine. “Come on, you don’t have to walk. My friends can drive you.”

He smirked. “No thanks.”

The others made their way up the driveway, remarking on the house.

“
How about a tour?” Elsa asked. “Becky said your pool was huge. Let’s see it.”

“
Yeah, sure,” Mallory answered. She just prayed BJ hadn’t trashed the place.

Taking Tim’s hand, she said, “Come inside with us. At least let me give you some medicine for your head. I feel
really
bad about you having a headache while I was having such a good time tonight.” She put on her most pleading expression and pulled him toward the front steps. Once again, he tried to decline, but she held fast, towing him with her.

Inside, Mallory called toward the second floor. “Hello? Lori? Tim and I are back.”

When no one answered, she proceeded toward the rear of the house, repeating her announcement and adding the news that her dad wouldn’t return until later than planned. She was about to say that she’d take over watching BJ, when she suddenly realized the first floor was vacant.

* * *

Lori didn’t attempt to cry out when the front door banged open, nor did she scramble from where she’d tucked herself between the house’s foundation and the water heater when the sounds of footsteps thumped through the floorboards.

She didn’t dare.

Three sides of her provided safety, but ahead lay an unknown realm of near-perfect darkness where she knew the attacker waited with a heart of ice and glacial patience.

To her, the cramped space of the utility closet had lost all sense of its original architectural dimension. Whatever existed beyond her curled legs might be nothing more than a few feet of empty concrete-lined room, or an entirely alien world with unattainably distant horizons. She didn’t know anymore. Her only certainty was that the attacker was still out there, somewhere, huddled in anticipation, waiting for her to make the move that would give her away.

And she didn’t plan on making that mistake.

Just go into the living room,
she thought.
Please, please go into the living room.

* * *

Mallory passed by the dark living room and hurried down the front hall to the kitchen, eager to find Lori and send her home. A note had been left on the counter, written in black Magic marker across a torn paper towel. She picked it up and frowned at the massive block lettering of the words and the chaotic manner in which it had been scrawled.

“
Went to Lori’s,” Mallory read aloud.
Why would Lori take BJ over to her house?

“
Where’s the midget?” Becky asked.

Mallory dropped the note. “I guess he’s at the babysitter’s.”

“
All right,” Elsa cheered. “We’ve got the whole house to ourselves.”

“
I don’t think so,” Mallory responded. “They’ll probably be back any second.”

Becky opened the door to the deck, and everyone filed out to the pool area while Mallory flipped on the switches that activated the lights in and around the water.

“
Wow,” Lisa said, watching the backyard light up. “Now this is livin’.”

Mallory stepped outside, about to accompany Derrick to the seating area at the pool’s shallow end, when she stopped and looked back. Tim still stood in the kitchen, looking miserable and out of place.

“
I’ll be out in a sec,” she called to the others.

“
Let’s get some Tylenol for your head,” she said to Tim. “Follow me.”

In the hallway bathroom, she gave him the medicine and a glass of water to wash it down with. “I’m really sorry you’re not having fun,” she said.

“
I am,” he replied, and smiled for the first time since the beginning of the night.

“
No, you’re not. You’ve hardly spoken a word since my friends showed up. You were so lively earlier. What happened?”

The bogus smile faded. “They haven’t exactly said much to me.”

“
I know. I’m not blaming you for anything. After all, it was only supposed to be you and me tonight, not a whole group of my friends.”

Mallory stood in silence while he took the second pill and gulped it down with a mouthful of water. She was acutely aware of the voices of her friends outside and couldn’t help wondering what she was missing. More than anything, she wanted Tim to get along with them, wanted him to fit in and enjoy himself. At the same time, however, she wanted to get back to Derrick.

“
Come on,” Mallory said, “we can go back out there and talk about something we’re all interested in.”

He shook his head. “I think I’d rather go home.”

“
Are you sure?”

He nodded.

“
Well, let Derrick drive you so you don’t have to walk.”

He shook his head again, this time with a look of distaste. “No offense, but I don’t like that guy.”

She blinked. “Why not?”

His lips parted and closed without speaking.

“
You can tell me,” she encouraged, biting her lower lip and playing dumb in the face of his evident jealousy. She knew that was the reason behind his dispirited attitude, and she wished she could convey her guilt at being the cause of it.

“
It doesn’t matter,” Tim said.

She thought of the kiss she’d given him at the fair, and the reaction on his face. Of course whatever he had to tell her mattered.

He moved for the door and she stepped in front of him.

“
Still friends, right?”

Tim held her gaze, but she didn’t see the gleam in his eyes he’d had at the fair.

“
Yeah, still friends,” he said.

Then tell me what’s wrong
, she started to say when her friends beat her to it. Everyone erupted in a loud cheer of wonder, sounding like a crowd of people viewing a Fourth of July fireworks display.

She listened to the voices coming through the wall change into laughter, followed by a second array of shouts, hoots, and whistles.

“
I’ve got to tell them to keep it down,” she told Tim. “My dad said I could have a pool party, but he never said when. The last thing I need is one of the neighbors calling the cops. Just stay here and I’ll be back in a minute.”

Outside, Mallory found the group had fanned out among the lawn chairs positioned around the pool. All eyes were now focused on Elsa while she tread water in the deep end. A crumpled pile of her clothes lay near the diving board and even through the screen of waves covering her body Mallory saw that she’d jumped in wearing only her underwear.