by John Manning
“Dean!” she cried.
Douglas lifted his body and carried it down the hall to the study. Carolyn followed, helping Paula walk. She could feel the blood still flowing steadily from the wound in her side. But all she was really aware of was the fact that her brother was dead.
Something made her turn back to see the madman who had killed him one more time.
And to her horror, he was no longer on the floor.
Chapter Twenty-nine
“Daddy?”
Chelsea peered into her father’s room.
The noise from downstairs had terrified her. She’d run to Ryan’s room, only to discover he was not there. There were screams and thuds from the foyer. What was going on? Had the terrors of that room escaped into the house?
Then she’d heard the gunshot. With mounting fear, Chelsea hurried down the corridor to her father’s room, barefoot and still in her pink nightie.
“Daddy?” she called again, taking a step into the room.
He didn’t seem to be here either. Where had they gone? Chelsea began to panic. Was she the only person left in the house?
She noticed her father’s suitcase on the floor. He had packed to leave. But he clearly hadn’t left quite yet.
That was when she noticed the splatter of red dots on the wall.
Blood.
She took a couple of steps around to the other side of the bed. The moisture on her feet told her she was walking in blood.
She saw her father lying on the floor. His arms were twisted up in an odd angle.
“Daddy!” she screamed.
Her foot hit something. At first she thought it might have been a boot or a shoe.
But then the object rolled over like a bowling ball.
Dead eyes looked up at her.
It was her father’s head.
Chelsea screamed.
Chapter Thirty
“What is going on in this house?” Karen asked as she wrapped Paula’s wound with a tablecloth.
In one corner of the room, Linda was trying to console her crying, terrified children. At the window, Carolyn kept watch, while Douglas, now holding the rifle, stood guarding the parlor doors.
“Where’s everybody else?” Douglas asked. “Uncle Howie, Uncle Philip, Ryan, Chelsea?”
“Last I knew, Philip, Ryan, and Chelsea were still in their rooms,” Carolyn said. “Your uncle was in the dining room. But he must have fled when he heard the commotion in the foyer. Let’s hope he’s hiding.”
“Or that maniac got him already,” Douglas said.
“Who is he?” Paula wanted to know. “You said you knew him, Carolyn.”
Carolyn sighed. It was surreal. The jubilation of just an hour ago had been turned topsy-turvy into a nightmare of disbelief. They had thought they had won. The curse seemed to be ended. They had survived the night in the room; they had sent Clem’s spirit to rest in peace. It should have been over. The power that room held over their lives should have been ended.
But instead Carolyn now faced the greatest fear of her life.
David Cooke.
“I was in a relationship with him some time ago,” she revealed. “He killed a girl. I found out about it only after he was gone. Then I gave evidence to the police.”
“Well, that creature I shot,” Paula said, “is definitely not human. I blew a hole right through its chest, but still it got up and walked.”
“He’s a zombie,” Carolyn said. She knew this to be the case; she had experience with such things, after all. “He’s not a ghost like Clem, but he’s clearly still in the power of whatever force controls that room.”
“But you broke the curse,” Linda said tearfully. “You survived the night. Dean always believed that if someone could survive a night in that room, its power would be broken and we would be free.”
“Apparently,” Douglas said, “all we did was piss it off.”
Carolyn ran her hands through her hair. She realized there was blood on her fingers. “It needs a vessel to act against us,” she said, understanding dawning on her. “For eighty years it used Clem. Now that we took Clem away from it, it needed someone else. So it settled on David.”
“I don’t understand what connection your ex-boyfriend has with that room,” Douglas said.
Carolyn shook her head. “I doubt there’s a connection. But the room knows more than we gave it credit for. Whether it found David and brought him here-or whether he came here on his own, looking for revenge on me-the room clearly understood he could be used against us, and so it took over his mind and his body.” She shuddered. “What that means is that anyone could be used against us. The forces that control that room can see into our minds and our hearts.”
The children began to cry again. Linda clasped them to her breast.
“I’m sorry,” Carolyn said. “I don’t mean to frighten them. But they need to understand how serious this is.”
“Will someone please explain to me what the hell is going on?” Karen cried.
Paula took a deep breath and recapped, as best she could, the long, terrible ordeal of the family curse and the reason why she had been so opposed to having children. Meanwhile, Carolyn once again checked her cell phone and then the house phone. Both remained dead.
“That gun isn’t going to be much help to us,” she said softly to Douglas.
He shrugged. “Well, it might slow him down a little, and give the kids at least a chance to get away.”
Suddenly they both tensed. The doorknobs of the parlor doors had begun to turn.
Douglas aimed the gun at the doors and shouted over his shoulder, “Linda, take the kids and go out the window!”
But just then the doors opened.
“Hold your fire!” Carolyn yelled.
It was Chelsea.
The girl ran into the parlor straight into Carolyn’s arms. She was sobbing. Her mascara ran down her face in black streaks.
“My father!” she cried. “My father!”
“What about your father?” Carolyn asked.
“He’s dead!” She looked up into Carolyn’s eyes. “Someone cut off his head!”
