was too angry now, too frightened to let pain stop him. He took the trowel by the handle and pulled it out. This moved the pain to a new level, and he almost fainted with it as the blood flowed. He had to stop this house before he lost too much blood or he'd end up watching Sylvie strangle to death as the last life fled his own body. Where was the sledgehammer?
It flew through the air straight for his head. He caught it, spinning with the force of it as he did. "Thanks!" he shouted triumphantly. She had put his best weapon in his hands herself.
"I've got to let her have the body back, Don!" cried Sylvie. The hands had loosened around her throat enough to let her speak. "She's going to kill you!"
In answer, he swung the sledgehammer and struck the timber above the cut. It shuddered, but it did not break.
Sylvie screamed. He turned just enough to see the nails rising up like a swarm of bees from their brown sacks, eight-penny nails, ten-penny, twelve-penny. Every one of them an arrow aimed at him. He turned his back on them and swung the hammer again. The hammer struck just as the nails began stinging, stabbing at his back. His neck, his scalp, his arms, all up and down his legs. A hundred bee stings. He groaned, partly from the pain of it, but more because again the timber didn't break free. As he twisted his body to swing yet a third time, he could feel the nails popping out of his muscles, or snagging them, tearing him inside. It wasn't going to stop him. He wasn't going to stand by and let her die just because he was in pain. He swung with all his strength, perhaps with more than his strength. And this time the timber tore apart at the cut. Above the split, the post was dislodged almost completely free of the bottom part; only an edge of the upper part still rested there. A fourth swing as the face in the glass cried out, "No, you're hurting me, you're hurting me!"
He struck the post and it came entirely free. At once a great creaking sound came from the ceiling. The post that had been holding up the second story and the roof was now a weight pulling them down. The house writhed with the injury.
Don looked over at Sylvie. She was struggling to get free. The hands still held her, but were they perhaps a little bit weaker? The hands at her throat seemed no longer to be trying to strangle her. No - it was worse. They had hold of her head now. Twisting. Lissy was trying to use the strength of the house to break Sylvie's neck.
"Don," Sylvie cried. "If I go back into the house she'll leave it, she'll go into the body. You have to be the first to get the gun!"
"Don't do it!" he screamed at her. "Don't let go of that body! Don't go into the house! I can do this!"
He meant it when he said it, but he had no idea how.
Gladys watched with her eyes closed, feeling more than seeing what was happening. Judea and Evelyn could look out the window all they wanted - there was little to see that way. It was Gladys who could sense what was happening. How the spirit of the murderer had taken possession of the house. Fortunately it was still distracted, trying to destroy Don and either get the girl's body back or, failing that, to kill it. But if it once succeeded in doing that, it would turn its attention again to them. To their old bodies, in thrall to the house. Gladys wouldn't have the strength to fight it off anymore, not if it were ruled by such malevolence.
So when the floor rose up and tore apart the power cord, Gladys moaned in despair.
But despair never lasted long. There were things she could do to help. "Quick," she cried out. "Get me that extension cord!"
Evelyn and Judea looked at her blankly.
"From the TV! The extension cord!" The TV had been her lifeline to the outside world. The girls never watched it - it just made them sad. But Gladys had it on a lot, a background to her life, to her struggles with the house. There was only one outlet in this old room, electrified before modern codes. To get the TV across from her, they had