Dave’s throat was tight, and he had tears in his own eyes as he watched their reunion.
We did it, he thought. We got to her in time. Though God knows what she’s gone through.
Dave stepped to the other side of Joan, crouched, and picked up the flashlight. Slipping behind Debbie’s back, he entered the room. It was the size of a large closet. It seemed to have no way out except for the single door.
A dead man lay sprawled in the middle of the floor. Beside his leg was the sodden red rag of Debbie’s blouse. Her bra was clutched in his right hand.
Dave shone his light on the man’s face.
Though the bushy beard and hair were matted with blood, Dave recognized him.
The troll who’d put the curse of squirmy death on them.
The troll with Charlie Manson eyes.
Now he had no eyes at all—just empty wet sockets.
His lower lip, probably torn by Debbie’s teeth, hung by one corner. It looked like a slug lying dead on his bearded chin.
His head was resting against his right shoulder. The left side of his neck gaped open, split wide by the blade of a meat cleaver that stood upright in the wound.
His overcoat and shirt were spread open. The shiny red skin of his chest was furrowed with rows of scratches.
Dave turned around. Joan’s face was pressed to the girl’s cheek, her eyes shut. He wondered if she’d seen the carnage yet.
Debbie’s back and buttocks had been raked by fingernails. Her underpants, one side torn away, hung at her knees. Her jeans were down, gathered around her ankles.
Dave stepped past the two hugging, weeping women. He leaned against a wall and shut his eyes.
God, the savagery of the fight that must’ve gone on inside that dark locked room! It seemed incredible that Debbie had prevailed.
Maybe not so incredible, he thought. Hell, she’s Joan’s sister.
What a kid!
She must’ve gone at the guy hand-to-hand before she was able to finish him off with the cleaver.
“We…we’ve gotta help the others,” Debbie said.
“The hell with the others.”
“They’re my friends.”
Dave looked at them. Joan was helping the girl up. He turned his eyes away when Debbie bent down and tore at the remains of her underwear. He heard the ripping cloth.
“Where did he hurt you?” Joan asked.
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Did he…?”
“He didn’t screw me.” She sniffed. “Can’t believe I’m alive.”
“Neither can I,” Joan said.
“When I heard you guys talking…” Her voice cracked.
“It’s all right,” Joan told her.
“Dave, is that guy dead in there?”
“You didn’t see him?” he asked, looking at her. She was pulling her sweatshirt off.
“He’s dead,” Debbie gasped through her sobs. “He better be.” She wiped the tears from her eyes with bloody hands. She had pulled her jeans up and fastened them. Parts of the jeans were still white.
Though her torso was smeared with blood, Dave saw no wounds.
Joan removed her shoulder holster and the knife rig. She took off her bullet-proof vest.
Her T-shirt looked glued to her skin. It was white. Its whiteness struck Dave as strange and comforting. He’d seen so much blood in the past few minutes that he’d begun to feel as if scarlet was the natural color of things.
Joan put the vest on her sister and fastened its Velcro straps. She gave her sweatshirt to Debbie. The girl wiped her face with it, then pulled it down over her head while Joan quickly slipped into the harnesses again.
Bending down, Joan removed the small semiauto from her ankle holster. She gave it to Debbie.
Debbie stepped past her, heading for the slide.
“Wait!”
“I know. Something wrong with it.”
As Dave stepped close to Joan, she took hold of his left wrist and swung it sideways, aiming his flashlight into the room. “Jesus Christ,” she muttered.
They both flinched as someone cried out in agony and alarm. In seconds, the air was full of shouts, laughter, and screams, some faint, others loud. They seemed to come from somewhere down the hallway. Dave snapped his head in that direction. He saw smoke drift up through one of the floor gratings. Smoke, and the shimmery light of fire.
“What the hell’s going on?” Joan said.
“We’d better get out of here fast,” Dave said.
Debbie took hold of Joan’s hand.
Dave rushed past them, dropped to his knees, and shone his light down the slide.
“Let’s go back the way we came,” Joan said.
