“Daddy?” she called again, taking a step into the room.
He didn’t seem to be here either. Where had they gone? Chelsea began to panic. Was she the only person left in the house?
She noticed her father’s suitcase on the floor. He had packed to leave. But he clearly hadn’t left quite yet.
That was when she noticed the splatter of red dots on the wall.
Blood.
She took a couple of steps around to the other side of the bed. The moisture on her feet told her she was walking in blood.
She saw her father lying on the floor. His arms were twisted up in an odd angle.
“Daddy!” she screamed.
Her foot hit something. At first she thought it might have been a boot or a shoe.
But then the object rolled over like a bowling ball.
Dead eyes looked up at her.
It was her father’s head.
Chelsea screamed.
Chapter Thirty
“What is going on in this house?” Karen asked as she wrapped Paula’s wound with a tablecloth.
In one corner of the room, Linda was trying to console her crying, terrified children. At the window, Carolyn kept watch, while Douglas, now holding the rifle, stood guarding the parlor doors.
“Where’s everybody else?” Douglas asked. “Uncle Howie, Uncle Philip, Ryan, Chelsea?”
“Last I knew, Philip, Ryan, and Chelsea were still in their rooms,” Carolyn said. “Your uncle was in the dining room. But he must have fled when he heard the commotion in the foyer. Let’s hope he’s hiding.”
“Or that maniac got him already,” Douglas said.
“Who is he?” Paula wanted to know. “You said you knew him, Carolyn.”
Carolyn sighed. It was surreal. The jubilation of just an hour ago had been turned topsy-turvy into a nightmare of disbelief. They had thought they had won. The curse seemed to be ended. They had survived the night in the room; they had sent Clem’s spirit to rest in peace. It should have been over. The power that room held over their lives should have been ended.
But instead Carolyn now faced the greatest fear of her life.
David Cooke.
“I was in a relationship with him some time ago,” she revealed. “He killed a girl. I found out about it only after he was gone. Then I gave evidence to the police.”
“Well, that creature I shot,” Paula said, “is definitely not human. I blew a hole right through its chest, but still it got up and walked.”
“He’s a zombie,” Carolyn said. She knew this to be the case; she had experience with such things, after all. “He’s not a ghost like Clem, but he’s clearly still in the power of whatever force controls that room.”
“But you broke the curse,” Linda said tearfully. “You survived the night. Dean always believed that if someone could survive a night in that room, its power would be broken and we would be free.”
“Apparently,” Douglas said, “all we did was piss it off.”
Carolyn ran her hands through her hair. She realized there was blood on her fingers. “It needs a vessel to act against us,” she said, understanding dawning on her. “For eighty years it used Clem. Now that we took Clem away from it, it needed someone else. So it settled on David.”
“I don’t understand what connection your ex-boyfriend has with that room,” Douglas said.
Carolyn shook her head. “I doubt there’s a connection. But the room knows more than we gave it credit for. Whether it found David and brought him here-or whether he came here on his own, looking for revenge on me-the room clearly understood he could be used against us, and so it took over his mind and his body.” She shuddered. “What that means is that anyone could be used against us. The forces that control that room can see into our minds and our hearts.”
The children began to cry again. Linda clasped them to her breast.
“I’m sorry,” Carolyn said. “I don’t mean to frighten them. But they need to understand how serious this is.”
“Will someone please explain to me what the hell is going on?” Karen cried.
Paula took a deep breath and recapped, as best she could, the long, terrible ordeal of the family curse and the reason why she had been so opposed to having children. Meanwhile, Carolyn once again checked her cell phone and then the house phone. Both remained dead.
“That gun isn’t going to be much help to us,” she said softly to Douglas.
He shrugged. “Well, it might slow him down a little, and give the kids at least a chance to get away.”
Suddenly they both tensed. The doorknobs of the parlor doors had begun to turn.
Douglas aimed the gun at the doors and shouted over his shoulder, “Linda, take the kids and go out the window!”
But just then the doors opened.
“Hold your fire!” Carolyn yelled.
It was Chelsea.
The girl ran into the parlor straight into Carolyn’s arms. She was sobbing. Her mascara ran down her face in black streaks.
“My father!” she cried. “My father!”
“What about your father?” Carolyn asked.
“He’s dead!” She looked up into Carolyn’s eyes. “Someone cut off his head!”
“Dear God,” Paula groaned. Linda clapped her hands over the children’s ears.
“It’s a slaughter,” Douglas said, closing the parlor doors securely again. “Just like when the lottery was breached in the past. Until the room had claimed someone, other members of the family were killed off. That’s what’s happening here.”
“But the lottery wasn’t breached,” Carolyn argued. “It was held as always. Someone was chosen, and someone went into the room.”
“But I survived,” Douglas said. “That wasn’t supposed to happen.”
“We’ve got to find a way of pacifying the room,” Paula said, wincing as she headed over to the wall and took down the other rifle that was hanging there. “Give it what it wants, or we all will die.”
“No,” Carolyn objected. “There has to be another way.”
“The amulet,” Chelsea said, sitting down on the sofa and hugging herself. “I want that amulet that protects us.”
“Didn’t do the trick,” Douglas told her. “I was simply compelled to rip it off my neck.”
“We can’t rely on trinkets anymore,” Carolyn said.
“What do you suggest then?” Paula asked.
“We were able to send Clem away to rest in peace. We need to do the same to whatever force controls that room.”
“We don’t even know what it is!” Douglas said.
“No,” Carolyn admitted. “But Beatrice does.”
She glanced out the window.
“She’s out there somewhere. She’s the only reason we’re still alive. Her power isn’t as strong as the power in the room, but she can still manage to have an influence. I’m convinced that if not for Beatrice, David would have been able to burst through those doors and kill us all. But she can only hold him off for so long.” Carolyn took a deep breath. “We need to find out what force controls that room.”
“What are you suggesting then?” Paula asked, not a little impatient. “We all clasp hands for another séance?”
“Possibly,” Carolyn said. “But someone else has the information we need, too. Someone we can simply ask directly and this time demand he tell us.”
“Uncle Howie,” Douglas said.
Carolyn nodded. Paula, too, seemed to agree.
“If he’s still alive,” Douglas said.
“I think he is,” Carolyn said. “The force has allowed him to live for eighty years. Nine times he’s escaped being chosen in the lottery. For some reason, the force wants him alive. And it’s time we found out what that reason is.”
“But where is Uncle Howard?” Paula asked. “How can we get to him? If any one of us leaves this room, surely that madman will kill us.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Carolyn said. “He would kill any one of you. He will not kill me.”