Page 31 (2/2)

Diain, his expression of war back into the terrible, concen-trated coldness she sometiht, wasn&039;t it? She had told hiet her, to do what he needed to do in order to bring the boy over This was her part of Jake&039;s drawing and she had no right to hate either of theelse - to make her do it, but as the coldness froze her and Eddie turned away from her, she hated them both; could, in fact, have torn their honkey balls off

Then Roland ith her, his strong hands were on her shoulders and although he didn&039;t speak, she heard hiht - you can only die Sex is its weapon, Susannah, but it&039;s also its weakness

Yes It was always their weakness The only difference was that this tiive a little ht Maybe in the end, she would be able to make this invisible honkey demon pay a little hs I, curved fans in the dirt She threw her head back into the rain which was now pelting down and sensed its face lolling just over hers, eager eyes drinking in every contorted grimace which passed over her face

She reached up with one hand, as if to slap and instead, slid it around the nape of her de a palmful of solid smoke And did she feel it twitch backward, surprised at her caress? She tilted her pelvis upward, using her grip on the invisible neck to create the leverage At the sa what ree!

"Coonna rape ive you a fuckin like you ain&039;t nevah had! Fuck you to death!"

She felt the engorgement within her tremble; felt the deroup

"Unh-unh, honey," she croaked She squeezed her thighs inward, pinning it "De fun jus&039; startin&039;" She began to flex her butt, hu at the invisible presence She reached up with her free hand, interlaced all ten fingers, and allowed herself to fall backith her hips cocked, her straining ar She tossed her sweat-darin

Let o! a voice cried out in her mind But at the sa in spite of itself

"No way, sugar You wanted itnow you goan get it" She thrust upward, holding on, concentrating fiercely on the freezing cold inside her "I&039;one, what you goan do then?" Her lips rose and fell, rose and fell She squeezed her thighs ether, closed her eyes, clawed more deeply into the unseen neck, and prayed that Eddie would be quick

She didn&039;t kno long she could do this

29

THE PROBLEM, JAKE THOUGHT, was simple: somewhere in this dank, terrible place was a locked door The right door All he had to do was find it But it was hard, because he could feel the presence in the house gathering The sound of those dissonant, gabbling voices was beginning towhisper

And it was approaching

A door stood open to the right Beside it, thuuerreotype which showed a hangedlike a piece of rotten fruit from a dead tree Beyond it was a rooone, but an ancient icebox - the land with the circular refrigeration drum on top - stood on the far side of the hilly, faded linoleuaped open Black, smelly stuff was caked inside and had trickled down to forealed puddle on the floor The kitchen cabinets stood open In one he saas probably the world&039;s oldest can of Snow&039;s Cla out of another was the head of a dead rat Its eyes hite and seely in motion, and after a moment Jake realized that the eots

So fell into his hair with a flabby thurasped so that felt like a soft, bris-tle-covered rubber ball He pulled it free and saas a spider, its bloated body the color of a fresh bruise Its eyes regarded hiainst the wall It broke open and splattered there, legs twitching feebly

Another one dropped onto his neck Jake felt a sudden painful bite just below the place where his hair stopped He ran backward into the hall, tripped over the fallen banister, fell heavily, and felt the spider pop Its innards - wet, feverish, and slippery - slid between his shoulder-blades like war-yoke Now he could see other spiders in the kitchen doorway So on almost invisible silken threads like obscene plumb-bobs; others simply dropped on the floor in a series of reet hi He felt so that felt like a frayed rope, starting to give way He supposed it was his sanity, and at that realization, Jake&039;s considerable courage finally broke He could bear this no longer, noto flee if he still could, and realized too late that he had turned the wrong way and was running deeper into The Mansion instead of back toward the porch

He lunged into a space too big to be a parlor or living rooe, sly s at Jake froainst one wall In the center of the warped wooden floor was a splintered chandelier, its rusty chain lying in snarls alass beads and dusty teardrop pendants Jake skirted the wreck, snatching one terrified glance back over his shoulder He saw no spiders; if not for the nastiness still trickling down his back, he ined theain and ca halt Ahead, a pair of French doors stood half-open on their recessed tracks Another hallway stretched beyond At the end of this second corridor stood a closed door with a golden knob Written across the door - or perhaps carved into it - were tords:

THE BOY

Below the doorknob was a filigreed silver plate and a keyhole

I found it! Jake thought fiercely I finally found it! That&039;s it! That&039;s the door!

Froan, as if the house was beginning to tear itself apart Jake turned and looked back across the ballrooun to swell outward, pushing the ancient couch ahead of it The old wallpaper shud-dered; the elves began to ripple and dance In places the paper si curls, like shades which have been released too suddenly The plaster bulged forward in a pregnant curve Fro sounds as the lathing broke, rearranging itself into some new, as-yet-hidden shape And still the sound increased Only it was no longer precisely a groan; now it sounded like a snarl

He stared, hypnotized, unable to pull his eyes away

The plaster didn&039;t crack and then vomit outward in chunks; it seee, ular white bubble-shape fro, the surface began to mold itself into hills and curves and valleys Suddenly Jake realized he was looking at a huge plastic face that was pushing itself out of the wall It was like looking at someone who has walked headfirst into a wet sheet

There was a loud snap as a chunk of broken lath tore free of the rippling wall It becaed pupil of one eye Below it, the rithed into a snarling ums

One plaster hand tore free of the wall, trailing an unravelling brace-let of rotted electrical wire It grasped the sofa and threw it aside, leaving ghostly white finger burst free as the plaster fingers flexed They created sharp, splintery claws Now the face was all the way out of the wall and staring at Jake with its one wooden eye Above it, in the center of its forehead, one wallpaper elf still danced It looked like a weird tattoo There was a wrenching sound as the thing began to slide forward The hall doorway tore out and beca&039;s one free hand clawed across the floor, spraying glass droplets from the fallen chandelier

Jake&039;s paralysis broke He turned, lunged through the French doors, and pelted down the second length of hallith his pack bouncing and his right hand groping for the key in his pocket His heart was a runaway factoryout of The Mansion&039;s ork bellowed at hih there were no words, Jake knehat it was saying; it was telling hi hi him there was no escape The whole house now see wood and squalling bea, insane voice of the doorkeeper was everywhere

Jake&039;s hand closed on the key As he brought it out, one of the notches caught in the pocket His fingers, ith sweat, slipped The key fell to the floor, bounced, dropped through a crack between tarped boards, and disappeared

30

"HE&039;S IN TROUBLE!" SUSANNAH heard Eddie shout, but the sound of his voice was distant She had plenty of trouble herself but she thought she oan oan oan do then?

She hadn&039;tinside her was certainly giving her no pleasure, but at least the terrible pain had subsided and it was no longer cold It was trapped, unable to disengage Nor was she holding it in with her body, exactly Roland had said sex was its weakness as well as its weapon, and he had been right, as usual It had taken her, but she had also taken it, and noas as if each of theer stuck in one of those fiendish Chinese tubes, where yanking only sticks you tighter

She hung onto one idea for dear life; had to, because all other conscious thought had vanished She had to hold this sobbing, frightened, vicious thing in the snare of its own helpless lust It wriggled and thrust and convulsed within her, screareedy, helpless intensity, but she would not let it go free

And what&039;s gonna happen when I finally do let go? she wondered desperately What&039;s it gonna do to pay me back?

She didn&039;t know