Authors: J.A. Konrath,Jack Kilborn
Tags: #General Fiction
He rushed to her once more, taking her in his arms, and kissed her again. But this time it wasn’t soft or gentle. It was with all the passion, all the strength, of a man who loved a woman so much it practically consumed him.
When Mal broke this kiss he stared deep into her eyes and said with all the feeling he could muster. “I. Love. You.”
“Then you’d better come back to me.”
He winked. “You couldn’t keep me away.”
Then Mal headed up the stairs before he lost his resolve.
When he reached the top Mal put his ear to the door, listening for sounds from the hall. After twenty seconds of not hearing anything, he jammed the glow stick Tom had given him into the waist of his jeans, then snuck through the door. A quick press of the keychain light proved it was about as illuminating as a firefly, but the hallway seemed empty.
Mal moved quickly but carefully, heading for the great room. His original plan was to sprint up to the second floor and grab the drugs and gun. But when he saw the front doors, he realized he should check them to make sure they were open. His experience at the Rushmore Inn informed him that once the bad things started happening, it became increasingly difficult to leave. Though Mal readily admitted he suffered from paranoia—a paranoia he felt he’d earned—Butler House was beginning to feel more and more like the Rushmore. So it was with a sick, sinking feeling that he approached the exit, willing to bet everything he had that it would be locked.
Wellington’s body had been moved, but the doors and floor were still splashed with his blood. Mal did a quick look around, making sure he was alone. Then—
—he stuck the key light in his teeth—
—put his hand on the door knob—
—turned and pulled—
—and it opened easily—
—revealing a shirtless man wearing a gas mask, holding a meat cleaver.
“Hee hee hee,” the man giggled.
Mal backed away so quickly he slipped and fell. He tried to get up, but his feet couldn’t get any traction on the bloody floor. At the same time, he couldn’t look away from the Giggler, as Forenzi had called him during dinner.
A masked demon who would mutilate himself…
Which was when the Giggler raised his cleaver, and sliced a line down his scarred chest.
Mal stared, the fear so absolute he ceased to be a human being. Exactly like when he was strapped to the table at the Rushmore Inn. Mal lost his personality, his identity, and was reduced to an animal state. The evolutionary fear response, a chemical cocktail millions of years in the making, took over his body until every cell screamed fight or flight.
Acting on pure instinct, Mal chose flight, flopping onto his belly, getting his one hand underneath him, and then bicycling his feet until his toes found purchase on the hardwood floor.
And then he was off and running, beelining for the group of chairs and sofas in the middle of the great room.
Which was where he found Wellington’s body.
The dead author had been stripped naked and was sitting in a chair, his severed head placed between his legs so he was giving himself oral sex. Stuck in his neck stump were a cluster of cattails, jutting out as if in a vase.
Mal kept running, trying to remember where the stairs were. He headed for the hall to the dining room and saw it had been blocked with a sofa. So he detoured and took another corridor.
He heard a high-pitched whining sound and realized he was the one making it. So ensnared in the throes of terror, he didn’t even know where he was until the hallway he’d sprinted down abruptly ended at a closed door.
Confused, out of breath, panicked and sickened, Mal turned in a circle, trying to get his bearings. He began to backtrack, to get out of this dead-end, when he heard a
CRACK!
from the darkness ahead. Like someone slapping their hands together. Or…
Or a whip.
The ghost of the one-eyed slave master, Blackjack Reedy.
Mal spun back around, reaching for the doorknob, opening it and easing himself inside, then closing it behind him.
The room smelled of stale mildew. Mal used his tiny flashlight to look around, and even though the beam didn’t penetrate very far, he realized he was in the laundry room.
He saw a large sink. Some rusty, metal wash basins. Clotheslines hanging on the walls. An old fashioned washing machine with rollers. A large pile of dirty clothes. Several washboards. A shelf full of antique detergent boxes.
But something about the room was… off. Though it didn’t look like anyone had been in there in decades, Mal had the uneasy feeling he was being watched.
He got his breathing under control and listened.
The room was silent.
