House (14 page)

Not from fright.

Not from shock.

Not because her body was suffering a heart attack.

Then her heart began to race. She'd been here, she could swear it. This wasn't just any room. Déjà vu swarmed her, so strong that she couldn't separate it from reality.

She stood on a thick Turkish rug. Purple and orange were the first colors she saw, but they were quickly joined by a surprising array of improbable colors for a windowless room tucked away in the corner of some basement maze. Bright colors: green, blue, and red.

But it wasn't the colors that pulled her forward. There was a texture in this room that she found reassuring. Almost safe in its limited power to undo her. It was like facing a familiar monster and knowing that no matter what it did, you were better than it, and you would walk away alive. So really, you were safe. In control, even.

This room emboldened her. She'd been here before and walked away from whatever horror it contained to tell the story. This room was why she'd first decided to study psychology. Her fascination with the human mind began with her own need to understand how she could possibly suffer what she had suffered as a young girl and rise above it all, as so many millions of other women had.

A king-size bed with a tattered red-velvet canopy sat against the main wall. Drapes on either side. A thick lavender comforter with no fewer than a dozen holes chewed through by rats.

She walked forward and put her hand on the comforter, a patchwork of velvet and satin. No, this wasn't simply a figment of her imagination. She was here, in a room at the end of a maze of halls, confronted with a terror so great that it was causing her to hallucinate.

Swaths of red and purple and blue material had been hung from the ceiling to hide the mildewed concrete, which still showed in wide gaps. The room was lit by several strings of white Christmas-type lights behind the material—someone's attempt at ambient lighting.

There was a white dresser with a mirror, the kind with pink accents that might have been in a little girl's room once upon a time. Very similar to the dresser she had in her own room when she was nine, in fact.

The walls were cluttered with painted portraits, mirrors, china plates, candle sconces. Lots of sconces. Several dozen candles. A large pentagram was painted on the wall between two of the sconces. Didn't surprise her.

The one other feature that stood out to Leslie in her first examination of the room was the two pinball machines opposite the dresser. One was a Batman machine; the other was a Barbie machine. Beside them, mounted on the wall, was a huge round dartboard that spun on an axis. The kind that would be used in a knife-throwing act.

The sweet scent of roses mixed with vanilla commanded her attention. Leslie looked for the source, transfixed by the odd blend of terror and desire. Half of her mind screamed for her to run, to escape the house and its bizarre inhabitants.

But another half suggested that she breathe deep and let that aroma calm her frayed nerves. Her grandmother had kept the stuffed pillows in her old house scented with vanilla and potpourri, and the scent had always brought a cleansing calm to Leslie, even in the worst of times.

Like now.

There had to be an explanation for the eerie familiarity of this room. If she slowed down and applied her mind, she'd make sense of it all. She'd always told herself that, and it always worked.

Leslie walked to the dresser and bent for a whiff from a bowl of potpourri. The pungent odor of lavender and vanilla worked deep into her sinuses. No more roses. She closed her eyes and exhaled slowly. Emotion swelled, and for a moment she thought she might cry. She swallowed hard, melancholy. A slight quiver took to her chin, and she bit her lower lip.

Think, Leslie, think! You're letting emotion bend your mind.

She was here for a reason, wasn't she? No four travelers could possibly find their way into such a strange house without some elaborate scheme drawing them. Whoever this stalker-killer was, he wasn't the Jason-with-a-machete-variety. He was a deeper thinker, much deeper.

Another scent mixed with the vanilla, and Leslie opened her eyes. There was a bowl of cream next to a candle. Without thinking, she lit the candle using a book of matches to one side.

The cream beckoned her. She lifted the bowl and sniffed it. Not a chilled cream. Vanilla pudding laced with caramel.

Again without thinking, Leslie dipped one finger into the cream and put it to her lips. The sweet taste of caramel pudding was unmistakable. Impulsively now, she dipped four fingers into the bowl, scooped out some of the pudding, and shoved it into her mouth. A small glob plopped onto the breast of her red blouse. She dabbed it with her finger and ate that too.