“We can’t!” Debbie blurted. “My friends are down there! We’ve gotta save them!”
“I think we can make it down the slide,” Dave said.
Forty-five
“That oughta show ’em,” Tanya gasped.
“Hope the place burns to the ground,” Liz said.
“Not till we get our tails outta here,” Cowboy said. Candle in one hand, knife in the other, he started into the mirror maze. Liz rushed after him.
Jeremy, staying close to Tanya’s side, headed for the opening in the wall of mirrors. Someone above the ceiling was still screaming. He heard others whimpering and sobbing up there.
We hurt them, he thought. Maybe even killed one or two.
Like to kill them all.
Like to burn the fucking place to the ground, barbecue every damn one of the trolls.
But he doubted that setting some hair on fire had been enough to do the job.
Just as well. The idea of burning up Shiner appalled him. Samson and Karen would be cremated too. They deserved better than to have their bodies go up in smoke with the trolls who had murdered them.
He saw Liz vanish among the mirrors. But she reappeared, along with Cowboy, when Jeremy entered a gap in the front panels. They were over to the left. He thought. It was hard to tell exactly where they were. With mirrors on both sides and in front of them, reflections were everywhere. A multitude of bloody kids with candles, knives, and meat cleavers. Images within images, receding and diminishing. Jeremy couldn’t tell the real Cowboy and Liz from their glass doubles. Then they disappeared, and Jeremy was surrounded by images of only himself and Tanya. He probed ahead with the cleaver. Walked toward himself and Tanya, duplicates matching them on both sides. A corner of the heavy blade tapped glass. He reached to the right and met no resistance, so he turned that way just in time to see Cowboy and Liz—or their reflections—vanish around a corner.
“Hold up,” Tanya said. “Let’s not lose each other.”
Jeremy hurried forward, keeping his shoulder against Tanya, rubbing the knuckles of his left hand along the glass to guide him.
“Well, I’ll be hog-tied.”
His knuckles lost the glass. He stepped forward, reached sideways, and nudged Liz’s back.
“Hey, watch it with the candle,” she warned, flinching away from him.
“Sorry.”
“Look what I’ve found,” Cowboy said.
Jeremy stepped sideways to see past Liz’s head. Cowboy was in front of him—or somewhere—bending down. He stood up and turned around. His knife was clenched in his teeth. His candle was in one hand. In the other was a camera with a flash attachment.
“Fantastic,” Tanya said.
“She’s a beaut, too,” he said around the knife. “A Minolta.”
“Who gives a shit?” Liz said. “Take the film out.”
“I’m just gonna keep the whole thing.” He slung the strap over his head, wincing slightly as his hand brushed against his bandaged ear.
“Keep it if you want,” Tanya told him. “But get the film out of it right now. We can’t take a chance on losing it.”
“Okay, you say so.” He lowered his head and squinted at the camera, trying to figure it out. “I’m not real sure—”
“Behind you!” Tanya shouted.
br /> Liz screamed.
Cowboy jumped with surprise and whirled around, snatching the knife from his mouth as a giant of a troll loomed out of the mirrors and swung an ax down. Ten giants. Fifty of them. Countless monstrous trolls chopping, splitting Cowboy’s head down the middle. Gore sprayed the air. The halves of his head dropped toward his shoulders. His legs shot forward. His rump pounded the floor. The troll ripped his ax free and started to raise it.
Liz, still screaming, lurched toward Cowboy. She crouched at his back, slipped her hands under the sides of his head, and lifted them as if she thought she could put him back together.
“No!” Tanya yelled.
The troll took one long stride toward Liz.
Jeremy hurled his cleaver. It flashed in the candlelight as it flipped end over end. Its blade thudded into the troll’s chest. He bellowed. But he didn’t go down. The cleaver stayed buried in him as he swung his ax sideways.
Jeremy heard a wet smack.
Liz’s head flew from her neck, tumbling, streaming hair and blood. The ax didn’t stop. It swept past her and crashed the mirror on her right. Liz’s head hit the mirror, bounced to the floor, and rolled.
