House (22 page)

Leslie didn't answer.

“Well . . .”

“Fine. So maybe there's something going on here that we can't explain without ripping down the house. Call it supernatural if you want. By definition, the supernatural is only that which extends beyond our understanding of nature anyway.” She glared angrily. “I'm not even sure there
aren't
such things as ghosts. Some kind of natural existence beyond death—who knows. But your running around frantic because you think an evil spirit is hard on your heels will only get us all killed! You have to keep your head!”

“I
intend
to keep my head!” Stephanie shot back. “Which means getting out of
here
!”

“You and Randy were both ready to tear out of here before we'd even settled on a plan. That's the kind of idiocy that comes from emotionally driven nonsense.”

Jack thought it time to intervene. “So you're saying you think
maybe
there could be something supernaturally wrong with the house?” Jack asked Leslie. “Because Susan—”

“I know what Susan said!”

“Take it easy!” he said, drilling her with a stare.

She averted her eyes.

“If White knows there's something wrong with this house—”

“Just say it, Jack,” Leslie said. “You mean haunted, don't you? Just say it.”

“Okay, I will. If White knows this house is haunted because it was once used to house slaves who were slaughtered here, or whatever . . .”

Giving voice to the possibility felt strange.

“. . . which you yourself admit is a possibility, even though we don't understand it . . .”

“Granted.”

“. . . then wouldn't it be in our interest to know how to deal with a haunted house?”

They looked at him.

“I know it sounds stupid, but isn't that what we're talking about? We understand something about the killer, as much as serial killers can be understood; we know about Betty and Stewart and Pete. We have a plan to blow the doors off the hinges and go for the main road. But what about the house?”

“You're saying the house may be trying to stop us from getting out?” Leslie asked.

“I'm just making sure all of our bases are covered before we try anything.”

“I don't believe in haunted houses,” Randy said.

“Neither do I,” Leslie said, looking at him. “But that doesn't mean this house isn't . . . unusual. We just covered that; weren't you listening?”

He ignored her.

“The question, if I understand Jack right, is how we deal with a haunted house. Right?”

“Right.”

No one offered any suggestions. They were all too busy trying to imagine such a thing. Clearly, none of them had a clue how to deal with a haunted anything.

“Anyone have any holy water?” Stephanie asked.

“What does haunted mean?” Randy asked. “That means some ghost or something is haunting it. So we appease the ghost. Or kill it.”

The creaking sound came again, louder than before. And longer. They listened, looking at one another without offering any consolation.

“Pipes,” Jack said when it quit.

No one commented.

“We go for the back door first,” Jack said. “Can you get us there, Randy?”

“I think so.”

Jack nodded. “If we get separated and can't get out, we meet back here.”

“If one of us gets out?” Randy said.

“Go for the main road.”

“What if we can't get out the back?” Leslie asked.

“Then we go for the one at the top of the main stairs and get out that way.”

“Shoot on sight?” Randy asked.

Jack nodded, taking up the spade Randy had dropped. “If we run into Betty, Pete, or White, shoot on sight. Below the waist if possible.”

Randy nodded. “Okay. Okay. Let's do it.”

He led them to the door he'd come through, shotgun on his hip.

23
3:53 am

THEY WALKED QUICKLY AND QUIETLY IN single file, with Randy leading, followed by Stephanie, then Leslie. Jack brought up the rear with Randy's spade.

The moment they entered the tunnel he had last seen Stewart in, Randy felt the surge of confidence that had fueled his escape from Stewart earlier.

The shotgun was freshly loaded from the supply of shells he'd taken off Stewart. Eleven more in the box. Randy weighed whether he had the guts to do what had to be done if it came right down to it. He'd learned a few things tonight, and one of them was that putting a gun against someone's head and pulling the trigger wasn't an easy thing to do.

Yes, he did have the guts. He wasn't sure he'd be shouting this down Broadway, but he thought he could do it. And now he was the one leading them down the dark tunnels—without too much fear.

By Randy's estimation, it took only about five minutes to make it back to the room where Stewart had drowned. They were trying to move slowly enough to keep quiet, which it was. Very.

The arched wooden door to the room was still open.

Randy stopped.

“What?” Stephanie whispered behind him.

“This is where I saw . . .” He blinked at the concrete floor.

“The body?”

“Yeah.”

“What is it?” Leslie whispered, coming up in a crouch.

“Still gone,” Randy said.

They looked at one another then back up the tunnel. Enough said. So he'd lost his marbles for a bit. Or White had moved the cadaver. Randy stepped quickly over the riser into the room, eager to prove to them all that the drowned man was indeed drowned.

“Slow down,” Stephanie whispered.

I'll slow you down if you don't shut up
. Inner thought, meant nothing really.

He could see the water now. The large pipe that disappeared into the holding tank. Randy waded out to the center in ankle-deep water. He turned back, aware that he was grinning and not caring.

The others had stopped at the entry and were looking down.

“This is where it happened,” he said.

They looked at him without acknowledging or denying. But that was acknowledgment enough.

“Do you want to see—”

“Just get us out of here,” Leslie snapped.

Well, fine then.
He cut to his left, over another riser, and into the adjoining passage. Fifty feet and to the right. Through the door he'd run smack into, which was now open, allowing light into what had been a dark space.

But the door that led into the utility room where he'd found the old shotgun was locked.

