by Diane Hoh
She walked over to it and tried the knob. Locked. Maybe it was always locked. Or maybe he had locked it, as he had all the other doors, and had the key on him.
That would explain a lot. If the cellar had an outside entrance, he could have been going in and out that way the whole time, using the back staircase. Even the heavy dresser hadn’t stopped him.
He must be strong, Molloy thought, nausea rising in her as she turned away from the door.
A sudden image of Daisy climbing through the window and dropping to the ground appeared in Molloy’s mind. That was quickly followed by the sight of the dresser moved away from the staircase.
Oh, no. Oh, no! Daisy? Had he gone after Daisy?
I went into the library, Molloy thought, her eyes widening in dread, and then I heard those scuffling noises, and now the dresser isn’t barring the staircase. She leaned against the stove. Was that why Daisy hadn’t come back yet? Hadn’t she been gone an awfully long time?
Oh, he didn’t, he didn’t, she thought almost in prayer. Daisy was our only hope. He didn’t follow her, chase her through the woods, catch her, and hurt her like he did Lynne and Toni. I won’t believe that. I can’t!
But if he had … if he had, then he knew that she was the only one left still standing in his way. With Daisy, and then Molloy, eliminated, he could stay in the house as long as he liked. Or at least until the roads were open again.
If he had gone after Daisy, had he come back to the house yet? If he hadn’t, maybe she could keep him out. She could put something in front of the cellar door, in front of all the doors, and over the bare kitchen window, to keep him out.
Molloy laughed softly, bitterly. Get real, she told herself in disgust. How do you expect to do it by yourself? You couldn’t lift anything heavy enough to keep him out.
She thought she heard something then, a soft, rustling sound from over her head. A tree branch brushing against a shutter outside?
How long would he wait before he came after her?
Why didn’t he just leave?
But she knew he wouldn’t. He was angry with them, with all of them, for disturbing his hideaway. If they stayed, he would have to leave his nice, safe refuge and go out into that awful storm, try to find another place to hide until he could leave town. That must have made him furious, or he wouldn’t have done what he did to Lynne.
And now, he was punishing them. They were interlopers, intruders, and he couldn’t forgive that. So he had trapped them inside this place and punished them, one by one.
She was the only one left.
How was she going to protect herself from him?
Molloy heard the sound again. This time, it seemed louder, not so much a rustling noise as a feeble scratching, like fingers on sandpaper. It wasn’t coming from upstairs. It sounded very close … in this room somewhere.
There it was again, slightly louder this time.
Molloy took a few steps forward. The glow of the candle flickered across her face, turning it an eerie yellow. She was confused, uncertain.
Maybe it was him, trying to trick her. He’d draw her close to wherever he was, and then he’d lunge at her. She wouldn’t stand a chance against the kind of strength it must have taken to move that dresser.
But the scratching noise grew louder, began to sound frantic. Molloy, her eyes on the far end of the kitchen where the noise seemed to be coming from, wished fervently that she had Lynne’s baseball bat. She had to have something.
She grabbed a kitchen pot from the counter. It wasn’t much but it would have to do.
The noise was coming from behind the louvered doors that hid the laundry equipment. That was a large enough closet to hide even a big person. Was he in there? Trying to trick her?
The pot, hard and solid though it was, suddenly seemed harmless and useless.
But Molloy walked slowly, quietly, over to the doors, her socked feet sliding on the cold tile.
She slid the door on the left side open a fraction of an inch at a time.
“Help me,” a voice whispered, so weakly that at first Molloy thought she’d imagined it. “Someone help me, please.”
The voice didn’t sound masculine. And although the announcer on the portable radio hadn’t said whether or not police knew the gender of the psychologist’s killer she didn’t know many girls who could have hefted that dresser alone.
So, when the voice came again, whispering, “Please! please!,” Molloy, hoisting the metal pot above her head, shoved open both louvered doors.
