“The lights aren’t working, either,” RIck said.
Chris stared at him, perplexed. “What’s going on around here?”
“I don’t know,” said Rick sourly. “You tell me. They’re your friends.” His tone clearly indicated his disapproval. “Listen, I’m going to go on out to the living room and check out what’s going on out there.”
He half expected to find them crashed out on the couch, stoned to the gills. And if that was the case, despite the fact that they were Chris’ friends, he was going to give them hell about it. They might’ve burned the house down.
He went into the living room, but it was empty, although the logs in the fireplace were burning brightly. After trying the light switches in the living room, he discovered they didn’t work, either. The power must be out thoughout the house, he thought. The main fuse was probably blown.
“Andy? Debbie?” he called out, glancing up at the second-floor balcony. “You guys up there? Anybody here?”
He went back into the kitchen. Chris was scrubbing out the pot with steel wool by the light of a kerosene lamp.
“Everybody else has taken off and left us,” he said.
She looked up at him with surprise. “They wouldn’t do that.”
Maybe not, he thought. And the van was still parked outside. But he couldn’t think of any other explanation for this kind of strange behavior. In weather like this, they certainly wouldn’t be down by the lake, would they? Perhaps they were outside in the barn. If this was all some sort of prank they were playing, it wasn’t very funny.
“Well, I don’t know what’s going on,” said Rick, “but I’m going to go outside and take a look around.”
“Rick, wait!” Chris called after him as he went out the door. “I want to come with you!”
She quickly rinsed off the pot and put it on the counter, then ran after him, wiping her hands on her jeans.
Outside, Rick ran down the porch steps and walked aorund the side of the house, heading toward the barn. He heard the crunch of a heavy footstep on the gravel.
“Andy?” he said. “Is that you?”
He started to turn when he was suddenly seized from behind.
“Rick?” Chris called, coming into the living room. She looked around, but the living room was empty. He must have already gone outside, she thought. She suddenly felt creepy standing all alone in the empty house. She went up to the front door and opened it, hesitating before going out on the front porch. She felt nervous about going outside.
She stepped out onto the front porch and looked around. He was nowhere in sight. “Rick?” she called out nervously.
Rick was only about twenty feet away, but he couldn’t answer her. A large, callused hand was clamped over his mouth and nose, holding him so that he couldn’t breath. A powerful arm was wrapped around his chest, pinning his arms to his sides and immobilizing him. His feet were off the ground, and though he kicked and struggled with all his might, he couldn’t break loose or even shout out to warn Chris. Jason held him as easily as if he were an infant.
Chris stood out on the front porch for a moment, looking out into the darkness, then decided to go back inside. As she closed the door behind her, Jason placed his hands on either side of Rick’s head and began to squeeze. Rick gulped for air and started to scream, but the pressure was so great that it felt as if his skull were being crushed in a winepress. A keening, high-pitched groan escaped from his throat, and then his skull began to fracture, cracking like a walnut and sending bone splinters deep into his brain. His eyes popped out of their sockets, his jawbones cracked, and his cheek bones shattered as blood spurted from his mouth and nostrils. Chris opened a window on the side of the house and called out his name, but he was hard pressed to answer.
After closing the window, Chris headed back toward the kitchen, wishing Rick would come back soon so that he could do something about the lights. She started and jerked back as something dripped onto her head from above. She looked up. A steady trickle of water was coming down from overhead.
“Oh-oh,” she said. “Where’s that coming from?”
Frowning, she picked up the lantern and went up the spiral staircase to the second-floor balcony. Maybe they were upstairs all along, but they simply weren’t answereing, she thought. Hell, if they were fooling around up in the bathroom and they flooded the damn place . . .
“I don’t know what kind of game you guys are playin’,” she called out, “but I don’t like it!”
There was no response. She reached the top of the stairs and stood still for a moment, listening.
“Debbie? You guys up here?”
She stopped in front of the bathroom door. What the hell were they doing in there in the dark? Her foot stepped into a puddle formed by the water seeping out from underneath the door. Through the door, she could hear the sound of water running.
“Hey, come on, you guys!” she shouted, pushing in the door. “You’re wrecking the house!”
The bathtub was overflowing. She reached out and yanked the shower curtain aside. There were some clothes floating in the tub. Angrily, she reached down and turned off the faucet. Damn that Debbie, she thought, what did she do, throw some sweaters in to soak and then forget to turn the water off? Where the hell were they?
And then she noticied a dark stain in the water. She held the lantern closer and saw that it was blood seeping out of the clothes, turning the water red. With a sharp intake of breath, she lifted the bloody shirt out of the tub, stared at it with a stunned expression, then dropped it back into the tub and raced down the
