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In the pantry, Annabel and Jack watched from a crack in the door.
“Mmm,” Annabel moaned, Jack’s hand still pressed over her mouth.
“Shh,” he growled at her.
Annabel watched in despair as Cindy approached the policeman. She could see the knife she carried behind her back, even if the poor man did not. How Annabel wanted to warn him. But Jack would break her neck if she made a sound. She truly believed he would.
But the policeman had a gun. He could shoot Cindy if she tried to attack him. Jack, too. He could put an end to all of this madness.
What did it matter if Annabel died? She was going to die in this house anyway. If she made some kind of a sound, there was a chance that the policeman could shoot Jack before he had a chance to kill her. Staying silent simply prolonged her misery. Making noise gave her a chance—a slim chance, but a chance nonetheless. And if she died, so be it.
She couldn’t live in this hellhole much longer.
Jack held Annabel in a vise grip in front of him, preventing her from moving her arms. His hand was secured over her mouth.
But he hadn’t counted on her feet.
She was still wearing his clunky boots. They were loose. If she could shake one off . . .
Annabel lifted her right foot up to the side. She kicked.
The boot remained on her foot. If she tried again, Jack might notice.
But she had to try. She lifted her foot again. And kicked doubly hard.
The boot flew off her foot and crashed into a low shelf of glass jars containing Cordelia’s preserves. Apricots and strawberries smashed all onto the floor.
112
Adam heard the sound and swung his gun around in the direction of the pantry. As he did so, the woman in front of him lunged at him with a knife.
He fired wildly, pumping the kitchen ceiling full of lead.
The woman’s knife made contact with his arm, cutting through his coat and slicing into his flesh.
Adam spun back around, slugging the woman, sending her flying and the knife skittering across the floor.
He kicked open the door to the pantry.
“Ms. Wish!” he exclaimed.
Jack let her go.
“Mr. Devlin,” Adam said, trying to make sense of things. “Come on out of there, please. I’d like to know what’s going on here.”
113
Annabel’s relief and gratitude were short-lived. Behind Adam she saw Cindy stand up. Dear God, what kind of strength did she have? Adam had just knocked her out cold.
What kind of power did this house give to people?
Annabel saw Cindy stand and grab her knife off the floor....
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“No!” Ms. Wish suddenly screamed, looking be-Nhind him.
Adam turned in time to see the woman back on her feet, coming at him with the knife. He swung his gun around—
But it was too late.
The knife plunged deep into Adam’s gut. He gasped and buckled forward.
Devlin began punching him. Adam fell to the ground. The last thing he saw was the knife above him, coming down at his throat.
115
Annabel saw Cindy bring the knife down onto the policeman, then pull it up again, then plunge it down again, repeating this several times, each time dripping more blood.
“Okay, honey, enough now,” Jack was saying to her gently.
“I have to cut him up,” Cindy said, like an eager child.
Jack tenderly lifted her off the twitching, bloody corpse. “No, Cindy, you don’t have to do that. From now on, I’ll take care of feeding the house. Do you understand, baby?”
Cindy looked up at him with sad eyes. “They don’t need me anymore,” she whimpered.
“Oh, honey baby, the house will always need you.” Jack pulled her into an embrace, stroking her stringy gray hair.
“They’re my only friends,” Cindy cried against his chest.
“No, baby, I’m your friend, too. And Annabel—”
But Annabel had just bolted.
She ran out of the kitchen into the parlor. She couldn’t have gone out the back way. Jack would have gotten her. Her only hope was to go out through her window upstairs, as she’d originally planned. She still had the snowmobile keys zipped in her pocket. Even if she couldn’t get very far on it, Annabel was certain now more policemen were on their way. She just had to get out of the house before Jack or Cindy could get her.
Or worse—she could be caught by Tommy Tricky and his brothers.
She ran up the stairs and turned the corner into the corridor.
But she didn’t get very far.
A hand suddenly reached out and clamped itself over her mouth. Before she knew what was happening, she was pulled into a dark closet by a very strong pair of arms.
116
Richard kissed her to make sure she didn’t scream out.
Annabel shuddered in his arms, still full of terror. He moved his lips off her.
“It’s okay,” he whispered in her ear. “It’s going to be okay.”
In the very dim light of the linen closet, Richard saw Annabel’s eyes sparkle with sudden surprise and relief. “Richard,” she said, as the tenseness in her body relaxed. “You’re alive!”
He grunted. “Well, my face is never going to be the same, and I think I broke my ankle, and I can’t feel my left hand, but yes, I’m alive.”
He smiled.
“Thank God,” Annabel said, looking up at his face. “Oh, Richard, you’re all cut and swollen.”
She tried to touch him and he flinched. The pain was quite severe now. Only as his body had warmed did he begin to feel just how injured he was.
He had come to under the snow. How very peaceful it had been down there. On some primal level, Richard had wanted to stay right where he was. He was fading in and out of consciousness, and he wasn’t unhappy. He wasn’t uncomfortable. But he would die if he stayed where he was. He was, in fact, slowly freezing to death. The thought had startled him back to full consciousness, and Richard had begun to scrape his way out of the snow.