There was nothing there but a mop and a broom, shelves holding laundry supplies and baskets, and the white, oversized, washer and dryer.
But Molloy still heard the noise. Tapping. Tap, tap, tap. Weakly, but steadily. Tap, tap, tap. Like … like fingers on glass.
Molloy bent at the waist, her eyes focusing on the washing machine’s glass front.
And screamed at the sight of hair, wet and straight, plastered to a face streaked with mud and blood, the eyes glassy with terror and desperation.
Molloy’s legs gave, and she sank to the floor, her face now level with the face in front of her. In spite of the mud, in spite of the blood, in spite of the way the glass distorted the features, she knew that face well.
She had found Toni.
Chapter 22
MOLLOY ROUSED HERSELF FROM her shock enough to yank open the glass door of the front-loading washing machine.
“Can you move?” Molloy asked. “I want to get you out of there, but I’m afraid you might have some broken bones from the fall.”
Toni opened swollen lips. “Out,” was the most she could manage. “Out.”
Molloy got her out.
She half-slid, half-pulled, Toni from the washer. She was careful, gentle, but still Toni’s face twisted in pain, and she cried out twice.
“I can’t believe you’re alive,” Molloy said in awe as Toni collapsed to the floor. “We saw you fall from the window. But by the time we got out there, you were gone. This is where he brought you?”
“No.” The left side of Toni’s face was badly swollen, her lips puffy. Talking was difficult for her. “Into cellar. Later, up here.”
“You could have suffocated in there.” Molloy checked for broken bones. The left wrist hung at an odd angle. Definitely broken. Her eyes scanned the kitchen for something to place under Toni’s head. “I’m going to get you a pillow. Be right back.”
Toni screamed. She clutched the edge of Molloy’s long skirt. “Don’t! Leave! No!”
“I’m sorry.” Molloy turned, knelt beside her terrified friend. “I won’t, I won’t leave, it’s okay, I’m right here.”
But Toni was shaking violently, from shock and pain and cold. And terror. It was clear that the thought of being left alone in the kitchen scared her to death.
“You’ve got to be covered up,” Molloy said. “I think you’re in shock.” Toni looked so small, lying there on the faded linoleum. Molloy thought about that for a second. Toni was small. And lightweight. “I’ll carry you. We’ll snatch one of those big, white cloths off the furniture, and a pillow off the couch, and then we’ll come back here.”
Toni shook her head, wincing in pain. “No.”
“Yes,” Molloy said firmly.
She picked up Toni, who weighed more than usual in her damp clothing, and staggered down the hall into the library, where she grabbed a large, white furniture drape and a pillow from the couch.
Molloy was listening, with every difficult step she took, for the sound of danger approaching.
But they made it back to the kitchen without incident.
If he was back inside the house, he was staying hidden.
She wondered if wherever he was, he was watching them. Was that possible? The thought made her skin crawl.
Once Toni was lying on the floor, snugly wrapped, her head on a worn print pillow, Molloy propped a wooden kitchen chair under the back door knob, another at the cellar door, talking all the while, reassuring Toni, who seemed to be driftin
g in and out of consciousness. “Daisy went for help,” she said with false cheerfulness as she secured the back door, then the cellar door. “She should be back any minute now, so you just rest and I’ll take care of everything, okay?” She didn’t add that she feared the killer had followed Daisy out of the house.
It wasn’t until Molloy turned away from the cellar door that, in the shadows drawn across the floor by the candlelight, she noticed the footprints.
Fresh, muddy footprints. Big ones. They led … she looked, following the prints with her eyes … into the bedroom. And, although she didn’t check, she knew they probably led up the back staircase.
Unless he was hiding, this very minute, in the bedroom.
Molloy stared down at the footprints. They hadn’t been there when she tried the cellar door a little while ago.
She almost laughed, bitterly, aloud. She was too late with the chair propped under the doorknob. He’d already come back in.
