Jeremy, staying close to Tanya’s side, headed for the opening in the wall of mirrors. Someone above the ceiling was still screaming. He heard others whimpering and sobbing up there.
We hurt them, he thought. Maybe even killed one or two.
Like to kill them all.
Like to burn the fucking place to the ground, barbecue every damn one of the trolls.
But he doubted that setting some hair on fire had been enough to do the job.
Just as well. The idea of burning up Shiner appalled him. Samson and Karen would be cremated too. They deserved better than to have their bodies go up in smoke with the trolls who had murdered them.
He saw Liz vanish among the mirrors. But she reappeared, along with Cowboy, when Jeremy entered a gap in the front panels. They were over to the left. He thought. It was hard to tell exactly where they were. With mirrors on both sides and in front of them, reflections were everywhere. A multitude of bloody kids with candles, knives, and meat cleavers. Images within images, receding and diminishing. Jeremy couldn’t tell the real Cowboy and Liz from their glass doubles. Then they disappeared, and Jeremy was surrounded by images of only himself and Tanya. He probed ahead with the cleaver. Walked toward himself and Tanya, duplicates matching them on both sides. A corner of the heavy blade tapped glass. He reached to the right and met no resistance, so he turned that way just in time to see Cowboy and Liz—or their reflections—vanish around a corner.
“Hold up,” Tanya said. “Let’s not lose each other.”
Jeremy hurried forward, keeping his shoulder against Tanya, rubbing the knuckles of his left hand along the glass to guide him.
“Well, I’ll be hog-tied.”
His knuckles lost the glass. He stepped forward, reached sideways, and nudged Liz’s back.
“Hey, watch it with the candle,” she warned, flinching away from him.
“Sorry.”
“Look what I’ve found,” Cowboy said.
Jeremy stepped sideways to see past Liz’s head. Cowboy was in front of him—or somewhere—bending down. He stood up and turned around. His knife was clenched in his teeth. His candle was in one hand. In the other was a camera with a flash attachment.
“Fantastic,” Tanya said.
“She’s a beaut, too,” he said around the knife. “A Minolta.”
“Who gives a shit?” Liz said. “Take the film out.”
“I’m just gonna keep the whole thing.” He slung the strap over his head, wincing slightly as his hand brushed against his bandaged ear.
“Keep it if you want,” Tanya told him. “But get the film out of it right now. We can’t take a chance on losing it.”
“Okay, you say so.” He lowered his head and squinted at the camera, trying to figure it out. “I’m not real sure—”
“Behind you!” Tanya shouted.
Liz screamed.
Cowboy jumped with surprise and whirled around, snatching the knife from his mouth as a giant of a troll loomed out of the mirrors and swung an ax down. Ten giants. Fifty of them. Countless monstrous trolls chopping, splitting Cowboy’s head down the middle. Gore sprayed the air. The halves of his head dropped toward his shoulders. His legs shot forward. His rump pounded the floor. The troll ripped his ax free and started to raise it.
Liz, still screaming, lurched toward Cowboy. She crouched at his back, slipped her hands under the sides of his head, and lifted them as if she thought she could put him back together.
“No!” Tanya yelled.
The troll took one long stride toward Liz.
Jeremy hurled his cleaver. It flashed in the candlelight as it flipped end over end. Its blade thudded into the troll’s chest. He bellowed. But he didn’t go down. The cleaver stayed buried in him as he swung his ax sideways.
Jeremy heard a wet smack.
Liz’s head flew from her neck, tumbling, streaming hair and blood. The ax didn’t stop. It swept past her and crashed the mirror on her right. Liz’s head hit the mirror, bounced to the floor, and rolled.
Her headless body was still crouched behind Cowboy. Blood spouted from the stump of her neck like water from a thick hose. Beyond the bodies, the troll was turned sideways. He twisted, swinging his ax away from the smashed mirror. As he raised it toward his shoulder, Tanya dashed to Liz’s back and leapt through the geyser of blood. She slammed against him. It must’ve been like hitting a tree. The troll didn’t budge. She bounced off his chest and was thrown backward onto the bodies. The cleaver, knocked crooked by Tanya’s impact, stayed in