Their blank, unchanging faces turned towards him. Without speaking, Abby rose from her chair.
Wheeler knew what would come next; words invading his mind, followed by a greasy, foul smelling embrace. Then he too would be eating off the table. He had to get away from them and out of here pronto.
Marie and Abby were between him and the back door. No matter: Abby was unarmed, and crippled old Marie could barely stand. He’d swat them away like flies. Only Abby was directly in his way and Wheeler put his head down and charged straight at her.
Instead of stepping aside, Abby Mackie came even closer. Like a quarterback palming away a defender, Wheeler stretched out an arm to shove her aside. She was ready for it, and Wheeler’s hand flailed empty air. Unbalanced, he bludgeoned straight into her.
Her small body should have bounced right off him, but her timing was perfect. It was the last thing Wheeler expected; Abby wrapped her arms tightly around him and held on. They fell over together on the floor and Wheeler landed heavily on top of his captor.
He couldn’t believe that she was still holding on. She should have been lying moaning in pain while he got up and walked away. He smashed his forehead down as hard as he could and head-butted her full in the face. There was a satisfying snap of breaking nasal bone. He repeated the head-butt and the back of Abby’s skull whiplashed against the floor with a loud, concussive thud. Her eyes closed, her face contorted in pain, and a low moan escaped her lips.
But still she didn’t let go. There was an inexplicable strength in her arms, as if she was three or four times stronger than normal. Her muscles were hard as steel cable as they tightened even more, squeezing the breath out of him.
He heard the scrape of a chair being pushed back and looked up. Across the room, Marie dragged her bent, twisted leg across the floor toward him. She had a pair of sharp-pointed kitchen scissors in her hand.
This can’t be happening. Wheeler gathered up all his strength, bent his right elbow and pivoted it against Abby Mackie’s chest. He now had one arm free but there was still nothing he could do to get out of her death grip. Her steel cable arms were unbreakable.
A grip like this must be killing her. Wheeler’s breath came in quick little inhalations, his lungs unable to inflate naturally. He was light-headed, his vision blurry, and this time it wasn’t the booze. Unconsciousness couldn’t be far off. He shook his head and desperately sought for a way to escape before his time ran out.
Then he remembered. He was never beaten. In the living room they’d tricked him into giving up the rifle and now they thought he was unarmed. But he still had the other weapon he’d taken from the gun cabinet all those hours ago.
He worked his right knee up until he could reach under his pants’ cuff with his one free hand. The hunting knife in its leather sheath was still strapped to his lower leg. He fumbled open the clasp, gripped the handle tightly, and pulled out the laser-cut chromium steel blade.
His eyes fixed on Abby’s throat and he brought the gleaming knife up in a deadly arc to plunge it deep into her Adam’s apple. He emitted a croaked cry of triumph.
“Now you’ll let go, you stupid bitch. I’ll bury this blade in your fucking neck.”
It was the last threat Julius Wheeler ever made.
Chapter Twenty-Three
The old man’s eyes glowed in the pitch blackness of the ventilation shaft and sent a chill down my spine. There was hate and hunger in them like I’d never seen before. ‘I’m coming to get you’, they seemed to say. I stared back at them, hypnotised, and for one awful moment started to reach in to pull Peterman out. With a real effort I looked away, a shadow lifted from my mind, and Peterman’s spell was broken. When I looked into the shaft again, the eyes were closer. Another few feet, a couple more minutes, and he’d be at the exit hole.
Nora’s hand shoved me in the back.
“Wake up! What’s wrong with you?”
I turned. “It’s not Wheeler in there, it’s Peterman. And he’s coming fast. Don’t look into his eyes.”
“What can we do?” Nora replied.
I thought about letting Peterman get his head out and then pounding it with the heaviest log I could find until he lost consciousness. Could I do that to another human being? Even as scared as I was, probably not. In rage maybe, but not in fear.
“Nick, what do we do?” Nora repeated more urgently, “He’s nearly here!”
Toby staggered to his feet and looked into the shaft. “He’s dangerous. If he gets out, we’re lost.”
“When he sticks his head out, I’ll fix him with this,” I said, and pulled a long, heavy log from the woodpile. I still wasn’t sure I could do it.
Toby frowned. “We can’t act like they do. We’re better than them.”
“Then let’s block the vent,” Nora replied, “Ram that log into the hole.”
I did what I was told and shoved the log in as far as it would go. It was heavier than I thought. I gave it a good hard push and the far end thudded against something flat and bony. Peterman’s head. He let out a low, angry moan.
We stuffed more logs and old fence posts into the opening until it was jam-packed. I found a flat stone and hammered them in even further.
“There’s no way Peterman can move this lot, it’s too tightly plugged,” I said. Even so, I got on the other side of the woodpile and shoved the entire mound in the direction of the vent. Logs and old timber cascaded down and rolled against the wall of the house. We got to work and in a few minutes we’d restacked the wood against the wall until the vent opening was completely covered.
I straightened my aching back and my breath returned to normal. “We’re safe now, at least from the vent.”
“A rat couldn’t get through that,” Toby agreed, and wiped sweat from his forehead.
