He was ten years old again, on the stairs of the House and running for his life. He"d just seen the wh.o.r.e-girl"s big doglike teeth, and that was all he needed to know that this was the last place in the world he should be. His sneakered feet pounded down the stairs, his torn Green Hornet T-shirt hanging in flaps. Then he stopped short- Halfway down the steps, he saw the figure.

It was a big figure, big as a wall, and it was just standing there, blocking his way out.

It stood in shadow, backlit. He couldn"t see any features, just its shape, and just that it was big.

"Young man," it said, "curiosity is a commendable trait, but I think you and I have some talking to do."

Phil ran back up the stairs, his feet pacing with his heart. When he turned back right, he saw the wh.o.r.e-girl standing there c.o.c.keyed and grinning, and the fat guy holding Dawnie, and he was grinning, too...

So he turned again.

And raced back up another set of stairs to the next floor.

He was so scared he couldn"t think. All he could reckon was the necessity of getting away from the giant figure on the stairs. And running up those stairs was like running through a swamp, it was so hot and humid.

A window, he thought mindlessly. Find a window and climb out!

Never mind the long drop...

On the next landing, darkness seemed to swallow him. Yes, he was in the guts of the darkness, and its heat seemed to shimmer. Suddenly he was so hot he thought he would pa.s.s out, or maybe even die. He shuffled along, frantic, blind, his blood racing through his veins like a siren. Then his hands landed on something- A doork.n.o.b.

He turned it and fell inward...

His breath blurted out as he landed on his belly. The barewood floor felt damp and nearly too hot to touch when he pushed himself up. Threads of sunlight glowed through closed shutters. What...is this? he thought. It was just a room, sure, but- Something was wrong.

Like the rest of this house, and the people in it, and the things that happened here, there was something wrong with this room. He knew it, he could feel it in its throbbing dark and in the thin white lines of sunlight pouring through the shutters" seams. He could feel it like breath on his neck.

Then he opened the shutters- It wasn"t movement that caught his eye. Instead, it was the sensation of sheer bulk, or perhaps it was breath on his neck all along, because when he opened the shutters and let the light blaze in, he knew there was something else alive in the room.

But Phil was too busy screaming to figure out what it was.

The door burst open. Figures clamored in: several of the wh.o.r.e-girls from downstairs, and several other men he hadn"t seen, Creeker men with big melon heads and humped backs and crooked eyes. One of them held Dawnie in front of him, with a big three-fingered hand clamped over her mouth.

Phil crawled to the corner, screaming himself nearly into shock. He was helpless, limp, staring...

Then another figure entered the room-the giant man from the stairs.

His face was hideous in the sunlight. It looked squashed and filled with crevices, with two red Creeker eyes that looked bigger than Phil"s fists.

"So the curious little boy has taken a liking to our sister," the voice rattled in the dark. "We have many sisters."

Every red eye in the room, then, turned to the corner opposite Phil. Phil couldn"t scream anymore; he could only shiver, sweat, and stare at the bulkish, glistening thing that sat there on its side...

It sat in the dark, the sunlight streaming in front of it. There was little to describe...but a little was enough.

Long, thin, crippled limbs. A roughened, tubby torso. Two oval holes for eyes, and a giant warped head the size of a feedbag. Its skin-pocked, spotted, and gray, like a slug"s-seemed smeared with some lumpy clear jelly. s.h.a.gs of ribbony black hair hung in damp ropes nearly to the floor, and when it opened its mouth-a great thin slit a foot long-teeth like rows of carpet blades shimmered.

Ona...

Skeet-inner...

Ona-prey-bee...

In dumb horror, then, Phil realized that he wasn"t hearing the words in his ears. He was hearing them in his head.

A tearing sound, a thin, wispy shriek. One of the Creekers ripped Dawnie"s dirty dress off her body in one stroke and threw it aside.

Onnamann, us-save...

Mannona, come...

The giant man from the stairs stepped forward, the crevices in his squashed face like gouges in clay. His voice rattled: "We give you this day your daily flesh..."

Dawnie shrieked a final time as she was thrown into the corner with the thing. Suggestions of limbs reached out, hands more like feet, with cl.u.s.ters of foot-long fingers. Dawnie was quickly pulled into the darkness.

Then came a wet gnawing sound. And then- thump!

Dawnie was thrown back out onto the floor.

The sunlight blazed. It wasn"t Dawnie anymore, just the vaguely human shape of what was left of her. Radiant wet scarlet limbs askew on the floor. Scalped, faceless now. A tiny wet red body.

Fully and completely skinned.

The giant man"s hand reached out and down like a descending vulture. He hauled Phil up, and then his dark voice grated: "Go now, boy. Run away fast." The red eyes drilled into Phil"s face. "But we"ll see you again someday."

"Phil? Phil?"

pap-pap-pap "Phil?"

Repeated slight slaps to the face revived him. His eyes felt glued shut; when he opened them, he actually heard a peeling sound, and then realized that it was blood that had sealed them shut. He looked up at Vicki"s blurred face, which seemed to swim above him. His consciousness corkscrewed.

He muttered one word: "Ona."

Did she scowl at him? The word seemed to put a pike in her expression. "You were out longer than I was. Are you all right?"

