by Jeff Strand
"What do you want?"
"What can you offer?"
Maddox shrugged. "I'm not sure."
"I've got a question for all three of you. Anybody can answer. Did you truly believe when you walked into my home that you were going to live to see sunrise?"
Nobody answered.
"Go on, don't be shy," Gina urged. "I want to know the answer. Did you honestly think that you were not going to die tonight? Were you somehow under the impression that I would spare you a grisly, excruciating, horrific death?"
"I—" said Maddox.
"I'm kidding again," said Gina. "I know that I'm pulling most of the strings right now and you're not making decisions that are in your best interest. But to end the suspense, yes, all three of you are going to die."
The three of them could, of course, overpower this woman—Maddox's mind refused to let him think of her as a "bitch," even though it was a word he used on a regular basis—pretty easily. But Maddox had no intention of resisting her, and he knew Heck and Fletcher wouldn't either.
He was frightened of death, yet felt no compulsion to beg for his life.
If she wanted to kill him, then, yeah, that's what was going to happen.
"I think I've been too nice to you, all things considered," said Gina. "I've been keeping your emotions in check. It seems unfair to you boys not to let you fully experience the all-night horror show of what's about to happen."
The sheer terror of the situation hit Maddox all at once. Tears flowed. He dropped to his knees without shame and held his fists together, almost like a cartoonish parody of somebody pleading for his life.
"Don't do it," he said, sobbing. "Please, please, please, God, don't kill us."
Heck and Fletcher dropped to their knees as well.
"Knock it off, you pathetic pieces of shit," said Gina. "Lucky for you I'm not as depraved as you are, so it won't be as bad for you as it was for my sister. Don't get me wrong; it's still going to be terrible."
"We'll do anything," said Fletcher.
"You're goddamn right you will. Who wants to be first?"
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Adeline closed her eyes, thinking she could almost drift off to sleep.
She suddenly awoke with a start. She hadn't even realized she'd fallen asleep—it felt like she just closed her eyes for a couple of seconds—but the water was lukewarm.
The suds didn't look any different.
She held up her hand. Her fingers weren't wrinkled.
In fact, the water seemed to be getting colder.
Much colder.
As she watched in shock, some ice crystals formed on the surface.
Small chunks of ice floated to the top.
Clearly, she had fallen asleep and not actually woken up yet. Unless she was suddenly in the void of outer space, there was no environment in which a hot bath would start to immediately freeze up like this.
And then she knew she wasn't dreaming because the water was so cold that it stung.
She grabbed the sides of the tub and pushed herself up, shards of ice sticking to her belly. Her legs were so cold that she couldn't bend her knees to stand up. The water turned to ice all around her as she cried out for help.
* * *
Paige flinched as she heard her mother shout for Dad to help her.
She didn't sound like she was trying to be funny. In fact, she sounded genuinely scared.
Paige should go see what was wrong.
But was there anything she could do? What if she made things worse? What if by rushing out of her bedroom she actually messed everything up?
She didn't want to distract herself from the job of fixing her face. This was important work and it required intense concentration.
Mom or face? Mom or face?
Mom was more important. She'd do what she could to help.
Paige lowered the scissors from her eye.
* * *
Boyd tossed the blanket aside, sat up, and got up off the couch. Then he lost his balance and tumbled onto the hardwood floor. He landed hard on his right arm, but didn't seem to have actually injured it, although he was suddenly so dizzy that it was difficult to tell for sure.
He felt sick to his stomach.
His forehead was drenched with sweat.
He tried to get up but the room felt like it was spinning. But if Adeline was crying out for help, he couldn't wait for the dizzy spell to wear off. He had to get right up, even if it meant smashing into the wall.
His arms and legs weren't working properly. His body felt like he was burning up from the inside, as if he'd been instantly stricken with a dangerously high fever. The worst flu symptoms he'd ever experienced, combined, all at once.
Was he dying?
He tried to shout to Adeline, but his mouth had gone completely dry and he couldn't make any noise beyond a feeble grunt. Forget the dizziness; his vision was so blurred that he didn't even know which direction he was facing.
Maybe he really was going to die.
He didn't feel like he was going to lose consciousness, though. He'd have to fight through this. Get Paige's attention so she'd call 911.
Paige would've heard Adeline, right? Naomi was outside, but Paige was in her bedroom, and even with the door closed she would've heard her mother cry out. Paige would save the day. An ambulance would be here soon.
* * *
Adeline hit the bathroom floor, ice stuck all over the lower half of her body. Some of the ice shattered on impact, and some dug into her red skin. The pain was excruciating. She grabbed the bottom corner of a towel and yanked it off the hook so that her daughters wouldn't see her sprawled naked on the floor.
Her legs were bleeding in a few places where the ice had jabbed into her skin after she struck the tile. She threw the towel over herself and called out for Boyd again. Why hadn't he answered?
"Paige! Come in here, honey! I need you!"