When, she wanted to scream, when did you come back in? I’ve been right here, in the kitchen …
But she had left it, to carry Toni into the library.
Just for a few minutes, she argued angrily.
A few minutes would have been enough. Hadn’t she already decided that he had keys to the doors? How long did it take to turn a key, open a door, and dart into the bedroom and up the back staircase? He could have glanced in through any of the windows, seen that the kitchen was empty, decided to make his move.
He was in the house again.
She could tell that he hadn’t climbed in through their broken window. There were no muddy prints near the sink. He’d have been concerned about being caught in the act if he struggled in that way. Besides, she told herself, he’s probably been going in and out through that cellar door the whole time.
She wasn’t as stunned as she might have been. Hadn’t she known he wasn’t through in this house? She turned away from the cellar door, leaving the chair in place. Hadn’t she known that he wouldn’t leave without punishing her, too, for intruding on his hideout? For spoiling things for him?
If you thought anything different, she told herself, you’re a fool.
He must have overheard Daisy saying she was leaving, and followed her. If he’d caught up with her, if he’d done something terrible to her. … Daisy had been their only hope. No one would be coming to Nightmare Hall to help now, and he knew that. He could take his time now.
But sooner or later, he would come after her. If she propped a chair in front of the back staircase door, he’d just come down the front staircase. And that one was too wide to barricade.
I am not, she thought, her teeth clenched, going to sit here and wait for him to show up.
While she rummaged through the drawers in search of something, anything, to use against him, she continued to talk soothingly to Toni, who made no response.
Ernie and Simon took the back road to Nightmare Hall, on foot. Ernie was afraid a car might get stranded in high water. “Besides,” he added, “it’s faster through the woods, on foot.” Because Simon was with him, Ernie had left the weights behind. Two against one. Not bad odds, even if the “one” was a killer.
They emerged, soaking wet and muddy, a short distance from the two cars parked on the dirt road, one in the ditch, one in the middle of the road.
“Dammit, I knew it!” Ernie cried, breaking into a run. “That’s Lynne’s new car!”
While he ran for the Camry, Simon approached the police car.
“They’re not here,” Ernie called a moment later. He slammed the door shut. “They must have hiked out on foot.” He glanced up the hill. “Isn’t Nightmare Hall up there? They’re up there. I know it. But Reardon must be, too. Why didn’t he call in, say he’d found them? He knew how worried I was.”
“Ernie,” Simon called, “you’d better take a look at this.”
Ernie hurried to the police car. Simon was sitting on the front seat, holding up a handful of loose wires. “No radio,” he said heavily. “Someone yanked it out.” He glanced up at Ernie. “Not a good sign, Ern.”
Ernie struggled to collect his thoughts. He’d found out too many things at the same time, none of them good. Lynne’s car was in the ditch. The four girls were gone. So was Reardon. “He probably followed them up the hill,” Ernie said. “But …”
“But maybe somebody followed him? Is that what you’re thinking? Someone ripped out his radio and then went after him?”
“Or was waiting for him up there, stopped him from finding Molloy and the others, and then came down and ripped out the wires. Either way, it’s not good.”
A moan from the back seat startled them. Simon jumped out of the car, his body tensed, his hands raised in defense. “What was that?”
Ernie moved to the back door, peered in through the window.
A girl lay on the floor of the back seat.
“It’s Daisy! She’s hurt.” Ernie yanked the door open, crawled into the back seat. “Daisy? Daisy, wake up! Are you alright?” He lifted her up onto the seat, shook her gently, tugged on the wet sleeve of her coat. “Daisy?”
She opened her eyes, put her hands to her throat, rubbing gingerly. “Ernie? Is that you?” Her voice was as hoarse as the croak of a frog. She sagged against him, tears beginning to flow freely. “I’m not dead? Ernie, I’m not dead! I thought …”
“No, you’re not dead. Where’s Molloy, Daisy? And Lynne and Toni?”
