“The ride’s on me!” Finn chirped. “Very least I can do for my favorite singer and superhero ever.”
“Oh, honey, no.” Evelyn shook her head. “That’s not right at all, I’m not—”
“I never said it was free, did I?” Finn giggled, orange eyebrows waggling. “I won’t tell anyone I saw you today… If I can have your autograph!”
Evelyn hesitated, and Regan held his breath. Leaving a paper trail was not a bright idea. But neither was leaving behind a gabby kid. Of course, as he’d recently, nauseatingly discovered, there were all kinds of things that could go wrong here…
“Oh, please!” Finn begged, doing a little dance on the spot as Jack looked up and giggled. First the dragon guy, then this dancing man with bright orange hair… “I’ll give you another free ride! Anywhere! I’ll drive you to the moon and back, I promise!”
“Ev. Come on.” Danae was getting edgy. She shared another silent-communication look with Rose, then glanced nervously at the orange-tinted, smog-choked sky. She jerked her head at the mansion monolith. “We need to get inside.”
“Okay.” Evelyn relented, and whipped out a Sharpie marker from her purse. “Anyone got a sticky note?”
“Oh nonono! No paper!” Finn grinned, and pulled his shirt clean off, spreading his arms like an invitation for a bear hug. His belly was pink, soft and happy, except for the curved line of fresh stitches across its right side. “Sign me!”
“I’ve been asked to sign so much worse.” Evelyn exploded into a snorting giggle, then carefully scribbled her name on Finn’s freckly skin while he tried not to wiggle.
“Just be careful of the stitches, okay? I just got my appendix out—aaahaha! Tickles!”
“Okay. There you go, sweetie.” Evelyn finished with a last flourish. “Just keep your shirt on, okay? Don’t go showing it off. Remember, we were never here.”
“Sure, you got it!” Finn nodded like an orange-haired bobble-head. “Thank you so much! I’m never washing this belly again!”
“You’re welcome, hon.” He somewhat reluctantly put his shirt back on as Evelyn turned to face the house, and several of her own worst fears. The driveway was long and had probably wound through lush green grounds at some point. The mansion itself stretched above Evelyn like a skyscraper, casting a long, black shadow she could have sunk into completely. The structure stretched in every direction, and multiple turrets stabbed at the sky like angry nails in a coffin.
And now there was so much more of it. The place had been built up and added onto while she was gone, more than she could have imagined. On all sides were additions, senseless and random, turrets and towers where they shouldn’t have been. Stairwells that led nowhere, and corridors that just ended, like a bunch of different buildings all put together. And everywhere were barricades and scaffolds: the place was still under construction, built on a foundation of scrap metal and dead buildings. All around the edges of the platform were lines of dead trees, brown and brittle and leafless, and dry skeletons of topiary bushes. Stone gargoyles stood between them, guarding the place against the dying city that pressed in on all sides.
With a shiver, Evelyn remembered the story of the Sarah Winchester House. The rifle-empire heiress haunted by the blood spilled by her family’s guns, convinced she had to keep building and rebuilding her house, or else the angry spirits killed by their weapons would come for her. The Turret name certainly wasn’t spotless either. And it haunted her, in its own way.
The heavy door opened, and someone came out. Regan froze, and watched as a tall, hooded figure shuffled down the stairs. They wore so many worn layers of black and gray it was hard to tell anything about the person beneath them, and their movements were disjointed, as if the bones didn’t quite fit inside their skin.
They slumped down the stone steps and toward the taxi, but stopped when they saw the orange-headed kid who leaned against the car.
“Hi, buddy!” Finn called, waving. The tall, imposing stranger looked like they were staring at him, but it was hard to tell under the hood that shadowed the top half of their face, and the dark cloth wrap that covered most of the bottom. “So what’s in the Turret House?”
The eerie stranger didn’t reply, but after a moment they took a slow step forward again. They moved forward with an irregular slouching gait, like they were half-dragging themselves along in ill-fitting shoes to go with their piles of ragged clothing, and slunk right past them all, ignoring the small group outside. Without a word, they climbed into the passenger side of the yellow cab and shut the door.