“Locked,” he said. “This leads to the passage with the back door.”

“So what do we do?” Stephanie asked.

You put your fist in your mouth and keep it there
. Inner thought.

“Blast it,” he said.

“They might hear,” Jack said.

“Maybe. But we're insulated by a lot of dirt beyond these concrete walls. And there's a utility room on the other side of this door. I think it's okay.”

Before anyone could object, he lifted the gun, put the barrel about a foot from the handle, and . . .

“Randy . . .”

. . . pulled the trigger.
Boom!

Man, was that loud in here!

“There,” he said and pushed the door open.

They entered the utility room and stopped to listen. Nothing. 'Course, his ears were ringing pretty good.

“This way.”

“I'm not going out,” Jack said.

Randy faced the man. “What do you mean, you're not going out? The door's right—”

“Show me the way. I have to at least try to find Susan first.”

Randy reached for the door. “Suit yourself.”

They were in the passageway with the back exit visible fifty feet to their left when they heard the muffled voice.

Stephanie gasped. Randy put his fingers to her mouth. Down the hall, past the door that led into the large study with the desk and the pentagram and the mirror that didn't work. Betty.

“Hurry!” Randy turned to run toward the exit, but a hand snagged his elbow.

“Give me a minute!” Jack whispered. “Susan has to be with her.”

“Are you crazy? We're right here!”

“You have to wait for me.”

“Not a chance.”

“If you shoot the lock, she'll hear for sure this time, and I won't stand a chance. One minute, just to see.”

“And if I wait for you to come screaming down the hall with a girl in your arms, she'll be on your tail with a gun in her hands. We all lose.”

“Just give me a minute! She saved Leslie's life!”

He said it like it was supposed to decide matters. Maybe it did, but Randy's mind was foggy again. He had a shotgun, they were well protected in the passage—a minute wouldn't hurt, considering.

“One minute and we go. We'll wait by the door.”

“I'm going with him,” Leslie whispered.

“Suit yourself.”

Randy and Stephanie stood in the passageway that led to the exit. “Fools,” Randy whispered, watching them. “They're going to get us killed.”

“Do you think?”

“Guaranteed.”

“Maybe we should just go,” Stephanie said.

Her suggestion half surprised him. “Just leave them and run?”

“Well, we'd get the cops, right?”

He considered the plan. It wasn't really a plan, more of an everyone-for-themselves strategy. Or at least he and Stephanie for themselves.

Jack and Leslie were still creeping up on the door at the other end. If it wasn't for that little waif they'd met, they'd be out of here by now.

“I can't do that,” he finally said.

Stephanie hugged herself and looked around nervously. “I don't like it. We should go.”

“Just keep quiet. I said we'd give him a minute, no more. Just—”

The door behind them opened. Randy heard Stephanie grunt. He whirled. Pete was there, with one arm wrapped around her neck and the other over her mouth, dragging her back through the door.

Randy jerked the shotgun around, leveled it at them, and came within an inch of putting a full load of buckshot in her gut. That was the first problem—Stephanie was in the way.

The second was that Jack was right; a shot here would alert the whole house to his location.

Pete ducked through the door and was gone.

Randy's pulse drummed through his skull. He glanced up the hall and saw that Jack was almost at the door to the study, clueless to the turn of events.

He couldn't warn Jack and Leslie without possibly alerting Betty, which wasn't in their favor. He had to either let Pete take off with Stephanie, or he had to go after them before they disappeared.

Randy swore under his breath and tore through the door.

He could hear Stephanie scream through Pete's fingers ahead, on his right. She grunted and was silent.

Pete didn't have a gun and Randy did; that was what made the difference.

The sound of a door slamming rippled past him.

Pete was outgunned, and he had a body in his hands. Or over his shoulder. Either way, Randy should be able to take him easier than he had the oaf's father. Shock and awe. He'd blow the guy away before Pete knew he had any competition.

Randy came to the door that had been slammed, threw it open, and poked his head through. Two directions. He couldn't tell where they'd gone. But if he understood Jack and Leslie correctly, he had a pretty good idea which direction Pete's hideout was, and he was sure that's where they were headed.

To the right again. He jogged around the corner and down a hall he hadn't seen before. The leather soles of his ruined shoes slapped on the concrete. Now who was hunting whom?

A left ahead, the only way. He took it without slowing.

But he was running away from the exit. And White was in here somewhere.

The two thoughts entered his mind together, like a twin blast from a double-barreled shotgun, and drilled something through his chest that he hadn't felt since Stewart's pursuit.

Fear.

He slowed to a walk, heart crashing so hard that he couldn't hear himself think. They had been right there! A single shot through that padlock and out into the rain. With a shotgun in hand! He would have made it.

“You stupid, stupid, stupid . . .” No word that came to mind accurately described how he loathed Stephanie in this moment. But he was committed.

Or was he? He stopped. Looked over his shoulder. Actually, he could go back. Leave them all and make for the road armed with the shotgun. Get to the cell phones he and Leslie had left in their car. Call for help and get to the city.

Somewhere ahead, Stephanie screamed. He'd let go of her mouth. Which probably meant Pete had reached his hideout.

Randy crept forward, resolve all but sapped in the face of the fear and disappointment he felt for the missed opportunity. Each step took him farther in, farther away. Jack and Leslie would probably get the girl, get to the door, and be long gone while he was back here trying to rescue Jack's wench.