“It doesn’t matter what I know,” Uncle Howie said. “Even if I told you everything, we couldn’t prevent the killings. My hope was always to find a force greater than it was, something that could overpower it. That was the only way we could end the power of that room. Because there is no appealing to it. It is irrational. It is fueled by instinct and the simplest of emotions, like anger and fear and rage and hunger.”
“So are you saying that you can tell us,” Douglas asked, getting close to the old man’s face, “but that you choose not to, because you think it’s pointless?”
“I’m sorry, my little hoodlum,” Uncle Howie said. “Sorry that I have let you down.”
They were startled by a sound from the hallway. They all tensed. Douglas moved closer to the door, brandishing the rifle.
He listened. Footsteps. Two people. It was not the heavy clomping of David Cooke.
Still, both he and Carolyn pointed their rifles at the door as it opened.
But who was there on the other side caused both of them to gasp out loud.
Uncle Howie shouted, “Jeanette!”
It was Jeanette Young, with Michael O’Toole close behind her.
“Hello, Uncle Howard,” she said calmly. She moved her eyes over to Douglas and then to Carolyn. “Cousin Douglas. Miss Cartwright. It’s good to see you both again, though I wish the circumstances were more pleasant.”
“Dear God,” Uncle Howie exclaimed.
“How is this possible?” Douglas asked.
Jeanette smiled. She still looked frail, and she walked with some stiffness and difficulty. But she seemed in full control of all of her senses. Michael rested a hand on her shoulder for support.
“I awoke this morning and was able to speak,” she said. “The veil that had so long separated me from the rest of the world was lifted. I could speak, I could move, I could communicate.”
“It was a miracle,” Michael said.
Jeanette sighed. “I knew right away that the curse had been lifted, that someone had survived a night in that room.” Her face saddened. “We came over here at once, thinking we’d find the house in celebration. I did my best to explain to Michael all of the terrible details on the drive over here. But what we found was no celebration.”
“The force is angry that we survived,” Douglas explained.
Jeanette nodded. “I deduced that. In the study we saw a dead man.”
“Dean,” Uncle Howard said with evident grief.
“And in the parlor were the bloody remains of a young woman,” Jeanette added.
“Oh, no,” Carolyn cried.
“Who?” Douglas asked.
“It was hard to see for all the blood,” Jeanette said. Her long years of silence seemed to have left her unnaturally calm. She did not blanch as she described the scene. “The woman had been terribly mutilated. She seemed young, so I wouldn’t remember her. No doubt she was born after my own night in that room.” She paused. “But she was blond. I could see that much.”
“Chelsea,” Uncle Howie said, his voice breaking.
“Was there anyone else in the parlor?” Douglas asked.
“No one else,” Jeanette informed him. Douglas didn’t know if that was a hopeful or an ominous sign.
“Jeanette,” Carolyn said, “you need to know you’re in danger here. And so is Michael. There is a killer in the house, and unless we can find out a way to stop him, he is bent on taking us all before the day is over.”
“We should call the police!” Michael said, whipping out his phone only to see it had lost all service.
“I told you as we walked through the house viewing the carnage that the police were useless,” Jeanette said. “In my long years sitting there at Windcliffe, I saw many things. I saw that what happens here is beyond the control of ordinary humans. I saw things that no one else could see in this house, sitting here all alone, isolated on top of this hill.” She paused. “And from everything that I have seen, I think I know who’s doing the killing here.”
“His name is David Cooke,” Carolyn told her. “And I need to tell you again that he is extremely dangerous.”
Jeanette shrugged. “I’m not frightened. I survived a night in that room, remember? You did, too, didn’t you? I saw you in there, Carolyn. You and Douglas. You saw what I saw. You saw the terrible thing that happened that night.”
“The murder of Beatrice?” Douglas asked.
“You didn’t see that, because neither did I,” Jeanette corrected him. “You saw her dead body. But it was someone else you saw murdered.”
“Beatrice’s baby,” Carolyn said.
Jeanette nodded.
Uncle Howie groaned. They all turned to look at him.
“We saw Clem kill the baby,” Jeanette said, approaching her uncle. “It was a terrible thing to see.”
The old man was silently crying.
“It’s Malcolm doing this, isn’t it, Uncle Howard?” Jeanette asked. “It’s Malcolm who’s the controlling force of that room.”
The old man just continued to sob.
“Who is Malcolm?” Douglas asked.
Jeanette looked up at him. “Malcolm,” she told him, “was Beatrice’s baby.”
Chapter Thirty-five
Ryan was getting desperate. He could not find a way out of the house. Doors and windows refused to open; glass refused to break, even with heavy pewter candlesticks tossed at it. What kind of spell had been cast over this place? Were the forces of the room so powerful that they could trap him inside forever?
Ryan shook the knob on the kitchen door again. It didn’t budge.
It wasn’t fair! Others had gotten out. He’d watched from the window as Linda and Paula and some other woman ran across the yard with those two bratty kids toward the barn. How did they get out? How come whatever forces were controlling this house took pity on them and not on him?
Because of what we did.
He tried to block the thought from his mind, but was unsuccessful.
When you tamper with the lottery, when you don’t follow the rules, you are punished.
Ernest Young had learned that lesson when he’d run away, only to be massacred with his family in their beds.
And now Ryan’s family was being massacred.
Running from room to room in the house, he had found the mutilated bodies of his father and sister. It was easy to think they were being punished for their deception. But Dean was dead, too. Ryan understood that, in the end, they were all fair game. They were all just sport for the bloodlust of the thing that was tormenting them.
He tried the French doors that led out onto the terrace. But again they were sealed shut. In frustration, he slammed his fist against one of the panes of glass, but the glass might as well have been iron. He just bruised his knuckles.
A short time before, he’d had a glimmer of hope. A woman and a man had come through the front door. The door had opened easily from the outside, allowing them to enter. Ryan had been watching from an alcove; he had become so paranoid that he trusted no one, so he stayed very quiet, not revealing himself. After the man and woman had passed down the hallway, Ryan ran to the door, hopeful that it was now open. But it had reverted to immobility. He burst into tears.
Now he prowled from room to room, feeling like a caged animal. His mind no longer thought logically or critically. He just wanted to get out.
And then the laughter began.
High-pitched and shrill. Like a child’s. The laughter came from everywhere, as if an unseen audience were watching his crazy antics and finding them all too amusing.
“Stop!” Ryan cried, wandering into the foyer. “Stop laughing at me!”
But the laughter just went on. The sound assaulted him, almost like spears being tossed at him from all sides of the room. Each gale of laughter pierced him, hurt him. Ryan cried out in pain.
“Stop!” he shouted. “Please stop!”
He fell to his knees, clapping his hands over his ears, but the laughter only increased in volume and intensity.