“Dear God,” Paula groaned. Linda clapped her hands over the children’s ears.
“It’s a slaughter,” Douglas said, closing the parlor doors securely again. “Just like when the lottery was breached in the past. Until the room had claimed someone, other members of the family were killed off. That’s what’s happening here.”
“But the lottery wasn’t breached,” Carolyn argued. “It was held as always. Someone was chosen, and someone went into the room.”
“But I survived,” Douglas said. “That wasn’t supposed to happen.”
“We’ve got to find a way of pacifying the room,” Paula said, wincing as she headed over to the wall and took down the other rifle that was hanging there. “Give it what it wants, or we all will die.”
“No,” Carolyn objected. “There has to be another way.”
“The amulet,” Chelsea said, sitting down on the sofa and hugging herself. “I want that amulet that protects us.”
“Didn’t do the trick,” Douglas told her. “I was simply compelled to rip it off my neck.”
“We can’t rely on trinkets anymore,” Carolyn said.
“What do you suggest then?” Paula asked.
“We were able to send Clem away to rest in peace. We need to do the same to whatever force controls that room.”
“We don’t even know what it is!” Douglas said.
“No,” Carolyn admitted. “But Beatrice does.”
She glanced out the window.
“She’s out there somewhere. She’s the only reason we’re still alive. Her power isn’t as strong as the power in the room, but she can still manage to have an influence. I’m convinced that if not for Beatrice, David would have been able to burst through those doors and kill us all. But she can only hold him off for so long.” Carolyn took a deep breath. “We need to find out what force controls that room.”
“Possibly,” Carolyn said. “But someone else has the information we need, too. Someone we can simply ask directly and this time demand he tell us.”
“Uncle Howie,” Douglas said.
Carolyn nodded. Paula, too, seemed to agree.
“If he’s still alive,” Douglas said.
“I think he is,” Carolyn said. “The force has allowed him to live for eighty years. Nine times he’s escaped being chosen in the lottery. For some reason, the force wants him alive. And it’s time we found out what that reason is.”
“But where is Uncle Howard?” Paula asked. “How can we get to him? If any one of us leaves this room, surely that madman will kill us.”
“That’s where you’re wrong,” Carolyn said. “He would kill any one of you. He will not kill me.”
She stepped forward and placed her hand on the doorknob.
“No!” Douglas shouted. “I won’t let you go out there alone!”
“I’m the only one not a family member,” she said. “As much as I wish it were different, Douglas, right now I’m glad I didn’t yet accept your offer of marriage.”
He looked at her with wide, terrified eyes.
Carolyn turned the doorknob. “The force in that room has no grievance with me. I’m the only one who can safely step outside this room.”
“The force may have no grievance with you,” Douglas said, “but David Cooke does.”
She steeled herself. “It’s time I finally confronted David Cooke.”
Chapter Thirty-one
Inside the linen closet Ryan slowly lowered his hands from his ears. The house had fallen eerily quiet. The screaming and crashing and the gunshots had stopped. When the commotion had begun, Ryan had looked over the banister into the foyer below and seen a scar-faced man on Douglas’s back raising a knife. Without even a moment’s hesitation Ryan had turned on his heel and run down the hall, scurrying into the nearest hiding space he could find. For the next hour-or had it been less than that?-he had kept as still in the closet as possible, his hands clamped over his ears to drown out the sounds of his family being murdered, one by one.
Is it possible they’re all dead? he wondered.
And if so, why was I spared?
Surely the killer was some demon from that room. Douglas had apparently survived the night, but something got him this morning instead. And from the screams and thuds that ensued, he wasn’t the only one to die.
How long before it comes to get me?
Ryan knew that for something that powerful, a simple linen closet was not going to provide protection for long. It would sense him. It would track him down. He shuddered, tears squeezing out from between his closed eyelids. He remembered the terror he’d felt when the man with the pitchfork had threatened him. He dreaded what might come.
“Please spare me,” he whispered-to whom, he had no idea.
He didn’t want to die. He had so much to live for. He was going to be the most successful member of his family ever. He’d even thought of running for elected office. Nothing lower than U.S. senator, of course. It wasn’t fair that he might die! The evil force of that room could have his cousin Douglas. Douglas was never going to amount to anything. But Ryan was going to be big. He was going to be Somebody!
He wondered if his father and Chelsea were dead.
Curiosity was beginning to gnaw away at his fear. What had happened out there? Were bodies strewn everywhere? How long should he wait in here?
A thought occurred to him. Maybe it’s over. Maybe I’ve really survived the slaughter.
After all, he reasoned, when the slaughters had happened before, not everyone in the family was killed. There were always survivors. The forces that controlled the room wouldn’t want everyone to die. They needed someone who would keep the line going, providing the next generation of victims. Ryan began to think that he really had lucked out. Maybe everyone was dead, but he had survived.
Slowly, stealthily, he leaned forward, pressing his forehead against the closet door and inching it open just enough to get a glimpse of the hallway.
Nothing. He saw nothing out of the ordinary.