Her headless body was still crouched behind Cowboy. Blood spouted from the stump of her neck like water from a thick hose. Beyond the bodies, the troll was turned sideways. He twisted, swinging his ax away from the smashed mirror. As he raised it toward his shoulder, Tanya dashed to Liz’s back and leapt through the geyser of blood. She slammed against him. It must’ve been like hitting a tree. The troll didn’t budge. She bounced off his chest and was thrown backward onto the bodies. The cleaver, knocked crooked by Tanya’s impact, stayed in the troll’s chest for a moment, then fell and hit the floor with a clatter.
He stood above her, ax raised over his shoulder.
Jeremy saw the handle of Tanya’s knife protruding from his throat.
He stood tall and motionless, then toppled backward. The head of the ax shattered the mirror behind him. He fell through the disintegrating glass, his back breaking through the bottom of the panel as shards rained down on him.
All the candles were out except Jeremy’s.
But its single tongue of flame was multiplied by the mirrors, filling the scene with a fluttery orange glow.
He watched Tanya climb off the bodies of Cowboy and Liz.
She crawled onto the felled troll, reached beyond his head, then scurried off him, dragging the ax.
Standing astride his hips, she raised the ax. Jeremy saw it swing down, heard the wet thud as it struck.
Bending over, Tanya pulled her knife from the troll’s throat. Then she stepped off the body. “Come here and get the ax,” she said, her voice husky and breathless. “We can use it.”
Jeremy nodded. He moved forward, glanced at Liz and Cowboy, turned his eyes away from them, and looked at the dead troll. Tanya had left the ax in his face.
Good, Jeremy thought.
And slipped on the blood-slick floor. Yelping, he flapped his arms.
Shook his candle out.
Darkness dropped like a black cloak over his eyes.
He fell onto the bodies of his dead friends.
At the top of the slide, Dave wrapped his Kevlar vest around his shoes. “Here goes,” he muttered.
Joan squeezed his shoulder.
He pushed off and sped down the slide, sitting upright, legs tight together in front of him, flashlight aimed at the twin upright blades. His feet struck the blades, stopping him with a jolt. Through the vest and soles of his shoes, the edges felt no sharper than a couple of steel rods.
He clamped the flashlight between his thighs, pointing its beam at his shrouded feet. He lay back, stretched his arms overhead, and called out, “All set.”
Debbie came down on her belly, hands first. Dave caught them, halting her glide. He drew her down to his face. “Take the flashlight with you,” he said. “Be careful going over the knives. And have your pistol ready when you get to the bottom.”
Straddling him, she squirmed down his body. She took the flashlight, scooted lower, and rose to her hands and knees to crawl over his upright feet and the blades. “Made it,” she whispered.
She hunkered at the end of the slide, shining the light around. Then she climbed off.
“Okay, Joan.”
Joan came down. As she struggled onto him, the side of one breast rubbed his cheek. Dave felt its softness through the thin damp fabric of her T-shirt. Its touch was like a memory of the real world.
There is a real world out there, he thought.
He lifted his hands. He caressed her back as she worked her way down his body. He caressed her buttocks, the backs of her legs.
“You pick odd times to get fresh,” she whispered.
He laughed softly.
“There’s a real world out there,” he told her. “Believe it or not.”
“I’m glad you reminded me.” She squeezed his knee. “We’re doing okay so far, huh?”
“Doing just fine.”
Then she crawled over his feet, skidded to the end of the slide, and Debbie helped her off. She took the flashlight and aimed it at his feet.
Dave sat up. He bent his knees until he could reach the vest with his hands. Pressing it against the blades, he freed his feet and stretched his legs down until he was astride the covered knives.
“Seemed like a good idea at the time,” he muttered.
Joan passed the light to Debbie, then climbed onto the end of the slide. She shoved her knees against the bottoms of his feet and reached up.
“Ah-ha,” Dave said.
“Ah-ha,” she repeated.