For a brief moment the realization of what she'd just done horrified her. It was unforgivably irrational. And of all people, why was she, who had such control, who rode the crests of reason and logic as a way to make sense of her world, now eating from a bowl in a stranger's bedroom?

She should be vomiting and searching for a way out.

Instead, she moaned, fingers stuck in her mouth like a child who snuck a treat from the refrigerator an hour before dinner when she knew good and well that it would be frowned upon by Mother.

Still, the smell of caramel pudding was so strong, and the forbidden taste so sweet, that rules such as these demanded to be compromised, particularly when the rest of your life was hell.

She froze, fingers in her mouth. The clarity of her predicament sliced through her foggy mind. She was a grown woman in her late twenties, not an adolescent sneaking pudding before dinner. Worse, she was a grown woman in a basement that belonged to Pete . . .

The closet door opened behind her. Leslie dropped the bowl on the dresser and spun, gasping.

Pete stood in the doorway, eyes fixed on her. She had pudding on her lips and on her fingers. Pete looked at her mouth, her fingers, the bowl behind her. But he didn't smile. Didn't flash a grin of wicked intent. Didn't approach her with force.

He just looked at her like a deer in the headlights.

Time seemed to stop.

“My room,” Pete finally said, voice thick with pride. He released the closet door and stepped in.

Pete's room.

“Do you like my room?” Pete asked the question like an expectant child.

Leslie faced a critical decision. Did she play along or spit in his face?

She took a long look at the locked door to Pete's right. A long look at Pete, who waited for an answer. But she was alive. And her whole life she'd stayed alive by playing smart. By playing their games. Today was just another day in the game, though this particular game seemed to have unusually high stakes.

Mind over matter. Life was won and lost in the mind, end of story. So here she faced off a man who was her opponent more in mind than in body. And of the two, she had the stronger mind.

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, Pete, I do like your room.”

Pete lit up like the sun, rushed over to the bed and straightened the cover. Picked up a candle that had fallen to the floor and busily reinserted it in its holder, all the while keeping his eyes on her.

When he finished, he clasped his hands behind his back as if to say,
There, now it's perfect
.

“We have to be quiet,” he said, eyes flitting to the door. “Mama will hear. She can't come here.”

The candle he'd just put in the holder toppled over, rolled off the dresser, and fell to the floor. He didn't seem to notice. His eyes were singularly focused on her.

It occurred to her at that moment that she really didn't feel threatened by him. He was nothing more than an overgrown child.

Then she reminded herself where she was, and her fear returned, a new kind of fear motivated more by what lay outside this room than by Pete.

An image of Stewart slipped through her mind. He seemed bent on giving the killer a dead body. Betty might be their best hope for survival. Were the others even alive? Or bludgeoned in the meat locker?

She envisioned Jack blasting his way through the door with a shotgun. Jack? Yes, of course, Jack. Randy didn't possess enough backbone to save anyone, even he knew that. She used him just like he used her, but at a time like this, Randy was useless. Jack . . . she sensed Jack was a completely different animal.

The thought surprised her. Did she want him to rush in, put a slug in Pete's skull?

Yes, she thought. She did. A slug through that forehead, no matter what kind of victim Pete himself might be, seemed like the right kind of ending to this mind game she'd never wanted to play.

But short of that, she had to play smart. Play along. Millions of years of evolution had turned the human mind into an amazingly resourceful instrument of survival, capable of far more than ordinary life demanded of it. She'd read dozens of cases that demonstrated this fact, and now she would become one of those cases.

She smiled and clasped her hands behind her back to match his stance. “I like your room very, very much.”

Pete blushed. He eased into a large stuffed recliner, leaned forward, and watched her as if he wasn't sure what to do with his catch.

Leslie made a show of interest by examining the room more closely—touching the candles, feeling the bedspread, smelling a few of the other potpourri-filled ceramic bowls.

