Grave Intent (27 page)

Janet cupped Ellie’s chin and lifted it. Her
daughter looked up, her expression deadpan, her gaze faraway. Two
steady streams of blood flowed from her nostrils.

“Is she gonna?” Heather asked again.

“No, honey.” Janet tilted Ellie’s head
farther back. “She has a nosebleed.”

Heather nodded, her eyes wide and uncertain.
She bunched the blanket close to her chest.

“Does anything hurt you?” Janet asked
Ellie.

Ellie stared at the ceiling, mute.

“Honey?”

Ellie blinked, but remained silent.

Worry squeezed Janet’s thudding heart. What
on earth was happening to her child? “O-Okay,” she stammered. “You
don’t have to talk if you don’t want to. Just keep—keep your head
back. I’ll get a towel.”

She turned to head for the bathroom, then
halted in mid-limp, remembering the shattered picture. She’d been
so frantic after hearing Heather scream, then seeing all the blood
on Ellie, she’d actually forgotten about it for a few moments. That
painting wouldn’t have ripped apart like that simply by falling.
Someone would have had to literally, purposely destroy it. And for
someone to do that—they would have to be in the house!

“Oh, hurry, it’s more!” Heather cried. “Look,
it’s bleeding more!”

Janet turned back to see crimson bubbles pop
over Ellie’s nostrils. The front of her T-shirt was striped with
blood.

“Quick, get me a clean T-shirt,” Janet said
to Heather. She pointed to a chest of drawers. “In there.”

While Heather hurried to the bureau, Janet
lifted her daughter’s chin again. “Listen to me, Ellie. You have to
keep your head back or the bleeding won’t stop.”

“Here, Aunt Janet,” Heather said, suddenly
appearing beside her, clean shirt in hand. Her face was ashen, her
eyes filling with tears.

“Don’t worry,” Janet said to her niece, then
glanced nervously toward the bedroom door. “Everything will be all
right.” She offered Heather a weak smile. The child nodded and
leaned in close.

Janet took the shirt from Heather, folded it
into quarters, then pressed it under Ellie’s nose. “Now keep it
there for a few minutes. Breathe out of your mouth.”

Pushing her mother’s hand away, Ellie
whispered, “He’s here.”

Janet bit her bottom lip, afraid to say
anything. She felt Heather push against her, the child’s breath
warm through the back of her blouse.

Ellie scanned the room tentatively, blood no
longer dripping from her nose. She froze for a few seconds as
though listening, then slowly twisted her body to the left. Her
gaze settled on the window between the beds. “She’s here too,” she
said quietly.

From the corner of her eye, Janet saw the
curtains flutter. She turned hesitantly and shivered when she
realized the window was closed. She looked back at Ellie. “Who’s
here, baby?”

The look in Ellie’s eyes traveled between
perplexity and dread. “The man who broke the picture
downstairs.”

“The picture?” Janet echoed. The girls hadn’t
seen the mess in the family room yet. How could Ellie possibly
know? Janet looked back at the window and gripped the bedsheet when
she saw the curtains give a final ripple, then settle limp against
the window frame.

“They’re both watching,” Ellie said. “But
he’s mad. I don’t know why, but he’s really, really mad.”

Janet felt herself being sucked into the
rhythm of her daughter’s voice. She suddenly sensed they were being
watched from the ceiling, through the walls, the floor. Heather
wiggled under her aunt’s right arm, and Janet cleared her throat,
fighting back fertile paranoia.

“I wanna go home,” Heather cried. She tugged
at Janet’s blouse.

Ellie shook her head. “We can’t go home. He
won’t let us.” Her bottom lip began to quiver, and her shoulders
drooped. “And he won’t let Daddy come get us—”

Without warning, the bedroom door slammed
shut. Heather shrieked and plowed her head into Janet’s jaw as she
scrambled onto the bed.

“I told you,” Ellie said. She looked back at
the door and began to rock her body from side to side.

Heather inched to the foot of the bed and
eyed her cousin fearfully. “Aunt Janet?”

Janet wanted to curl up next to the girls and
pull the covers over all three of them. Instead, she said, “Stay
here,” and limped to the door. After saying a silent prayer, she
pulled it open cautiously.

