Must be the one that dragged Rob off, Aaron thought, and wondered why he would bother trying to figure out where the dogs had come from. It was enough that they were here, low rumbles in their throats, blood on their muzzles and matting their fur.
The man and woman approached Aaron, the pit bulls beside them. Aaron shrank back, retreating until his back was against the front door.
For the first time, he was sorry he had never brought a gun on the jobs.
The man reached slowly into his pocket. Drew something out. Aaron cringed, not knowing what it was, but knowing it would be something that brought death.
The man threw what was in his hand. It landed at Aaron's feet with the clatter of plastic. It looked somewhat like a thick calculator: a series of keys with an LED display over it.
No. Not a calculator. It looks like – No. No no no no.
It was the mirror of the keypad on the safe upstairs.
"You're a safecracker," said the man. "You can get yourself out."
The LED blinked to life. A countdown.
2:00….
1:59….
The girl spoke. "We'll even give you the same amount of time you and your friends gave us."
"Listen, Pops. I know you're scared. But you've got two minutes to get this door open. And if you get it wrong…." Rob slammed his gun down against the boy's shoulder. The boy screamed, and so did his mother.
Aaron watched. Didn't move. Waiting, hoping, for the man to give up the combination. To save himself.
And in every room, in every trap, the timers appeared. 2:00. Two minutes to avoid a death ready to take them.
"I didn't," said Aaron. "I didn't want any of –"
"Time's a-wastin'," said the man.
"Please," said the father. "No."
Rob just stared at him. "Time's a-wastin', Pops," he said.
Aaron looked at the keypad. Numb. Unsure.
Was there any way to beat this? Was it all death?
No choice.
He picked up the keypad.
43
1:39….
The keypad felt strange in his hands, and he wasted a full second –
(1:38….)
– trying to figure out why. Then he realized it was the keypad itself that was strange – it was the fact he was looking at it while the owners looked on without crying or screaming or –
(dying)
– any emotion at all. They just watched. Stared.
He turned to his task. His fingers wrapped around the back of the device automatically, like it was nothing more than a phone and he was just going to compose a text to Dee. "Srry will B late tonite. Don't wait up 4 me – busy dying. Luv, Me."
The fingers that went around the back of the keypad touched something. He flipped it over.
Another piece of photo was taped there.
Aaron wanted to go back to the keypad. To watch it count down and be hypnotized into numbness so he wouldn't feel the end when it came. Instead, he tore away the bit of photo. Everything tonight had had a reason.
This was no exception. And while looking at the picture might be just one more step to his death – might it also be a step to his return to life? Not just out of this house, but out from under Rob's thumb. Free not only to be with Dee, but to just be.
He pulled the other bits of photo from his pocket. And now, with this final piece, he saw how they would fit together. He put the pieces on the floor, then, using the tape each one still had on it, he put them together.
It was a crime scene picture. A body with yellow evidence markers around it. Blood on a white carpet. Suits and dresses visible around it.
The boy. The son.
Aaron looked at the man and the girl in the hall. Tears pushed behind his eyes. "I didn't mean…. I never meant for any harm to come to you or your family. You have to believe me."
The man nodded. Thoughtful. "And I never meant to give you the wrong number." He shrugged. "Shit happens, right?" He pointed at the keypad. "Though I'm afraid this lock isn't as generous with mistakes as my safe was. You only get one chance to get it right."
The pit bulls, still standing behind him and his daughter, began to growl. The girl laughed that mad, merry laugh.
Aaron looked at the keypad. It jittered back and forth in his trembling hands. "How can I possibly guess –"
Then he stopped. He flipped over the photo. On the back, nearly forgotten in the moment, were the numbers. He flipped the photo over again, noting the placing of the pieces in the order they'd been found.
"1," then "5," then "6," then "7." There was no number on the back of the fifth piece, just a blank space
He looked at the keypad. The LED counted down. Twenty seconds.
Aaron entered the numbers.
Nothing happened.
He began to panic, then saw a green "Enter" button in the lower right corner of the keypad. His thumb went to the button.
Everything slowed.
Everything stopped.
He didn't hit the button.
"This is the combination," he whispered. He looked at the pair in the hall. "This is the combination to your safe upstairs."
He noted the keys that were smeared under the light, then took out a grease pen and wrote the numbers on the front of the safe: "1, 2, 5, 7….
"But that didn't have four numbers," he said. "It had five." He waited a moment. No one moved. No one spoke. "What's the last number?" he finally asked.
Nothing. Even the dogs were silent.
"WHAT'S THE LAST NUMBER?"
The room was a tomb, and the dead did not speak.
0:10….
0:09….
The man finally spoke. "Hard to remember the small details when you're under so much pressure, isn't it?"
Aaron realized in that moment: the numbers had been in a different order on the safe upstairs. An order he had no chance of remembering. And if the numbers on the keypad corresponded, he was dead no matter what.
So what did he do? Clear the numbers he'd already entered and put in new ones? Or did he simply enter them in in the order they'd been given to the thieves via the photos.
Aaron closed his eyes. He had nothing to rely on but instinct. Nothing to rely on but hope.
He stabbed down on a number. The "8." And there was no reason for his choice other than what he hoped was muscle memory.
He hit the "Enter" button.
He waited. Then opened his eyes. Looked down at the LED.
0:02. Blinking, blinking. But no longer counting down.
He heard clicking and clacking, and it took him a few seconds to realize what it was: every window, every door in the house opening.
The game had been won.
"I really am sorry," he said. "For all of it."
