“Keep the doors locked and windows up till I get back.”
The girl gazed as if her mind were far away, but she locked the door and began rolling up her window.
Donna ran for the ticket booth. 5.
Halfway down the stairs, where Jud lay clutching a baluster, he heard the smash of glass and Larry’s scream. Jud started climbing. The white creature appeared above him. It leaped. He fired once, point blank, before the claws hit his hand and tore the gun away. With an anguished screech, the creature shoved past Jud. It staggered down the stairs. Leaning over the bannister, Jud saw its pale shape moving toward the kitchen.
He hurried to the top of the stairs. Patting the floor near the bodies of Roy and the first beast, he found his flashlight. He turned it on. By its light, he found Larry’s machete. He ran up the corridor to Maggie’s bedroom. His light showed a broken window beyond the toppled, papier-mâché screen. Then it picked up a headless torso. He was crouching over the body when he realized it was only the wax figure of Tom Bagley, Larry’s boyhood friend.
Jud ran to the window and looked down. Two sprawled bodies on the ground. A woman kneeling by one.
Donna.
“Is he alive?”
Donna’s face tilted up. “Jud, are you okay?”
“Fine,” he lied. “Is Larry alive?”
“I don’t know.”
“For God’s sake, get help. Get him a doctor. An ambulance.”
“Are you coming down?”
“I’m going after the beast.”
“No!”
“Get Larry help.” He pushed himself away from the window and crossed the room to the dresser. Shoving the machete under his belt, he tugged the top drawer open. The dead husband’s Colt .45 automatic was just where Maggie had left it. Depressing a button, he dropped its empty clip. He took the oversized, twenty-shot clip from his pocket and rammed it up the handle. It locked into place. Priming a cartridge into the chamber, he ran from the room.
In the corridor, he stepped over the bodies and rushed downstairs. He ran into the kitchen. His flashlight picked up blood on the floor. He followed its trail to the pantry, through an open door, and down a flight of steep wooden stairs to the cellar.
The moist cellar air was chilly and smelled of earth. Sweeping the area with light, he saw stacks of bushel baskets, shelves laden with dusty canning jars. Out of curiosity, he abandoned the trail of blood and stepped closer to the baskets. Behind them, just as described in Lilly Thorn’s diary, he found a hole in the dirt floor.
He returned to the dark blood spots on the dirt and followed them to the right where they stopped in front of an upright steamer trunk set flush against the wall. He saw quickly that the trunk was latched shut. The beast couldn’t have hidden itself inside.
Two gunshots came, faint with distance. For a moment, he worried. Then he realized that Donna must have fired his rifle to draw attention, to draw the police and help for Larry.
Setting his flashlight on the dirt floor to the right of the trunk, he tucked the Colt into a pocket of his parka. He slipped his fingers between the trunk and the wall, and pulled. With a gritty scraping sound, the trunk came away from the wall. A rope handle dangled from the back of the trunk. The rope was dark with wet blood.
Where the wall should have been, Jud found a tunnel. Picking up the flashlight, he entered it. 6.
Realizing that Larry was dead, Donna ran to the front door of the house. She used two shots to blast apart the lock of the door. Even then, she had to throw her shoulder against the solid wood several times to smash it open. She stepped into the entry hall. “Jud?” she called.
She heard no answer. She heard no sound at all. She called him again, louder this time. Still, no answer came.
Slinging the rifle over her shoulder, she slid the road flare out of her rear pocket. She twisted off its cap. Reversing the cap, she rubbed its striking surface against the end of the flare. At first, there was only a spark. On the second stroke, the flare sputtered to life, its brilliant blue-white tongue casting a glow that lit the entry hall and much of the stairway. Slowly, she climbed the stairs. She continued climbing, even when the light of her flare illuminated the bodies at the top: Roy face down, the nape of his neck mauled to red pulp; a strange white creature on Roy’s back. When she saw the stump of its neck, she gagged. Turning away, she threw up.
Then she resumed climbing. She reached the top of the stairs and stepped over the bodies. She walked down the corridor to Maggie’s bedroom, took one step inside, and called out, “Jud!” She crossed the hall to Lilly’s room, and again called to him. Again, she got no answer.
She returned to the head of the stairs. Even with the beast lying dead at her feet, she felt an icy reluctance to venture down the corridor to the other rooms. “Jud!” she yelled. “Where are you?”
When no answer came, she walked quickly down the narrow hall. She shoved aside two of the Brentwood chairs marking the future Ziegler exhibit. At the far end, she stepped into the room to her left. The flare cast fluttering light on the walls, the rocking horse, the twin beds, and the wax figures of Lilly Thorn’s slaughtered children. “Jud?” she asked quietly. Nothing in the room stirred.
Crossing the hall, she twisted the knob of the nursery door. When it didn’t give, she remembered Maggie saying it was always kept locked. She kicked it twice. “Jud?” Then she muttered, “Damn it.” She looked for a safe place to put the flare. Crouching, she propped it against the wall. The wallpaper began to blacken and curl. Standing, she unslung the rifle and shot through the crack where the lock tongue entered the jamb. She recocked it. Then she nudged the door with her shoulder. Feeling it give, she picked up the flare. She slung the rifle over her shoulder and shoved open the nursery door.
“Jud?” she called. She stepped into the room. Her flare lit an empty cradle, a playpen, a doll house nearly as high as her waist. It also lit buckets, a mop, three brooms, a carpet sweeper, and a table littered with sponges, rags, furniture wax, cleaning fluid, and window polish. Apparently, the nursery had been taken over by Axel for storage.
Donna backed out. She hurried through the corridor, past the Brentwood chairs, and stopped near the bodies. She gazed at the door to the attic. It stood wide. “Jud?” she called up the stairs.
She began climbing the stairs. They were very steep. The walls seemed close, as if they were pressing in on her. She hurried. Above her, the door stood open. She climbed to it, and hesitated before stepping inside. “Jud, are you in here? Jud?”
She ducked through the low doorway. In the circle of light cast by her flare, she saw a rocking chair, a pedestal table, several lamps, and a sofa. She stepped away from the door. Moving sideways, she squeezed between the table and sofa. Ahead stood a weaver’s loom. She skirted to the left of it, swung a leg over the high roll of a rug, and stumbled to keep from stepping on a hand. Catching herself against a chair, she whirled around, saw wild hair, wide-open eyes, torn shoulders and breasts.
Not Jud, thank God.
Mary Ziegler.
From ankle to hip, little except bones remained of Mary’s right leg. Donna turned away, doubled over, and vomited. Her stomach, already empty, kept convulsing, wracking her with pain. Finally, it stopped. She wiped the tears from her eyes and started back toward the door.
She stepped over the rolled rug. She pressed sideways between the table and the sofa. Then, just ahead of her, the door slammed shut.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE 1.
Jud made his way farther into the tunnel, crouching beneath its low ceiling, trying to fight off the sense of suffocation caused by its narrow walls. In places, the earth was shored up with boards. The work of humans.