Authors: Terri Reid
Frantically, Eloise searched for
the lever on this side of the doorway to close the door. She could hear the
footsteps getting closer and closer. She could hear his harsh breathing. He
was no longer stopping and looking in the bedrooms, now he was headed down the
hall right towards Eloise.
She ran her hands over the frame
and through the cobwebs on the opposite side of the wall where the lever had
been. The footsteps stopped. Eloise peered through the darkness and saw
Sergeant Anderson’s legs a few feet from her hiding spot. Finally, she felt the
lever, but hesitated to pull it for fear the sound of the panel closing would
give her away.
Sergeant Anderson moved toward the
panel and Eloise held her breath. Suddenly, the attic door was flung open,
covering the panel. She heard Sergeant Anderson’s heavy footsteps above her as
she pulled the lever and closed the panel. She leaned back against the wall,
taking deep breaths and deciding what to do next. She knew that she couldn’t
stay in the house, sooner or later, Sergeant Anderson would figure out where
she was.
She reached around and pulled her
backpack in front of her. She opened her cell phone and was disappointed, but
not surprised, to see that she had no service. She dug around inside her
backpack and found the extra set of keys for the SUV. Now at least she had a
way to escape.
She slowly made her way down the
dark and narrow stairs. She paused and held her breath when she heard Sergeant
Anderson storm down the attic stairs above her, but instead of coming towards
the panel, he headed back down the hallway. Eloise leaned against the wall and
took a shuddering breath. Then she quietly made her way down the rest of the dark
staircase.
Paul flew down the highway,
following the incessant blinking of the GPS tracker from Eloise’s SUV. He
turned off on Highway 624 and sent the speedometer to over 100 miles per hour
down the Hopedale Highway. Suddenly, the blinking stopped. Paul adjusted the
controls, but nothing happened. He flipped the unit off and on, but again
received no response.
Paul opened his cell phone and saw
that he had no service. He threw the phone against the dashboard and swore.
“Now what the hell am I supposed to
do?” he yelled, pounding the steering wheel.
Instantly he felt a burning
sensation against his chest. He moved his hand up to his collarbone and felt
the little packet he wore around his neck. It was definitely getting warm.
He remembered finding it draped
across the bedpost the morning after he had dreamt about Eloise. It reminded
him of the amulet that Maria had given Eloise and he wondered if it was some
sort of protection for him against Delphine. He had tied it on, next to his
dog tags and worn it since.
He pulled it out from under his
shirt and held the packet in his hand.
“I don’t know how this works, but I
need to find Eloise,” he said aloud. “Please, please help me.”
“Perhaps you do not understand, but
you do believe,” Maria said, appearing in the seat next to him. “She is in
grave danger. Perhaps we are already too late. We must hurry.”
Paul floored the accelerator. “We
can’t be too late.”
Eloise reached the bottom of the
staircase. She stretched her arm forward and felt for the door knob in the
darkness. She grabbed the knob and slowly turned it. At first it seemed to be
locked. Eloise took a deep breath, turned it again and pushed it with her
body. The door suddenly swung open and Eloise fell forward. She felt strong
arms grabbed her around her neck and head.
“This time no kicking,” Sergeant Anderson
whispered into her ear and he wrapped his leg around her legs. He moved his
large hand over her mouth and nose and pressed against them. Eloise twisted
her body and fought for air, but Anderson held her tightly. She was no match for
his strength. She tried to bite his hand, but he held it tightly in place. Eloise
flashed back to the Gulf, the bodies surrounding her, the lack of oxygen and
the black spots before her eyes. This time, however, Paul was not there to
save her. This time, she knew, when all went black it could be forever. At
least, she thought as the blackness finally overwhelmed her, Paul will be safe.
Eloise’s first thought was that her
head hurt, her second, as she tried to sit up, was that something was wrong. She
opened her eyes and her heart dropped. She was back in the room in the east
wing and she was bound to the metal examination table. The table had been
tilted, so she lay in a 45 degree angle, her head higher than her feet. She turned
her head and saw Sergeant Anderson seated in a chair next to the table. He was
slowly sharpening a long narrow knife.
He smiled at her and Eloise could
see the madness.
“I wanted to wait until you were
awake,” he said cheerfully.
Eloise pulled at the bindings. “Why
are you doing this?”
Sergeant Anderson stood up and
walked over to her. He slid the knife down her blouse and cut off the first
button.
“I have to,” he answered simply, “the
voices tell me to do it.”
“Does Delphine want you to do
this?” Eloise asked.
Sergeant Anderson shook his head.
“No, she didn’t want me to have you for a specimen,” he said. “She made me send
those men to the cemetery and she made me send you to Big Al. Then she even
tried to get you with those alligators.”