The hallway directly across from the room was
empty. She peered right, toward the stairs, and she had to bite
back a gasp when she spotted a shadow slip past the landing. The
crunch of glass quickly followed, then Janet heard the sound of
heavy furniture being dragged across the floor downstairs.

She pulled her head back into the room and
closed the door quietly. What the hell was going on in this house?
Anna, the curtains, the painting, now furniture moving across the
floor?

“Aunt Janet?” Heather’s small body trembled,
and tears streamed down her face. Ellie, still rocking from side to
side, only looked at her mother curiously.

“Shh.” Janet said, pressing a finger to her
lips.

The bedroom door had no lock, so she searched
frantically around the room for something to jam beneath the knob.
She couldn’t pull one of the beds or the dresser to the door
because moving either would make too much noise, and if there
was
an intruder in the house, he’d be able to find them. If
something
else
lurked in the cabin, however,—the kind of
something that made curtains move by themselves, barring the door
would probably be futile.

Still, Janet grabbed a pogo stick that leaned
against the jamb of Ellie’s closet, and shoved it under the
doorknob. It held for a second, then slipped and fell to the floor.
She tried again and again, then finally, after too many tries, the
pogo stick held. Janet backed away and signaled for the girls to
keep quiet.

The sound of moving furniture grew louder,
and Janet hesitated only a second before hobbling over to the
window. She shoved the curtains aside and peered down, searching
for the ground below. It was obscured by night. The only way she’d
be able to get the girls down would be to tie sheets together and
lower them one by one. But then they’d be alone until she reached
the ground, which created another problem. If she jumped, her knee
wouldn’t hold up under the jolt, especially from this height. She
thought about shimmying down a sheet rope but feared it wouldn’t
hold. What if she fell? Who would protect the girls?

Backing away from the window, Janet went to
the bed and sat, pulling the girls close. Ellie rocked harder under
her mother’s embrace.

“Are we gonna die?” Heather asked. Her body
shook so hard it vibrated.

Ellie giggled softly, which added to the black,
naked horror seeping into Janet’s chest. How was she going to get
the girls out of the house? There were no other exits upstairs
except for the windows. To get to either the front door or the side
door of the house, they’d have to go through the family room.

“Nobody’s going to die,” Janet said
fiercely.

Heather sobbed louder.“But . . . but . . .
I—”

Before the child could stammer out her
thought, the pogo stick rattled beneath the knob, sending the three
of them into a tighter huddle. The closet door suddenly flew open
and out rolled Ellie’s soccer ball followed by a florescent green
roller skate. In a flash, clothes began to rip away from hangers
and land in a heap on the floor. Janet tented her body over the
girls just as a Barbie car and an old pair of rubber boots rocketed
over their heads.

“Make ‘em stop!” Ellie cried, struggling
beneath her mother.

“I want my mama!” Heather shrieked, her voice
muffled beneath Janet’s left breast.

Ellie’s collection of Pokeman containers
pitched from the closet shelf and flew across the room like
egg-shaped mortar shells. One crashed into a porcelain dolphin that
stood on top of the dresser, shattering the figurine. The rest
bounced off the back wall, then dropped to the floor.

Abruptly, the closet door slammed shut, and
the pogo stick fell from under thedoorknob. Janet watched in terror
as the bedroom door slowly creaked open. Light from the bedroom
washed shadowless across the hall toward the bathroom. The
furniture noises had stopped, and in the heavy silence, Janet heard
only their ragged breathing.

She jumped when the air conditioner clicked
on and began its familiar hum. Then slowly, carefully, Janet lifted
her body off the girls. She leaned over the side of the bed and
grabbed Ellie’s sandals. Eyeing Heather’s high-top sneakers at the
foot of the other bed, she took a deep breath, then scrambled over
to get them.

“Put these on,” Janet said quietly, and
tossed the shoes to the girls. She glanced back at the door.
“Hurry.”

Heather fumbled to put her sneakers on.

Ellie only stared at her shoes, which lay
upside down on the blanket. She scratched her chin with the nose of
the horse and looked across the room blankly.

Anger quickly whipped through Janet like the
backlash from a gator’s tail. “I said put on your shoes now!”
Heather gasped as Janet stormed over to the bed, grabbed Ellie’s
sandals, and shoved them on her daughter’s feet.

