He thought he detected movement to the right of Billings’ body, and immediately he shifted his attention in that direction. At first he saw nothing, but he squinted his eyes, looked more carefully.

A shade, a shadow—Norton?—was standing near the foot of the table, its indistinct form covered with blood, staring at its own outstretched hands with an expression that could be read as horror, could be read as awe. The face was obscure, faded into transparency, but there was something about the shape of its body, its stance, the movement of its head and arms, that reminded him of Norton, and he was suddenly sure that the old man was dead.

He called out Norton’s name, tried to communicate with the ghost or whatever it was, but no matter what he said or how much he gesticulated, he could not seem to capture the figure’s attention.

There was additional movement in the far corner of the dark room, a flash of white in his peripheral vision, and Stormy quickly glanced over at that area.

Donielle.

She had no trouble seeing him. The girl smiled in his direction, and her lips were bright crimson, there were flecks of blood on her teeth. She lifted her shift, and he saw smears of red on her crotch where she’d been… touching herself. “Come and get it,” she said, giggling. Her voice seemed to come from far away.

Looking at her now, Stormy could not understand how he had ever even been tempted.

She turned around and bent over, still giggling. “Kiss it!” she said.

He slammed the door of the room as hard as he could, backing toward his bedroom across the hall. More than anything, he needed time to think, time to sort things out, but he had the feeling that was exactly what he was not going to get. He was filled with the sudden conviction that things were coming to a head, that whatever it had all been building toward had arrived, that the girl had almost achieved her goal.

That he was next.

Reaching behind him, his hands felt the jamb of his bedroom doorway and he turned around. But it was not his room. It was the black room again, and amid the bloody mayhem, Donielle stood at the foot of Billings’s table with her shift hiked up and rubbed herself with bloody hands.

He turned, and the door he had slammed shut was now open again, and he saw the identical room across the hall. He tried to think of what he should do, how he could get out of this, but his mind was a blank.

“You can’t escape,” Donielle said.

And advanced on him from both directions.

TWENTY

Mark

He walked slowly through the House, looking for the girl.