“Peterman will have to backpedal,” Nora said, “His buddies back there can pull him out.”
“So where did Wheeler disappear to?” I wondered. Then I realised we still weren’t safe. “They’re telepathic, right? They’ll know from Peterman that we’re out here.”
Nora got my meaning. “They’ll be coming for us.”
I nodded. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
* * *
“How’d they get into the safe room?” Toby whispered as we hid in some bushes behind the house.
“More to the point, what happened to Wheeler?” Nora replied.
I watched the back door for signs of activity but saw nothing.
“Wheeler must have opened up as planned but couldn’t get into the vent in time,” I suggested.
“Where’s he gone?” Nora said. “He was itching to use that rifle. He probably changed plan and did his own thing, as usual.”
“Then God help us all,” Toby replied with a heavy sigh. “We should go back in and find out what’s going on.”
That sounded crazy to me. “Go back in? No way. Getting to the trees is safer. If we find Wheeler he might even shoot at us.”
“The tree line is too far away. We have to stay close to the house for when the helicopter arrives,” Toby argued. “Miss the chopper and we could be stuck here for a long time.”
“There’s something else too,” Nora added. “Suppose they got into the safe room and overpowered Wheeler? He might need help.”
Unlikely, I thought, but they were right about the forest being too far off. There was no way I was missing the helicopter or letting the Sanders mob get to it first. That meant sticking around close to the house for the next few hours.
“Okay, let’s find out what’s happening,” I said. “The kitchen light is on; maybe we can look in the window. If it’s all clear, we can go in and grab something to protect ourselves.”
“I want the biggest knife in the rack,” Nora replied.
“Hopefully you won’t have to use it,” Toby said, “Just be careful.”
I thought some more. “With any luck they’re busy getting Peterman out of the vent. That could take a long time since he’s so far up.”
Nora nodded. “Sanders is too big to get in there, and Marie won’t be climbing anytime soon. That leaves Abby and Ned, maybe Georgia.”
“One thing they’re good at is teamwork,” I replied, “So let’s get a move on.”
* * *
My night sight was pretty good by now and I had no trouble picking my steps silently across the courtyard to the house. I crouched beside the kitchen window with my back pressed against the wall and inched closer and closer to the bottom corner of the shattered pane. Even if they were in the room, with all the crap still boarded across the shattered window they were unlikely to see me looking in. I stuck my head up and peered inside.
The light was bright in the room and the table was messy with food, as if someone had been baking. Then I figured it out; maybe some of Sanders’ people had been eating straight off the table. There was no one there now, and the door into the hallway was closed. Behind the table, there was something large and long lying on the floor, but I couldn’t make out what it was. Slowly, cautiously, I straightened up for a better look.
The thing on the floor lay in a pool of red liquid. Something told me it wasn’t ketchup.
I turned and waved a ‘come quick’ signal with my hand. Nora and Toby trotted up to the window and I pointed silently at the object on the floor inside. Toby gasped loudly, and I shushed him then crept to the back door. The room looked empty but one or more of the zombie mob could be hiding somewhere I couldn’t see. There was only one way to find out. I gripped the handle; found the door was unlocked, and eased it open an inch or two. Nothing bad happened so I pushed harder and the battered door swung open on well-oiled hinges.
Inside, everything was completely quiet and motionless. I hung back, searching for the slightest movement.
“Hurry up!” Nora hissed behind me, always the impatient one.
“This could be a trap,” I replied. While I hesitated, Nora pushed past me and strode in as if it were her local convenience store. I tensed even more, hyper-alert for danger.
Nothing happened. Feeling a bit foolish, I shrugged and followed Nora inside, Toby right behind me. We crossed the room and now there was no mistaking the object on the floor behind the table.
Julius Wheeler lay face down, a pool of blood encircling him. There was something sticking out of the back of his head, just under the skull – a pair of scissors. My eyes scoured the room again and I had to resist a strong urge to run back out the door and into the bushes.
Nora kneeled down, checked for vital signs, and confirmed what I already knew.
“He’s dead,” she said.
Someone had stabbed Wheeler in the back of the head with a fancy pair of kitchen scissors. Both blades were buried so deep that no one could have survived it.
“A horrible way to die,” Toby said. “Kitchen scissors, of all things.”
“Poultry shears,” Nora murmured in a kind of daze, “They’re called poultry shears.”
“What do we do about, about–?” My voice trailed off.
“Best not to touch it,” Toby replied. He went to a cupboard, rummaged around and took out a clean white tablecloth. As soon as he spread it over the body, red stains oozed into its whiteness. The unnatural mound at the back of the head formed an obscene peak. I looked away.
Sudden weariness overcame me, the weight of everything that had happened pressing down on me all at once, and I plonked myself on a chair. I thought about the violent deaths in Thomas Irwin’s journal. In the comfort of the green leather armchair or on my bed, Irwin’s story had sounded scary but exciting too. The possibility of the same thing happening again had never really occurred to me. Irwin’s journal described some sort of evil force that brought death and destruction all around it. Had it now invaded our lives here in this house?