He smiled at her. “But you
escaped,” he ran a rough hand over her head and through her hair, rubbing the
ends of her hair between his fingers. “You escaped because you wanted to be
here with me.”
Eloise shook her head. “No, I
escaped because I need to stop Delphine.”
He shook his head and frowned. “No,
not because of my great-great-grandma. Because of me.”
“Delphine is your ancestor?” Eloise
gasped.
His hand trailed down, over her
cheek and down to her neck.
“Uh, huh,” he said carelessly, rubbing
Eloise’s neck, “She talks to me sometimes.”
“Did you know that she was trying
to kill me the night on the beach?”
Anderson
nodded. “Yeah, I told her to stop, that I wanted you for a specimen,” he said.
Then he traced a finger across the scratch on Eloise’s cheek.
“She shouldn’t have done this,” he
muttered, “She knew I wanted you perfect.”
Eloise shivered.
“Do you like the way I touch you?”
he asked, “The others liked it a lot. They said they didn’t, but I could tell,
they really liked it.”
“Were there many others?”
Sergeant Anderson smiled broadly,
“I can show you.”
He walked across the room to an old
built-in cupboard. He grabbed the handles of both sides of the cabinet doors
and flung them open. Eloise felt nausea rise to her throat. Inside on the
shelf, she could see at least a dozen gallon-sized glass jars each containing
the head of one of his victims floating inside.
She shut her eyes and turned her
head to the side, fighting the nausea back.
She heard the doors close and his
footsteps against the tile as he neared the table. She forced her eyes open and
glared at him.
“How could you do this? They
trusted you.”
Sergeant Anderson shrugged. “Well,
ma’am, just the same way I’m going to do it to you.”
Paul barreled his Humvee across the
lawn of the plantation, pulled in behind Eloise’s SUV and jumped out of the
car. Maria moved faster. “This way, she is upstairs, but you have to hurry,”
she called, gliding through the French doors and up the stairs.
Paul rushed after here, taking the
steps three at a time, ignoring the splintering sounds of the rotted wood.
When he reached the hall, he saw Maria already moving into a room in the east
wing. When he reached the room he found her gliding back and forth in front of
a plain wall. “There is something here that keeps me from moving beyond this
point,” she said. “This is not a place where spirits can enter. This is not
the work of Delphine, but of a very human fiend.”
Sergeant Anderson lifted the knife
and removed the next button from the front of her blouse.
“I like doing this part nice and
slow,” he said, smiling down at her. “And the next part too.”
Eloise fought back the panic and
tried to remain calm.
“I don’t think the Major is going
to be very happy about this,” she said.
Sergeant Anderson paused for a
moment and then looked up at Eloise.
“You know, I wondered about that
for a while,” he admitted, “I mean, he is my commanding officer. But then when
he left you and went to D.C., I figured that he didn’t want you anymore.”
“You figured wrong, Sergeant.”
“Paul,” Eloise cried, watching as
Paul moved into the room, gun drawn and pointed directly at Sergeant Anderson’s
head.
“You just step away from her
Sergeant,” Paul said, moving forward.
Sergeant Anderson giggled, a sound
that sent chills down Eloise’s spine.
“But you don’t know my secret,
Major.”
“Frankly, Anderson, I don’t give a
damn about your secret. Move away from Eloise now, or I will kill you.”
“But that’s just it,” Sergeant Anderson
grinned. “See this?”
He held up a small device that looked
like a remote control. “If you kill me, she will die too.”
Paul stopped in his tracks. “What
do you mean?”
Sergeant Anderson grinned. “Look
up.”
Eloise and Paul both looked up and
saw a large five foot wide blade suspended above the table. The blade was
attached to a series of pulleys and chains and, if allowed to fall, would cut
Eloise’s body in half across her waist.
“It’s my guillotine,” Sergeant Anderson
said proudly, “It’s very sharp and very deadly.”
He held up the remote. “And this is
how I control it.”
Paul turned to Sergeant Anderson
and slowly lowered his gun.
“Okay, Sergeant, so how are we
going to handle this situation?”
Sergeant Anderson shrugged. “I
don’t know. I think I’m going to have to kill both of you.”
Paul kept eye contact with Sergeant
Anderson, “I could see how that might seem like the only solution.”
“You can?”
“Sure, we’re both fighting men, men
of action, we know when to take risks and when to cut our losses,” Paul agreed.
“But, if you don’t mind, I rather die fighting.”
Sergeant Anderson looked warily at
Paul. “What do you mean?”
Paul shrugged. “You outweigh me by
about 40 pounds or so, wouldn’t you say?”
Sergeant Anderson nodded.
“And, although I hate to admit it,
you are probably in better shape than I am. You’re used to physical combat.”
Sergeant Anderson preened a bit.
