House of Reckoning

by John Saul

  Slowly, testing every step before she trusted her weight to it, she moved down the roof until she could steady herself against a large branch of the maple tree that overhung the roof. Then she was in the tree itself, climbing down the branches until she was at the lowest one. Once again she paused. It still wasn’t too late to turn back, to climb back up, creep across the roof, and slip into the shelter of the attic. She looked down at the ground, which now seemed much farther away than the seven or eight feet it actually was.

  Two feet, she told herself. That’s all it’ll be when I let go of the branch. But what if she broke her hip again?

  Don’t think about it!

  Steeling herself, she lowered herself from the branch until only her hands were clinging to the bark, offered a silent prayer to whatever god might be listening, and let go.

  Her good leg hit first, catching most of her weight, and there was just a small jolt of pain from her bad hip. She took a couple of deep breaths and limped toward the fog-haloed streetlight, away from the ugliness of the Garvey household and toward the sanctuary of Bettina Philips’s mansion.

  The fog rolling into the village had turned the quiet of the night into an eerie silence, and her ears strained to catch the slightest noise as she moved through the mist. The main street and the village square felt utterly abandoned, but a few moments after she passed the town’s lone tavern she heard it.

  The sound of feet.

  Someone was behind her.

  She stopped short, listening, but there was nothing.

  Except that she could still feel it.

  Should she turn around?

  No! Just keep going.

  She moved on, quickening her pace, but now she could hear something behind her as well as feel it.

  More footsteps.

  Following her?

  But why? Even if someone was behind her, it didn’t mean they were following her.

  Unless it was Conner West. Nick’s words echoed in her head: Conner said something about you, too. …

  Stupid! She was just being stupid and letting her imagination run away with her. There was nothing behind her—no one was following her. And even if there was, better to face it straight on than stand here in the thickening fog doing nothing.

  Steeling herself, willing her heart to stop pounding, Sarah suddenly whipped around.

  Nothing! No one! The sidewalk behind her was as empty as it was ahead, and the silence of the night was undisturbed.

  All she’d heard was the echo of her own footsteps bouncing off the storefronts.

  Or maybe nothing at all.

  But just as her pulse was slowing to normal, a car turned the corner a block ahead and began creeping slowly toward her. Sarah shrank into the doorway of a pottery shop, pressing as deeply into its shadows as she could and pulling the hood of her parka over her head. But if it was Mitch or Angie out looking for her—or even Conner West—what would she do?

  She couldn’t run … there was no place to hide—

  Panic began to rise in her again, and her heart was thudding so loudly she was certain that whoever was in the approaching car must hear it.

  And then the car was gone, passing her by, moving on, its taillights quickly vanishing in the fog.

  She moved along, keeping to the shadows and doing her best to make herself invisible.

  The sidewalk ended abruptly at the edge of town, and she stopped short, looking ahead at the road that quickly disappeared into the thick fog. The dark mists could be concealing anything—Conner and his friends could be waiting for her, and she’d never even see them. And even if she could, what difference would it make? She couldn’t run from them, and she didn’t even have anything to defend herself with.

  Maybe she should have stayed at home.

  Except it wasn’t home, and it never would be, and no matter how scared she was, she still had to talk to Bettina Philips.

  She had to go to Shutters.

  She stepped off the sidewalk onto the blacktop, taking one slow step at a time, feeling as if she herself was vanishing into the blackness.

  What if she missed the driveway to the mansion? What if she walked right past it and kept walking in freezing fog all the way to—

  To where? She didn’t even know what lay beyond Shutters except the lake.

  But she wouldn’t miss it, she told herself. She’d see the gate.

  She shoved her hands deep into her pockets and kept walking into the darkness.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Bettina Philips jerked awake, her heart pounding, her mind foggy. What was happening?

  Where was she?

  Then the feeling of disorientation passed. She was home, in her studio, and she’d just fallen asleep on the chaise while she was reading.

  Except she never fell asleep on the chaise, and as her mind focused, she realized that somehow, even now that she was awake, she didn’t feel at home.

  Something in the house was different; something had changed.

  With Forlorn clutched tight in her arms and Cooper close at her heels, Bettina opened the big doors to the conservatory and stepped out into the massive foyer.

  And stopped short.

  The great crystal chandelier hanging from the ceiling was swinging slowly, like a giant pendulum, its slow and rhythmic motion making the large chamber seem to come alive with slowly moving shadows.

  And now, from somewhere upstairs, Bettina could hear something.

  Something like voices.

  Maybe she should just leave and find somewhere else to spend the night.

  Yet even as the thought entered her mind, she found herself moving toward the stairs, as if drawn by an unseen magnet.

  On the first step, Forlorn tensed in her arms, then clawed his way free of her, leaping to the floor and disappearing through the dining room toward the bright light of the kitchen.

  Maybe, she thought, instead of going upstairs, she should simply follow the cat. But what good would that do? If a window had indeed broken upstairs, the fog and rain or snow shouldn’t be left to pour into the house just because she was feeling skittish.

  “You still with me, Coop?” she asked the dog, which was now sitting at her feet, looking anxiously up at her. “Well, let’s just get it over with then, okay?”