As she clutched his wrists, Dave leaned forward. She tugged. His rump lifted off the slide. The inner sides of his thighs rubbed the padded blades. The back of his head scraped along the top of the enclosure. Joan suddenly gave him such a pull that he nearly folded in half. His knees buckled. He hit the ramp, and tumbled with Joan until the slide was no longer under them. They hit the floor.
After untangling himself, he retrieved the vest. He held it toward Joan. She shook her head. “It’s yours. Put it on.”
“I want you to wear it,” Dave said.
“Well, I want you to wear it.”
“I don’t want you wearin’ nuffin’,” came a voice from the ceiling. “C’mon, sweet stuff, lemme see—”
“Bastard!” Debbie snapped. She shoved her arm straight up, aimed her pistol at the grate, but didn’t fire. Shaking her head, she lowered the pistol.
“Hey, sweet stuff,” the troll said.
“Babes babes babes,” said another.
“Tasty bits.”
“Where are the others?” Debbie yelled at the ceiling. “Where are my friends?”
Trolls laughed.
“Oh, they been by, they been by.”
“Bound fer hell.”
“Let’s go,” Joan said. She swept the walls with the flashlight, probed the darkness of the hallway to the left, and jogged in that direction.
“Bye-bye, sweets.”
“Say hi to Webster!”
Dave nudged Debbie’s back, and she started to run.
He hurried after her. He slipped his arms into the vest as he ran. Though he wanted Joan to wear it, he saw no point in wasting time on argument.
Joan and Debbie crouched at the edge of a barrel that filled the hallway. Dave stepped up behind them as Debbie muttered, “Oh, jeez, no.”
A dead kid was stretched out inside the barrel. All around him, the wooden staves bristled with spikes.
“One of your friends?” Joan asked.
“Samson.”
“Looks like they used him for a bridge,” Dave said.
“I guess we do too,” Joan said.
Debbie curled her left hand against the side of her mouth and shouted through the barrel, “Hello! Jeremy! Hey, you guys, it’s Shiner! Can you hear me?”
No answer came.
“Jeremy? Tanya? Cowboy? Liz? It’s Shiner. We’ve got guns!
Wait up! Or come back! You’ll be all right! We’ve got guns!”
Still no answer.
“Dammit,” she muttered.
“I’ll go first,” Dave said. He stepped around them. He swept the edge of his shoe against one of the spikes. The barrel rocked from side to side. “Christ,” he said.
Joan and Debbie grabbed spikes near the rim of the barrel to hold it steady.
Dave knelt on the dead boy’s shins. They felt steady under him. Of course they do, he thought. They’re nailed down.
Leaning forward, he gripped the boy’s thighs and started to crawl.
Robin, kneeling on the seat and clutching its back, watched the troll climb onto the beam that led straight to her gondola.
The same route the other had used.
Well, she’d taken care of that one.
Two down, one to go.
This guy was bigger than the last troll. He had a round face, hardly any neck at all, and shoulders the size of hams. His eyes were small and close together. Pig eyes, Robin thought. A squat, upturned nose. A tiny slit of a mouth, lips tight.
He really looks like a pig, she thought.
But he also looked, somehow, like a little boy in a body that had bloated out of control.
He wore a ball cap with its bill turned up. The skin around its sides was hairless.
“Go back,” she said. “I don’t want to kill you.”
As she spoke those words, she saw herself in the steaming spa with Nate, holding him tightly, both of them weeping for the deaths they had caused.
She saw Nate sprawled on the sheet. His bloody head.
She felt her throat tighten.
Oh, God, Nate.
Had he deserved it? she wondered. Was all this some kind of rough justice at work?
“I really don’t want to kill you,” she pleaded, her voice sliding to a higher pitch. “I don’t want to kill anyone.”
The troll straddled the beam and stared at her.
“Just go away,” she begged. “Please.”
The troll lowered his head. Looking down at the dead ones? He hunched himself over and hugged the beam.
He’s afraid, Robin thought. He doesn’t want to fall.