House (27 page)

“But you got in,” Stephanie said.

“And I've been thinking about that,” Lawdale said. “Something you should do a little more of.”

He walked to his right without looking at her. “When you try to leave the basement, you end up back in. Doors lock behind you, open in front of you. As if the house knows you, inside and out. Am I right?”

“Something like that,” Jack said.

“The house won't let you out. But that doesn't mean it won't let someone in. Like a flytrap.”

“White couldn't get in at first,” Randy said.

“Based on what you've told me, doesn't sound like he wanted in, not until he came into the basement. Sounds to me like he was trying to drive you into the basement on your own.”

The man's reasoning mirrored Jack's, although Law-dale was coming at it from a different angle.

A few seconds of silence slipped by.

“It's possible, just possible, that I may be able to get out,” Lawdale said.

“How?” Randy asked. He stood, seeming renewed. “I'm going with you.”

“Back up, boy. What I'm saying is that I know Tin Man didn't see me come in. I saw the truck at the front door and avoided the top floor. Same for the basement entrance in the back. I came in through a grate and up a dried-out tunnel. Place used to be a mining operation but was abandoned when they discovered a mass grave on the grounds.”

“A grave?” Stephanie said, shooting an I-told-you-so look at Randy. “That would explain some things.”

“Tin Man may have turned this house bad somehow—invited in whatever powers to haunt it—but if there's rules, there's rules. House rules. The house will prevent anyone from leaving it, assuming it knows they're inside.”

“You're suggesting the house doesn't know you're inside,” Jack said.

“Still the dense one, aren't you, Jack? But you're on the right track.”

Leslie grunted. She closed her eyes and took a long, deep breath. Shook her head. “I can't believe we're talking like this. What a crock. A house doesn't know stuff! Listen to you!”

Her old training was awakening, Jack thought. “I thought you changed your—”

She held up her hand and stopped him. “I know, I know. Yes, I said it might be haunted.” She waved a hand as she continued. “Spirits, demons, supernatural stuff and all that. I know! That doesn't make it real. It's one thing to talk in general supernatural terms.” She looked at the words on the wall. “It's another thing to start talking rules and specifics and . . . whatever. Like there's a whole order or something. Like the house is actually thinking, for heaven's sake! Knows things! Don't tell me that doesn't sound just a little bit crazy to you.”

Jack nodded. “But we don't have time to sort out the whys of what's happening yet. We've got barely more than an hour.”

“And then what, the house starts beating us to death?” Leslie asked.

“Somehow I think it'll be a little more personal.”

“Let's not get our undies in a bunch,” Lawdale said to Leslie. “I doubt the house knows anything. But the power, the spirits, the demons, the whatever-you-want-to-call-it that inhabits this house do. And they can change the house at will. Yet it let me walk in unchallenged?” He smacked his palm. “The only explanation is that these powers are limited to time and space and they were preoccupied with you. I made it past unnoticed.”

“Which would mean if you can get back to an exit unseen, the house won't know to stop you,” Leslie said. “That's your point, right? Assuming these things work like you suggest.”

“I'm not saying I know how they work. I'm simply dealing with the facts in front of me and drawing as few conclusions as possible. Something you should be very familiar with in your line of work.”

“If you go, I'm going with you,” Randy said.

“And you”—Lawdale turned to him—“as a businessman, you should be familiar with basic logic, right?”

Randy blinked, insulted.

“Put it together, city boy. They know you—they'll be all over you.”

“And why aren't they all over us now?” Randy demanded.

“Maybe they are,” Jack said. “The rules are pretty simple. Tin Man's giving us time to kill each other.”

“Even if you get out, how do
we
get out?” Stephanie asked.

“We get out when the officer opens a door for us,” Leslie said, staring at Lawdale. “Am I right?”

“Assuming I'm right,” he said. “Maybe the doors can be opened from the outside. They let you in, but not out.”

