He didn’t have to ask Angel where she’d been — he knew! Out with that son of a bitch Blake Baker’s kid. And he knew what they’d been doing too. Myra might not believe it, but he knew.
His daughter was a slut.
A slut who had taken a boy she’d barely even met into her bedroom.
“
That was why she hadn’t spoken to him when she came in, why she just glanced at him as she headed for the stairs, acting like she didn’t see him at all. But she had seen him — he could tell.
And she wanted him.
Just like the voice said.
He could feel it.
He listened to her going up the stairs, and heard her close the door to her room.
“
Oh, yeah, he knew. She was taking off her clothes…
The thought made Marty tremble, and he poured more of the whiskey from the bottle into his glass, then drained the glass.
“
As the television droned on, and the image on the set continued to flicker, Marty drank the rest of the whiskey and listened to the voice.
“
At last, with the voice whispering to him, Marty rose from his chair and went into the kitchen. He opened the drawer next to the sink, and a moment later his fingers closed on the handle of Myra’s favorite knife.
The thumb of his other hand traced its edge, testing its sharpness.
“
The knife in his right hand, Marty started up the stairs.
Angel heard the footsteps on the stairs and knew exactly what they meant.
He was finally coming for her.
The door to her room was shut, but it wasn’t locked — he’d taken away the key — and she knew that if he wanted to come in, he would.
Nothing would keep him out.
As soon as she’d entered the house, she knew it was a mistake — she should have gone with Seth.
Or gone to her aunt’s.
Or gone anywhere.
But she hadn’t done any of those things, and now she was alone without even Houdini to help her, and he was finally coming for her.
She was standing next to the chair by her desk, still dressed in the clothes she’d worn to school. She’d considered putting on one of her old sweatshirts when she got home, but changed her mind when she remembered her father walking in on her the other day, staring at her half-naked body with a look in his eye that told her what he was thinking. So she hadn’t risked taking off any of her clothes.
Nor had she been able to absorb any of her English assignment. She’d reread the same page over and over, her eyes scanning the words but not seeing them, so focused was she on listening for the sounds that would betray her father’s presence outside her door.
Now, as his footsteps drew closer, she tried to prepare herself. She gripped the chair.
And she waited.
The planking in the floor groaned as if protesting every step he took, and Angel could almost see him walking with exaggerated care, but weaving from all the beer and whiskey he’d been drinking.
He was outside her door now, but before the door opened she sensed something at her feet and looked down to see Houdini gazing up at her. As the bedroom door began to open, the cat jumped into her arms.
The door swung slowly open to reveal the figure of a girl holding a cat as black as the clothes she wore, and once more Marty Sullivan heard the voice whispering in his head.
He clutched the knife in his right hand even more tightly and stepped forward, crossing the threshold and entering Angel’s room.
“
With the voice whispering hypnotically inside his head, Marty moved closer.
Angel held Houdini tightly as she saw the knife in her father’s hand, and as he slowly moved toward her, she felt the cat tense and heard his low growl shift into a warning hiss. But her father kept coming, and as he drew near, with the knife raised high and aimed at her face, she imagined its point sinking into one of her eyes, stabbing deep—
The thought died as she recoiled from the pain, which was so vividly imagined that she could actually feel it, and even see the blood pouring from the wound.
A scream erupted in the room, a scream that perfectly reflected the pain Angel was imagining and the carnage she saw in her mind’s eye. Except the scream hadn’t erupted from her throat, and the blood wasn’t pouring from a wound in her own face, but rather, from her father’s! And her father was reeling now, his free hand reflexively pressed against his eye. Blood was streaming from it, oozing through his fingers, running down his face and his neck, spreading over his shirt.
But how had it happened? The knife was still in his other hand, and still pointing at her.
But it was covered with blood!
How? She’d been watching, and she hadn’t seen him do anything! She’d just imagined the knife plunging into her own eye and—
And her father’s own eye had bled!
What if she’d imagined it sinking into her breast?
Another howl burst from her father’s throat, and now blood was spurting from a great gash in his chest. Then the howl died away and he was moving toward her again, and his lips were moving, and she could hear words.
But it wasn’t her father’s voice. And as the voice poured forth from the bloody figure lurching toward her, the cat in her arms launched itself outward.
“
The cat struck Marty Sullivan’s face, its claws extended, its fangs bared. As its teeth tore into the flesh of Marty’s face, he let out another scream of agony, and finally turned away, lurching toward the door, groping with his free hand as he staggered out of the room.
Myra Sullivan heard the first scream as she was coming through the front door. She froze, but when she heard the second scream, and knew it was coming from the second floor, she left the front door standing open and hurried toward the foot of the steep staircase. “Angel?” she called out. “Angel!”
Now she could hear movement upstairs, and muffled grunts, and a sound like sobbing.
She mounted the stairs, but before she was even halfway up, a figure appeared on the landing above, and as she gazed at it, Myra could barely believe her eyes. Blood was spurting from the figure’s chest, and half its face seemed to be torn away. Transfixed by the terrible vision above her, she gazed at it in awe. Then, seeing the knife in the figure’s right hand, she realized it wasn’t a vision at all. “Marty?” she breathed.
