J.A. Konrath / Jack Kilborn Trilogy - Three Scary Thriller Novels (Origin, The List, Haunted House) (97 page)

And the crazy thing was, it really did. There were no guarantees they’d live through the night, but Mal felt better than he had in months.

So it was quite a nasty shock when he opened the doors and found himself face-to-face with two people holding machineguns.

This guy was definitely
not
Luther Kite.

Kite had enjoyed making Moni suffer. It had been a turn-on for him. More than that, he’d considered it an intimate act, drawing it out while asking her mundane questions about her life. When he had finally broken her, he hadn’t bothered to finish the job and kill her, leaving Moni in a state of shock so deep it took her weeks before she could speak again. It was almost as if allowing Moni to live had been a testament to his art.

This guy, with the black eyes, was going through the motions. And what he was doing hurt Moni, no doubt about it. Getting pierced with an antique medical device was fucking awful. But after a dozen lacerations his heart just didn’t seem to be into it.

And surprisingly, Moni wasn’t terrified. She was actually more angry than she was frightened. Like this was a bad BDSM session that wasn’t working out.

In fact, the more she thought about it, the less she feared for her life and the more she got pissed off. This jackass didn’t know what the hell he was doing.

And she was just the person to tell him that.

“You’re pathetic,” she said, using her dominatrix voice.

The wannabe Luther Kite stopped poking with the artificial leech and stared at her.

“You’re a pathetic, worthless, sissy boy. Take off your pants right now.”

He remained still, his expression confused.

“I told you to take off your pants!” she ordered.

As dommes went, Moni was good at her job. She had a deep, commanding voice that scared the crap out of guys, and she knew what the little perverts wanted. In a sick sort of way, Luther Kite had saved her life. After her ordeal with him she’d kicked heroin and stopped being a victim. No more street tricks. No more pimps. She took control of her life, and her clients paid her well to be a dominant man-hater.

“Take off your pants, and show Mistress Moni what you’ve got. Now!”

Incredibly, the freak began to unbutton his pants.

Just as Moni had suspected. He wasn’t a top. He was a bottom.

“Show it to me.”

He did. And with his dick out, he was a lot less frightening. Even though she was tied up, Moni felt the balance of power shifting from him to her.

“Get over here and put it in my mouth,” she ordered.

Naturally, he complied. What guy wouldn’t? And this was most certainly a guy, not a ghost. Not a demon. Not even a serial killer. Just a worthless little worm who wanted to hurt her, like so many men had before him.

But Moni had other plans.

As she worked her lips and tongue, she gave him just enough to make him want more.

“I can make it better,” she said, deep and breathy. “But I need my hands free.”

Without hesitating he undid the buckle on her right hand. Then Moni did something she’d been fantasizing about ever since she turned her first trick at sixteen years old.

She bit down, hard as she could.

It didn’t come off as easy as she’d thought. Sort of like chewing through a tough steak. A tough, bloody steak, with lots of gristle. But she used her incisors, grinding and tearing, protecting her head with her hand as he screamed and beat at her with both fists.

And then her teeth met, and he fell away from her.

Moni spat his cock on the floor as he sprayed blood like fire hose. While he knelt down with his hands between his legs, wailing and trying to stop the hemorrhaging, Moni undid the other buckles holding her to the rack, pulled out the hefty metal bar used as a crank, and hit the son of a bitch hard enough on the back of the head to see brains come out the split.

They sort of looked like grits.

Wiping off her mouth and spitting several times, Moni got her shit together. She was free. For the moment she was safe. Now she needed to get the hell out of there.

Moni left the torture chamber, metal bar still in hand, and found herself in some sort of mine shaft. The floor was dirt. The walls braced with logs. Lights were bare bulbs, hanging from old rafters.

She spat again, hurrying down the tunnel, stopping when she heard talking.

“You, Jebediah Butler, are are are a jerktapus. That’s a jerk multiplied by eight.”

It sounded like Dr. Belgium. Moni snuck up to an open door, saw the doc was bound to a table. Some guy was standing next to him with a mallet. The mallet guy was covered, head to toe, with blood, but he didn’t seem injured at all.

Another fake ass ghost.

