He flipped it down, watched it spin, then gave a slight tug to bring it up to his palm in a flash.
Movement and a flash of light caught his attention—something on one of the security feed monitors. The motion-detecting rooftop spotlights had flashed on. With the yo-yo clutched in his hand, he walked closer to the small black-and-white screen, watching as a police cruiser, bathed in the overhead light, pulled up to the front of the house, absently plowed into a couple of trash cans, knocking them over, then came to a stop.
He frowned. Were they doing shots out there while waiting for Allyson?
It had taken long enough for the cops to get her here, but at least the waiting was finally over. Karen and he could finally relax… well, relax as much as possible with a psychopath on the loose who probably wanted to kill Karen’s mother, if not all of them, before the night was over.
Ray passed through the kitchen archway, into the living room, circled behind the loveseat and stopped at the front door. He peered through one of the vertical panels of decorative obscure glass. Through the distorted glass, the only details he could make out were the cop car and its flashing red and blue lights. Even less detail than what the black-and-white security monitors revealed, especially since, without subsequent movement, the rooftop spotlights had gone dark.
After about thirty seconds spent fiddling with multiple locks and lifting the horizontal drop bar out of its brackets, Ray stepped out onto the weathered floorboards of the front porch, feeling the old wood give slightly under his weight. By now, he would have expected Allyson to have jumped out of the car and run up the porch steps, but the police cruiser just idled there… waiting.
“Any word?” he called, absently tossing the yo-yo down and up again.
No response.
Only metallic clinking from the row of bell-shaped wind chimes hanging from the roof of the porch.
What’s taking so long? She should be here by now.
“Any word on Allyson?” he asked, louder. “You guys need coffee or something?”
Ray leaned forward, straining to see Phillips in the front seat of the cruiser. Ray waved. Still no response. He spread his hands. Anything?
“What the hell?” he muttered and descended the rotting porch stairs, grateful his foot didn’t break through any of the treads. “Too damn lazy to get out of the car?”
The cruiser was too close to the front of the house for his movement to trigger the spotlights, so everything remained relatively dark. He peered through the side window into the car, but glare from what seemed like a flashlight and the fogged window made it difficult to see anything but the general shape of Phillips sitting in the driver’s seat.
Irritated, he rapped on the driver’s side window.
Phillips didn’t budge, so Ray pulled the door open—
—and took a quick step back in shock.
Phillips’ throat had been slit from ear to ear, creating what looked like an apron of blood over his police jacket. A metallic pen with a thin blade jutting from its tip had been rammed into his ear.
Propped on Phillips’ lap was a severed human head.
And it was glowing!
The human head had been carved to resemble a jack-o’-lantern, with triangle eyes cut through his skull, a cutout triangle nose where his actual nose had been, and a jagged smile sliced into and beyond either side of his actual mouth. A flashlight had been shoved into the neck hole to illuminate the gruesome nightmare.
With the facial features mutilated, Ray couldn’t be sure, but the hair looked familiar—it had to be Officer Francis’s head.
Overwhelmed, Ray stumbled backward.
Suddenly, the clinking of the porch wind chimes seemed louder—closer—than they should.
Turning toward the sound, Ray saw a dark shape wearing a pale mask instantly close the distance between them and wrap the chain of the wind chimes around Ray’s neck. Choking and wheezing for air, Ray fought against the strong hands tugging the metal links deep into the soft flesh of his throat. He flailed with his fists, unable to get sufficient leverage for a solid blow. Twisting, bending, staggering left and right, he tried to break free, but The Shape moved with him, never relenting. With each passing second, Ray weakened; his burning muscles, denied oxygen, began to fail him.
A deeper darkness than the night sky encroached on his vision, spreading fast, narrowing his view to pinpoints, as his legs gave out and his arms dropped to his sides, until finally the light winked out.
38
Laurie descended the stairs from the second floor right to the unsecured front door, gripping a pump-action 12-gauge shotgun in her hands. Even though she had her hunting knife in its sheath, she considered that weapon her backup. She felt safest when she had her revolver, bolt-action rifle, or pump-action shotgun in hand.
She’d been in Karen’s old room when she thought she heard rattling downstairs. Ray had been in the kitchen, fiddling with a yo-yo of all things, when she’d gone upstairs. But the sound she’d heard came from the front of the house. Expecting news that Allyson had arrived, but hearing nothing but a rattling of locks, she feared something was wrong.
The house was only as secure as its weakest point of entry but, by inviting others into her home, she’d added new variables. Human variables. People who had not spent the last forty years in a low-level state of fear and paranoia, always expecting the worst to happen on any given day, at any given moment.
“Ray?” Laurie called.
As she suspected, Ray had gone outside to converse with the police, and had, naturally, left the front door unsecured. She peered through the right vertical window panel, trying to take in the scene through the obscure glass.
First thing she saw was The Shape, standing below the front porch, his back to her. Then she saw a body sprawled unnaturally at his feet—Ray!
Her breath caught. Stunned, she swayed forward and raised her hand to the doorframe to steady herself. As quickly and quietly as possible, she re-engaged all the door locks and lowered the open bar into its brackets.
Karen hurried down the stairs. “Mom?”
Recovering from the shock of Ray’s death, Laurie slipped into defensive mode. The years of drills and weapons practice had brought her to this moment. She was prepared. She was in control. She would not panic.
Laurie shook her head at Karen, index finger pressed to her lips to command silence. With a head nod, she directed Karen away from the door, toward the middle of the room. “He’s here, Karen,” Laurie said. “Michael is here. Go to the shelter and hide. You’ll be safe there.”
Wide-eyed with a fright she’d never thought she’d experience, Karen seemed to accept that Laurie’s dreaded moment had finally arrived. But Laurie had trained her daughter well enough that she didn’t panic. Her concerns were practicaclass="underline" “What about Ray? What about Allyson?”
“I’ll take care of it,” Laurie assured her, hoping Karen felt her confidence and determination—but not the sliver of fear that had her heart racing. “It’s time. Now. It all ends tonight.”
Without protest, and nodding through tears, Karen rushed to the kitchen and spun the island counterclockwise. She lifted the secret door built flush with the surrounding tile but, before descending the steps to the shelter, Karen turned to face her mother—armed and ready to face the psychopath that had haunted her for years—and they shared an intense look. In that moment, Laurie knew what her daughter was thinking. Is this goodbye? Will I ever see you again?