It hadn’t been easy. The snow was hardening, and he was stuck headfirst in it. At first, it had been almost impossible to move his arms. He pushed and elbowed as best he could, and kicked as hard as he could muster with his legs. Finally, he created enough space around him to move, to shift his position. He swallowed a lot of snow in the process.
He was bleeding from his face and neck. The impact had cut and scraped him pretty badly, but he hadn’t felt much pain at first. He was too cold. He was too numb. Clawing his way out of the snowbank, he had stood up and looked around. That was when he felt the first pain—in his ankle. He didn’t think it was the fall that had done it, but rather the way Devlin had slammed him into the wall.
The man was going to pay.
Richard noticed another snowmobile was now parked out in front. Could it be one of his officers, come looking for him? Or was it someone else?
He could take no chances. Knowing that Devlin might be watching him, Richard crunched through the snow to the back of the house, where he spotted a rainspout. He tested it, determined it was strong enough, and he began to climb. The angle made it impossible to be seen from any window of the house. Once he was close enough to a window, Richard used the butt of his gun to smash his way in.
He always traveled with a spare gun.
Stepping through the broken window, aware that the sound could bring Devlin running, Richard steadied himself, his weapon in both hands, raised in front of him. He was aware that Devlin might have his other gun, the one he’d lost when he’d been taken unawares. That had never happened before to Richard, ever, in his career. He was known for being very swift, very agile, able to turn on a dime. But Devlin seemed to possess some kind of strength that Richard had not expected.
So he was extra cautious as he made his way down the hall.
That was when he had heard the screaming and crying from downstairs and the scam
pering of feet. He’d backed into the open linen closet so he wouldn’t be seen. In seconds, Annabel had come running by. Now he held her, trembling in his arms.
“Does he have the gun?” Richard whispered in her ear.
“Not at the moment,” Annabel told him. “But I’m sure he’ll get it.”
“Where is it?” he asked. “Do you know?”
“I had it for a while, but he knocked it away from me. It was on the floor in the bedroom.”
“Let’s go,” Richard said. “If it’s there, we’ll get it. If not, well, he can keep it. Shoot himself with it, for all I care. Either way, you and I are going out the window.” He looked down at her. “You still have the keys to the snowmobile?”
“Yes.” Annabel gripped his coat and looked up at him. “But Richard, you need to know what’s happened here. Terrible things.”
“What kind of terrible things?” he asked.
She shuddered. “Adam’s dead.”
“Adam—?”
“Cindy killed him.”
“Cindy?” Richard looked down at the terrified woman in his arms. “That was the name of Devlin’s sister, the little girl who died. . . .”
“She’s alive. She’s the woman I told you about. She’s been living here. Completely insane.”
“So she’s the killer.”
Annabel looked as if she’d cry. “Yes, but no . . .”
“Annabel, what do you mean?”
“Oh, Richard, it’s the house. There are things that live in this house . . . creatures who come up through the fireplace. . . .”
She was delirious. And who wouldn’t be, after everything she’d been through?
“Come on, Annabel,” he said. “We’re getting out of here.”
“They’ll get us, Richard! The little men! Tommy Tricky and his friends!”
“Calm down, Annabel. Stay behind me at all times.” He nudged the door of the closet open just a crack, getting a look down the corridor. “We’re just going across the way and into the bedroom, then out the window.”
“But Richard . . .”
“Listen to me. We’re going out the window and then onto the little roof over the porch. From there it’s an easy jump to the snow, and at that point we can move pretty quickly to the snowmobile in the tracks that I made getting here.”
“Richard, they’re not going to let us leave. . . .”
“You mean Jack and his sister?”
“No. The little men.”
Richard looked at her. It was best not to argue with her at this point.
“Come on, Annabel,” he said, pushing open the door. “Let’s go.”
117
Annabel followed Richard out of the closet.
Where were Jack and Cindy? Lurking somewhere, Annabel was certain. They would pounce on them. But even worse—
The little men.
They’ll put us down the fireplace!
“Come on,” Richard urged in a harsh whisper, and they ran across the hall.
As they rushed into the bedroom, they could see the window. There was no gun in sight, but all that really mattered was that they reach the window. The window meant freedom. For half of a second, Annabel’s spirits leapt. She believed they would escape.
But then Tommy Tricky dropped from the ceiling onto Richard’s back.
He must have been sitting on the top of the opened door, waiting, watching.
He plunged his long sharp claws into Richard’s neck. Richard screamed.
“I don’t like it when you don’t believe in me, Richard,” the little imp said in his high-pitched doll’s voice.
Annabel screamed at the same time Richard did. Blood squirted from the chief’s neck like water from a leaky pipe.
Richard grabbed his neck and in doing so, he knocked the little man from his shoulders. Tommy had only a second to look up at him and hiss through his sharp, clenched teeth when Richard aimed his gun at him and fired.
The little man exploded in a mess of blue blood and plasma.
“Richard, are you all right?” Annabel said, rushing to him.
