"No!" his father screamed. "NOOoooo!"
As his father's scream died away, Jared turned to look at him one last time. The flames were everywhere now, and his father, his wounds once more streaming with blood, was spinning among them, turning first one way, then another, searching for an escape.
But there was no escape.
There would never be an escape.
Jared, his lips forming the first words of a prayer he hadn't uttered since he entered this house, turned and walked through the doors.
"Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death…"
What do you think they're going to do with her?" Luke Roberts asked Sandy Engstrom.
Sandy shrugged indifferently. "They can lock her up and throw away the key, for all I care." Though it was still an hour before noon, they were sitting in the pizza parlor, where they'd been ever since Father MacNeill and Father Bernard had taken Kim Conway out of the biology lab. As they finished their second Cokes, they decided that if any of the nuns gave them any grief when they went back to school tomorrow, they'd just say they were so upset by what happened to Kim that they couldn't bear to stay at school.
Luke's lip curled into a smirk. "I thought Kim was your best friend."
"Melissa Parker was my best friend," Sandy retorted. "Kim's way too goody-goody." Cocking her head, she eyed Luke. "Did you and Melissa ever do it?"
Luke's laugh was harsh. "Are you kidding? She was just as bad as Kim! You'd think she was gonna be a nun or something."
Sandy opened her mouth to reply, but suddenly she felt something deep inside her letting go.
Something she hadn't even known was gripping her.
For a moment-a moment that passed in the blink of an eye-she had a terrible feeling that she was going to start vomiting again, as she had every morning since the night she'd spent at Kim's, but that sensation passed, too.
She shook her head, blinking. She felt utterly disoriented. What was she doing sitting in the pizza parlor at eleven in the morning? Sister Clarence would kill her!
And sitting across from her was Luke Roberts! Luke Roberts, whom she'd never planned to speak to again. She was just about to scramble out of the booth when Luke stood up.
"Jeez!" he said. "What am I doing here? Father Bernard and Father Mack are really gonna kill me this time!" Without so much as a goodbye, he dashed out the door and ran toward the school, a block away.
Sandy left enough money on the table to pay for her Coke and Luke's, too.
She slid out of the booth to start back to school, her mind wiped clean of everything that had happened to her since she'd first entered the Conway house.
Still praying, Jared Conway walked through the dining room and entry hall to the front door. He could feel the house throbbing with the evil it contained, and as he neared the front door, he felt it reaching out to him, still trying to ensnare him, to pull him back into the realm of darkness.
He opened the front door and stepped out onto the broad porch.
As he pulled the door closed behind him, he thought he heard his father's voice calling out to him one last time.
This time, he didn't listen.
As he stepped off the porch and started across the lawn toward his mother and sisters, the house burst into flames.
They were flames, Jared knew, that could never be completely put out.
Standing with his arms around his mother and twin sister, he watched the fire for a long time, but at last, as the frame of the house gave way and the structure collapsed into the conflagration, he turned away.
For him, it was finally over.