“Yeah, I suppose you could say I am.”
“So, what do you say, we have
ourselves a little hand-to-hand warfare,” Paul suggested. “You’re going to kill
me anyway, why not have a little sport with it.”
Sergeant Anderson smiled. “Yeah,
that could be fun. I like that idea.”
Paul placed his gun back in the
holster, unstrapped it and laid it on the ground. Kicking it across the room,
he stood up and raised his hands over his head.
“I’ve got one request before we
start,” Paul said.
“What?” Sergeant Anderson asked
impatiently.
“That I’m allowed a last kiss from
Eloise,” he said.
Sergeant Anderson looked from Paul
to Eloise. Paul stood straight and tall, his eyes never wavering. Eloise
stared ahead, holding her head high, unshed tears in her eyes.
Sergeant Anderson shrugged. “Sure,
why not, it can’t hurt me.”
He walked over to the side of the
table and pressed a button on the control panel, moving the angle of the table
back so it was parallel to the floor. Then he moved back, away from Paul’s
reach.
“You’ve got two minutes, better
make it good,” he laughed.
Paul leaned over Eloise.
“Hey, you should have stayed in my
dreams a little longer,” he said, smiling at her. “Things were just beginning
to get interesting.”
“Paul, you need to get out of
here,” she pleaded. “Please don’t fight him. He’s going to kill you.”
Paul lowered his face to hers.
“Sweetheart, you’ve got to have a little faith.”
His lips met hers and she kissed
him with all the love she had in her heart. She felt some pressure on the band
of her right arm, the arm that Paul had been leaning over. Then felt something
cold being pressed into her hand. Paul lifted his head and smiled at her.
“Sweetheart,” he whispered, “cut
the bands and run like hell.”
He gave her a hard brief parting kiss
and then stood up and faced Sergeant Anderson. Paul circled around the room so Anderson was facing away from Eloise. Anderson positioned himself for the fight.
“Hey, Sergeant,” Paul said. “That
remote for your guillotine, you have it in some safe place right? I’d hate for
you to trip, fall on the remote and then miss the fun of seeing it happen.”
Anderson paused for a moment, dug
into his pocket and placed the remote on the built-in cabinet.
Once the remote was out of the way,
the men positioned themselves for the fight. Paul was crouched low, arms flexed
and outstretched, senses alert. Anderson was bent at the waist, leaning
forward, fists clenched.
Paul moved first, he grabbed Anderson’s arm and pulled it forward and raised his leg and kicked Anderson in the chest. Anderson grabbed Paul’s foot and swung it up, dropping Paul on the floor. Anderson dove on
Paul, but missed as Paul rolled away and jumped up onto his feet. He leaned
sideways and delivered a sharp kick onto Anderson’s face. The force knock Anderson back for a moment, then Anderson turned and charged Paul like a linebacker.
Eloise watched the two men fight
for a moment and then turned to her right hand. She saw that the leather strap
had nearly been cut through. With just a little pressure she was able to break
through the remainder and free her wrist. She opened her hand and found that
Paul had left her a small knife.
She glanced over and saw that the
men were too busy to notice her. She leaned across and started sawing away at
the binding that held her other hand. The leather was thick and from the angle
she was forced to use, her cutting techniques were fairly ineffective.
She stole another glance at the
men. Anderson had Paul pinned in a headlock, and was lifting his body off the
ground and slamming it down. Paul got a hold of Anderson’s head and yanked it
down, dropping Anderson to the ground. Blood dripped from Paul’s nose as he
stood above Anderson, gasping for breath for a moment until the fight resumed.
Eloise turned back to the task at
hand, sawing at the bindings. Slowly she was making progress, she was just
about there.
“What the hell?”
Eloise turned back to see Anderson staring in shock at her semi-freed position. Blood was running down his face and
purple bruises were forming around his eyes. He turned to Paul, “You tried to
trick me.”
He glanced at Eloise. “Now you’re
going to have to die.”
He ran towards the cabinet where
the remote lay. Paul dove after him, grabbing him around the legs. Anderson fingered the remote, but Paul knocked him to the ground sliding the remote across
the tile floor.
“Give it up,” Paul yelled.
Anderson
kicked at Paul and caught him in the neck.
“You can’t beat me,” Anderson cried.
Choking, Paul released Anderson for a moment and Anderson crawled across the room, after the remote.
“Now, you’ll see.”
He reached forward, nearly there,
when Paul jumped on top of him.
“No,” Paul said. “You’ll see.”
Anderson
rolled sideways and sent a massive punch into the side of Paul’s face. Paul
hung on, trying to keep him from reaching the remote that sat only a few feet
away. He kicked his foot sideways and sent the remote sliding to corner of the
room that held the Iron Maiden.