Adeline forced herself not to sob. She was terrified but she had to be brave until they figured out what was going on.
What could be happening? Hot water in a bathtub did not freeze like this.
They were getting out of this nightmare of a house. Today. And never coming back. She didn't care if they had to pay people to come get their stuff and rack up credit card debt while they stayed in a hotel, the Gardner family was done with this hellhole.
What if there was permanent damage to her legs? What if they were frostbitten?
God, she was in agony. Where the hell were Boyd and Paige?
* * *
"Paige! Come in here, honey! I need you!"
Paige opened the door but stopped right before leaving her room. Yes, Mom needed help. Why hadn't Dad responded to her cries? Paige needed to find out exactly what was happening and do whatever she could to assist both of them.
But what if they were repulsed by her?
What if she walked out there, and Mom and Dad were so sickened by her hideous appearance that they sent her away? They'd never sent her away before this, but that didn't mean they wouldn't suddenly realize what a monster they had for a daughter.
She couldn't do it. She couldn't leave her room.
Paige turned back toward her mirror. She wanted to smash her fists into it, shatter it. If she did that, though, she wouldn't be able to see when she carefully removed the contact lens from the top of her eye with the scissors. She deserved to have a sharp piece of metal jammed deep into her eye socket, but didn't want to do it herself.
She was just going to cut away the lid. Get it out of the way so she could reach the contact lens. She honestly wasn't sure why the doctor hadn't thought to do that. Maybe he was so distracted by her ghastly appearance that he forgot how to do his job.
She winced. It felt like the lens was tightening around her eyeball.
Constricting like a snake.
What if it crushed her eye, sending a spurt of jelly flying across the room onto the mirror?
She had to get it out.
Breathing deeply, b
racing herself for what needed to be done, Paige kicked her bedroom door shut.
* * *
Boyd didn't know for certain that he was dragging himself toward the sound of Adeline's voice. He thought he was. But not only had his vision gone from blurry to almost completely black, there was now a ringing in his ears so loud that Adeline sounded like she was calling out from miles away.
His head struck the wall. He couldn't tell, through pain or the sound, how hard he'd hit it.
He tried once again to let Adeline know that he was on his way, even though that was essentially a lie. It didn't matter; he couldn't speak anyway.
It was hard to breathe.
He was almost positive he was going to die, and he wasn't ready. His daughters were too young. Adeline needed his help. He couldn't die here, lying on the floor, plagued by some sickness he couldn't even explain.
He gritted his teeth—thinking he may have bit down on his tongue; he could taste the blood but not feel the pain—and tried to crawl some more. It felt like wasted effort, since what was he going to do for anybody while in this condition? But he certainly couldn't just wait around to die.
His head was pounding so violently that he literally believed that something might be trying to escape from it. Literally. At this point, why couldn't there be a creature inside there, hammering with its clawed fists, cracking his skull a bit more with each punch? Soon it would shatter his cranium, wriggle its way out, and slither away to wreak havoc.
Would it really be so bad if he died now?
Yes. He wasn't ready to die.
But he wasn't sure he had a choice.
* * *
Adeline grabbed the sink and pulled herself to a standing position. Her legs didn't want to cooperate, but she managed to stay upright. She let go of the sink for a couple of seconds, to test whether or not she'd immediately lose her balance and drop right back down to the tile. She didn't.
"Seriously, Boyd! Where are you? Is everything okay?"
The towel fell to the floor. She wasn't going to keep messing with it.
Was her cell phone in her bedroom, or in the living room? She couldn't remember if she'd just set it down, or plugged it in to charge.
Bedroom. She was pretty sure.
She took a step. Her knee wobbled but she didn't fall.
She did two more steps on her own. Some pieces of ice slid away, and the pain was already starting to subside. She was sure she'd be okay. And, with the panic fading, she assumed that Boyd and Paige had simply gone outside to join Naomi by the koi pond. Which didn't mean they weren't still getting the hell out of this house as soon as possible...
From where she stood now, she was close enough to brace herself against the doorway. She stepped into the hallway. At the other end, in the living room, Boyd lay on the floor, drenched in perspiration, skin pale, eyes wide open.
"Boyd!"
He looked up, but in the wrong direction.
Then he vomited. Adeline couldn't tell how much of it was chicken Caesar salad, but a lot of it was blood.
* * *
Mommy and Daddy had warned Naomi not to wade into the pond or even lean too close to it. It was a dumb warning, because the pond was so shallow that even a baby couldn't drown itself in there, but Naomi had promised them that she'd behave.
Now she wasn't so sure she wanted to keep her promise.
They'd know she'd been in the pond because her clothes would get wet. But if she hurried back inside when she was done and changed them before they saw her, she could get away with it. She'd be careful not to leave wet footprints on the floor.
She stuck her index finger into the water.
Very cold. Splashing around in there might not be as fun as she thought.
Some bubbles came up from the bottom. That was weird. What was making that happen?
