Mitch hesitated. “Let Seth get it.”
“No, you got steadier hands. Hurry it up, Mitch, come on.”
Who’re you to give me orders? Mitch thought. But he didn’t say it, didn’t argue. The hell with arguing, just get it over with. He turned, ran back to where Adam’s van was parked outside the lighthouse gate. He found the six-cell flashlight in the rear. Thought about looking for the bottle-he needed another drink, bad-and remembered they’d finished it on the way out here. He slammed the rear door, viciously, and ran back uphill with the flashlight.
Hod was down on one knee, puking into the grass. Mitch veered over to him, squatted, put his hand on Hod’s shoulder. “Hod? You all right, buddy?”
“Sick,” Hod muttered. “Jesus, what’s going on?”
“I don’t know,” Mitch said. And he realized that he didn’t, not anymore. He didn’t know what the hell was going on.
“Mitch! Bring that six-cell!”
He didn’t want to leave Hod, didn’t want to break into the lighthouse after Ryerson, didn’t want to do any of this anymore. But he had to. He couldn’t stop himself now, it was too late. Just get it over with. He straightened, moved ahead to where Adam and Bonner were waiting, firelight dancing over their faces, making them look odd and unreal. Like strangers, men he’d never seen before.
The wind had kicked up, was blowing sparks in swirls and showers like some kind of crazy Fourth of July show. One corner of the garage was already starting to burn.
Jan
They were in the kitchen, backed up against the wall next to the cloakroom, Alix clinging to his arm. Through the broken window, he could see the four men moving around, backlit by the flames of the burning station wagon. The pulsing glow of the fire made the fog look like luminescent smoke, made it seem as if the very fabric of the night were burning.
“Jan, we can’t just stay here-waiting.”
Fear in her voice, tension, but no panic. She was good in a crisis, always had been. She wouldn’t come apart. And him? What about him?
His fingers moved spasmodically around the blade of the butcher knife. He wanted to let go of it; it felt alien in his hand, no longer a tool, not even a weapon-more a symbol of menace that crackled as loudly as the fire out there. “We can’t fight them,” he said grimly. “Four against two. And they’ve got guns.”
“We could go up in the tower… the lantern. That trapdoor is made of solid oak.”
“I’ve been thinking the same thing. But not you, just me. You’ve got to get out of here before it’s too late.”
“Get out? There’s no way…”
“Yes there is.”
“How?”
“By hiding down here while I make them think we’ve both gone up into the tower. They’ll chase me, and when they do you get out through the pantry, run for help.”
“Jan, I can’t leave you here alone—”
“You’ve got to!” The urgency in his voice made it shrill. “Look at them out there. Listen to them. They’re drunk, half crazy-capable of anything. Rape, and worse.”
He felt her shudder. “Where can I hide that they wouldn’t find me? One of them might look around down here…”
He told her where. Felt her shudder again.
“No,” she said, “I can’t.”
“You can and you will. It’s our only chance.”
“Can’t we both hide?”
“No. They’d search, and if they searched long enough they’d find us.”
“I still say we can both go up into the lantern. Someone will see the fire, someone will come…”
“Not likely, not with the fog, not all the way in Hilliard. Besides, they blew up the car. What’s to stop them from setting fire to the lighthouse?”
They were coming toward the house now, three of them in a tight little group, Reese with his rifle and Bonner with an ax handle he’d found somewhere and Novotny with a heavy-duty flashlight. They passed out of his line of vision-and then there was a sudden, savage banging on the front door. One of them began yelling obscenities. The door was solid-core, it might not yield, but then all they had to do was break out the glass in one of the windows and come in that way. If they weren’t drunk they’d have thought of that already.
He swung Alix around to face him, kissed her hard on the mouth, pushed her away from him. “Hurry! Before it’s too late!”
“Oh God, Jan, I love you…”
“I love you too. Hurry!”
Hod Barnett
Bad dream. That was what it was, the worst kind of bad dream.
He kept backing away from the lighthouse, the fire, Mitch and Adam and Seth Bonner over at the door, pounding on the door, yelling and whooping. He was sick, confused. All that whiskey he’d drunk… the shooting… the explosion… His head was spinning, it wouldn’t stop spinning.
He had to puke again. Went to one knee, emptied his stomach. It didn’t help; he felt worse when he was done, weak and shaky. And they were still pounding, still yelling over there-Mitch and Adam and Bonner, his friends. What were they doing? It didn’t make sense what they were doing.
He killed Mandy, Hod.
We got to go after him, Hod.
No, it was crazy. Crazy. He shouldn’t be here, why was he here? Mandy in her grave a few hours, and here he was hog drunk, sick, the Ryersons’ car all blown up and burning, garage burning, night full of fire and noise and crazy images… he couldn’t stand it anymore, he had to shut it out, it was all just a bad dream.
He lurched away from the fence, stumbled out through the gate, ran until he got to Adam’s van. Yanked open the door, threw himself across the seat inside. Lay on his belly with his hands over his ears to shut out the noise, his eyes squeezed tight to shut out all the swirling images.
Bad dream, whiskey dream. Sleep it off, wake up and find out none of it happened, Mandy was still alive, everything was like it had always been, nothing had happened, none of it had happened!
Bad, bad dream…
Alix
The trapdoor banged shut above her and the darkness in the abandoned well was total.
She clung to the corroded iron rungs on the wall, her heart pounding wildly. She was afraid of losing her grip, of falling; afraid of what might be hidden below. Her arm brushed against the rough concrete and something slimy smeared off on it. Gooseflesh rippled; she gasped, sucking in dank, evil-smelling air that seemed to catch in her throat. She gasped again; her chest heaved but still she felt she was suffocating.
Then, from somewhere above, she heard a muffled crashing and splintering noise, male voices yelling in bloated triumph. They were inside the house…
A hiccoughing sob came out of her, echoing in the black cavern. Don’t make noise! They’ll hear you!
Footsteps. Shouts.
“Ryerson, you cocksucker, where are you?”
“You can’t hide. We’ll find you!”
Her palms were wet, slipping on the rungs. Her right hand lost its grip, and she clutched frantically at the rung below; the violent motion dislodged her feet, pulled her other hand loose, and she fell with a stifled cry. Sharp objects tore into her buttocks, her back. She lay trembling, feeling claustrophobic, trying to breathe.
Something heavy fell somewhere inside the house. Footsteps drummed on the floor above. The shouting voices overlapped to form a continuous lusting bellow. Then one set of footsteps seemed to be coming this way, toward the pantry. She’d closed the door, now she heard it open, followed by a faint snapping sound. The light switch? She looked up and saw lines of light, the faint outline of the trapdoor.
The carpet! She hadn’t put the carpet back!
She’d pulled the square of it up in a panic, tearing her fingernails, ripping it from around the tacks that held it down. Grabbed the metal ring on the floor and yanked the trapdoor open. And then stood there, looking down into the fetid cavern, her flesh crawling, unable to move. She’d had to fight off panic to make herself climb into the well, had done it in a single scrambling motion that took her down the rungs and brought the door down so quickly it had almost banged her head. It had never even occurred to her to replace the carpet…