"I think so. Christ, that f.u.c.ker Sullivan hit me hard."

"You were dreaming," she said.

Dreaming. Was he? Or was I remembering? Leaning up from the couch, he told her the whole story, twenty-five years late. About that day. About Dawnie, and the House, and the things he"d seen in it. "When I got back to my aunt"s house, I had a bad fever. I was laid up for days, didn"t know anything. The doctor came over, and I told him the story, and he told my aunt that I was hallucinating."

"You weren"t," Vicki said.

Phil contemplated that, reserving comment. He looked at her. Her face was bruised, there was blood crusting her red hair, and her clothes were torn. He also noticed that some of her teeth were missing.

"They raped you, didn"t they? I mean, before they beat you up and brought you out to the car?"

Very hesitantly, she nodded. "There were so many of them," she eventually murmured. "They were taking turns with me. They were all laughing while they were doing it."

"Don"t talk about it," he said. "It"s best not to even think about it. Look, I"m gonna check you into the hospital, then I"ve got some things to take care of." Oh, he had things to take care of all right. First, Sullivan, then Natter. And f.u.c.k the judicial process, he told himself. Why bother? He was going to tend to this himself.

"Don"t take me to the hospital," she pleaded. "You don"t know Cody. He"ll figure that"s what you did, then he"ll send someone. You don"t understand these people. They"ll sacrifice themselves for him. He"ll send someone to kill me. Just let me go with you."

What could he say? She"s right. "Okay. Let"s go."

He helped her up, and aided her down the hall and back out to the car. He had lots of questions, but he didn"t want to pour them on all at once, not after what she"d just been through. "Let me ask you something, Vicki. How did Natter know that I"d seen you?"

"Watchdogs," she told him. "He had Creekers following me. They must"ve seen me come here... I"m sorry."

"Don"t worry about it, it"s not your fault." Watchdogs, huh? he thought. Well, I"ll be putting a leash on them, and fast. It was close to two in the morning. He drove the Malibu down the Route to the station. "s.h.i.t!" he exclaimed when he pulled into the lot. Mullins" car wasn"t there, and neither was Susan"s.

Phil needed backup. And he needed guns.

"I gotta find some hardware," he said. "Come on."

In Mullins" office there was nothing, just file cabinets full of papers, and an equipment locker hung with junk. He tried calling Mullins, but there was no answer. No answer at Susan"s either. And just as he hung up the receiver, the phone rang...

"Yeah?" he answered, wiping sweat. and blood off his brow.

The ancient voice creaked like an old house in the wind. "Didn"t I tell you, all those years ago, that we"d see you again someday?"

But we"ll see you again someday, his memories echoed.

He"d known the minute he regained consciousness that the giant figure from his childhood and Natter were the same...

And Natter"s voice, now, rattled on. "An incentive, perhaps? Yes."

"What are you talking about, you f.u.c.ker?" Phil yelled into the phone.

"There"s someone here," Natter guttered on, "who"d like very much to talk to you." The line crackled, the pause seemed to last hours. Then: "Phil?"

Phil"s heart dropped. It was Susan.

"Phil, they have me!"

"Where are you?"

"They"re doing...horrible things to me!"

Phil needn"t imagine. "Tell me where you are!"

"Phil, don"t come here! They"ll kill you-"

Her voice was pulled away, and Natter"s returned. "Incentive enough? Or...perhaps not. Listen, lawman."

A scream shot through the line. Phil winced.

"In case you"re curious as to the cause of that scream," Natter told him, "I"ll have you know that your good friend Mr. Sullivan just cut off one of your paramour"s nipples with a pair of roofing shears. But perhaps you need even more incentive. Yes?"

"Stop it! I"ll do whatever you say!" Phil yelled.

"Listen."

"No!"

Another of Susan"s screams shrilled through the line.

"That," Natter said, "was the entirety of the breast. Your friend Mr. Sullivan really is deft with a knife."

"Hey, bub," Phil heard next. "Come on out. Let"s party!"

Phil"s emotions collided. He could picture what they were doing to her. And the only other thing he could picture was killing them all.

"Natter, you there?"

"Indeed."

"Don"t hurt her anymore. I"ll come out there. Just tell me where."

"Ah, a test. Think." Natter chuckled. "You know."

"No, I don"t know! Tell me where you"re at!"

"Little boy. You remember."

click "G.o.dd.a.m.n!" Phil shouted and slammed down the phone.

"They have Susan, don"t they?" Vicki asked.

"Yeah. Why? Why did they take her? Why do they want me to come there when they could"ve killed me earlier at Sallee"s?"

"I don"t know," she said.

"Come on!"

They raced outside to the lockup. Maybe Gut, the prisoner, would be able to tell him something. And maybe Mullins had some guns stored there.

But he wilted when he trotted into the room of holding cells.

Gut had been...

Gutted, Phil observed.

He"d been hung by the neck from the cell"s ceiling, his large abdomen drooping open like fat white lips from a spine-deep knife slash. His innards lay in a pile at his swinging feet.

He pushed Vicki out into the hall before she could see it all. "Go down to the end of the hall and check out the storage room," he directed. "Look for guns, ammo, anything we can use for weapons. Hurry!"