“I think so,” he said, more dazed and shocked by the creature than the attack itself. He kept looking down at the bubbling ooze on the floor.
“It’s not possible,” he said. “That thing—”
Finally, he pulled his eyes away and grabbed Annabel by the wrist.
“Come on, let’s go!”
But when they looked toward the window they saw little men were now crawling all over it. The creatures were coming out of the woodwork. Literally. Floorboards raised. Panels in the walls opened. And the little men stepped out, their fierce blue eyes trained on Annabel and Richard.
“Through the other window!” Richard shouted, pulling Annabel out of the room and into the corridor.
The moment they stepped out of the room, however, every door along the hall slammed shut. They were left in semidarkness. Richard tried the door to his left. It was locked. Annabel tried the one opposite. That one, too, wouldn’t budge.
“Look, Richard!” Annabel suddenly shouted.
Marching up the stairs and into the hallway was an army of six more little men. They all looked nearly identical, with little blue pinched faces and blue teeth and blue rags as clothes. They were all gnashing their teeth.
“Shoot them, Richard!” Annabel screamed.
He was firing even before the words were out of her mouth. The first two creatures exploded like their fallen comrade, but those in the back suddenly leapt to the walls, crawling like spiders, still coming toward their prey. Richard fired again, but the creatures easily darted away, and the bullet simply tore open a portion of the wall. Another of the little men was now on the ceiling, and as Annabel looked up at it, it dropped down on her.
Clinging to her shoulders, face-to-face with her, Tommy Tricky laughed. “I like eating bad little girls,” he hissed.
Annabel screamed.
Richard knocked the thing to the floor with the butt of his gun, and then shot it. Once more, Annabel watched it bubble into a blue goo.
But the other three were now clawing up Richard’s leg. He shook one off, sending it flying through the air. He shot it before it hit the wall, a messy blue explosion in mid-flight.
But the other one was now crawling up his torso. And the final little man had jumped off Richard and onto Annabel’s arm.
Suddenly she got angry.
“You filthy bastard!” she bellowed, and whipped her arm around, crashing the creature into the wall. She took delight in seeing the way its blue teeth smashed on impact. The thing fell in a dazed lump to the floor.
Richard swatted the thing off his torso, shot it, and then did the same to the creature Annabel had dispatched.
“What are these fucking things?” he asked.
“I told you. They’re the—”
“Yes,” he said, finishing her thought. “From the fireplace.” He looked over at her. “Do you think this is all of them?”
“No,” Annabel said. “There are more. I don’t know how many, but there are definitely more.”
“Well, at least we know they can be killed,” Richard said. He seemed to realize something. “So the stories of old Reverend Fall were apparently true after all. He found his portal.”
“What?” Annabel asked.
“No time now to explain,” Richard replied, before taking hold of her arm. “All right, let’s get out of here before we encounter any more of those hell spawn.”
They ran back to Cordelia’s room. The door was no longer locked. The sheet Jack had used as a makeshift barrier at the window had fallen off, and a couple of feet of snow had drifted into the room.
“Same plan as before,” Richard told Annabel, and she nodded.
They bolted toward the window.
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For Richard, it was almost as if time stood still. There he was, running for his very life, away from things he never believed existed just moments before, and yet, despite all those dangers, he was
thinking of Amy.
He was thinking about how very much he had loved her. And how much he missed her. And how he would never love any woman ever again the way he had loved Amy, no matter how long he lived.
He had failed to save Amy. How he had tried. He had never accepted her diagnosis. Richard had taken his wife to see specialist after specialist. He’d investigated every new drug, every alternative treatment. But still Amy had died. Still she’d left him alone.
He’d saved Annabel, however. Richard felt confident that was true.
As he positioned her by the window so she could jump out onto the front porch roof, he realized something.
He hadn’t saved Annabel. She had saved herself.
He had seen how she’d bashed that creature against the wall. Annabel had survived this house of horrors. Her escape was entirely due to her. Richard was just driving the getaway car.
Annabel could survive anything.
Just like Amy. Richard hadn’t failed her, because there was nothing to fail: Amy had been entirely in control the whole time. It was Richard who’d used terms like “beating this.” Amy had always said, “I will face whatever I need to face with grace and purpose.” And she had, right up until the end. Before she had fallen into her coma, she had looked up at Richard from her hospital bed, told him she loved him, and said she looked forward to the time they would meet again.
How very much he had loved Amy.
“Richard!” Annabel suddenly screamed, looking back from the window. “Look out!”
He only had a momentary flash of the gray-haired woman—Cindy—coming into the room behind him with a knife. He never had time to reach for his gun or feel the knife pierce his heart.
He was already with Amy.
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“Noo!” Annabel shouted, leaping down from the window to shove Cindy off Richard’s fallen body. “Noooo!”
Cindy pulled back, hissing like an affronted swan. Annabel knelt down beside Richard’s body.
“Don’t die,” she begged. “Don’t leave me alone.... I can’t get out of here without you. I can’t, I can’t, I can’t. . . .”
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