“Go to Five, go to Five!” Harris shouted. The picture switched from inside the living room to the live view of the entity as it crashed through the open space where the thick front doors had been. All over the country, viewers got their first clear look at evil. The black, swirling mass stopped at the top of the stone steps, just under the portico. Suddenly a tendril of inky blackness shot out from the still form and went south into the storm-tossed night.
“Oh, shit,” Harris said aloud.
“Is it — is it coming at us?” one of the technicians called out worriedly.
On the screen that showed a sideways view of the mass, it started down the stone steps, smashing the bottom of the giant wooden portico as it came on.
Harris couldn’t open his mouth as the entity, or the part that was outside, came right at the production van, scattering emergency personnel in its path. He and the others turned toward the clear plastic curtain that sectioned them off from the heavy steel door at the front of the trailer. Harris pulled the curtain back and ran to the double steel doors. He slammed home the large lock just as the entity struck the thick doors, bending them and warping them in their frame. The large van shook as it was knocked from it stabilizing blocks, knocking Harris backward.
In New York, the first inkling of panic began to set in inside the screening room.
The six state police cruisers received their orders to move on Summer Place. They screamed out of the small town and took the curves of the wet road at breakneck speed, making the other cars fall behind. Suddenly, eight miles out of town and only three miles from Summer Place, the woods lining the roadway lit up as if an explosion had rent the forest. The bright green flash made the lead driver flinch, but he recovered quickly and kept going. As he accelerated back up to speed, a brief flash of movement caught his attention. A deer had shot from one side of the road to the other, barely missing the cruiser. The state trooper figured the hard storm with its lightning strikes was spooking the animals. Then as that thought struck him, another large buck sprang from the woods to the cruiser’s right and stopped right in the middle of the road. The headlights picked out the large deer, just standing its ground against the police cruiser. Suddenly the animal started forward, first at a trot and then at a full gait. The state trooper turned his wheel, hitting his brakes and putting the heavy cruiser into a spin. The deer struck the car in the rear quarter panel and flew into the roadway, dead. Then another deer jumped in front of the spinning car, smashing the headlights. As its body was tossed underneath the car, the rear wheels struck it. Then the cruiser was airborne. It came down on its top, crushing the flashing lights, and skidded down the center of the road.
The second car in line took the corner dangerously fast. The driver saw the wreck and tried to turn, but he was too late. His vehicle slammed into the first at over seventy miles an hour, bursting into flames. The third cruiser in line actually had a chance to avoid the disaster ahead, but just as the driver tried to apply his brakes and turn the steering wheel, a large owl slammed into the windshield, shattering it and momentarily throwing off the trooper’s concentration. The bird was thrown clear just as the third car slammed into the first two. Flames were spreading fast in the downpour of rain, illuminating the woods, but the false light wasn’t enough to prevent the pile-up that followed and the next three cars ended in a similar, disastrous fate.
As men and cars burned in the stormy night, the fires lit up the woods. Standing six and seven deep in those woods, thousands of scared animals regained their wits and turned and fled back into the forest.
The part of the entity moved over the burning, screaming men in the cruisers, absorbing their pain and anguish. Then, stronger than before its assault on the roadway, it rose up and entered the woods.
The black and shimmering mass was returning to Summer Place, and the men and women trapped there were now on their own to face hell itself.
Gabriel pushed his weight against the door and was soon joined by Damian Jackson and even Lionel Peterson. The entity slammed into the door for a second time and the wood actually splintered down its center. In the far corner of the room, George Cordero and Julie Reilly were trying frantically to open one of the bedroom windows. They struggled with the lock, but it wouldn’t budge.
Damian Jackson tossed his nine millimeter away and placed his hand over the crack that had formed in the door. Suddenly the state policeman screamed and then pulled his hand away. Even in the dark Jackson knew that at least two of his fingers were missing.
“The goddamn thing bit my fingers off!” He threw his weight against the door.
“Hell of a special effect, isn’t it?” Gabriel said as the door bulged inward once more.
“Yeah, just about as good as your theory that ghosts never really harmed anyone!” Jackson screamed back.
“You got me there,” Kennedy said as he strained against the wood.
“Jesus, what the hell is that thing?” Peterson whined. He slid down the door and pushed his back to it, keeping pressure on it.
George and Julie turned from the window. The psychic grabbed a chair and slammed it against the glass. The wooden chair bounced back and struck Julie in the arm. She let out a small yelp.
“It’s not a ghost,” George said, out of breath. He examined the glass, which hadn’t broken into a thousand pieces like he thought it would. He tried to catch his breath. “It may have been, once…and it may have also been human…but not now.” He straightened, pulling Julie further away from the window, and once more picked up the wooden chair. “No one has ever dealt with anything like this. Nowhere in the annals of the supernatural is anything like this mentioned. Its power is building from our fear of it, I can feel it. It wants out of Summer Place and it’s going to go through us to do it!”
“He’s right,” Kennedy said. The entity laughed out loud in the hallway, bringing a spate of shivers to the people trapped inside the room. The laugh was booming and hardy, as if it was amused by what it was hearing. “The goddamn thing has evolved into something that’s never been seen before.”
“Well, may I suggest we get the hell out of here and allow it to go on its merry way?” Jackson said, cradling his mutilated hand.
“Where? We’re trapped!” Peterson screamed as the mass struck the door again, this time breaking the crystal doorknob from its stem.
A tendril of mist entered the room through the crack in the door and slapped Kennedy away. With his weight off the door, the entity was able to push the thick wooden door inward by three inches, breaking away a portion of the frame.
As Gabriel crawled hurriedly back to the door, the roar of an enraged animal sounded from the hallway. They knew that the next time it struck the door it would give completely.
Whatever walked the halls and rooms inside of Summer Place was mad and very hungry. It was tired of hiding amongst the wood and mortar of the old summer retreat and wanted to break away for good.
The entity smashed into the production van from the side, bulging the thin steel inward and shorting out several of the monitors. Harris Dalton threw himself over a production assistant just as the overhead fluorescents shattered, sending the van into darkness with the exception of the few still-functioning monitors left. With all thought of the Halloween special purged from his mind, Dalton went into a mindset he thought he had forgotten. Just as when he’d been on assignment in Afghanistan, it was now time to try and stay alive.
The entity had smashed a large hole in the center of the ballroom doors in its attempt to get inside and stop the only being in the world that could cause it harm — John Lonetree. Leonard Sickles was throwing anything he could find at the large double doors; he was terrified, and that was the only action he could think of to take. Wallace Lindemann was sitting behind the bar with his hands over his ears, rocking back and forth, his mind slowly leaving him.