Page 6 (1/2)

Then her mother and father and Cutter all faded to mist, and she stood in the empty house, alone There were boxes and objects, spiderwebs and dust, and there was so that seerow…dark, stygian, filling the house with sous and stared at her with rotted and empty eyes It pointed at the black shadow, and its voice was as dry and brittle as death as it warned, "The house must have you It’s up to you Now you--youIt’s loose, you see, the evil is on the loose, and it’s growing"

The mummy wasn’t real The mummy was dead Liam had said so

Terror filled her She heard her naer, reaching out to her "Come here, coination, in all the stories Don’t believe in it, Kelsey--take my hand"

There seemed to be a terrible roar She turned, and thepile of darkness, a shadow, and the darkness was threatening to consu living rooalow apartment, and she had fallen asleep with the television on

And theBoris Karloff in The Muhed aloud at herself, turned off the TV, and decided that she was going to get things done, batten down the house, pack so she could leave in the ht’s sleep She wasn’t a coward; she had spent her childhood with Cutter, and really, she had to have some kind of sense of adventure

I owe you, Cutter! I’m so sorry I should have come to see you I never should have let you die alone like that

Please forgive me

She wasn’t afraid

The house was just a house

And Cutter’s ood ho in perspective

Cutter himself needed to rest at last, in peace

She would see to it

Liam shouted the officer’s name "Ricky!"

There was no answer As he reached the bottoht in the glow of light froht

"Ricky!"

He rushed over to thedown, he called for backup and an ambulance He instantly checked for Ricky’s pulse, and was relieved to find that it was beating steadily

Ricky groaned, and moved

"Lie still Where are you hurt? What happened?"

There was no sign of blood anywhere near Ricky

As Lia at Lia around in panic He stared across the rooht bea Ricky so ht fell upon a suit of ar to choke it back

"Ricky," Liam said evenly, "it’s a suit of armor Probably real, historic and worth a mint"

"It moved!" Ricky declared

Liam walked toward the arether by leather straps that had been inals They were probably period, but not historic

The metal display stand was not on rollers It hadn’tthe back of his head It appeared that the e of one of the display cases on the other side of the room

"I swear to you, it moved!" Ricky told him

He’d called for an a his head, and Liam checked all around the suit of armor, they heard the sound of a siren Help was on its way

Ricky winced, looking sheepish "Ityou, it moved"