The body on the floor testified to what we were really up against. Nora and I, and Toby too, had to survive it.
The problem was none of us were killers. We’d come in here to arm ourselves with knives. I looked at the tented peak on the white sheet over Wheeler’s body and tried to picture myself doing the same thing to another human being. There was no way I ever could.
“Don’t think I’ll bother with a knife,” I said quietly.
“Me neither,” Nora said. Toby nodded agreement.
“But I could use a drink of water,” I added.
Nora summoned the ghost of a smile. “Me too,” she replied.
* * *
Toby looked out into the hallway, his eyes patrolling back and forth. “It’s too quiet,” he said softly, “No sign of them. They should be prowling around, looking for us.”
“They must still be trying to get Peterman out of the shaft,” Nora said, “He could be unconscious and they have to drag him.”
I leaned closer and whispered. “It would be worth finding out. We might be able to salvage our plan, trap them in there.”
“They’d see us on the monitor,” Toby objected.
“Wheeler said he’d rip it out,” I replied, “We should be okay.”
Toby frowned. “Unless he lied about that too.” He peered down the long passage. “If one of them appears we run for it. Agreed?”
Nora nodded. “Agreed.”
I slipped out the doorway and went down the hall. The living room door was open. It looked like Sanders had hacked at it with his axe.
“Something happened here,” I said quietly, and pointed at the splintered upper panel of the door. I poked my head into the room, ready to leap back at first sight of anyone inside. There was no one there. Then I saw the mound of torn books and shattered paintings piled on the floor, smelled the burning remnants, and was pretty sure I knew what had drawn Wheeler out.
We crept back down the hallway and turned left, into the shadows beneath the staircase. The safe room was right at the end and it was impossible to see into it. One of us would have to go right up to the door and look in. I swallowed hard and prepared myself. Best to listen first.
No sounds, but that didn’t mean anything. Sanders’ lot could be creepily quiet when it suited them. I placed my mouth close to Nora’s ear.
“This could be our best chance to end this,” I whispered, “I’ll tiptoe up, take a quick peek, find out if they’re in there and creep back again.”
I inched partway along the wall and started to hear sounds of activity inside the room. My heart was pounding and I took several very controlled and silent breaths before continuing. Nora watched me anxiously. I was just about to step closer to the doorway when Nora stepped up to me, touched my arm and mouthed me a near soundless message.
“I’ll do it. I have the door code.” Her breath touched the side of my face. “You go back,” she whispered, “Join Toby.”
A giant “NO!” formed inside my head but I was powerless to stop her, and it was already too late. She started tiptoeing toward the safe room door, leaving me behind. Reluctantly, I slowly stepped back until I was well clear. Even then, I spoke to Toby in a barely audible whisper.
“Say one of your prayers for her,” I told him.
He nodded and closed his eyes for a few seconds. Then we both anxiously watched as Nora slipped off her shoes and crept even closer to the safe room door.
* * *
Nora left her shoes on the floor behind her, kept her back pressed tight against the wall, and drew near to the open doorway. The closer she got, the more debris was scattered around. Her bare foot trod on a piece of broken glass and she almost cried out as a splinter sank deep into her toe. She swallowed down the pain and pulled the shard out, stepped back and put her shoes back on. Too much broken glass on the floor; she should have thought of that. So far, she wasn’t doing too well. Not an impressive performance, Nora dear.
She tried not to think of the danger lying ahead. Sanders could be waiting for her. She reminded herself that she’d pushed past Nick and insisted that she do it. So just get on with it; simple as that.
One foot after another, don’t stop, don’t step on anything
else, or make a noise.
She worked her way around the wrecked display case until she was right next to the open door. Now she was controlling every little movement; taking slow silent breaths, keeping everything tightly in check. She looked back and smiled at Nick, his slight nod showing nervous tension. Toby was staring at her, pale faced. She gave him a cautious thumbs-up.
There were sounds of movement inside the room. Nora froze and listened, tried to make out voices. Then she remembered that they didn’t need to communicate audibly unless they had some reason to do so. With their weird telepathic abilities they could silently co-ordinate their activities.
That meant they were always on full alert, always dangerous. Nora knew she couldn’t make the slightest sound.
She took a small step forward and craned her neck around the door but was only able to see a little way inside. The row of metal cabinets on the wall wasn’t going to tell her much. If Sanders’ group was where she hoped it would be, they’d be at the back of the room, concentrating on the ventilation shaft. She had to confirm that.
Nora bent lower for a different angle. It didn’t do any good and only put her off balance, close to tottering over completely. The vague sounds were louder now, as if some hard physical task was being carried out. If that was right, then now was the time for her to take a quick look. She listened some more, readied herself, and was pretty sure the noises were coming from the other end of the room. That wasn’t very far away, but it was something to hold on to, to clutch at for confidence.
With all her senses pitched at highest awareness, Nora slowly raised her foot and scoured the floor for the best spot to put it down in front of the doorway. She picked a clear spot among the scattered debris and silently completed her step. Now, just bring the other leg over to join it. Done; she could now see all the way inside. And, although she was still half hidden by the door, they could see her if they looked.
Uninvited Page 23