The bloody guy hit Frank with the mallet, right on his arm, which was all twisted and swollen up to twice its normal size.

That son of a…

Moni rushed up to him, angry and pumped, and brained the bastard with the metal bar. He went down, and she kept hitting him, over and over.

“Looks like you invited the wrong goddamn dominatrix to your little party, bitch!”

His head was harder to crack open than the Luther Kite wannabe, but she kept at it until she got the desired results.

“Moni!” Frank said, smiling at her. “Your mouth is bleeding.”

“I bit a guy’s dick off.”

“Great! That’s great!”

She undid Frank’s straps, wincing when she saw his arm. “Jesus, Doc. Doesn’t that hurt?”

“I’m medicated,” he slurred. “Tell me something… how hard is it to buy heroin?”

“It’s all about who you know.”

“Great great great!”

“Is that what you’re on? Heroin?”

“Yes. I believe it’s your stash. It’s awesome.”

He’d be singing a different tune when withdrawal kicked in, but Moni saw no reason to bring that up.

“I have to go and save Sara,” Belgium said. “Want to come with?”

“Sure.”

Frank picked up the mallet in his good hand, and then they were back to prowling the tunnels.

“Doc?” she asked.

“Yes yes yes?”

“We’re not going to get our million bucks each, are we?”

“It’s not looking too promising, Moni.”

Moni frowned. The dozen or so lacerations on her body hurt like crazy, but the fact that she’d been played for a fool felt even worse.

“Doc?”

“Yes?”

“When we find everybody, let’s burn this fucking place to the ground.”

Fran had been on edge since they landed in Charlotte. While he and Duncan had slept most of the trip, his wife had trouble relaxing on planes. A twenty-two hour flight in coach was stressful enough to make even Gandhi want to shoot someone.

But unlike Gandhi, Fran already had done so. A perimeter guard, when they’d driven up to the Butler House gate, had drawn his sidearm and fired at them as they drove up. No warning. No provocation. While Josh was driving the rental van, Fran had used her night scope to put a tight grouping of three into the guard’s chest from thirty meters.

Josh had expected an unwelcome reception, but nothing so blatant and aggressive. It only confirmed what he and Fran had suspected when they’d received the invitation; Butler House was a front for something very bad.

They pulled up to the house and parked in front, the element of surprise gone. Fran and Josh wore full body armor with chest trauma plates, and tactical ballistic helmets, as did Duncan. Woof had on a custom-made bulletproof dog sweater, which boasted a small saddle for Mathison. The capuchin didn’t like to wear body armor because it restricted his movement, but he did don a plastic army helmet that belonged to an old GI Joe action figure, simply because he didn’t like his family all dressing up without him.

“You got the wheel, son,” Josh told Duncan, climbing out of the driver seat and holding the door open for him. “If we come out in a hurry with wounded, can you handle it?”

“Yeah, Dad.”

Josh still beamed with pride every time his adopted son called him
Dad
.

“Keep the windows open. Listen to your surroundings.” He placed a loaded 9mm on the seat next to him, and turned on Duncan’s walkie-talkie. “Radio silence unless an emergency, but send two clicks every five minutes as the
all clear
signal.”

Fran leaned into the driver side window and kissed her son on the helmet. “Aim for the center mass, Duncan. Shoot to kill. This isn’t an exercise. It’s the real deal.”

“I know, Mom.”

“Love you. We’ll be back soon.”

“Love you, too.”

Josh did another check of his gear, then slung the AR-15 over his shoulder. He covered his wife as she rushed the front doors to Butler House and positioned herself on the right side of them. Then she covered him as he came up and took the left. Woof, with Mathison riding on his back like a jockey, heeled next to Josh.

Fran made the hand signal for “Ready?”

In a way, Josh had been ready for this moment since they’d survived the massacre at Safe Haven and had been forced to move out of the lower forty-eight. They’d been waiting, and training, for the day the bad guys finally came calling. After the phony FBI agents had shown up with their obvious bullshit invitation, the VanCamps had called a family meeting and voted. They could do nothing at all and wait for further developments. Or they could alert the media and spill everything, waiting for the inevitable repercussions. Or they could take the offensive.

