# # #
“Kelly!” Letti called out.
Three doors. Which one did she go through?
Letti hurried to the first door, knocking over a soggy cardboard box, spilling pills onto the dirt floor. She tugged open the door and gasped.
There were a bunch of people standing in the room.
But her brain told her something was amiss, that these weren’t people. She stared a moment longer, and saw that they were all elaborately dressed, some in period clothing. And none of them were moving.
Even stranger, most of them were recognizable.
“Wax figures,” Mal said. “I guess there’s no room for them in the house.”
Naturally, each wax figure depicted a U.S. President. They looked old, and far from pristine. Most were covered in dust and cobwebs. Some had broken limbs and cracked faces. The Richard Nixon closest to Letti was missing his nose.
“Kelly!” Letti yelled again. She took a step forward, toward a particularly ugly statue of George Washington in colonial dress, but someone held her back.
“Hold on,” Maria said, easing in front of her. She held up a scalpel she’d taken from the operating room, and whispered in Letti’s ear, “I’ve seen this trick before.”
Moving quickly, Maria stuck the scalpel into Washington’s belly.
The statue—which wasn’t a statue at all—howled and lashed out at her.
Four other statues followed suit, coming to life and closing in. Maria backed up, bumping into Letti, and they both high-tailed it out the door they’d come in, slamming it behind them. Letti braced her shoulder against the wood.
“Check the other doors! We have to get out of here!”
Mal opened the one on the right. “It’s dark. I can’t see anything.”
The door shuddered. Letti removed the cannula—a large, sharp metal tube she’d grabbed from the instrument cart—from her back pocket and speared it into the door jamb like a deadbolt. It wouldn’t hold for long.
Maria checked the far door. “There’s a ladder. Come on!”
The trio ran to the ladder. It was made of metal bars, old and rusty, ascending into darkness. Mal went up first, moving damn quick for a man with only one hand. Maria followed.
The door to the statue room burst open, and a bleeding, pissed-off George Washington stumbled through. He was followed by a large, stout woman wearing a pillbox hat.
“You can’t get away, Loretta,” Eleanor said. “No guests ever leave.”
Letti considered running at the woman, perhaps taking her as some kind of hostage. But four of her large brood filed out of the room behind her, so Letti turned and climbed up the ladder. At each rung, she expected someone to grab her ankles, pull her back down. But it didn’t happen. No one even seemed to be chasing her.
When she reached the top, she understood why. The ladder led to another doorway, which opened up into the main floor of the Rushmore Inn, where there were more than a dozen freaks waiting for her.
# # #
Felix didn’t move. He didn’t dare breathe. The mountain lion was less than a foot away, its golden eyes staring Felix right in the face. The cat’s ears flattened against its head and the beast roared in unmistakeable wildcat style, baring its sharp, thick fangs.
I’m about to die, and there’s not a thing I can do about it.
But Ronald wasn’t ready to kill Felix. Not yet.
Ronald wanted to play with his food first.
A paw shot out, clipping Felix in the head, the blow dizzying. Felix rolled, crying out, not caring anymore if he was heard or not. He had no idea how much punishment a man could take and still survive, but he knew he was near his limit.
The cougar pounced, landing next to Felix, and gave him another swat. It tore Felix’s shirt, and the skin underneath.
Felix tried to feebly scramble away, and Ronald’s claw hooked into his leg, pulling him back. He tried once more, and the cat did the same thing.
Enough. I’m done. It’s finished.
Felix rolled onto his back, staring up at the full moon peeking through the trees. He realized it would be the last thing he ever saw.
Such a shame. He wanted his last sight to be the woman he’d fought so desperately to save.
I love you, Maria.
And then Ronald’s warm mouth closed around Felix’s neck.
# # #
The first thing Deb saw when she opened her eyes was a swirling, spinning jumble of motes. They danced in her vision, making it hard to focus.
She shook her head, trying to get her bearings, and realized four things in rapid succession.
I fell on top of Calvin, and he’s bloody and completely still, and I think he’s dead.
My nose hurts, and I have a headache, but I don’t think I sustained any major damage.
I lost my knife, but I still have my prosthetic leg bag around my shoulder.
I’m surrounded by freaks.
The last thought jolted her back to the here and now. Deb pushed herself up off of Calvin, struggling to get her Cheetahs under her. The bottom skids kept slipping on the widening spread of blood.
Coming at her from the left side were; a man with one long arm and a very short arm, his skull so misshapen and massive he wore a neck brace to support it; a set of parasitic twins, the smaller, deformed brother’s head and hands sticking out of the hip of his host; a morbidly obese man with two extra hands jutting from his chest; and a man without a shirt, exposing lumpy growths all over his body that looked a lot like pink coral.
On her right side, Deb was confronted by; a man with a spine so twisted he walked on all fours; a tall, long-limbed teenager whose eyes were too close together, bloody acne covering his face like a crust, two more men like Grover, with flippers for hands and deformed skulls, and a gigantic, muscular hulk who didn’t appear to have any neck.
Deb grabbed her dropped mountain climbing leg, which was lying next to her. Then she crawled out of the blood pool. Her prosthetics were still too slippery to stand up. She assumed a kneeling position, raising the artificial leg like a weapon, realizing she had no chance at all of getting away.
The pimply teenager reached for her, his hands stained with dried blood—probably from picking at his face. His reach was so long Deb was unable to hit him even as his spidery fingers encircled her throat.
And then the teen’s head jerked to the side. His eyes—mere millimeters apart—crossed. He flopped to the side, his head bouncing off the floor.
Coming in behind him, someone else reached out for Deb.
Florence.
“Give me your hand,” she said.
With the older woman’s help, Deb was able to stand up. Once Deb was vertical, Florence lashed out her foot, catching a freak in the jaw, knocking him away.
Deb followed Florence through the hole she’d made in the wall of attackers, walking carefully because her treads were wet. The tiny burst of optimism spurred by Florence’s rescue attempt faded quickly when Deb realized there was no place to run.
We can’t get away. There are too many of them.
Florence didn’t seem deterred by this. She kicked and punched like Jackie Chan’s grandmother, and for the moment the freaks gave her a wide berth.
“We should try for the front door,” Deb said. They were now standing back to back, both of them swinging at the surrounding horde.
“I’m not leaving without my family.”
Someone crawled up to Deb, someone with stunted legs like Teddy. He grabbed Deb’s Cheetah, pulling her off balance. Deb smacked him in the face with her mountain climbing leg, the spiked end flaying off a few layers of skin.