Glory snapped back into herself, too frightened even to scream, the fear frozen like something caught in her throat. She thought she must have drifted off for a while, but the creature had hardly moved. She heard a whimpering sound beside her-Archie. She grabbed him, pulling so hard he lost his balance and tore the candle from her hand as he tried to right himself.
Glory ignored the candle sputtering on the floor and raced blindly down the hallway. Beatrice followed just behind them, the fear moving her though she had no volition of her own.
They crowded into the small bathroom and locked the door behind them. In the flickering darkness, Beatrice finally began sobbing-great gulps of air and loud exhalations that made it impossible to hear anything else. She moved the candle away from her face before she blew it out inadvertently, and she shoved a hamper up under the doorknob and pushed it, jamming it there to barricade them in. Glory glanced around, left and right, undecided, and then she put Archie in the bathtub and began frantically rifling through the drawers. She yelped in pain and quickly drew back her hand—blood was welling up in the long cut along the palm, just beginning to drip. She saw a half-open straight razor in the drawer; she grabbed it with her other hand, unfolded the blade all the way, and turned toward the door.
Everything was dead silent outside. Not a rustle, not a scrape. Glory suddenly felt compelled to open the door to peek out. It was quiet, after all. The thing they saw couldn’t possibly be what she remembered—it was probably some wild dog or something, and it had probably run out of the house by now. She took a tentative step forward and reached for the hamper to pull it away.
Beatrice pulled her back. “Glory!”
As Glory turned to look behind her, a huge, gnarled fist smashed though the bathroom door as if the wood were mere veneer. A long scaly arm thrust through the jagged hole in the door, grabbing for Beatrice as if it could see her. Beatrice pressed herself as far back as she could go, shielding Archie in the bathtub with her back.
Through the hole and just behind the silhouetted creature, Glory saw flames crawling along the wall in the corridor. The candle, she thought. The house is burning down. She had to wrench her eyes away from the flames with an act of will, just in time to see the creature dig its talons into Beatrice’s shoulder and jerk her forward. Beatrice was too frightened even to make a sound; her mouth merely twisted open in a horrible expression. Glory scrambled to her, but there was nothing she could do. Beatrice was pulled up against the door, and the black talons were so forceful there was a sickening sound, and then her clothing and flesh tore away from her shoulder and the pain made her scream.
Glory wedged herself in between her sister and the battered door, and she brought the razor down hard on the creature’s forearm, cutting a deep gash into its reptilian flesh. There was an earsplitting shriek that drowned out Beatrice’s own cries of pain, and the claws opened, letting her fall to the floor in a trail of blood.
Beatrice was already in shock. Glory tried to help her up, but she was a deadweight, and Glory had to struggle with all her might to lift , her sister enough to push her into the tub with Archie.
With the flames growing in intensity behind it, the enraged demon began pounding at the door with its other hand, splintering what wood remained. Glory pushed at the tiny window above the showerhead—it would only swing out partway. “Archie, listen to me. I’m going to put you out the window, and I want you to run as fast as you can to the neighbors and get help, okay?”
Archie sobbed a barely intelligible, “Okay.”
Glory lifted him up and tried to shove him headfirst through the crack just as the creature reduced the last of the door into splinters with one final blow from its uninjured arm. It was all going to end momentarily. Glory struggled in vain, and she realized that Archie was stuck halfway through the window. Exhausted and in tears, she let his legs go and turned defiantly, razor extended, to face the creature one last time. But to her surprise, it was gone.
She heard a window shattering in the bedroom. Already she could feel the blast of heat coming from the burning house. If they couldn’t get through the bathroom window, they’d have to run down the hallway now, before the flames grew any worse. How was she going to drag Beatrice and make it through the fire? She turned to pull Archie back in, but even as she touched him, he was suddenly yanked out of the window by an unseen force on the outside.
“Archie!” Glory dropped the razor and lifted herself up to the tiny window, expecting to see the hellish, winged creature spiriting her nephew away, but what she saw instead, against the windswept night sky, was Lovecraft awkwardly holding the sobbing boy in his arms. Glory screamed again, this time in relief. She saw Lovecraft cringe.
“Calm yourself, boy,” said Lovecraft, and then to Glory in the matter-of-fact tone she had grown to love, “The cavalry has arrived.”
Still braced in the window frame, Glory turned her head and saw Howard’s form silhouetted heroically in the bathroom doorway, gun in hand, his back to the flames. At that moment he could have been one of his own swashbuckling heroes.
“Come on, Glory. We’ve got to go,” said Howard.
“My sister’s hurt.” Glory gave a quick wave to comfort Archie out side and dropped from the window into the tub.
Howard tucked his pistol in his belt, lifted Beatrice, and threw her over his shoulder. “Follow me now.” He led Glory into the bedroom and out the shattered window into the night, illuminated by the rippling light of the flames that consumed the house.
12
BEATRICE LAY SEDATED and bandaged in a metal-frame bed, her breath heaving regularly, a little wheeze issuing from her nose with each exhalation. Her face appeared drawn, tired, and relaxed the way faces look after a long ordeal. In the cushioned seat at the side of the bed her neighbor, old Mrs. Appleton, sat drowsing, with Archie asleep in her arms.
Glory had just had her cuts and scrapes bandaged downstairs. As she handed Mrs. Appleton the envelope containing the note she had written to Beatrice, she noticed, for some reason, that the paper she had thought white at first was actually a subtle cream color when juxtaposed next. to the bleached white bandages on her hand. “Please give this to Beatrice when she wakes up,” she said. “It explains why I had to leave so suddenly.”
“You really should stay, you know.”
“I know, Mrs. Appleton. I’m very sorry to have appeared out of nowhere like this just to leave her life in a shambles. But I don’t have much choice at the moment, especially if I want her and Archie to be safe.”
“You called the police?”
“It’s better this way, Mrs. Appleton.”
“If you say so, dear.” She took the envelope and slipped it between the two flower vases on the bedside table. “If you say so.”
Glory gently kissed her sleeping sister and her nephew. At the door she paused to look back. White on white on white. Everything white, but no shade was the same as another. A cacophony of white. She turned away and walked slowly down the hall to where Lovecraft and Howard were waiting for her. “Let’s go,” she said. “I’ll be less ready if we wait any longer.”
They took the stairs down to the parking lot in silence and got into the car.