He heard the door open behind him.
Turned.
But didn't move. Just stared at what waited for him there.
"Dee?"
44
She's here. Why is she here?
Dee stood a few feet away, separated from Aaron by a wide streak of blood that began in front of the door and disappeared around the side of the house. She had been staring at the blood, clearly taken unawares by it and unsure what to do when the door opened and she saw him.
"Aaron?" she said. She saw the people beyond him. Confusion wrinkled her face, then terror, and he knew she was taking in his blood-spattered clothing, the dangling feet in the hallway beyond him.
"Who…?" Again, she couldn't complete her thought.
Aaron sensed something behind him. He turned. The man and his daughter had come closer.
"You had to be last," said the man. "Because you were the only one who could possibly understand what it was to love, to nearly lose, the love of your life." He paused, then said, "You know what's worse than pulling a trigger?" Aaron didn't reply. He couldn't. His mouth was dry, his throat constricted.
The man nodded, as though Aaron had just said something wise. "Worse than pulling the trigger," he said, "i
s having the power to stop the trigger from being pulled – or at least to give enough of a damn to try – and just letting it happen."
As he spoke, the girl began to cackle again. Low at first, then higher and higher, louder and louder. Then she stopped and said, "You should know that no matter what numbers you entered, this was going to happen." Then she snapped her fingers.
The dogs surged forward, growling and barking.
Aaron screamed. Threw up his hands as they barreled into him.
And then rushed right past.
He realized what was happening. Knew what was about to happen.
"NO!"
The girl spoke as the dogs passed. The words a scream punching their way through the holes in her dancing laugh. "There is always madness in love," she shrieked.
And, behind him, Dee had time for one short scream before she disappeared beneath the mass of dogs.
Then one more scream. This one much longer.
Aaron couldn't look.
Silence took the world.
He wept, and, weeping, looked at the man and the girl in the hall. Together they said, "And the worst thieves…
An empty room. A note on a table before a mantle that should have held pictures of family, memories of smiles, but instead held nothing at all.
the worst thieves....
"… steal only time," they finished.
The silence again. Even the dogs were held breathless.
Then the girl raised her hand. She snapped her fingers.
Aaron felt something change behind him. Huge presences crowding close.
He heard the growl.
Then he, too, screamed.
And then, after a long time…
… all was silent.
FOUR:
... that death built.
This is the life the man once had. Before he ever entered a house of mazes and traps, of death and darkness. He once had a life, and once made a choice. Never understanding the ripples that such decisions make in the still waters of our lives.
The woman woke up, and he knew that she was healed. The cancer had been beaten. And so what did it matter what he had done? What did it matter the cost?
She was back. That was worth any price.
She looked at him and smiled and he saw in her eyes that she was his and he was hers once more.
"Hi," she said. Her voice was dry, cracked from long silence and the medicines that had healed her while she slept. Dry, jagged as fragments of a broken glass.
And, to him, beautiful.
"Hi," he whispered back. His voice was dry, too, though for different reason – for the jobs he had done, the things he had stolen, the lives he failed to save. For what he once was, and never could be again.
He began to weep. "I thought I'd lost you," he said through his sobs.
"Me?" she asked. "Never." She reached a weak hand to his head. Touched him gently. "You chose me," she said. And she added words of love, words meant to warm. But they only brought a chill to his body, and made fear writhe in his heart.
"And you'll never be free of what you chose."
So in that moment, long before the night it all ended, before the house that death built swallowed him up, he felt darkness surround him.
A single choice.
A single moment.
A single "yes" to what turned out to be the first of many dark nights.
And everything shifted from what could be…
… to what must inevitably come to pass.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Michaelbrent Collings is a full-time screenwriter and novelist. He has written numerous bestselling horror, thriller, sci-fi, and fantasy novels, including The Colony Saga, Strangers, Darkbound, Apparition, The Haunted, Hooked: A True Faerie Tale, and the bestselling YA series The Billy Saga.
Follow him through Twitter @mbcollings or on Facebook at facebook.com/MichaelbrentCollings.
NOVELS BY MICHAELBRENT COLLINGS
THE COLONY SAGA:
THE COLONY: GENESIS (The Colony, Vol. 1)
THE COLONY: RENEGADES (The Colony, Vol. 2)
THE COLONY: DESCENT (THE COLONY, VOL. 3)
THE COLONY: VELOCITY (THE COLONY, VOL. 4)
THE COLONY: SHIFT (THE COLONY, VOL. 5)
THE COLONY: BURIED (tHE COLONY, VOL. 6)
THE COLONY OMNIBUS
THE DEEP
TWISTED
THIS DARKNESS LIGHT
CRIME SEEN
STRANGERS
DARKBOUND
BLOOD RELATIONS:
A GOOD MORMON GIRL MYSTERY
THE HAUNTED
APPARITION
THE LOON
MR. GRAY (aka THE MERIDIANS)
RUN
RISING FEARS
YOUNG ADULT AND
MIDDLE GRADE FICTION:
THE SWORD CHRONICLES: CHILD OF THE EMPIRE
THE RIDEALONG
HOOKED: A TRUE FAERIE TALE
KILLING TIME
THE BILLY SAGA:
BILLY: MESSENGER OF POWERS (BOOK 1)
BILLY: SEEKER OF POWERS (BOOK 2)
BILLY: DESTROYER OF POWERS (BOOK 3)
THE COMPLETE BILLY SAGA (BOOKS 1-3)
The House That Death Built Page 20
