unconscious. A minute? An hour?
The Frenchman got to his feet, picking up the axe as he did so. He held it before him, studying the heavy, wickedly sharp blade. He looked towards the house and thought of Kelly. The axe felt as if it were a part of him, an extension of his arms.
He kicked open the door and trudged across the lawn towards the darkened house, the large, razor-sharp weapon held before him. A smile creased his lips.
When the power inside the house went off, Kelly could hear nothing but the rumbling of thunder. The electric wall clock stopped ticking and she was deprived of even that welcome sound.
Now she stood alone in the darkness, praying for the light to return. The thought that the fuse box might have blown began to creep into her mind.
Or had someone in the house turned the power off?
She spun round, her imagination beginning to play tricks on her. Had she seen movement in the sitting room behind her?
The lights came back on so suddenly she almost shouted aloud in surprise and relief.
Kelly licked her lips but found that her tongue felt like old newspaper. She quickly checked in the pantry then turned, intent on heading back through the.house to look upstairs.
In the light flooding from the kitchen windows, she saw Joubert approaching across the small lawn.
She breathed an audible sigh of relief and knelt to undo the bolt on the back door, preparing to turn the key in the lock to let him in. He obviously hadn’t found anything, she reasoned, except for the axe which he carried. He had almost reached the back door.
She turned the key in the lock, her hand resting on the knob.
As he saw the door opening, Joubert uttered a high-pitched yell of fury and swung the axe with all his strength. It scythed through the wooden door, ripping it free of one hinge. Kelly’s own scream mingled with the shriek of splintering wood. She turned and ran for the sitting room as Joubert stove in the remainder of the door and crashed into the kitchen.
Kelly slipped and fell as she reached the hall, looking over her shoulder in time to see him emerge from the kitchen.
He looked like something from a nightmare with his hair plastered down, his face scratched and bruised and his mouth spread in a kind of rictus. He hurdled a coffee table and hurried after her.
Kelly leapt to her feet, slamming the hall door behind her, darting towards the stairs.
She took them two at a time, stumbling once again at the top.
Below her, Joubert flung open the door and hurried across the hall, pausing on the bottom step before ascending slowly.
Kelly was faced by four doors.
She raced towards the first, hearing his heavy footfalls on the stairs as he climbed higher.
The door was locked. •
Kelly hurried to the second one, praying that it was open.
She pulled open the door and ran inside,-flinging herself beneath the bed.
Through the half-open door, she could see when Joubert reached the landing. He stood at the top of the stairs for what seemed like an eternity, only his feet visible to Kelly but she realized that he must be deciding which door to try first.
He moved towards the room on her left.
The locked one. She heard him twisting the handle then she heard the sound of shattering wood as he smashed off the knob and kicked the door open.
Kelly closed her eyes, wondering if this was all a nightmare. If she would
wake up in a second. She tried to swallow but her throat was constricted.
She heard his footsteps, saw his feet as he stood in the doorway of the room in which she hid.
He took a step inside.
Kelly bit her fist to stifle a cry.
He moved closer towards the bed.
If only she could roll out on the other side, run for the door …
But what if she slipped? What if he reached the door before her?
What if…?
He was standing beside her now, his feet together.
She imagined that axe poised over the bed.
With a strength born of terror, Kelly snaked her arms out, fastened them around Joubert’s ankles and tugged. She succeeded in pulling his legs away from him and he went down with a heavy thump, the axe falling from his grip.
She rolled over, scrambling clear of the bed, jumped to her feet and ran for the door.
Joubert was up in a second. He flung out a hand and managed to grab a handful of her hair. Kelly yelped as some of it came out at the roots and she felt herself overbalancing. She grabbed for the door frame and managed to retain her stance but he had slowed her up and, as she reached the landing, the Frenchman hurled himself at her, bringing her down in a pile-up which knocked the wind from them both.
Kelly struck out with her nails, raking his face. Joubert bellowed in pain and tried to pull her down again but Kelly got to her feet and kicked him hard in the side, bringing the heel of her shoe down on his outstretched hand so hard that it penetrated. Blood welled from the puncture and Joubert roiled to one side. But, he was still between Kelly and the stairs.
As the Frenchman struggled to his knees, Kelly ran at him and lashed out again with a kick which caught him firmly in the solar plexus. He fell backward, clutching at empty air for a second before tumbling down the stairs, thudding to a halt at the bottom with his head at an unnatural angle.
She gazed down at his motionless form realizing that his neck must be broken.
Kelly ran into the bedroom and picked up the double-handed axe, moving quickly from bedroom to bedroom in search of Blake’s body.
The rooms were empty.
Kelly began descending the stairs, the axe held firmly in her hands. She paused beside the body of Joubert, holding the razor sharp blade above his head as she felt for a pulse.
Nothing. As she’d thought, his neck had been broken in the fall.
She suddenly felt overwhelmed by sadness, not just for his death but for all the other people who had died that night and who would die if she did not complete her task. Her grief slowly became anger as she realized that all of the carnage, all of the suffering had been caused by Blake.
There were two more rooms in the house to be searched.
She went through the dining room quickly. That left the cellar.
The door was locked but that did not deter Kelly. She brought the axe down twice, shattering the lock, knocking the door wide open. She slapped on the lights and slowly descended into the subterranean room.
The silence crowded around her, an almost physical force. She stood still at the bottom of the steps, her eyes searching.
Next to one of the large bookcases, almost invisible on first glimpse, was a small door, no bigger than three feet square, its handle also painted white to make it even more inconspicuous. Kelly bent and tugged on the handle.
It opened effortlessly and she recoiled as a rancid smell of rotten wood and damp earth rose from the tiny compartment. But, if the door was small then what lay beyond it was not. The space behind the door looked as though it had been made many years earlier. It stretched back into darkness, she wasn’t sure how far. The walls were soft and slimy and she had to duck low to avoid scraping her hair on the dripping ceiling. The stench was almost overpowering.
Lying undisturbed, covered by a blanket, amidst the muck and filth, was the
body of Blake.
Kelly grabbed both ankles and, using all her strength, pulled. Inch by inch, the corpse came clear of its resting place until it lay in full view in the cellar. Kelly noticed that the eyes were still open. They seemed to fix her in a reproachful stare and, for a moment, she was rooted to the spot.