Mal took a few steps into the room, noticing a door on the other side. Maybe it was a closet. Or maybe it was an exit. Old houses often had a laundry room next to an outside door, to make it easier to haul wet clothing outside to dry in the sun.
Halfway into the room, Mal heard something.
A moan.
He stopped, mid-step.
Had it been a voice? The wind? Some other, harmless sound? His imagination?
Once again he played the flashlight beam around the room.
The sink, old and filthy.
Rusty basins.
The washing machine, its pulleys misaligned.
A pile of clothing with an old coat on top, its buttons glinting in the light.
The stack of washboards.
Shelves.
“Hello?” he whispered.
Immediately after speaking, Mal regretted it. Who was he talking to? And did he really want someone to answer?
Thankfully, no one replied.
Mal wasted no more time getting to the door at the end of the room. He grasped the ancient, metal door knob and turned.
Locked. He gave the door a sharp tug. It peppered him with dust, but held firm.
Squinting at the bronze doorplate, Mal saw an old-time keyhole.
Could there be a key around here?
He looked behind him, back at the shelves. If there was a key, that seemed like the place for it. Mal crept over, scanning row by row with the flashlight. On the third shelf, next to a disintegrating box of Borax soap chips, was a tarnished skeleton key.
Mal reached for it—
—and heard another moan.
He spun, again taking in the room.
But no one was there.
Basins, washboards, sink, washing machine, clothes. There wasn’t anything else.
Then the pile of clothing blinked.
Mal was so shocked he jumped backward, into the shelves, old detergent snowing on him as the pile of clothing stood up—not a pile at all, but a figure in a dirty lab coat, what Mal assumed were glinting buttons had actually been its staring eyes.
Colton Butler.
Colton moaned again. He was clutching a leather medical bag in one hand, a curved surgical saw in the other, and he advanced toward Mal.
The fear was so absolute, it paralyzed Mal, pinning him to the spot. Colton raised the saw up.
“Time… to… operate…”
His voice was all messed up, like Jebediah’s in the library, and so shocking it snapped Mal out of his catatonia and he lurched toward the locked door. Key and flashlight in the same hand, he was trembling too madly to fit it into the keyhole.
“Maaaaaaal…”
The voice was so close Mal didn’t want to turn around, fearing that Colton was right behind him. He focused on opening the door, trying to block out everything else, putting 100% of his concentration into fitting the damn key into—
Colton hit Mal in the side of the neck with something, so hard Mal saw motes of light. Then there was a ripping sound, and a spike of pain like lemon juice on a paper cut, right across Mal’s right shoulder blade.
The saw.
Mal pushed himself backward, knocking Colton away, reaching up and feeling the jagged cut in his neck.
He tried to saw my head off.
His hand now slick with blood, Mal jammed the keychain light in his teeth and went back to playing bullseye with the key.
“Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaal…”
By some miracle, Mal got it in the keyhole. He twisted it, first one way, then the other, and when the bolt snicked free Mal yanked open the door and saw…
Stairs. Leading up.
He took them two at a time, breathing through his teeth as they clamped down on the flashlight, going up sixteen steps and then reaching…
A dead end.
There was no door. No room. No hallway. Just a wooden barricade.
“Maaaaaaaaaaaaaal…”
Below him, Mal heard feet begin to clomp up the steps.
Why have a stairway leading nowhere? What was the point? It made no sense.
He put his shoulder into it, pressing hard. Felt a slight bit of give.
Could this be some secret passage?
Mal held the keylight, looking for seams along the wall. On the right side, he found some old, rusty hinges.
Mal pushed again. No go.
“Maaaaaaaaaal…..”
Colton was closer, already halfway up the stairs.
Mal ran his hands along the seam, looking for a switch, a release, a button. Anything that would open this sucker up.
“Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaal…”
Colton was practically on top of him. Mal’s heart was hammering so hard he could hear the lub-dub in his eardrum. A wooden splinter jammed under his fingernail, and he dropped the flashlight. Mal opened his mouth to scream in pain and frustration when his fingers brushed against a latch.
“MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAL!”