“I knew it! I knew they wouldn’t tell me anything!” Finn laughed, entirely unfazed by the newcomer’s off-putting appearance, complete silence—or anyone else’s stares. “Oh, here’s my card.” He dug a crumpled rectangle of cardboard out of his pocket and handed it to Evelyn like a bouquet of flowers.
“Fastest wheels in Parole. All explosions free of charge…?” she read. “Do I want to know what the last part means?”
“Uh, maybe later.” He grinned sheepishly. There was a small boom from somewhere far off down the mountain, and Finn’s face turned a brilliant red. “I gotta go, but call me any time you need a lift anywhere, always a freebie. No, I mean it!” he insisted as Evelyn opened her mouth to protest. “Worth it just to have Evelyn Calliope in my taxi! See you later!” Before anyone could reply, he’d popped back in the car beside his mysterious friend and started his engine.
The taxi started to back out—but then it stopped, and the passenger-side window rolled down. A head in a dark hood and cloth wrap poked out, and now Regan could see that they also wore a pair of very dark mirrored sunglasses, because they moved them an inch down to peer out over the lenses. Their visible skin had an unhealthy grey pallor, and Regan caught a glimpse of one green eye and one blue that instantly flicked to his face.
Regan waited for a moment, but they didn’t speak. The strange person gave a slow nod, eying him over their lenses.
“Do I know you?” He asked at last, feeling… not intimidated, exactly; more like he was forgetting something very important. His heart had begun to speed up, and he had the strangest impulse to… he didn’t know. It was beyond frustrating.
Silence. They flicked the shades back over their eyes and bumped Finn on the shoulder. The taxi peeled out of the parking lot in a squealing whirlwind of dust and ash, leaving them all standing on the metal platform in front of the House. As he watched the car disappear and tried to shake off the strange wave of dizziness, Regan had the strange sensation that he’d answered his own question.
Regan’s eyes slid over to Evelyn. “Did you see that?”
“What?” She shook her head, still staring up at the house, looking pale and drawn herself.
“That person in the…” he stopped. She’d missed that entire exchange, and Regan wasn’t sure now was the time to explain. “Never mind.”
“Okay.” She nodded to herself in a steeling sort of way. “So, before we go in there, just, uh… be ready for some strangeness.”
“Stranger than the rest of this day?” Danae muttered, but Evelyn didn’t smile back.
“I haven’t been home in a long time, for good reasons. You’ll see, Regan. My family is… well, you don’t want to start a conflict. Just stay out of their way—and that’s easy, it’s a big house.” She frowned, staring up at the disjointed additions, the puzzle-house. None of it made sense. “And it’s gotten bigger.”
“We’ll be fine. So will you.” Rose said, giving her arm a squeeze.
“Thanks, honey. Let’s just… let’s go.” She yanked the door open like ripping off a band-aid, and they crowded inside.
Regan blinked in the white light. The room was brightly lit, surprisingly large, and very, very clean. It was deserted, and silent as if deep underground. The lack of windows increased the impression of stepping into a concrete cave. The floor was unadorned cement, and the walls were solid and soundproof.
On the far wall was a window of bulletproof glass and a reinfor
ced steel door. Regan felt a tingle of alarm run up and down his spine. Something wasn’t right.
“Evelyn?” Rose glanced around in confusion, while Jack held tightly onto the vines that twisted around her metal legs. Surveillance cameras hung from the ceiling corners and slowly rotated. Even here the sky had eyes. “Things look different to you?”
“Little bit.” Evelyn slowly turned in a circle, taking in the entire strange, bunker-like room. “I don’t know what any of this is. It looks like a fallout shelter or something.”
“Where is everyone?” Regan’s neck frill twitched as he glanced around. “I don’t like it, it’s wrong here. It even smells wrong.”
“Well, we could start over here.” Rose had crossed the room to investigate the thick steel door. “It’s open, there’s a stairwell.”
“Okay then. Up we go.” Evelyn started for the door.
“Are we sure this is a good idea?” Regan asked hesitantly.