  Slowly, with one hand gliding on the smooth banister, her steps muffled in the carpeting, Bettina ascended the curving staircase to the second-floor landing.

  To the long hallway stretching out before her, which seemed to go on forever, with the stairs to the third floor at the far end.

  And all along the hallway, standing either slightly ajar or wide open, were all the bedroom doors that had been closed for years.

  That had been closed this morning, when she left the house.

  And yet everything seemed quiet.

  “Maybe it was nothing,” she whispered to the dog, but even before her voice died away, she heard it again.

  The same sound she’d heard downstairs a few moments ago.

  The same soft babbling that was still coming from above, but at the far end of the house.

  Cooper’s upper lip curled and a low growl rumbled in his throat.

  “Shhh,” she said, touching the dog on the top of his head in reassurance. “C’mon.”

  They moved down the hall and mounted the servants’ stairs to the third floor.

  Halfway up, a waft of frigid air—air that smelled as musty as the basement—stopped her short, but it was gone so quickly that a moment later Bettina wondered if she’d actually felt it at all. “Okay,” she whispered to Cooper, “we’ve done this before. It’s just Pyewackett and Rocky up here making mischief, right?” But even as she uttered the words, she didn’t believe them, and neither did Cooper.

  As on the second floor, all the doors were standing open, some only a crack, others flung wide.

  All except those to the huge old workroom at the far end of the hall where the staff had not only ironed and mended clothes, but hung laundry on days
when it was too wet or cold to hang it outside, and performed all the other tasks Bettina’s ancestor had demanded be done in the house rather than contracted out. Not only staff had worked in that room, but inmates of the prison as well. The doors to that room stood tightly closed, but from behind them came that same soft babble of voices.

  As if, after decades of empty silence, the vast room was once again filled with the staff and inmates who had labored there so long ago. As she moved down the corridor, Bettina found herself half expecting to hear the hiss of an old steam mangle, or the muttering of angry voices grumbling at the work being demanded of them. As she moved toward the doors, Cooper hung back, and once more a low growl rose in his throat.

  “It’s all right,” Bettina said, pausing for a moment to look back at the dog. “Come on!”

  She started once more toward the workroom, and a plume of thick white fog drifted into the hallway from under the door to the ballroom.

  “See?” she said. “That’s all it is—a window’s broken, and the fog’s drifting in.”

  Cooper only took a step backward.

  “C’mon, sissy,” Bettina said, squaring her shoulders and marching resolutely toward the workroom.

  But as she was reaching for the handle, the open door to the room on her left suddenly slammed shut with a crash that made her jump and whirl around.

  Then the door on the other side crashed closed, too, and Bettina moved instinctively back the way she’d come. Cooper was barking loudly now, and from somewhere down below she could hear Rocky starting to howl.

  Bettina quickened her step and in a moment was running down the corridor as doors slammed shut on both sides.

  Herded, she thought. It’s like I’m being herded away.

  She came to the top of the stairs as the last of the doors slammed shut, and began hurrying down, taking the steps two at a time, Cooper ahead of her. Halfway down, though, the dog stumbled, then rolled on down to the bottom. “Coopie!” Bettina cried, but even before the echo of her voice died away, the dog was back on his feet, racing away.

  Bettina followed him down to the second-floor landing and hadn’t taken more than two steps toward the main stairs when the doors on both sides of her slammed shut, the heavy oak panels banging their jambs so hard she couldn’t believe the frames didn’t shatter. Cooper was already at the next flight of stairs, looking back at her, his tail down even though his head was thrown back as he howled at her, and Bettina began running again. By the time she reached the stairs, her ears were ringing from the crashing of wood against wood, and she plunged down, no longer worrying about tripping, no longer even thinking about falling. All she wanted now was to get out.

  The whole house seemed to have come alive, and she could hear doors slamming everywhere, and from above, the babble of voices was growing louder.

  It wasn’t the wind—whatever was in the house wasn’t the wind at all. And whatever it was, it was coming for her now. She could feel it—an almost palpable force raging through the house.

  What should she do? Where should she go?

  She turned automatically toward the conservatory, but its door slammed shut even as she moved in that direction, and she turned away again.

  The dining room! The dining room and the kitchen beyond! But those doors slammed shut, too, and finally there was no choice left. She raced toward the front door, the chandelier swinging madly above her, doors and windows slamming everywhere around her. Where was Cooper? And Rocky and Pyewackett?

  But it didn’t matter—all that mattered now was that she get out.

  Get out while she still could.

  If she still could.

  She was still ten feet from the door when a new sound came.

  Bells! Great, resounding bells, as if some monstrous clock were striking the darkest hour of the night. Bettina froze, and the bells kept pealing, but as they rose, the cacophony in the house began to die away.

  The crash of slamming doors stopped.

  The babble of voices fell silent.

  The chandelier stopped swinging.

  And the bells—the great pealing chimes—softened, too.

  The doorbell!

  All she had heard was the doorbell.

  Bettina stared at the door for a long moment.

  The bell rang again, and then came a knocking sound, but a knocking that quickly grew into a terrible pounding.

