House, p.6
House, page 6
Jack went after him. “Randy.”
“Stay back. This’ll only take a second.”
Leslie followed as far as the archway, then turned back to the living room and said, “Take cover. He’s really going to do it.”
Before Jack could stop him, Randy had reached the front door, set the lamp on the floor, and taken aim.
Jack wasn’t concerned about the door, just Randy and all human bystanders. “Randy, be sure you know—”
Boom! The shotgun spit white fire, and the percussion rattled the house. The lead shot shattered the stained glass.
To Jack, the hole looked large enough to squeeze through. “That should do it. Why don’t you put the gun down—”
Randy pumped and fired again, peppering the door, the jamb, the bolt. In the living room, Stephanie screamed. The door quivered as chips of wood flew into the room. The foyer filled with blue smoke.
Randy grunted as he chambered a third cartridge. He leveled the shotgun at his hip and centered the barrel on the lock. Fire, lead, and smoke exploded from the barrel; the recoil bruised him. The doorjamb shattered. The dead bolt fell free.
He knew even as he pulled the trigger that his crazy display was asinine given their predicament, but he couldn’t stop himself. His own fear had taken over. The realization only steeped his anger.
Try to mess with my mind . . .
One more round rattled the windows, and the door’s hinges creaked. He pumped the action, ready to go again—
The chamber was empty. He patted his pockets, then hollered over his shoulder at Jack, “Give me more shells.”
Jack just stood there, almost hidden behind the lamp-lit smoke. Randy knew he had more rounds in his pockets, but he wasn’t digging after them. “Randy,” he said, “the door’s open. Give it a rest.”
“You bet your life the door’s open! Give me some shells before that creep crawls in here!”
Jack still didn’t move.
Jack knew Randy’s point was valid; they were vulnerable now to danger from outside. But that didn’t mean things weren’t dangerous inside too. Give me one dead body . . . “Why don’t you let me take the gun for a while?”
Randy put his face within an inch of Jack’s. “Gimme those shells! That creep’s still out there!”
“Randy. Just take a short break. Let me have the gun.”
Randy wrapped both hands around the weapon. “I’ve got the gun!” He shouted toward the women, “Come on! Let’s move, let’s get out of here! The shells, Jack! Let’s have ’em!”
Leslie spoke from the shadows, “Randy, just let Jack hold the gun until—”
“Shut up! I’m in charge here!”
Jack heard an engine rev. Through the open front door he could see headlights playing about the front yard.
“All right,” Leslie conceded, her voice controlled. “You’re in charge, Randy.” She and Stephanie stepped into the foyer. Leslie went to Randy and put an arm around him. “You’re in charge.” She stroked his shoulders. “You’re the one, Randy. Good job.” It seemed to settle him, at least make him reasonable.
Stephanie stood alone in the haze, clutching herself in fear. Her eyes were on those headlights sweeping around out front—
With a lurch, a rattle, and the growl of a half-muffled engine, the headlights lumbered over a flower bed, through a hedge, and onto the flagstone walk. From the fenders and the roundish cab stark against the stone wall, Jack realized it was an old pickup truck. It turned toward the house, disappearing behind the blinding headlights, backlighting a curtain of pouring rain. The light beams blasted through the front door, cutting a rectangular tunnel of brilliance through the smoke.
Jack found himself in that rectangle, his shadow extending behind him as he stood mesmerized, wondering, guessing—but only for an instant.
Whoever was driving that old heap opened the throttle. The vehicle lurched forward, accelerating up the flagstone walk.
Right for the front door.
“Look out! Look out!”
They scattered to the left and right, running for cover, knocking things over, tripping in the shadows and smoke.
Jack was close to the dining room and fled in that direction, the headlights burning against his back, his frantic shadow running in front of him.
The engine’s roar, the smashing and splintering of lumber, the screech of metal, the shattering of glass, the crunching of wallboard, trim, and fixtures, all melded into one bone-jarring, earsplitting crash as the truck climbed the steps, leaped over the veranda, and punched its way through the front wall of the house. Jack heard screams as he dived and hit the table as bits of wallboard, shards of vases, and a spray of rotten food rained down on him from a roiling cloud of plaster dust.
