The creature howled, and its hand immediately went to its head. Liz grabbed for a stick, took two steps forward, and swung at the creature. It turned at the last instant and tried to duck, but it was too late.
The stick struck it in the side of the head, bouncing up
and off the skull and… Liz noted… taking a chunk of hair and scalp with it. The creature fell onto its back and gave another howl of surprise and fear. Liz didn't hesitate; she turned and grabbed Maria's hand. "Come on," she said, pulling her friend away from the creature and toward the house.
"What about Michael and Max?" Maria said, resisting.
"I think they're okay," Liz said. She was nearly sure of it. Once before, when Max had died, she had felt that event as certainly as she would had it happened to her. Now, she thought Max was all right. He was probably hurt after his tumble down the hill, but he was alive.
She saw the dazed figure behind them start to struggle to get up. "Come on, we need to lead it away from the guys."
They ran down the hill. Liz turned around only once to make sure the creature was behind them. He was, and she was glad to see that he was moving slowly. They had hurt him.
What kind of ghost gets hurt when you hit him in the head? Liz wondered. It didn't make sense, but there was no time to think about it. She and Maria were on the open ground and sprinting for the house. She didn't have a plan, except to give Max and Michael time to get their bearings. If they were hurt, Max could heal them. Then they could come and deal with the creature and find Isabel and Kyle.
As they reached the back of the house, Liz spared another glance behind her. The creature was following, more quickly than before. They had less than half a minute's lead now. Liz considered heading around the house and leading the creature away entirely, but she
didn't like the way he was gaining. She felt their best chance lay inside. There, they could move around and try to hide in one of the mansion's many rooms. The creature would waste valuable time looking for them… time that Max and Michael could use.
So when she hit the back door, she flung it open and pulled Maria inside. Then she turned an ancient deadbolt to lock the door, and the two girls headed for the kitchen. They stopped for a moment to catch their breath, and Liz realized the house was deathly quiet.
"What's the plan?" Maria asked. Her friend was scared, but Maria was keeping it together. She had come a long way since the day Liz had first told her the truth about Max, Isabel, and Michael. That made sense, because Liz had come a long way too.
"We stay away from him," Liz said.
"What, like hide?" Maria said.
"We need to buy the guys time," Liz said.
Liz could see fear on her friend's face, but this wasn't fear for herself… it was for Michael. And this fear didn't make Maria weaker, it made her stronger. Liz could see that in Maria's eyes, along with the worry.
"I really think they're okay," Liz said, praying she was right. "Come on, we'll hide upstairs. It's too open down here. We only have to give the guys a few minutes. If that thing searches the house for us, it will take a while. And if he comes upstairs, we'll run down the opposite stairway."
"You call that a plan? Run and hide?" Maria said.
"Best I could do on short notice," Liz said.
"Okay, but this way, I want to get something." Liz nodded and followed Maria through the house. When they
reached the fireplace, Maria went to the small rack nearby and picked up an iron poker. She handed it to Liz. Then she took one for herself.
Maria smiled and said, "So we can give Frankenstein another surprise."
Liz nodded again as Maria headed toward the curving front stairs. Images from her vision sprang to her mind. She considered heading through the house and taking the back stairs, then she dismissed the idea. For one, it would take more time. Secondly, in the vision, Maria had been running from the other direction. For now, the front stairs were safest.
Maria led the way up the stairs, holding the metal poker firmly in one hand. The girls moved quickly, trying to make as little noise as possible.
As they neared the top, Liz was unnerved by the fact that they could not hear any more noise. It is somewhere in the house, Liz thought. And it knew the house very well, much better than they did.
The second they stepped on the landing, Liz heard a crash downstairs. The sound came from the bottom of the stairs, somewhere in the living room. Without a word, Liz and Maria sprinted down the hallway. He knows we're up here, Liz thought. The house wasn't safe now. Maybe they could make it down the back stairs and then outside again. There were plenty of woods out there.
They crossed the hallway in seconds and started to slow down when they reached the other side, preparing to head down the stairs. Liz was in front, and they were about ten feet from the end when the creature came up the stairs.
The girls stopped dead, and Liz had to stifle a scream when she saw it with its hood off in the light of the hallway. How can anything that looks like that still be alive? she thought.
Maybe it isn't, her brain answered.
Maria took a few steps forward and raised her poker. "This is for my boyfriend," she said, bringing it down hard.
Watching her, Liz raised her own and got ready to swing it, but it got stuck in the air. Liz saw that Maria seemed frozen in space.
"Don't worry about your boyfriend," the creature said in a gravelly voice. "I would worry more about yourselves."
Suddenly, the poker in Liz's hand got too hot to hold. She let go at the same moment Maria did. Both pieces of iron hung in the air for a moment, then shot across the hallway, imbedding themselves into the wall.
Liz heard screaming and realized that one of the screams was hers. She didn't wait to see what happened next. Simultaneously, she and Maria turned around and ran.
Time seemed to slow like it did in a dream… or a vision. Then Liz realized why this moment seemed familiar: It was her vision. Maria was slightly ahead of her and sprinting down the hallway with a monster behind her.
Liz wanted to scream for Maria to stop, but then what? There was a monster behind them. And Liz had no illusions: This monster was deadly. Their only chance was to keep going, to get away. But she had seen that in her vision, and she knew how that dream ended for Maria.
Liz ran for her life.
15
In her slowed dreamtime, Liz wished for powers like Max's. He would be able to fight that thing, whatever it was. Liz had powers of her own, but now they seemed like a cruel joke: They would merely allow her to see her best friend die twice. She could also sometimes move objects with her mind and release energy as well, but she couldn't do either on demand. And she had almost no control.