In a unanimous vote, they decided to come to Butler House. If, as they suspected, another rogue military experiment was in progress, there would be innocent people in danger. Safe Haven had been a training exercise for psychotic killers, and Butler House smelled similar. The guard shooting at them when they arrived confirmed Josh’s suspicion.

Bad shit was going down.

And the only way for bad shit to triumph was for good people to do nothing.

The VanCamps weren’t the
do nothing
type. And Josh knew Duncan and Fran were just as sick of hiding from the past as he was. For years, they’d been waiting for the other shoe to drop. To end what a top secret, imminently evil branch of the military had begun.

So there they were, taking the fight to the enemy, ready to finish this once and for all.

Josh nodded to his wife, and they moved into position to open the front doors to Butler House.

But the front doors opened for them.

Weapons at the ready, fingers on their triggers, Josh and Fran covered the two people who had been trying to leave. One, a man missing his right hand, who had bloody tears in his filthy clothing and a gash on his neck. The other, a woman with artificial legs. They shared the same terrified expression.

“Don’t move!” Fran barked.

They both froze, but the guy looked like he was about to try something.

“We’re the good guys,” Josh said, quickly trying to diffuse the situation. He had a feeling these people were victims, not the enemy.

“How do we know?” the man asked.

“We have a monkey and a dog,” Josh said. “Woof, speak.”

Woof barked and wagged his tail. Mathison waved.

“I was attacked by a monkey,” the man said. “Under a bed.”

“Not this monkey,” Josh replied. “We just showed up. Right, Mathison?”

Mathison nodded, then crossed his heart.

There were a few seconds of uncertainty. Josh decided, if he had to act, he’d try to use non-lethal force.

Then the woman with the prosthetics said, “I’m Deb. This is my husband Mal.” Her voice was raspy.

“You both got those invitations?” Fran asked.

Deb nodded.

“I’m Fran, and my husband Josh. Our son Duncan is in the car. We were invited, too.”

The tension seemed to dissipate. Josh sensed that like was recognizing like. Deb and Mal had that look Josh knew all too well. That
I survived something awful
look.

“Things went bad,” Mal said. “You have no idea what kind of hell is going on here.”

“Actually,” Fran said. “We do. And we’re ready for it. How many people inside?”

“Two are dead,” Mal told them. “One of us and one of them. Inside is a cop named Tom, a dancer named Moni, a psychic named Aabir, a biologist named Frank, a woman named Sara, and a ghost hunter named Pang.”

Deb shook her head. “Pang is possessed.”

“Possessed?” Josh asked.

“His eyes turned black and he freaked out.”

“Chemical agent?”

“Spirits,” Mal said. “There are at least five. A slave with four arms. A bleeding guy. A guy in a lab coat. A guy in a gas mask. And a guy with an eye patch and a whip. They’re ghosts or demons or something. Guns don’t work on them.”

Josh let that go for the moment. He’d seen some crazy shit himself and would never automatically reject the unusual. “Anyone else inside?”

Mal nodded. “Two doctors, Forenzi and Madison. Don’t know what side they’re on. And some guards in gray suits. At least four.”

“Some people may be down in the tunnels under the house,” Deb said. “It’s a maze down there.”

“Woof can find them once he gets their scent,” Fran said. “We couldn’t find any blueprints of the house online, so we don’t know the layout. We could use a tour, but if you two want to wait in the van with our son, we understand.”

Deb and Mal exchanged a look.

“Cops would take at least an hour to get here,” Deb said to her husband. “If we could even convince them to come.”

“I’m in if you are. I’m done with running.”

“Me too.”

“We’ll do it,” Mal said. “But we want lights and weapons.”

“Can you handle a firearm?” Josh asked.

“Guns don’t work on these things. What else you got?”

He gave Mal his tactical flashlight and his asp; a steep baton that extended when you snapped your wrist out. Fran did the same with Deb, and also gave her a can of pepper spray.

“Lead the way,” Josh said.

He sensed their reluctance to go back inside, but they did, which Josh admired.

“First guy died here.” Mal pointed to the large amount of blood on the floor.

Fran crouched down, picked up something. “Rubber bug. Looks like a roach.”

“Rubber?” Mal asked.

Fran leaned forward and found something else. Something shiny. She held it up. “Bullet casing. You said guns don’t work?”