Immediately ashamed of her outburst, Janet
held Ellie by the shoulders and winced at the blank look on her
face. “I’m—I’m so sorry, honey. I didn’t mean—it’s just—I’m . .
.”

“Scared,” Heather whispered, her dark eyes
knowing. She stuck her right thumb in her mouth.

Janet grabbed her daughter and niece by the
hand. “Come on,” she said firmly. “We’re going home.”

Heather’s thumb popped out of her mouth and
relief radiated on her face. “Right now?”

“Right now.” Janet linked Ellie’s right hand
into Heather’s left. “Now I want the two of you to hang onto each
other and don’t let go,” she warned, then reached for Ellie’s left
hand but it was locked around the glass horse. She started to tell
her to leave it, then changed her mind and took hold of her wrist
instead. Now was not the time to argue about a horse. “No matter
what, don’t let go. Do you understand?”

Heather nodded eagerly and worked her fingers
tighter around her cousin’s hand. Ellie stared straight ahead, her
eyes vacant.

With Janet in the lead, they inched
cautiously toward the door. When they reached it, Janet picked up
the pogo stick with her free hand and stuck her head around the
doorjamb, straining to see the staircase. What on earth did she
think she was doing? A bum knee, two little girls, and the only way
out of the cabin was either past the kitchen or through the dining
room. If there was an intruder in the house, what was she going to
do? Brain him with a pogo stick?

Janet took small, cautious steps into the
hall with the girls huddled close behind.

As soon as they cleared the doorway, the door
to Ellie’s bedroom slammed shut, as did the bathroom’s across the
hall. A loud whirring noise, like an army of fan blades beating
against the wind, erupted from the bottom of the stairs.

Janet jerked on Ellie’s wrist. “My room,” she
yelled, as the whirring grew louder and closer.

She pulled them toward the master bedroom,
dropping the pogo stick to free a hand. By the time Janet flung the
bedroom door open, she felt something behind her. Reluctantly, she
looked back. A white mass as thick as cotton batting boiled up the
stairwell and into the hall.

“Get in!” Janet cried. She kept one eye on
the mass while trying to shove the stumbling girls into the
bedroom. The whirring sound was almost deafening now. It numbed her
eardrums until she could hardly hear her own voice.

Ellie pushed hard against her mother,
refusing to enter the room. “No, he’s in there!” she shouted. “He’s
there!”

Heather screamed and pointed. The same foggy
mass racing toward them from the south end of the hall now poured
from the master bedroom, seemingly out of nowhere. One moment it
wasn’t there, the next it rolled and lapped over them like a solid
white wave.

Before Janet could lift a foot to move left
or right, the masses collided, folding them inside. Its cover and
thickness were so complete, Janet felt like she’d been wrapped in a
cocoon, isolated from the rest of the world with nothing visible
beyond six inches of her face.

“Ellie? Heather?” she yelled, and pulled on
the small arm she clung to. She squatted so she could see her
daughter’s face. The face that appeared, though, was Heather’s.

Janet stared at the child, confused. She’d
been holding onto Ellie not Heather. She grabbed blindly for
Heather’s other hand and felt a crushing weight in the pit of her
soul when it came back empty.

Janet screamed into the cocoon. “ELLIE!”

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

At first, Wilson didn’t know where he was. He
rolled onto his right side, blinked, and studied the dark, bulky
shadow nearby.

“Oh, yeah,” he mumbled, and sat up.

After he’d aspirated the body last night, he
was getting ready to leave the funeral home when someone banged on
the front door. Not sure if he’d be faced with Michael, who might
have forgotten his key, or the barefoot man from earlier, Wilson
peeked through a window to see who it was before opening the door.
He’d nearly dropped his false teeth when he spotted Lester Vidrine
standing outside, arms folded across his chest like a pissed off,
dime-store Indian. He’d waited to see if Lester would leave, but
that didn’t happen. Lester only knocked harder. It wasn’t until the
doorknob started jiggling like the lock was being worked that
Wilson hunted for a place to hide. The attic won, hands down. The
access door, located in the back hall, dropped down from the
ceiling by pulling on a long hideaway cord. He’d had some
difficulty getting the collapsible stairs to fold back into place
and the door closed once he’d climbed inside. But he’d made it.