I could make a dash for it, he thought. Out of the closet, down the hall, down the stairs, across the foyer, out the front door.
Of course, family members had been killed many miles away from Youngsport. Distance was no guarantee of safety. But if the slaughter was really over, Ryan could rest assured no one would be coming after him. He could forget all about the room.
At least for another ten years.
And if Douglas was dead, maybe the others were dead, too. Maybe even Uncle Howard. That would leave Ryan the sole heir to the family fortune. At that very moment, he might already be one of the richest men in the world.
That alone was enough to get him to stand up and ease his way out of the closet.
He listened. Not a sound. It had to be over.
He took a step down the corridor. The landing overlooking the foyer wasn’t far ahead. Stealthily, he approached the banister and looked over. Blood was smeared across the marble. The suit of armor had fallen on its face. But the place was empty and quiet.
He took a deep breath and practically threw himself down the stairs. He ran as fast as he could, taking two steps at a time. When he reached the bottom, however, he lost his footing, slipping in the pool of glossy blood on the floor. He went down on his butt, the blood splashing and staining his white shirt. Panicked, he stood and tried to regain traction, but had the sense he was running in place, like a cartoon character. Only with great effort did he push himself across the foyer to the front door.
But it was locked.
“No,” he whispered, spinning around, glancing around the room to make sure he was still alone.
He was. He breathed a sigh of relief.
He’d have to exit by the one of the other doors. He ruled out the terrace door. The trail of blood led that that way. Who knew what he’d find in the dining room or kitchen? He’d have to go out through the side door, accessed through the library.
Carefully he made his way across the foyer. The doors to the parlor were closed. He noticed blood on the doorknobs. Shivering, he headed down the hall. But as he passed the study, he heard a sound.
It was a man.
And he was crying.
Ryan peered in through the half-open doors. He spied Uncle Howard, standing over a sofa, crying softly as he looked down. Ryan couldn’t see what he was looking at.
“Uncle Howard?” Ryan whispered.
The old man’s eyes flickered up to him, but he did not reply.
Carefully Ryan stepped into the room. He walked around to the front of the couch. Sprawled there was Dean, in a blood-soaked shirt. He was dead.
“Oh, man,” Ryan said.
“He was a good man,” Uncle Howard said in a thick voice. “Perhaps the best of the lot. Hardworking. Decent. A good father and husband.”
Ryan just swallowed, staring down at his dead cousin.
“How many more?” Uncle Howard asked, looking off into the distance. “How many more will you claim?”
“Is it over?” Ryan asked. “Have they killed everybody else?”
“I don’t know,” Uncle Howard replied. With difficulty he moved away toward the desk that sat at the far end of the room. Bracing himself against it, he let out a long sigh. “I took refuge in the library when I heard the screaming begin. When the house grew silent, I came in here and found Dean. Someone had left his body here. I don’t know what we will find in the rest of the house.”
“We’ve got to get out,” Ryan said.
The old man just shook his head. “If we’re meant to die, there’s nowhere we could run. You’re too young to remember your Uncle Ernest. But surely you’ve heard the stories. He ran all the way to Wisconsin, but they found him. No, I’m staying right here. If they come for me, there’s nothi
ng I can do.” He leveled his old eyes at Ryan. “And the same holds for you.”
Once again Ryan felt the old man’s imputation of cowardice and betrayal. He looked away.
Uncle Howard took a deep breath. “The house has been quiet for a while now. But I doubt the killing is complete.”
“Who’s doing it?” Ryan asked. “It’s not the guy with the pitchfork. I saw another guy in the foyer. He was attacking Douglas.” He rather enjoyed telling his uncle that his favorite nephew had been assaulted.
“Douglas?” the old man asked. “Oh, dear God.”
“It was a guy I’d never heard about before,” Ryan told him. “A man with a scar on his face.”
“Scar?” Howard Young seemed puzzled. “I can’t imagine who that might be. There was no man with a scar on his face…” He seemed to think of something. “But that man Carolyn was involved with…what was his name? David Cooke. The reports I obtained on him revealed that he had a scar on his face. Could it be the same?”
Ryan looked at him strangely. “But why would some guy Carolyn was involved with be attacking this family?”
“The powers of that room are great,” Uncle Howard said. “They can get in your mind… They can cause you to do things.” He shuddered. “If it is the same, then it means we are in greater danger than ever before.”
They heard a sound. A steady, rhythmic beat. A thud, repeated over and over.
“It sounds as if someone’s knocking on the walls,” Ryan said.
“No, listen closely.” Uncle Howard was straining to hear. “It is the sound of a knife…repeatedly stabbing the wall. Close the doors, Ryan.”
Ryan obeyed.
“As he walks,” Uncle Howard whispered, “he is stabbing the wall. The knife goes in, the knife comes out, and he takes another step toward us.”
“No,” Ryan said. He began to cry.
“He is coming for us,” the old man said.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
The sound grew ever closer.
In his mind, Ryan could see the knife cutting into the plaster of the wall. He could see the brute’s hand gripping the handle.