More and more bubbles appeared, like the water was starting to boil, even though it was still cold. Naomi pulled her finger out, just in case.
Stardust, her favorite, rolled onto his back and floated on the surface.
Naomi gasped. Was he dead?
Then Billy did the same thing. Naomi knew perfectly well that fish were dead when they floated like that, but she didn't want to believe it. Was it her fault? Had she poisoned the water when she stuck her finger in it? Was that why Mommy and Daddy had told her to stay away from it?
Her other three fish went belly-up, all at the same time.
This had to be her fault.
The water was still bubbling. Not at a full boil like when somebody was making macaroni and cheese, but a constant stream of tiny bubbles.
Stardust's skin was coming off.
All five fish were breaking apart. Scales floated next to them. Blood and guts poured out of their bodies and mixed into the water.
Naomi stood there, frozen with horror.
It wasn't long before nothing remained of her new pets except fish heads and tails connected by bones. The koi pond, which had been her favorite part of the new house minutes ago, was just filled with fish soup.
It smelled awful.
Rotten.
And something else was moving in the water.
* * *
Boyd wiped his mouth off on his sleeve. Vomiting blood was a sign that something was seriously wrong...yet he suddenly felt immensely better, like when a fever breaks. His vision was clear. His head had stopped pounding. He could think again.
A scream.
He and Adeline both turned toward Paige's closed door.
The door opened and Paige stumbled into the hallway, a pair of scissors in one hand, the other hand pressed tightly over her eye.
"I don't know what I did!" she wailed. "I don't know what I did!"
Boyd got up and rushed over to her. Adeline, who must've leapt out of her bubble bath without even taking the time to wrap a towel around her, limped over to them as well.
"Let me see," said Boyd.
"I think I hurt myself!"
"Move your hand, Paige."
"Honey, move your hand," said Adeline.
"Throw on some clothes," Boyd told her. "I've got this. Paige, honey, move your hand so we can see what's wrong."
Paige began to sob. "I wasn't thinking right! I would never do this to myself! Everything in my head was messed up!"
Boyd wrapped his fingers around her hand and pulled it away from her face.
He let out an involuntary gasp at the blood.
"Oh, shit."
"Did I cut my eye?"
She'd cut the side of her eyelid for sure. (With a pair of scissors? Had she actually slid the blade under her eyelid?) But it wasn't hanging down in a flap. It might not be as bad as it looked. She was thrashing around too much for him to be able to tell if she'd cut her actual eye or not.
"Keep your head still," Boyd told her.
"I don't know why I did it."
"It's okay, honey. I lost control of myself, too. There's something wrong and it's not your fault."
Adeline came out of the bathroom in sweatpants, still putting on the T-shirt she'd been wearing before her bath. "How is she?"
"It might not be that bad," said Boyd. Adeline's gasp, much louder than his had been, did not help sell that idea to their daughter. The amount of blood was unnerving, but it didn't mean there was any permanent damage. "I don't want to touch it and hurt her more."
"Let's go to the emergency room. For both of you."
Boyd nodded. "Why were you calling us?"
"I'll get Paige to the car. You take a quick look in the bathroom."
Boyd couldn't imagine what could be in the bathroom that would take priority—even if it was only for a two-second peek—over getting Paige to the hospital. He quickly walked down the hallway, amazed at how quickly he'd recovered from an illness where he'd thought he was moments from death, and looked into the bathroom.
There were several chunks of ice on the floor. He went inside for a closer look. The water in the bathtub had frozen solid.
That was
...not normal.
From outside, Naomi shrieked.
* * *
A hand came out of the cloudy water, even though the koi pond wasn't anywhere near deep enough for somebody to be hidden in there. The only way this could really be happening was if Naomi was seeing an arm that wasn't attached to a body.
It kind of looked like maybe the hand was made out of water. She could see through it, sort of.
Then a man climbed out of the pond. A full-sized man. He was a lot taller and bigger than Dad, and his head was completely bald.
Naomi didn't think he was made out of water. She thought he was a ghost. She'd been told that ghosts weren't real enough times to finally believe it, but she also had to trust what she could see right in front of her.
The man stood on the edge of the pond. No water was dripping off of him. He looked around, like somebody who couldn't figure out how he'd gotten there. Then he looked at Naomi.
He opened his mouth as if he wanted to say something to her.
Then he made gasping sounds, like he was choking to death. He put his hands over his neck and doubled over.
Naomi realized that this was the time to scream and run.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Before
"Him!" shouted Maddox, pointing at Fletcher. "Kill him first!"
Heck frantically nodded. "Yes! Yes! He deserves it more!"
Fletcher opened his mouth as if he wanted to defend himself, then silently wept instead. The sight of a great big guy on his knees, tears streaming down his face, shoulders quivering, was one of the most pathetic things Maddox had ever seen. He hoped that Gina agreed so she'd kill Fletcher first.
"Shut up, both of you," said Gina. "I was asking for volunteers, not suggestions."