Still crying with shock and relief, Daisy waved a hand toward Nightmare Hall “Up there.” She shuddered. “It’s a horrible, horrible place! And he’s up there. He hit Lynnie over the head when she was getting wood. She’s probably dead by now, because I didn’t get help in time. And he pushed Toni out of a window and now we can’t find her …”
“Whoa,” Ernie said, trying to grasp what she was saying. “Take it easy. You’re safe now.” But when her words registered and he realized the meaning of them, he had to fight to maintain control of his emotions. Lynne and Toni were hurt and Daisy was down here? Molloy was in that house alone with a killer?
If he got his hands on the maniac who had done all of this. …
“Where’s Reardon, Daisy? The cop. This is his car.”
“What? Oh, the policeman. We don’t know. He went upstairs, he wouldn’t let us come with him, and we thought now we were okay because a policeman was there, but then there was this awful sound from upstairs somewhere, maybe the attic, and he never came back down.” Daisy had been leaning against Ernie’s chest. She raised her head and, still holding a hand to her throat said, “I pretended I was already dead. I went as limp as I could and it worked. He thought he’d finished me off. I guess I thought he had, too. Ernie,” she clutched at his jacket with her free hand, “you have to do something! We heard about the murder on the radio. I’m sure it’s him, I’m sure it is, and Molloy is up there all alone with him!”
“I’ll go for help,” Simon said abruptly. “On foot, since we don’t have the keys to this thing. You go on up to the house, Ernie, see if you can find Molloy. But take it easy, okay? Don’t be a hero. Just get her out of there and let the cops find that guy later.”
“Oh, no,” Daisy cried, bolting upright. “You’re not leaving me here alone! He could come back.”
“You don’t have to go on foot,” Ernie said, disentangling Daisy’s hand from his jacket. “I know how to start the car. You can drive it to get help. If you can get through. Take Daisy with you.”
He helped Daisy out of the back seat and into the front. Then he fumbled with wires until the engine chugged and roared. Simon got in, Ernie got out. He stood watching as Simon drove off slowly toward town.
He’ll never get through, Ernie thought despondently. The storm hasn’t let up. The roads couldn’t be clear yet. But maybe he can find a house with a working telephone.
Knowing the chances of that happening were slim, Ernie turned and started making his way up the hill.
In the kitchen, Molloy unearthed a piece of clothesline from th
e back of a shelf in the laundry area, and glanced down at Toni. Her eyes were closed. Was she asleep? Or unconscious?
Not bothering with one of the candles, she darted out of the kitchen, ran down the hall to the stairs, and knelt on the sixth step from the bottom. Using her hands as eyes, she tied one end of the clothesline around the bottom of one railing support and stretched the rope as taut as she could before tying the other end around an opposite support. Even if he had a light of some kind, he might not notice the rope stretched across the stair. He’d trip over it, and she’d hear the commotion when he fell.
If she only had the baseball bat. What had Lynne done with it? The last time Molloy remembered seeing it, hadn’t they been in the library? Did she have time to hunt for it?
It could be anywhere, even up in the attic. And if Toni awoke and no one was there, she’d panic.
I could take the frying pan off the broken door window, she told herself, checking the rope one last time to make sure it was tight. Then, if I hear him fall, I can hit him with the pan before he has a chance to get up.
It was a terrible plan. He had shoved aside the dresser and his footprints were huge. He had to be bigger and stronger than she was.
Maybe she could think of something better. If she only had more time. Where was he? What was he doing? How much longer would he wait before coming after her? What would he do to Toni when Molloy was dead? Was Lynne still alive up there? What had he done to the policeman?
She had to get back to Toni. Molloy got up from the stairs and moved toward the kitchen, but when she passed the telephone table, she impulsively reached down and lifted the receiver one more time.
A hand came over her mouth, another came from behind to encircle her waist in an iron grip, and a husky voice said in her ear, “You’re trespassing on my property, so you don’t get to use the phone. You don’t get to do anything. Except die.”