“It’s still my house. At least I think it is. And I want to see what’s going on.”
Regan kept his mouth shut. He wanted to protest, tell her that this was a terrible idea, that none of them knew what in the hell was going on here. But even though he was terrified, curiosity outweighed the fear. He needed answers and had nothing but questions. The way the strange, grey person outside in the hood and sunglasses seemed to know him, the strange familiarity buzzing in the back of his own mind. Everything here was connected. So he nodded grudgingly, and moved forward. “Let’s go.”
The stairwell was all cold concrete and harsh fluorescent lights same as the entry, and Regan’s nostrils burned from an acrid chemical smell. Chips and scratches peppered the metal railings and cement walls, like something with claws had been dragged through, fighting tooth and nail. As they climbed the stairs, a faint sound began to fade in against the muffled silence. It sounded like a far-off bell ringing—not in slow tolls, but in rapid, continuous high-pitched alarm jangling. The group stuck anxiously close together as they climbed.
“Defense protocol activated. Stand down.”
As they rounded the first corner, Danae held out her arm to bring them all to a stop. She nodded to a ceiling corner, and they saw the surveillance camera stationed there, dark lens trained on them. They hesitated, exchanging nervous glances, but wordlessly came to the decision that all they could do was press on. They continued up the stairs.
The second floor door was heavy steel too, with a sophisticated lock requiring a number code. No amount of pushing, pulling or banging made any difference, and it was so thick and solid that knocks fell flat and quiet. All they could hear from the other side was the intensified keening of the alarm bell. Nobody said what they were all thinking: there was something wrong in this house, they shouldn’t be there, and they all wanted to run down the stairs and out into daylight again. Instead they kept moving, up and around in square spirals, until they found a heavy door that opened.
It slid open, into an expanse of darkness interrupted only by faint red exit signs and flickering emergency lighting. The power was out on this floor, but the alarm bell still shrieked. Regan’s tongue flicked in and out in nervous twitches.
“Defense protocol activated.”
“I really don’t like this,” Rose said, anxious. “We need to get out of here. Now.”
“Where are we gonna go?” Danae’s desperation cut sharper than the bell, and one hand went protectively to cover Jack’s head. The little boy’s wide, scared eyes darted around while he held on tight. Since his strange comment in the car, he hadn’t said a word.
“We’ll figure something out. There’s something wrong here.”
“You’re right.” Danae looked at Evelyn. “Maybe we should just come back later, or—”
“Shut up!” Regan hissed out of the corner of his mouth. He stared frozen into space; like a deer in the headlights, not even breathing. He looked as if he’d been hit with an electric shock, rigid and bug-eyed, tongue spasmodically tasting the air. “Listen.”
A sound of grinding gears and shifting metal filtered through the walls. Maybe in the next room, maybe from above or below, they couldn’t be sure—only that it was getting closer.
“What is that?” Regan whispered, his heart racing with panic.
“I don’t know,” Evelyn replied, not sure why she was whispering too. “Is it another tremor? Oh, God, is the block collapsing?”
“No…” Danae said, strangely firmly. “It’s not the ground. It’s the house.” She pointed up to a corner of the stairwell, where the hanging cameras had rotated to point directly at them.
“Look!” Rose yelped, pointing up the flight of stairs. A metal gate was sliding out of the wall, blocking their way.
“Back down!” Evelyn snapped, turning. They all started to run—then she stopped. “Regan! Move!” She pulled at his elbow, but he didn’t respond, rooted to the spot and staring at the camera, the gate, entirely overwhelmed. The floor vibrated under their feet, so strongly they feared the entire house might shake apart and drop them into the fire.
“Evelyn, come on!” Danae shouted.
“No, I’m not leaving—”
“Now!” Danae and Rose half ran half stumbled back down the stairs, while Jack shrieked and buried his face in Danae’s shoulder. Then they skidded to a halt, gasping. Another metal gate blocked the way back down.
“Shit—! This way!” Danae grabbed at the handle to the door leading out into the hallway of whatever floor they were on, and thankfully, it opened.