Colton’s saw touched Mal’s leg just as the passageway swung outward. Mal fell forward, pulling away, then kicking the secret door closed. He looked around, pulling the glow stick from his pants, and realized he’d gotten to the guest room hallway. But it looked different in the dark, and he wasn’t sure which room was his.
The secret passage began to shake, and Mal got to his feet and ducked into the nearest bedroom. He quietly closed the door behind him, then took a minute to catch his breath. His neck throbbed, and he found a mirror on the wall and took a look.
In the green glow light, his blood appeared black. Mal probed the wound, wincing. It hurt, but wasn’t deep. Stitches probably weren’t required, but if he lived through this it would no doubt leave a jagged scar.
Squinting at his finger, he used his teeth to yank out a three inch splinter under his nail. He spat it out, and began to search the room.
The suitcase next to the bed wasn’t his, and he didn’t see any purses lying around. He checked the bureau drawers, and then the desk.
Nothing.
Mal crept to the door and put his ear to it. Then he opened it a crack, peering out. The coast seemed clear, and he quickly exited the room and entered the adjacent one.
Not his suitcase, but there was a purse on the desk. And inside…
Moni’s syringe. He pulled the purse strap over his head and shoulder.
Okay, that’s half the mission. Now to get my gun.
He remembered his room was next to Moni’s, so all he had to do was sneak into it and—
The doorknob began to turn before Mal could touch it. He quickly stuck the light stick back in his jeans and looked around for a place to hide.
The bed.
Quickly dropping to all fours, Mal scooted under it just as the door opened.
“Maaaaaaaaal… I… want… your… other… hand…”
Sara took off her sweater and tied a knot in the sleeves, trying to make a sling for Frank’s arm. He’d been groaning since Mal left, biting his wallet, his eyes welling with tears. Fishing around in her purse, Sara found a pack of tissue. She gently wiped his eyes, and then mopped some of the sweat off of his forehead.
Frank let the wallet fall from his lips, and stared hard at her.
“I’ve… been hope hope hoping…” he said, the pain straining his voice.
“Hoping for what, Frank?”
“To see see see…”
“To see?”
“You… with your… shirt off.”
He grinned, and Sara laughed. She didn’t even remember what bra she had on until she looked. It was frilly, pink, Fredrick’s of Hollywood. Somehow she’d had the foresight to wear her only good bra. If he’d seen some of her others, he probably wouldn’t have been as impressed.
“When we get out of here,” she whispered. “Maybe I’ll even let you see me without the bra.”
“I’d like that. Sara?”
“Yes, Frank?”
“I think think think my arm is broken.”
“It’s just a bad sprain,” Sara said. “Mal is going to get you something for the pain. He’ll be back soon.”
“I’m scared, Sara.”
“So am I, Frank.”
She kissed his damp forehead, then opened her purse and stared at her last two tiny bottles of Southern Comfort.
Sara needed a drink. Badly. In fact, Sara may have never needed a drink more than she did right then. Her hopes for getting her son back had been torn from her. Seeing the first decent man she’d met in—well—
forever
—suffer like this was heartbreaking. And the very real possibility that she was going to die soon, and die horribly, made her adrenaline spike so hard her head hurt.
She pulled out the first bottle, twisting off the cap with practiced precision, and tilted it—
—into Frank’s mouth.
He drank, then coughed. “Thanks.”
“Got one more coming.”
She opened the second, and he gulped it down.
“Got any any any orange juice?”
“Other purse.”
She moved her thigh under his head as a pillow, and blotted away more sweat.
She didn’t regret giving Frank the last of her booze.
In fact, in a strange sort of way, she felt liberated by it.
Sara looked over at Deb, who was sitting against the wall with her head in her hands, her fake legs spread out in front of her, looking strangely like skis. She seemed off in her own world. Sara then looked at Pang, and saw he had some new gizmo in his hand.
Pang glanced up at her. “I’d like to try an EVP recording.”
“What is that?” Sara asked.
“Electronic Voice Phenomenon. I ask a question, and record the response. The human ear isn’t as sensitive as a microphone. So answers could get picked up by the recorder that we wouldn’t otherwise hear. Then we can hear them in playback, with the sound boosted up.”