No Suzie.
His hopes fell. He hadn’t really thought she would be here, but it was the best case scenario. The only other place was in the mansion.
Well not the only place, he thought. I didn’t really check the bone pile for anyone new, or look closely at the faces of The Rejected…
He tried to push the thoughts from his mind. He knew where he had to go. He started to climb back out the window, then a thought struck him and he took a backward glance into the room of now mostly whimpering children.
“Smiling Jacks a murderer,” he said. “If I was you I’d run for your lives.”
With that he slipped out the window and headed up the hill. He didn’t even think of looking back.
The basement window was there waiting for him a third time. It was locked now, but easy enough to pry open with knife and claw. He played his light along the floor to check for traps, but saw none. Just in case, he shone it across the whole room as well, looking for ambush. Satisfied that no surprises were waiting for him he jumped down.
With the flashlight he could see the room better than ever. It really was amazing. The priceless collectibles and nightmarish antiquities strewn along the plain wooden shelves like disused power tools were truly unbelievable. In just a glance he saw a few things he hadn’t before. Like a spider’s head every bit as large as his own, encased in formaldehyde and with red eyes still glinting out from the yellow liquid. And an old tri-bladed dagger that might have been made of gold and had a hollow tube running down the center, laying on top of what looked like a generator with a crank on the side and a giant switch in the middle.
He glanced at these and more in passing, but didn’t stop to look closer. Instead he headed down the hallway towards the operating theatre. He felt as he moved that there were two crushing and opposing forces pressing on him. From behind came the force of panic, the fear of being caught and the need to hurry before it was too late. From before pushed back the terror and memories of what he might find, that it might be too late. He couldn’t breathe for the weight of it. His steps were unsteady and faltering. His heart beat against his chest like a fist and he moved forward by momentum alone.
Finally he stood frozen just at the edge of the room to his left. The “waiting room.” This, and not the operating theatre, was the deciding moment. If Suzie wasn’t in the one then she must be in the other. He decided that if she was lying on that metal slab that had known so many horrors, whether dead or still half alive, he would burn the mansion to the ground with the both of them in it. They’d be the last victims of Smiling Jack.
Please please please, he prayed to no one. There was no one left to pray to.
Finally he forced himself to take a step forward, holding his breath in anticipation. He shone his flashlight across the waiting room, examining the small school chairs one by one. He was so anxious to see her that each shadow seemed for a moment to be her shape. Until there…
There she was.
For the briefest of moments she just lay there limp in the chair, and Spencer felt sure she was dead. When she opened her eyes at the glare of the light and started to scream he could physically feel his heart begin to beat again. It was only a second before he realized though that he must absolutely shut her up as soon as possible.
“Suzie, it’s me. It’s Spencer,” he said while shining the flashlight at his own face. He wondered how she would react, given that he had never actually spoke to her before.
She stopped screaming and instead started sniffling, large tears running down her cheek. He went over to her and wrapped his arms around her, hugging her so tightly that he heard the breath get squeezed out of her in a huff. He realized belatedly that he had never hugged her either. He’d held her and carried her as a matter of course, but never actually hugged her. It was probably the best moment of his life.
He tried to lift her in his arms but was stopped by the shackles chaining her to the floor. Short work was made of them, though. Spencer had not neglected to bring a hacksaw.
Spencer carried Suzie up the stairs and through the kitchen and down the narrow hallways. The wyrd witchlight of the house illuminated his path as before, meaning he had no need of the flashlight. Suzie still whimpered despite his best attempts to keep her quiet. He’d learned many times that telling Suzie to shush was an extremely temporary solution at best, and yet he wished just this once she would cooperate and be still. As he moved down the corridors on his way to the entrance hall he paid even less attention to Jack’s ages old artwork than he had the last time. He didn’t need to use them as landmarks, he remembered his way perfectly. As he always did.
Reaching the grand entrance hall with its black tile floors and black wood stairs sweeping off to either side, he felt the exact same trepidation he had before. Crossing the open space, no where to hide should someone happen to show up at just the wrong time. If anything he was even more nervous given that last time that was exactly what had happened. Spencer glanced down at the paw that was his right hand, a fleeting sense of something like deja vu passing over him.
He paused only long enough to glance at as much of the room as he could see, then moved as fast as he could while still keeping his footsteps perfectly silent. An almost jog that had him across the room and up the stairs in less than twenty seconds. As he passed into the long hallway he glanced down at the front door, but didn’t pause.
Quietly he shut the door to the long hallway behind him, moving fast towards the Grand Closet. Was a good halfway down the hall and finally letting himself feel a sense of relief, but froze when it spoke behind him.
“Speeeennnnnncer.”
There was no denying that voice, no questioning it. He turned, holding Suzie’s head against his shoulder so she couldn’t see. At first confusion, because the door to the long hallway was still closed. But then in a beam of moonlight streaming in from the high windows he saw. Smiling Jack was rising to his feet from amidst a pile of ventriloquist dummies sitting in the corner. Spencer had walked right past without seeing him.
“Ahhh Spencer,” said Jack. His voice was soft, and he wore a look of happy rapture on his human-masked face. “How I wished and wished you would come.”
So close, thought Spencer. I was so close. He’d expected fear, but instead only felt a final depression. It had all been for nothing. And yet…
And yet there was a spark of hope still. Jack was a long ways away, and Spencer was halfway home. He had more of a lead now then he had when he’d run this same hallway with Mr. Buttons on his trail. He’d had less weight then, but maybe. When Jack started calmly walking forward, Spencer began matching step for step backward.
“You’re the only one Spencer,” Jack said as he cast his arms wide in a gesture of both amazement and welcome. “The only one to ever escape. After all I’ve fooled, you were the one that fooled me.”
Just a little further, Spencer half-thought and half-prayed. Just keep walking.
“The things I could do with you Spencer,” said Jack. A distant look of hunger smoldered in his alien eyes even through the mask. “The things I could make of you. After all these years, after ages Spencer! You could be the one. The real Perfect one. The child so Perfect that I can finally…”
But Jack had stopped walking. Spencer stopped too, unsure if he would somehow break the spell of escape if he kept moving.