He looked at the door by the boiler. He'd given them the first real plan of the night, but he no longer possessed the same confidence he'd come in with, Jack thought.

“If I can get out without being detected, I'll find a way into the house and will open the basement door, the one you say is between the kitchen and the dining room. If you can make it to the top of the stairs quickly, while I have the door open, maybe we can get you out.”

They stared at him ambivalently.

“Once out of the basement, we should be able to escape. The basement seems to be the problem.”

He paced, concern on his face now even more obvious.

“I don't mind pointing out that I may not make it,” Lawdale said, glancing at the door again. He pulled out one of his revolvers and checked the clip. “These things respond to bullets?”

“Yes.”

He cracked his neck again. “Okay, tell me the best way to get into the house upstairs. Back door, window, ceiling? Tell me.”

“Back door to the kitchen,” Randy said. “White bolted it from the outside. If that doesn't work . . .” He shrugged.

“I'll find a way in.”

“White didn't,” Stephanie said.

“White didn't
want
to,” Jack said. “Aren't you listening?”

Lawdale looked at his watch. “Five oh-nine. Give me ten minutes. At exactly—”

“That long?” Stephanie demanded.

“With time for unforeseen difficulties, yes. If I make it, I'll open the main door into the basement at exactly 5:19. Be on the stairs. Can you do that?”

Jack and Leslie synced their watches. Jack glanced at the others, avoiding Randy's stare, and nodded.

Lawdale walked to the door, put his ear against it, and listened for several long seconds. He took a very deep breath and dropped to a crouch.

Unlocked the door. Cracked it. One quick glance outside and closed it again.

“Okay.”

“You sure you know the way back?” Leslie asked.

He tapped his head. “I left a few markers. Ten minutes.”

Morton Lawdale cocked his gun, extended it out with one hand, opened the door, and disappeared into the hall in a silent, crouched run.

29
5:14 am

THEY SPENT THE FIRST FIVE MINUTES OF the wait trying to convince one another that Lawdale's plan would work, but there were too many questions voiced by all of them to bring any true comfort.

Lawdale's plan was a hope, nothing more. And a thin hope at that. But Jack knew that short of hope, Randy would have tried something rash. Like killing him. If the highway patrolman hadn't shown up when he did, at least one of them would likely be dead now.

“You're sure you know the way?” Randy asked Jack. “How long will it take us?”

“The stairs are through three halls—been down them twice now. Unless they've changed.”

“Great,” Stephanie said.

“You come up with a better idea. Otherwise, stick to the plan.”

Both she and Randy fidgeted nervously. Leslie had her eyes glued to her watch and had grown quiet.

The house continued to groan and creak.

And what about Susan? The more Jack thought about her, the more he was convinced that she was nothing more or less than another innocent victim. With every passing minute, he became more convinced that she couldn't be tied in with the killer.

“Down to one minute,” Leslie said.

Jack walked toward the door. “Follow me.”

They exited the room on edge, in single file. Jack, Leslie, Stephanie, and Randy, bringing up the rear with his shotgun locked and loaded, one spastic forefinger away from alerting the whole house of their location.

“I don't think this is going to work,” Stephanie said. She spoke quietly, but her voice sounded shockingly loud in the hall. Jack turned back and drew his fingers across his neck forcefully.

It took them thirty seconds to reach a large wooden door that led into the second hall. So far so good. But it was the hall ahead that concerned Jack the most.

Jack turned back and mouthed instructions to them. “Through this door; stairs are on the right.”

“What's that?” Stephanie asked. She was pointing at the floor.

Jack saw it immediately, the black fog they'd encountered in the boiler room was seeping past the crack below the door.

“That stuff's in the hall?” Stephanie said. “We can't—”

“Quiet!” Jack whispered. “We go. Ignore the pain; just get on the steps as fast as you can and run.”

Jack grabbed the handle. “Ready?”

He jerked the door open.

Stephanie was the first to scream. They were back in the boiler room, flooded with two feet of black fog. A fist seemed to lodge itself in Jack's throat. Four others stood in the black fog.