Evelyn turned back—they still weren’t all there. Regan had remained frozen, eyes so wide they looked about to bug out of his skull. As he stared, the camera disappeared. It withdrew into the wall, another metal panel sliding over where it had been. Evelyn’s eyes darted around the room, realizing that the ventilation grates in the ceiling and walls had slid shut. The stairwell was becoming airtight. And she wasn’t sure if it was some optical illusion, but it looked like—no, it was. The walls were closing in. They were all trapped in a nightmare with the ceiling lowering, and walls inching in closer and closer, and Regan still wasn’t moving.
“Regan!” Evelyn shouted as the scraping and awful grinding noises grew louder, but he didn’t respond. Gritting her teeth, she charged back and grabbed his elbow, but he was inanimate and immovable, like a warm wax figure. “Come on, move!”
Regan’s head whipped around and he stared at her like a sleepwalker waking up, then he surged forward, running with her through the door Danae was holding open. Evelyn stopped just long enough to help her shut the heavy door behind them, then kept running. They rushed forward blindly until they caught up with Rose—whose path was blocked by metal bars over a chain-link partition.
“This just happened,” she said breathlessly, gesturing to the metal gate separating them from the rest of the dark hall—and beyond it, a pair of elevator doors in a red shaft of emergency lighting.
“What is this?!” Regan yelped, slapping at the metal. “What the hell is this?” He shook the bars, kicking them, trying to climb them like a tormented lizard trapped in a box. He struggled desperately with the bars, completely panic-stricken.
“I don’t know!” Evelyn looked around at the hall of her childhood home, the familiar walls that had somehow transformed into a nightmarish prison lockdown. The cameras were gone now, and something else was coming out of the walls to take their place. Gun barrels.
“Oh, God,” she whispered. “Guys. Guys, get ready.”
They whirled around and pressed their backs against the gate. The alarm still blared, and back down the hall, more metal shutters descended from the ceiling. Like the cameras before them, the gun turrets hanging from the ceiling rotated to point at the group of horrified people clinging together. And the automated voice was still screaming, “Defense protocol activated. Defense protocol activated. Stand down.”
“Oh, we’re not standing down. Give me your keys.” Danae hissed. “Or pens or loose change or anything you have.” She stepped f
orward, putting Jack down, keeping herself in front of him and one hand on the gate. As she held tightly, the metal began to undulate and wave, like water or a wheat field in the wind. “I can use this. Stay behind me.”
“What are you doing?” Regan gulped.
“This has SkEye written all over it,” Danae said grimly. “The guns, the cameras, this whole shebang. And I know how to deal with SkEye.”
“Just stay behind us, Regan,” Rose said, voice level and calm. “We’ve got this.”
Rose reached into her hair and pressed a metal barrette and bracelet into Danae’s hand. In an instant they were fluttering like the little creatures from their home, but these had sharp edges. They split into four razorblade butterflies that whizzed back and forth. Finn’s business card and Evelyn’s pen joined and sharpened to become a tiny sword with paper wings. Rose’s thick bangle bracelet seemed to melt in midair, bending and flattening itself into a round, hovering shield that floated between them and the guns, ready to deflect bullets or energy beams or anything else that flew at it. Behind them, the gate writhed like a living thing, it twisted and squirmed like it was in pain, trying to rip itself off its hinges. And all around, thick coils of vines and venomous flowers were growing up in a shield, with thorns and razor-edged petals.
And now Evelyn was elbowing her way in front of Regan, opening her mouth wide and sucking in a deep breath. Regan didn’t know what she was going to do: she was unarmed—and unafraid. She had something planned. Wild energy was creeping into her eyes; she was back on stage with a microphone in her hand, but she acted like she held a shield and a shotgun, ready to blast anything that came at them down that dark hallway.
Weapons. The whip-cracking of little blades and vines that snaked through the air. Regan knew this process. All three women were readying themselves for a brutal fight, and Regan didn’t know what to do, except let them take the lead and believe them when they said they would be alive in five minutes.
He shut his eyes, and waited for the first shot.
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