  And suddenly Bettina knew.

  Whatever was outside was something the house was expecting.

  It was as if the house had been preparing itself for this visitor.

  As if the house wanted this visitor.

  The pounding started again, growing until it sounded as if a battering ram were pummeling the wooden door. The very rafters of the house trembled with each slam that threatened to splinter the door and let whatever was out there inside, whether Bettina opened the door or not. But as the pounding grew steadily louder, Bettina also knew that it was no longer up to her whether she opened the door.

  Moved by a force she was powerless to resist, she walked to the door, unbolted it, and pulled it open.

  Sarah Crane stood shivering on the doorstep, her small fist raised for another rap on the doorjamb.

  An hour later Bettina and Sarah sat in the quiet of the conservatory. The house was silent around them, and the fog outside had cleared. A nearly full moon hung over the lake, whose watery surface glistened as if covered with a pavement of diamonds. Bettina had listened quietly to everything Sarah told her, only interrupting to occasionally ask a question. The fear Bettina had felt just before Sarah arrived—the utter terror that seized her as the house seemed to be trying to drive her out into the night—had vanished; the old house felt as safe and comforting as ever, as if it were dozing in a quiet somnolence.

  Now, as the clock in the entry hall struck midnight, Sarah looked uncertainly at her. “What’s happening?” she asked. “What does it mean?”

  Instead of answering, Bettina countered with her own question. “Would you be comfortable sleeping here tonight?”

  Without any hesitation, Sarah nodded. “I like this house. It feels—” She fell silent for a moment as she searched for the right word. “—it just feels good,” she at last went on. “Like I belong here.”

  “Well, then, that’s settled,” Bettina said. “And considering what time it is, I think we’d better get both ourselves to bed.”

  Sarah shook her head. “I want to draw,” she said. Then: “Is that weird? Wanting to draw even though I’m so tired I can hardly stay awake?”

  “Not weird at all,” Bettina replied. “I’d say it’s more like talent. Talent that won’t be denied. So if you want to draw, draw. And I’ll put on another pot of tea.”

  Sarah shrugged out of the afghan she’d wrapped around her shoulders when she first came in, got up and walked over to the easel. She pinned a fresh sheet of paper to it and picked up a charcoal pencil.

  Bettina waited until Sarah had made the first mark on the paper, then headed for the kitchen to set the water boiling. She had no idea what Sarah was going to draw tonight, but she knew that whatever it might be, it was important.

  And in some way she didn’t yet understand, it was connected to the house.

  Her house.

  This house.

  Fire!

  Nick Dunnigan was choking on the roiling billows of black, acrid smoke that seared his lungs as flames charred the edges of his jeans, melted the rubber on his tennis shoes, and began licking up his legs. His nostrils filled with the stench of burning flesh and he lashed out at the flames with his foot, trying to kick himself free of the fire. Then he tried to turn and run, but his feet would no longer move.

  He was going to die!

  Die right here, die in flames, die with his breath burning inside his body as his skin peeled away and the thin layer of fat beneath started to melt and then burst into flames, and then he would actually be the fire and—and—He thrashed, thrashed as hard as he could to get his feet loose,
and then, abruptly, everything changed.

  He came awake, opened his eyes and saw white.

  White everywhere.

  Then it came back to him—he was in the hospital, and the bedcovers were tucked in too tight, and he couldn’t get them free. He tried to reach down to pull the covers loose, and a wrenching pain tore through his side.

  He reflexively tried to put his hand to the pain, but his forefinger had something taped to it and he got his hands entangled in a mess of tubes and wires. His head still hurt, too. In fact, it hurt worse than ever, pounding at him so hard that the blinding white of the room pulsated with each hammering heartbeat.

  The painkiller they’d given him hadn’t killed any pain at all; instead it had just given him nightmares.

  Nick sank back into his pillow and closed his eyes against the blinding white of the room. Perspiration trickled down the side of his face and into his ear, and now his head was starting to feel like it was going to explode.

  He felt around on the bed for the button that would call the nurse, but before he found it a different light—a bright orange light—flickered through his closed eyelids.

  He squinted against the throbbing in his head and reopened his eyes.

  Flames—real flames!—were burning at the bottom of the draperies. All the fear he’d felt in the nightmare flooded back over him as the fire climbed quickly to the ceiling, then started creeping toward him, blackening the acoustic tiles, then devouring them to feed its insatiable hunger.

  Then one of the flaming ceiling tiles dropped away and Nick watched helplessly as it fell to the foot of his bed.

  The white blanket burst into flames.

  But this time he was awake.

  This time it was no dream!

  He tried to scream, tried to call out for help, but his voice was drowned out by the screaming voices that had suddenly risen in his head, all of them panicked, all of them shouting at him.

  He tried to push himself up the bed, tried to pull his feet away from the flames, but the covers were pulled so tight he couldn’t move. Now the fire was burning through the blanket and sheet and boring deep into the mattress.

  “Help me!” he screamed, his strength already failing him, but it was too late—he knew it was too late. The flames were all around him now, rising up like some great beast, towering over him, and he could feel his face starting to burn.