It looked like a low-budget earthquake scene from a bad direct-to-video flick, the camera shaking, blurring, and doubling everything in the scene.

Except that there was no camera. And the blurring and doubling were not due to some optical trick but to the fact that the walls and floor and ceiling actually seemed to be physically separating, splitting like cells into identical twins of themselves.

There was a cry from off to his left, and Stormy turned his head to look down the hall. Norton had obviously heeded his call and was at the top of the stairs, holding tightly to the banister to keep from falling onto the landing below.

Stormy stood, bracing himself in the doorway. “What’s happening?” he yelled.

“I think the Houses are separating!”

Why hadn’t he seen that? Around him, that strange mitosis was continuing. He was still recognizably situated in a tangible, material House, but the transparent outlines of other Houses could be seen emerging from it. The doorway in which he was standing was quadrupled, and seeing four ghostly doorways surrounded by four ghostly walls receding into the solid reality of his corporeal House was not only disorienting but dizzying. He turned toward Norton again, and the old man looked transparent as well.

Holy shit. He was going to be left alone here again. They were all going to be alone. It was bad enough being trapped in one House together. But trapped in separate Houses…

And without Billings?

He didn’t think he could survive that.

The adrenaline that had been revving up his heart on account of the shaking kicked into overdrive, and he scrambled desperately toward the staircase at the end of the hall, crying with fear and frustration. He wanted to grab Norton, to hold on to him so they wouldn’t be separated, but the old man’s figure was fading into the wainscoting.

“No!” he screamed.

But the transparent Norton couldn’t hear him.

And then the earthquake was over and the other Houses were gone.

TEN

Daniel

Where was he? In what House? In what time period? Everything was confused, and Daniel shook his head as if to clear it. He stood alone in what had been the entryway, staring down the hall. The dark corridor was endless. There seemed to be literally hundreds of doors stretching out as far as he could see, with no discernible end. This was not the House he remembered, not any House he had ever seen, and he wondered exactly what had happened. He and Laurie had been in the kitchen, starting the dishes, when the shaking started. Following her lead, he’d stood in the doorway, and then…

What?

His recollection of what happened next was hazy. He seemed to recall seeing Mark duck under the dining-room table. But then there were two dining-room tables. And two dining rooms.

And then three. Four. Five.