The skewed lights from the truck flickered, then died.
“Stephanie!” he yelled.
He pulled his feet under him and stood, unsteady, unsure which direction the foyer was. Turning, squinting, searching through the dark and dust, he sighted a fuzzy center of orange light bouncing and swinging in the haze. He followed it, stumbling on debris.
“Leslie!” Randy called, the light moving about in the murk as Randy searched. “Leslie!”
“Over here,” came Leslie’s voice.
The light zipped across Jack’s vision, across the foyer into the dining room.
“You’re bleeding,” Randy cried.
“Stephanie!” Jack called. “Are you all right?”
“I’m okay,” she answered, and then he saw her emerge as out of a fog, meeting him in the middle of the foyer. He held her and, under the circumstances, she let him.
The oil lamp returned to the foyer, floating in the cloud, held high in Randy’s hand. Randy was helping Leslie along with his other arm. She held a hanky to her forehead. A trickle of blood stained her right cheek, a mirror twin to the cut she’d sustained during dinner.
“I’m all right,” she kept insisting, as if trying to convince herself. “I’m all right. It’s just a scratch.”
Randy turned his lamp toward the damage. The front doorway was gone—no frame, no door, no lintel. Shards of glass, splintered molding, broken pottery, and dashed houseplants lay everywhere; puzzle pieces of wallboard dangled from shreds of wallpaper. In place of the door was the battered, crumpled nose of a brown truck, its windshield cracked like a collage of spiderwebs, the roof collapsed, the fenders folded back, the headlights broken and walleyed. Steam hissed from the radiator as water trickled onto the hardwood.
Randy let go of Leslie. “Where’s the shotgun?”
Nobody saw it.
Randy spun, casting the lamplight in all directions. The dust was still thick in the air. “Where’s the shotgun?”
He held the lamp high, letting the light penetrate the crack-webbed windshield and the collapsed cab.
No sign of the driver.
For several long seconds they stood in the gritty air with the taste of dust in their mouths and the pricking particles in their eyes—staring, disbelieving, and then realizing that the front wall had sagged and closed around the hulk of the truck, sealing off the exit.
Jack could read in their silence what he was feeling himself: the game had not ended. If anything, it was just beginning. “I think we should try to find that shotgun.”
“Find the shotgun,” Randy said, starting to search again.
“Looking for this?” came a rumbling voice out of the haze.
The other lamp came their way from the living room, illuminating two ghostly, furrowed faces. Betty was holding the light. Stewart was holding the shotgun, loading cartridges.
“You dropped it,” Stewart said, unhappy about it. “Is this how you treat other people’s property?”
Randy rolled his eyes and moved forward, shining the lamp in Stewart’s face. “We don’t have time for complaints, Stewart.”
Stewart brushed past him and perused the damage to the house, in no particular hurry. “Now look what you’ve done.” Outside, the rain intensified, pummeling the roof and pinging off the protruding bed of the truck. A strong gust blew in under the crumpled carriage and extinguished the flame in Randy’s lamp. He swore and set it down.
Randy pressed into Stewart’s space, reaching for the weapon. “He means business, Stewart. We can’t wait around—”
Stewart pumped the action and raised the barrel, pointing it at Randy’s chest.
Horrified, Randy bobbed, first down, then sideways. “Hey! What are you doing?”
Stewart kept the barrel aimed at his head. “One dead body, huh? Maybe it should be yours.”
Randy ducked again and ended up on the floor crawling, rolling, backing away while Stewart followed his every move, chuckling with wicked amusement.
“Yeah,” Stewart rumbled. “Crawl on the floor. Squirm. It’s right where you belong!”
Jack ticked off his options. Randy was on the floor between him and Stewart, which put Jack—and Stephanie, still clinging to him—only inches from Stewart’s line of fire. “Stewart, easy now . . . just take it easy.”
