The one pretending to be female closed the door, pushing gently until the latch clicked into place.
“I don’t think you should do that,” Annie said, trying desperately to figure out what to do about there being three of them, when she had only expected one. Being scared wasn’t going to do any good. The things were horrible, but they weren’t omnipotent; Smith and Khalil and that Lieutenant Buckley had been killing them easily enough once they knew how. The main advantages the creatures had lay in their unfamiliarity and their viciousness, and she knew enough of them to cut into that unfamiliarity.
Smith and the others could work up to a pretty good level of viciousness, too, and she thought she could manage that herself – but how could she counter being outnumbered three to one?
The thing gave her no clue. It just grinned.
She couldn’t think of anything.
All she could do was go through the motions, do what she could, and hope that Smith and Khalil got back in time to save her, and that they weren’t caught off-guard.
She wished she’d thought to fetch a knife from the kitchen before she opened the door, so at least she could go down fighting.
“Are you going to kill me?” she asked.
She knew perfectly well they were going to kill her, if they could – not necessarily here and now, but sooner or later. They were evil; killing was what they did, their very essence. She was just stalling.
“Why, no, Annie,” it said, advancing. “Why would I want to kill you? I’m not going to hurt you at all.” She was retreating, and almost at the top. “In fact,” it said, “I’d like to give you a kiss.”
She was at the top; the leader was halfway up the stairs, the others waiting in the hall below, certain that they wouldn’t be needed to deal with one frightened old woman.
She turned and ran for the bathroom.
The thing bounded up the remaining steps and ran after her.
She made it through the door, but before she could turn and slam it, the thing was right there, forcing its way into the tiny room. Annie didn’t try to fight it; she just backed away again, pushing aside the shower curtain and stepping into the bathtub.
The thing pursued her, right up to the shower curtain, just as she expected.
She reached up, took the wires from the showerhead, and pulled hard.
The bottom of the shower curtain snapped out and slapped against the thing’s ankles, wrapping itself around its legs, as the loop of wire she had painstakingly sewn into the heavy plastic curtain and then threaded through a dozen pulleys and guides was yanked tight.
The nightmare person, caught completely unprepared, lost its balance and fell heavily forward; she scrambled out of its way as it tore the curtain down from the rings.
It roared incoherently as it sprawled in the tub.
Before it could recover she wound the wires around its neck and ankles, binding the curtain in place at both ends.
Here she paused, diverging slightly from her plan, to slam shut the bathroom door and bolt it from the inside.
Then she went back to her captive, and with the rest of the wire and rolls of adhesive tape and reinforced package tape she finished the job of securely binding it up in the plastic curtain.
Unfortunately, that was as far as her original scheme could take her; she hadn’t expected to be trapped in the bathroom with two more of the nightmare people waiting outside.
The thing had overcome its initial surprise and was beginning to struggle vigorously. She hoped her wrappings would hold.
She heaved the thing’s legs up and over the side, and left it lying in the tub, while she sat down on the toilet to decide what to do next.
The thing shouted, “Let me up! Get this thing off me!” The shower curtain did surprisingly little to muffle it.
Someone knocked on the bathroom door.
“Hey, what’s going on in there?” an unfamiliar voice called.
Annie looked up. “I’ve got your friend,” she said. “He’s my prisoner.”
The one in the tub bellowed so loudly she was sure the others couldn’t hear her over that racket. The noise it made echoed off the tile and hurt her ears.
“Oh, shut up, you!” she shouted back at it. “Don’t you want to know what’s happening?”
It shut up, reluctantly.
“Now,” she said loudly, directing her comments at the closed door, “As I was saying, I’ve got your friend tied up, and I’ve got my husband’s old straight razor. You two both get the heck out of my house, right now, or I’ll… I’ll cut out this thing’s heart and eat it!”
She wished she actually did have that old razor, but it was long gone. She hadn’t seen it in thirty years or more. She wondered, even as she spoke, whether there was anything sharp in the bathroom, in case she had to carry out her threat.
She knew that Smith had killed at least one nightmare person with just his teeth and nails, but she didn’t think she had the strength or the stomach for that.
The two outside the bathroom were conferring quietly; she could hear their voices, but she couldn’t make out the words.
“If you’re thinking you can just break that door down and get me,” Annie called, “Remember, I already fooled this one. We were expecting you to try something like this; the whole house is booby-trapped. You can go now, or you can stumble around into one of the other traps, or you can wait until the others get here.”
She was sweating, she realized, sweating hard for the first time in years. It wasn’t from exertion; she hadn’t done anything all that frightful, just run up the stairs and tied up her captive – not that that was easy at her age!
It was fear, that was why she was sweating. She hoped that her terror wasn’t obvious in her voice when she told all these outrageous lies.
“She’s bluffing!” the one in the tub called. It started struggling harder, and one piece of tape came loose.
She kicked at the side of the tub. “Hush up, you!” she snapped.
The knob rattled, and then someone outside was leaning on the door; she could see it bending, giving slightly.
The bolt held. She bit her lower lip and looked around.
The only sharp object in the medicine cabinet was her little disposable plastic safety razor; that wouldn’t be any use. And there wasn’t anything sharp at all in the cabinet under the sink.
That left the vanity drawer, and that was where the old manicure set was.
The scissors and clippers weren’t any use, but the nail file might do. She pulled it out and looked at it.
Using a four-inch nail file to cut the heart out of a live, struggling monster didn’t seem possible. She put the file down on the edge of the sink.
Something thumped heavily against the door.
“Go away!” she said, panicky, “Or you’re next!”
“Joe,” something called, “What’s happening in there?”
“She tripped me up and tied me up in something!” the one in the tub bellowed.
“Shut up!” Annie shouted. She picked up the nail file, then put it down again. She crossed to the tub.
The thing was flopping like a fish, banging its feet against the bottom of the tub; on an upswing she caught hold of one.
Since the feet were bound tightly together at the ankles, wired together, catching one foot meant catching both.
The thing didn’t want its feet caught, and it took all her strength to hold them with one hand while she used the other to pry off its shoes – badly-worn tennis shoes.
“No reason I have to let you bang up my bathtub,” she muttered, more to herself than to her captive.
Another thump sounded as something rammed up against the bathroom door. Annie heard the bolt scraping against its collar, but it still held.