She could feel his eyes on her, worshiping her. But not in a threatening way. She would have expected terror to fill her mind at a time like this, but it didn't. She was beyond that, she told herself. And being the object of such pure, perhaps even innocent, adoration struck her as interesting at least, even now in this black hellhole.

Perhaps particularly now, in this black hellhole, where the slightest reprieve from suffering would show like a bright beacon of hope.

The smell of sulfur seemed to have dissipated some. Maybe it was the potpourri.

“Where did you get the potpourri?” she asked.

An odd first question from a captive, but a smart question. She had to play smart. Distract him so that when the right opportunity presented itself, she would have the upper hand.

“The what?”

“This,” she said, holding up the bowl. “It smells good.”

His unblinking eyes remained on hers. “It's for you,” he said.

Such sincerity, such innocence in his voice.

“Thank you. Where did you find it?”

“From the house,” he said.

“You mean upstairs?”

“Sometimes. There's other houses. Do you like the pictures?”

She set the potpourri down and walked to her left, examining the portraits. “Yes. Do you know any of these people?”

“No. But I won't be lonely now.”

Meaning he had her. She felt momentarily nauseated, but the feeling passed. She had to control the conversation, keep him on her track.

“I especially like the dresser. It reminds me of . . .” She stopped in front of the mirror.

She couldn't see herself. The mirror reflected the room but not her.

She turned around. “What's wrong with this mirror?”

“It don't work,” he said.

“But . . .” She faced the mirror again. “But it shows other things. Why can't I see myself ?”

“It's broken,” he said.

Leslie shivered. She wrapped her hands around her bare arms. She'd never heard of such a thing. She reached out and touched the glass. Normal, as far as she could see.

Smart, Leslie, be smart. Don't lose your head.

“Can I ask you some questions, Pete?” She faced him.

“Yes, we can talk. I would like that.” He stood, unhooked the bib portion of his overalls, and pulled off his T-shirt. He flexed his biceps, grinning from ear to ear.

“Do you think I'm strong?”

She was so taken aback by his display that she didn't answer him.

His smile faded.

She caught herself short of displaying disgust. “Yes. Yes, you are very strong.”

“I can throw you,” he said, encouraged again.

“Yes, I suppose you—”

“Look!” He ran to the closet, yanked open the door, and pulled out a huge purple bag of Purina Dog Chow. “Cereal. It makes you strong.”

“I'm . . . I'm sure it does. How long have you lived here?”

“Do you want to be strong?”

“Maybe. But can we talk first?”

He carried the bag to her, still gazing into her eyes with boyish wonder, took her left hand, and placed it on his chest. Then he flexed.

There was no room for embarrassment. No need. She was playing his game, and that meant doing what he expected. To a point.

Leslie moved her fingers on his flesh, feeling the hard muscle beneath the skin. “Wow,” she said, and a small part of her meant it. His chest was cool and smooth. Maybe he'd shaved it. White skin, nearly translucent, but it showed no veins. Soft skin like lily petals, softer than any of hers. But just below the skin, rocklike muscle.

She kneaded it and raised her hand to his shoulder, where the muscles parted like cords. What was she doing? She pulled her hand back, aghast at her momentary fascination.

But she immediately covered her rejection by smiling. “You are so strong.”

“Thank you,” he said. But he didn't move. His breath was stale.

Leslie averted her eyes, eager to step beyond this moment and redirect him. “So, how long have you lived here?”

“Do you want to be strong like—”

“If you want me to be your wife, then I have to know more about you, don't I?”

Her challenge caught him off guard.

“Please,” she said. “I just want to know more about you.”

He stepped back, unsure. “A long time.”

“Where did you come from?”

He frowned as if trying to remember. “The circus. We were gypsies and did fun things. But then Stewart killed a man and so did Mama. I killed a man too. Have you done that?”

“No. I don't think killing is a good thing.”