Stewart didn’t take his eyes or his shotgun off the cowering Randy. “Don’t worry. This punk’s not bothering me one bit.” Stewart turned to Randy, “Are you?”
Leslie sidled close to Betty and whispered, “Betty, can you talk to him?”
Betty just held the lamp high, seemingly mesmerized.
“Are you?” Stewart growled.
“No, no,” Randy said, his voice trembling.
“Betty,” Leslie whispered. “Do something.”
Betty looked at Leslie, then said to Stewart, “Stewart, don’t you make a big mess now.”
Leslie fell back, stunned. Jack searched the woman’s half-crazy eyes but could not read them.
“Up against the wall, all of you,” Stewart growled, swinging the barrel in an arc toward them.
“Wh-what?” Jack felt the same consternation he saw in the others’ faces. He raised his hands, not yet believing. “Stewart. What gives?”
“Against the wall!”
Leslie helped Randy off the floor. Jack guided Stephanie to the wall that separated the foyer from the dining room, putting himself between her and Stewart’s line of fire. They fell into place like four deserters before a firing squad.
“Stewart, I don’t want you ruining the plaster either,” Betty protested.
“Shut up!”
She took her place beside him and remained silent.
Stewart eyed them one by one with murder in his eyes. “You are the sorriest bunch of sinners I ever seen. Come in here acting like you own the place, all well-to-do like we can’t tell what lies you’re hiding. Filthy atheists! But you’re guilty! Guilty as sin!”
Leslie turned on her most soothing, professional tone. “Stewart, perhaps we owe you an apology—”
With a blinding flash and a deafening explosion that mingled with Leslie’s scream, Stewart ruined the plaster above Leslie’s head. She cowered, hands raised in pleading surrender. Randy grabbed her to keep her from falling. Stephanie collapsed against Jack’s legs, almost knocking him over.
“Oh, now you’ve done it,” Betty whined.
Stewart pumped the action again. “Stand up.”
Jack helped Stephanie to her feet but didn’t let go of her. Her hands quivered in his. His heart was pumping so furiously he could hear it in his skull.
Stewart waved the barrel back and forth, the very picture of murdering madness. He jerked his head at the crumpled wreck embedded in the entry. “We know all about this killer, more than you ever will, so we know it’s you that’s brought us the trouble. You brought it in here like a dog carrying fleas.”
“But we’re more than happy to leave,” said Jack. “Just let us go and—”
“Go? You think he’s gonna let anyone out of here? You ain’t goin’ anywhere till Mr. White gets what he wants.”
“But don’t you see? This is what he wants, for us to harm each other.”
“So what’s wrong with that?”
Randy looked to Betty. “Betty. You understand what’s going on, don’t you?” He nodded toward Stewart. “Tell him.”
She looked at the mangled truck and what was left of the front entry. “Tell him what?”
“Betty. Are you too stupid to—”
That got her attention. Her icy glare clipped his sentence like a pair of scissors. “What do you want me to say, smart boy? That we do what we have to do?” She eyed Jack. “That life’s just a big joke?”
“No . . . ,” Stephanie cried, her hand over her mouth.
Betty reached out and tucked a stray strand of blonde hair behind Stephanie’s ear. “Or maybe we should just sing a song and make the trouble go away.” Stephanie let go of Jack, doubled over, and retched.
“Betty,” Leslie said, her voice barely audible, “we’re all human beings here. We can be reasonable.”
“Human beings?” Betty looked injured. “Sweetheart, this is what human beings do.”
Stewart grabbed a fistful of Betty’s dress and yanked her back. “That’s enough talking. We got ourselves to think about.”
“As if I could think of anything else,” Betty murmured, sidling up to him.
“But you don’t all need to worry,” Stewart said. “Just one of you.”
8
JACK CONCENTRATED ON STEWART’S EYES, trying to detect the slightest hint of a bluff, a ruse, even a joke. The eyes were glassy, the red vessels distended, and behind them lay a darkness that was eerily familiar, like the hellish depths he’d seen through the window of the back door, through eyeholes cut in a metal mask.
