Within ten minutes the Trailblazer’s GPS system led them down a winding wooded road, through a pillared fieldstone wall, and up a long driveway to a large, three-story house. On the other side of the driveway, behind a waterless fountain, Cathy could make out a black Porsche 911 and a blue Toyota Camry.
“You must hate these slum assignments,” she said, and Markham smiled. Had he noticed the overgrown second driveway, had he been able to see through the trees and the thick underbrush to the carriage house at the rear of the property, Supervisory Special Agent Sam Markham might not have been smiling.
Markham and Cathy exited the Trailblazer and climbed a set of four wide flagstone steps. They followed the path along the side of the house and then climbed up another four steps to the side door-a door that stood curiously propped open as if the owner of the house had been expecting them. Markham looked inside. He could see into what looked like a mud room, and into the kitchen beyond.
“Hello?” he called, knocking on the open storm door.
Turning, Markham was about to speak when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw movement-then the flash of a bright red dot reflected off the glass.
“Get down!” he shouted, pushing Cathy away from the red dot and inside the house. But the silenced bullet found him anyway-grazed the back of his head and took off a chunk of his right ear as he tackled Cathy onto the mud room floor, the warmth of his blood spattering her face.
The sound of a loud pop on the door frame-then another bullet tore into Markham ’s thigh. The FBI agent shrieked in pain.
“Move, Cathy, move!” he shouted, rolling off of her and fumbling for his gun. Cathy, her ears buzzing, her muscles tense with fear, scrambled to her feet just in time to see a shadowy figure in the doorway-the sunlight streaming in behind him; tall, bald, and naked as a marble Hercules.
Yes. They had found The Sculptor.
A flash of red light passed across Cathy’s eyes. She froze-did not see Markham rise to his feet and grab The Sculptor’s arm-only heard the bullet whizzing past her ear. Her vision spotted from The Sculptor’s laser sight, Cathy backed away into the kitchen, watching in red blotchy horror as Markham tried to wrestle The Sculptor’s gun away from him. Their grunting figures crashed against the walls of the mud room as The Sculptor fired off two silenced bullets into the floor.
Then, with a roar, The Sculptor seemed to explode-his arms flailing outward in a burst of power. Sam Markham went sailing across the room-his back slamming into the darkened door frame behind him.
Only then did Cathy notice the open cellar door.
“Sam!” she cried-but it was too late. As Markham recovered, as he finally drew his gun from his shoulder holster, the red dot again flashed across Cathy’s eyes.
Thhhwhip! Thhhwhip!
And then Sam Markham disappeared into a black abyss-the muffled sound of his body thumping down the cellar stairs sucking Cathy’s breath from her lungs.
Firing again down into the darkness, The Sculptor moved to the cellar door in a blur. Then he flicked on the light at the top of the stairs. Cathy had not seen where The Sculptor’s bullets had hit Markham, but in the light cast from the cellar stairwell, she could see on The Sculptor’s face that he was satisfied with his shots. Cathy tried to scream, but her fear held her breath tight in her throat.
The Sculptor whirled his eyes on her-eyes that, in the shadow cast from the cellar, looked to Cathy to be carved from ice.
“It’s nice to finally meet you, Dr. Hildy,” said The Sculptor, raising his gun. “I wish the circumstances could have been different.”
Suddenly Cathy’s breath returned, and she became aware that her legs were moving, dragging her forward against the fear that so desperately wanted her to stay put. Another thhhwhip of a bullet by her left ear, and then the kitchen, the adjoining dining room flying past her in a rush. Cathy found herself at the front door, her fingers like numb hotdogs against the dead bolt-slippery and useless as the sound of footsteps thundered behind her. Cathy turned to find The Sculptor approaching from the dining room. She made a dash to her left-could see the sunlight down the hall at the back of the house; she was aware somehow that if she followed alongside the grand staircase it would lead her back to the mud room door. But the naked, hairless man who looked like a bald Arnold Schwarzenegger intercepted her. Cathy fell backward onto the stairs, The Sculptor standing over her and leveling the red dot of his gun between her eyes.
“I wasn’t expecting this, Dr. Hildy. I hope you won’t think me rude.”
There was no click like in the movies; only the look of curious disappointment on The Sculptor’s face when he noticed his Sig Sauer-its clip spent-had locked itself in the empty position.
Cathy did not wait; in a flash she kicked the heel of her sneaker hard into The Sculptor’s naked testicles. The Sculptor howled in pain-his gun dropping on the steps, his hands instinctively going to his groin as his massive frame fell forward, blocking an escape route past him. Like a crab, Cathy pinwheeled her arms and legs backward, found her footing, and scrambled up the stairs-her disorientation, her terror carrying her right past the servants’ staircase which, unbeknown to her, would have brought her back down into the kitchen.
No, with The Sculptor fast on her heels, in a haze of red wallpaper and richly stained wood, Cathy raced down the upstairs hallway in the opposite direction.
Streaking past one of the bedrooms, out of the corner of her eye she saw the silhouette of a man sitting by a large window. Instinctively, she ran to him.
“Help me!” Cathy cried, dashing into the bedroom and slamming the door behind her. “Call the police!” But when Cathy caught sight of the man’s face, when she looked into the hollow eyes of the helpless, drooling invalid that was The Sculptor’s father, her heart sank into her stomach.
“Albert?” the man croaked, his eyes staring past her.
But Cathy did not have time to lament, for a split second later The Sculptor burst into the room behind her.
“Get away from him!” he bellowed, coming for her in a blur of naked flesh. Cathy backed away against the wall-her hands grasping a stainless steel IV stand just as The Sculptor was upon her. She flung it at him, the plastic bag and its metal arm hitting The Sculptor square in the face. The Sculptor’s hands went to his eyes, buying Cathy enough time to get away from him across the four-poster bed.
Cathy made a frantic dash for the stairs-had just reached the banister when she felt the meaty slap of The Sculptor’s hand on her back. Then suddenly she was flying backward-her feet grazing the top of the railing as she left the floor and sailed through the air. She landed on the hardwood floor with a thud. The pain in her knee, in her buttocks, and in her elbow was excruciating, but Cathy bounced to her feet and ran for the darkened doorway in front of her at the far end of the hall. She made it inside just in time, slamming the door behind her and closing her fingers around the lock just as The Sculptor’s shoulder smacked into the door from the other side.
Another smack and Cathy backed away from the door. The room was pitch black, and Cathy tripped-fell to the floor as something crashed beside her. It sounded like metal, but when Cathy reached for it, her hands closed around something round and rubbery-heavy, but also spongy like a Nerf football.
Then the door exploded open-The Sculptor’s massive leg still cocked as the light streamed in from the hallway behind him. He flicked the switch by the door, and Cathy gazed down in horror at the object in her hands.
It was Steve Rogers’s head-shaved and painted white as marble.
Cathy screamed and threw her ex-husband’s severed head at The Sculptor as she backed away on the floor. Then all at once she froze, her eyes finally taking in the totality of the room into which she had entered-a room with heavily draped windows and black painted walls. Dozens upon dozens of body parts were posed and displayed on pedestals and iron frames-hands; arms and legs; severed torsos, some with a head and an appendage still attached; while other heads stood like solitary busts on pedestals of their own. All the body parts were painted white, and had Cathy not felt her ex-husband’s Plastinated head herself-had she not known who owned the house through which she was being chased-the world’s foremost scholar on the works of Michelangelo would have thought the pieces around her to be made of marble.