faded around them as Laurel shot to her feet, moved around the table, and knelt beside Tyler, reaching up to stroke his face. “Breathe. Breathe. Tyler, are you there? Can you answer me?”
He answered thickly, but it was his own voice. “God.” He looked around them wildly. A painting shifted on the wall. The piano suddenly fell forward onto its legs without a sound and slid several feet across the floor, then stopped, hovering …
A low, deep groan shuddered through the foundation of the house … the floor beneath Laurel’s knees slithered like a serpent.
Now what she saw in Tyler’s eyes was pure terror.
“Oh God,” he managed. His teeth were chattering so hard he could barely get the words out. “Where is it? Where’d it go?”
“Talk to me. Talk to me,” she commanded, digging her fingernails into his forearms.
“Jesus.” His voice was weak, and thick, but his eyes were lucid. He looked across the table at Katrina, then at Brendan, slumped lifeless and staring at the table with those black, vacant eyes. “What are we going to do?”
Laurel stood. “We’re going to get out of here,” she said grimly, and hoped that he believed her. “Can you move? Can you stand?”
He leaned his arm over the back of the chair and shoved himself up to standing. He promptly doubled over and retched, dry heaves.
She caught him and held him as he heaved. “I know… . I know.” Her eyes were scanning the room even as she comforted him. On the back wall, a window cracked, a long, slow split. “But Tyler, we have to go. We have to go now, before …” She did not know how to express the unformed horror she felt. She looked to Brendan and Katrina. “We have to get them, and we have to get out.”
“There are no doors,” he said, looking honestly bewildered.
“Yes, there are. Come on, Tyler. Take Katrina. Pick her up if you can. Drag her if you have to. Grab her and run,” she commanded.
Tyler seized Katrina’s arms and pulled the girl’s limp body from her chair. Laurel had to not look at the idiot look on Brendan’s face as she reached for his arm. He felt like a snake in her grasp, but she held his slick skin firmly, slipped her arms under his armpits, and yanked him up from the chair.
She glanced back at Anton, sprawled against the wall, slack jaw dropped open, then turned back to Tyler.
“Go!”
They both heaved forward and half-ran, stumbling, half-dragging Katrina and Brendan through the archway, into the entry hall.
Laurel dropped Brendan’s limp and heavy body to the floor and lunged for the front door, twisting the doorknob. It was locked and solid, would not budge even a fraction of an inch as she pulled and shoved at it. Around them, she could hear the house breathing, that rasping, live breath. Tyler barked behind her: “Out of the way!”
She turned to see Tyler had dropped Katrina, who lay crumpled on the floor. He grabbed an end table and lifted it. Laurel pulled Brendan’s dead weight aside and Tyler hoisted the end table and ran at the long vertical window set beside the door with an inarticulate cry. The table smashed through the glass.
He hit again and again, breaking the remaining glass out. Behind them from the great room came a cackling of voices, whispering, and ranting, a frenzied cacophony.
“Get out!” Laurel said through chattering teeth. “I’ll hand her through.”
With Tyler outside and Laurel inside, they carried/passed Katrina through the broken-out window. Laurel’s mind was screaming at her.
What if they don’t recover?
And then,
What if we don’t get out?
The house began a long, slow rumble again, and the rapping began to shake the walls, rolling through the house in waves.
Tyler lunged back in through the window, and together they muscled Brendan toward the window frame, straining with his weight.
The voices in the great room jabbered, louder and louder, and a man’s voice began to shriek, raw, horrible screams. Laurel cried out and shoved Brendan through the window. As Tyler pulled him through, Laurel squeezed through the window herself, feeling the remaining jagged glass rip her skin, feeling blood seep from her face and arms and legs.
Outside the rain was pouring down, splashing on the porch and path. Wind lashed the trees above them, whipping water against them. The wet was the most welcome thing Laurel had ever felt; she turned her face up to be drenched. Lightning branched through the sky.
Unbelievably, their cars were still lined