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He kicked the door open and looked into the hall, where the overhead fluorescents were lit

It was deserted

No blood on the floor

Daht hand was half nue, which was now soaked with fresh blood At the rate his shooting was deteriorating, he was going to have to walk right up to the bastard and ask him to bite on the muzzle in order to make the shot count

The doors to the ten practice rooms, five on each side, were closed The door at the far end, where the hall led into the band roouy could be there or in any of the ten practice rooms But wherever he was, he had probably slipped at least a couple of shells into that shotgun, so thethe door between the hall and the chorus roo back into place, he glih the open door of the band room about forty feet away

It was Shaddack hi shut at the crucial h to stop the pellets

Sam turned and ran across the chorus room, into the hall, and up the stairs, where he had sent Tessa and Chrissie

When he reached the top flight, he found thelow of another STAIRS sign

Below, Shaddack entered the stairwell

Sa and descended the first step He leaned over the railing, looked down, glimpsed part of his pursuer, and squeezed off two shots

Shaddack squealed like a boy again He ducked back against the wall, away from the open center of the well, where he could not be seen

Sam didn’t knohether he’d scored a hit or not Maybe What he did knoas that Shaddack wasn’tup step by step, staying against the outer wall And when that geek reached the lower landing, he would take the turn suddenly, firing the shotgun repeatedly at whoever waited above

Silently Sa, into the hall once n fell on Chrissie’s and Tessa’s faces … an illusion of blood

25

A clink A scraping sound

Clink-scrape Clink-scrape

Harry knehat he was hearing Clothes hangers sliding on a metal rod

How could they have known? Hell,like a horse, after all Maybe the conversion i stopped

Athe closet rod out of its braces so they could lower the trap

26

The fading flashlight kept winking out, and Tessa had to shake it, jarring the batteries together, to get a few ht from it

They had stepped out of the hall, into what proved to be a chemistry lab with black h wooden stools Nowhere to hide

They checked the s, hoping there ht be a roof just under them No A two-story drop to a concrete walk

At the end of the cheh which they passed into a ten-foot-square storage room full of chemicals in sealed tins and bottles, some labeled with skulls and crossbones, soht red letters She supposed there ays to use the contents of that closet as a weapon, but they didn’t have ti substances to reat science student, recalled nothing whatsoever of her chemistry classes, and would probably blow herself up with the first bottle she opened From the expression on Sam’s face, she knew that he saw no e closet opened into a second lab that see on one wall The room offered no better place to hide than had the previous lab

Holding Chrissie close against her side, Tessa looked at Sam and whispered, "Nohat? Wait here and hope he can’t find us … or keep ," Sam said "Easier to be cornered if we sit still"

She nodded agree the way between the lab benches, toward the door to the hall

Froe roohted chemistry lab beyond it, came a soft but distinct clink

Sam halted, motioned Tessa and Chrissie ahead of hie room

With Chrissie at her side, Tessa stepped to the hall door, turned the knob slowly, quietly, and eased the door outward

Shaddack came from the darkness in the corridor, into the pale and inconstant pulse of light froun into her stoonna be sorry now," he said excitedly

27

They pulled the trapdoor down A shaft of light from the closet shot up to the rafters, but it didn’t illus splayed out in front of hiood hand fiercely clasped the pistol

His heart was ha harder and faster than it had in twenty years, since the battlefields of Southeast Asia His stoht he could barely breathe He was dizzy with fear But, God in heaven, he sure felt alive

With a squeak and clatter, they unfolded the ladder

28

Tommy Shaddack shoved the uts out, almost wasted her, before he realized how pretty she was, and then he didn’t want to kill her any ht away, not until he’d s to hi, whatever he told her to do, or he could just smear her across the wall, yeah, she was his, and she better realize that, or she’d be sorry, he’d irl beside her, a pretty little girl, only ten or twelve, and she excited him even more He could have her first, and then the older one, have thes, all sorts of things, and then hurt theht, they couldn’t deny him, not him, because all the poas in his hands now, he had seen the h the open door, into the rooun in the wo the girl with her Booker was behind them, a startled expression on his face Toun and back away from it, or I’ll make raspberry jelly out of this bitch, I swear I will, you can’t h to stop me"

Booker hesitated

"Drop it!" Too of the revolver and sidestepped away froainst the woe around until she could reach the light switch and click on the fluorescents The room leaped out of shadows

"Okay, now, all of you," Tommy Shaddack said, "sit down on those three stools, by that lab bench, yeah, there, and don’t do anything funny"