One Jack, one Randy, one Leslie, and one Stephanie, facing off with shotguns as they had before. The Jack's hand was bleeding black fog, which also poured from the round vent up high, exactly as before.

They were staring at themselves, as if
they
, not the people in the room, were the unreal among them.

The quartet inside the boiler room spun to the sound of Stephanie's scream. For a moment all eight of them froze, four outside the room, four in the knee-high fog.

“Jack!” Susan stood, panting in an abutting hallway. “Hurry! Follow me!”

Without waiting, she ran down the hall, away from them.

Jack decided that he would follow. Whoever she was, he would follow.

He slammed the door shut and sprinted after the girl.

“What if—”

“Shut up! We don't have time!”

They followed him, hard on his heels, as he gained on the girl. Down one hall and to a large door. He recognized it as the same door they'd just assumed was the way into the main hall.

Susan threw the door open. Fog filled the hall to a height of three feet. She hesitated a moment then ran into it. “Hurry!”

The moment Jack entered the fog, he knew that they were in trouble. The acid, for one, but this he could tolerate. What lay ahead was a different matter.

The house had changed again. And this change brought all five of them to an abrupt halt.

They were still in the hall at the bottom of the stairs. Jack knew that because he saw stairs rising to the main floor to their right. But the stairs now ran the full length of the hall, not the mere ten feet he'd expected.

The passage extended just as far to their left. It had doubled in length.

And width.

But not even the matter of an extra hundred feet of hallway had stopped them. The man standing between them and the stairs did.

Stewart. A shotgun readied. Their sudden arrival had startled him, but he recovered quickly, swinging his gun toward them.

Boom!
Randy fired. His shot picked the man up off his feet and dropped him into the fog that filled the hall to their knees.

“Run!” Susan yelled. She ran toward the stairs, leaving swirling fog in her wake.

They took off after her.

“Watch for others!” she cried.

Others?

Jack saw the backs of their claw-scarred bald heads first, just breaking the top of the fog. Rising slowly, as if the fog was giving them birth.

The fog's familiar pain pushed Jack faster, and he crowded the others. “Hurry!”

“The door's not open!” Leslie cried.

“Run!”

The new inbreds were positioned abreast, forcing Jack to brush past as he sprinted. Their rising continued, like a choreographed dance. Their heads showed to the tops of their ears now. All of them faced away, toward the stairs. They were all bald, but that's where their similarity to Stewart ended.

Six of them.

So the basement was infested with more than just Stewart, Betty, and Pete. Why they were rising so slowly, Jack didn't know, but he was sure they were part of White's game.

Susan leaped onto the steps, stumbled on the first one, but scrambled up using her hands. Out of the fog. Randy was right behind her. The others followed, equally frantic, motivated by a desire to get away from the inbreds as much as from the fog.

The door was still closed. Randy fired at the latch. The buckshot bounced off the door. Didn't even chip the paint. Jack was the last to mount the steps. He clambered to the top, where Susan was pounding on the door with both hands. The others piled up on the landing and looked back, faces drawn and pale.

Jack whirled back and felt his heart skip a beat. The bald heads had risen from the fog so that the tops of their heads and their eyes cleared the black sea. Still rising.

Their bald heads and scars were similar to Stewart's. Their eyes were not. They glowed a fluorescent green.

Stephanie had joined Susan on the door, pounding. “Let us out! Let us out!”

Thud, thud, thud.
Boots walked the hall's concrete floor. Jack jerked his head around and looked at the hall's far end.

White was walking down the passage, through the rising clones, trench coat dipping into the black fog. The tin mask hid his expression. But his stride said he had been expecting them.

The moment the killer passed the inbreds, they rose to their full height.

Jack whipped his gun up.
Boom!
White jerked once as if hit, then walked on, unabated.

Stephanie was screaming bloody murder now. All five of them pressed back against the door.