This was no bluff.
Stewart wiggled the barrel toward the hall. “Get moving. Into the kitchen.”
Betty moved into the hallway, holding the lamp high, showing the dim way while casting long shadows. Jack exchanged a glance with the others, then followed, hands raised to indicate surrender, to prevent a haphazard shooting. They followed Betty in single file, first Jack, then Stephanie, Leslie, and Randy, all with hands raised. Stewart lumbered behind them, shotgun level.
Jack made a conscious effort to walk slowly, hoping the others were searching the hallway, the doorways, anywhere, just as he was, for any ideas on how to escape. There were plenty of places to flee from this hallway—the kitchen, the dining room, the stairs, the living room. Stewart couldn’t possibly contain all four of them if they bolted, and the darkness would hide them.
But Stewart could kill one for certain, two if he could pump another round in time, maybe three or even all four if they could find no other way out of the house.
Jack kept walking, looking, hoping, waiting for the moment.
They entered the kitchen, Stewart prodding them from behind.
“Betty,” Stewart rumbled, “open up the meat locker.”
Stephanie gasped then started bawling. “No. No . . .”
Stewart jabbed her with the shotgun and kept her moving.
Betty said nothing. She only scowled at them—and Stewart—as she went to the far end of the kitchen, raised the latch on a thick wooden door, and heaved the door open. Wisps of chilling fog poured into the kitchen and snaked along the floor.
“Nooo!” Stephanie tried to bolt, but Stewart grabbed a fistful of her long hair and yanked her back. She screamed, stumbling. Jack took hold of her, put her in front of him and out of Stewart’s reach, and stepped into the locker. The others followed, crowding and stumbling in the dark. Betty stepped in last, closing the door with a thud as the orange glow from the lamp filled the room.
The meat locker was much larger than Jack would have expected, made of sawn timber with bins and shelves for holding produce and slabs of meat. There was a huge ax hammer leaning against the far corner, the kind with one blunt end for knocking out cows and one sharp end for cutting their heads off. A bloodstained workbench featured an assortment of butcher knives and meat cleavers; meat hooks dangled from the ceiling.
Jack could see his breath. He rubbed his hands together for warmth.
We can’t run from here. We shouldn’t have let them take us this far. We should have tried something.
“Turn around, hands on the wall,” Stewart ordered, and the four faced the wall, hands raised and flat against the rough boards. They were frosty and bloodstained.
“What are you going to do?” Randy asked, his voice high and shaking.
“Can’t you read?” Stewart said. “What do you think we’re gonna do?”
Leslie began, “But we don’t deserve—” Stewart pressed the gun barrel against her neck, and she went no further.
“Another lie. Ain’t found a sinner yet who thought he deserved it, but they get it every time, now don’t they? You all deserve it.”
Jack peered over the women’s heads and met Randy’s eyes. They were frantic, vacant, like a trapped animal’s. Randy, come on. I need you to work the problem with me. We’re after an idea, any idea.
“But we can make this fair,” Stewart said. “The killer only wants one, so we’ll only take one.” He paced behind them, down to Randy, back up to Jack. “And we’ll even let you decide which one it’s gonna be.”
They glanced at one another. Stephanie was weeping now, her tears dripping onto the floor.
How could we possibly make that kind of decision? But this is life, right? Just one cruel absurdity after another, Jack thought. “You know we can’t do that.”
Stewart’s voice dropped an octave. “You don’t fool me. I know what you can and can’t do. I know what you are.”
Betty piped up, “No sense talking to him. He thinks it’s all a bad joke.”
“I don’t—”
“How about you, country star?” Stewart moved sideways, touching the barrel to the back of Stephanie’s neck, making her flinch. Her crying intensified. “You think there’s nobody here you wouldn’t trade for your own life? Know what I think we oughta do with you? Leave you right here to freeze to death, long and slow.”
“Please help me . . .”
“Now wouldn’t that be justice?”
“But it wasn’t my fault!” she screamed.
And then she looked at Jack.
