“Children,” he called again, his voice rising to the point where there was no doubt the two kids could hear him. “It’s Daddy. Come on out here.”
Emily stumbled back from the door. She could still see Simon’s silhouette through the small glass window.
“Ben? Rhee. Ann. On? Come out. It is okay. Daddy is here.” Simon’s voice echoed down the hallway and into the house, pushing the silence aside. While it reached the same emotional amplitude she had heard Simon use with his children, it sounded false, almost robotic, to Emily.
A gruff bark from Thor and the padding of paws and feet alerted Emily to the children heading her way.
“Daddy?” Rhiannon’s voice called from behind Emily. She turned and illuminated the little girl with her flashlight at the opposite end of the corridor. Ben was next to her. His sister’s arms wrapped around his fragile frame as they both blinked in the beam of the torch.
“Jesus,” she muttered, realization flooding her mind. This thing wanted the kids, and it was using their father to lure them out. It must know that she was here with them, and there was no way she was going to surrender either herself or the kids, and there was no way it could get to them while they were holed up in the house. So it would pull the kids to it, knowing that she would not be far behind. And if it couldn’t lure them outside? Then it would be only a matter of time until it figured out how to get inside.
An even more frightening thought crossed her mind: What if he was still aware of what was happening to him? What if behind those eyes he was aware of the pain of each cracking bone as his body was reorganized to his captor’s will? What if he was aware of the motivation of this thing that wanted to use him to lure out his children and…what? Kill them? Consume them? Make them like him? And what if there was nothing he could do about it as he was bent and molded to the will of the thing controlling him?
Emily had read about a bird called a shrike. It would impale its prey on thorns and wait for it to die, slowly consuming it over time. She glanced back at the tentacles extending from Simon and the row of barbs running along its length. She searched Simon’s pale face for any sign of the man she had met, but all she saw were his lifeless eyes and marionette-like stance.
She made an instant and unemotional decision.
Emily stalked down the corridor and crouched down in front of Rhiannon and the boy. Ben still refused to look at her, hiding his head in his sister’s shoulder, but Rhiannon stared right back at Emily from the dimness of the shadowy corridor. Emily could see that the child understood what was coming next—maybe only on some subconscious level, but she understood.
Emily took a deep breath and spoke, not even sure what words to use. “Your daddy is very sick,” she began. “I know you can hear him outside and I know you want to go to him, but he’s not feeling very well and I’m afraid that he might”—she paused as she searched again for the right words—“I’m afraid he might make you sick, too. So, we’re going to get out of here and, when your dad’s better, we’ll come back for him, okay?”
Ben’s sobs grew louder. Rhiannon pulled her brother closer. “It’s all okay, Benny,” she whispered. “It’s okay. Daddy’s going to be fine. We have to go with Emily right now, though.”
Ben’s sobs stuttered and finally stalled. Emily’s heart wanted to break for these two kids whose life she was sure had been changed forever this night. She resisted the urge to reach out and stroke the little boy’s hair; that would probably set him off again. His cries had faded to the occasional sniffle, and she was not exactly the flavor of the month with him right now. Instead, Emily smiled at Rhiannon. “All right, kids. We have to be really quiet from now on. Let’s go.”
Emily held her breath and shone the flashlight into the corridor, searching for the hook with the car keys she thought she had seen when she’d first arrived.
There it was. She could see the glint of the keys hanging from a hook plugged into the wall. She plucked the keys from the hook, noting the embossed Dodge logo on the black plastic fob. These had to be the right ones.
Emily turned to the children and moved her forefinger to her lips. Both kids nodded they understood, and Emily was relieved to see that Ben’s tears had dried up, his big hazel eyes, bloodshot and pitted in the beam of the flashlight, gazed back at her with just a hint of trust behind the fear and pain. She pushed the door to the garage open. The former owner must have been handy with the WD-40 because the creak of dry hinges she had expected never materialized. She ushered the children and Thor past her as she held the door open. When they were all safely inside, she closed the door again as quietly as possible.
The big Dodge SUV was exactly where she had seen it when she’d first arrived at the house.
The handle was locked. Her thumb was hovering over the alarm disable button on the key fob when she stopped herself. If she used the key fob to turn off the alarm, wouldn’t it make that whoop-whoop sound she’d heard so many times on the streets of New York? She couldn’t risk any noise alerting the Simon-thing to the fact that they were at the other end of the house.
If she used the key to unlock the door manually, would that have the same effect? She had no idea, but the door had to be opened. She slipped the key into the lock and turned it. The locks unlocking sounded like gunshots in the silence of the garage, and the sudden illumination from the automatic interior lights sent flashing motes zooming across her eyes, but there was no alarm.
She reached back and pulled open the rear passenger door. “Come on, kids. Quickly, jump inside,” she hissed.
Thor didn’t need to be asked twice. Tail wagging frenetically, he leaped into the back row of seats and positioned himself behind the front passenger seat. Rhiannon helped to get Ben up onto the kick plate with a push on his butt. He clambered the rest of the way inside and was met with a barrage of licks from Thor that teased out a giggle from the little boy.
Well, that was a good sign. At least he was not irreparably damaged. Rhiannon pulled herself up into the backseat next to her brother and immediately pulled the seat belt across him, fastening it into the receiver, then clicking her own belt into place. Sure that the two children were safely locked down, Emily pushed the door closed as quietly as she could.
Climbing into the driver’s seat, she pulled her own door quietly shut behind her. Now came the hard part.
She had no idea what any of these dials, switches, and levers did. She mentally kicked herself in the ass again for not having taken any driving lessons. At least she knew what the steering wheel and gas and brake pedals were supposed to do. She looked down between the driver’s and passenger’s seats—thank God it was an automatic and not a stick shift.
“Okay,” she whispered. “Now what?”
Emily found the ignition on the steering column and slotted the key into the receiver. She turned the key and felt it slip into the first position with a reassuring click. Instantly the interior lights turned off, replaced by a neon-blue glow from the dashboard instruments. Emily breathed a sigh of relief. Part of her had been sure that the battery would be dead.
She took a few seconds to familiarize herself with the layout of the cockpit. The gearshift handle was on her right, a lever jutting from the left of the steering column. It had some kind of a twistable selector at the end of it, covered in white icons. They obviously represented headlight settings, so she turned the selector to the first position. The interior of the garage lit up, pushing back some of the shadows. She twisted the switch to the next setting and was pleased to see the headlights become even brighter, illuminating the entirety of the garage and the flat metal of the retractable garage door in front of her.