Jennifer was shaking John as hard as she could, but all Lonetree was doing was shaking his head and sweating cold moisture from his pores.
“John, wake up!” Jenny cried.
At the large double doors, Leonard froze with a barstool raised as the top half of the left door smashed inward and flew into the ballroom. The stool slowly slipped from his grasp as the entity showed its face. It grabbed both sides of the opening with its black swirling hands and leaned its head through the opening. Leonard stumbled backward as the beast roared in animal triumph. Its obsidian eyes settled on John.
John felt Jenny shaking him, but he knew if he ended the Dream Walk now the beast would get them all. It would become powerful enough to leave Summer Place forever.
John watched the scene in the hallway. The entity was smashing into the large door over and over again. He heard his friends inside. Suddenly the beast turned its black eyes on John. He couldn’t see it in the darkness, but he knew it was staring at him. It roared like an animal and John knew it was about to spring at his dream-self. John closed his eyes and remembered what he needed to remember. When he opened them again, the entity was gone — not far away, but not after him any longer. He knew what he had to do. He had to help Gabriel and George, and then he needed to get help. There was only one place that he knew of that could provide it. He reached out with his hand and pushed.
“Look!” Julie Reilly called out.
Gabriel, still helping to hold closed what was left of the door, looked up in time to see the large closet door slowly swing open. Warmer air permeated the cold room. He knew immediately it was John.
“George, put that chair down and get inside that closet. Feel around. I think Lonetree is trying to tell us something!”
Cordero slammed the chair against the window one more time. As it bounced off, he turned and ran for the closet. He also felt the large Indian’s presence, and shoved aside the aging black sequined gown on its lone hanger. As George struck the back wall of the wooden closet, he felt something give. He heard a squeak and then he felt a draft of even colder air. He reached out just as a loud boom sounded from the bedroom.
“George, we’re running out of time here!” Kennedy shouted. “I think old F.E. Lindemann wants this bedroom!”
“In here! There’s a passage of some sort.”
“Julie, go!” Gabriel shouted. The door gave another two inches inward.
The reporter scrambled over the bed and hit the closet and without hesitation. She ducked inside.
“Peterson, get in there and follow,” Gabriel said. He grimaced with the effort of keeping the entity out.
“You don’t have to tell me twice. Good luck!” Peterson scrambled to his feet and vanished into the dark closet.
“Don’t even say it, Kennedy. You get out of here!” Jackson screamed over the grunting and roaring of the beast outside of the bedroom.
“I wasn’t going to say anything. Neither of us can leave without Mr. Wonderful coming inside and chasing down the others. I’m afraid we’re pegged to be the heroes here.”
“You could have at least argued for me to leave,” Jackson said with a snarl.
The entity crashed into the door, and this time it gave way.
John moved back out into the hallway. He didn’t know exactly how to get the mass of darkness to pay attention to him, but that became a moot point as he felt the black mass back away from the door. It had finally succeeded in cracking the wood to splinters. It turned toward John and roared. Forgetting all about the bedroom, it turned and came forward. John backed away. Then the beast roared in anger and came at him in earnest.
“Now, Gabe. Run, get to the sewing room, the answer is in there!” he shouted as he ran for the staircase.
Gabriel pushed broken shards of wood off his hurting body and turned his attention to Damian, who was covered in the remains of the door. When they both heard the call for them to run, they didn’t hesitate. They covered the floor to the closet in moments and smashed inside the dark space that was their escape.
Once inside the passage, Gabriel searched his pockets for his penlight. “Damn it, the flashlight’s back in the room!” he hissed.
Jackson pushed by him in the tight passageway.
“Well, go back and get it, but don’t mind if I don’t go with you.”
Kennedy had to smile as he turned on his heels and followed the detective.
They traveled along the passage until Damian, not being able to see clearly in the dark, bumped into Peterson, who let out a scream.
“This door or that one,” George asked in the darkness as Gabriel caught up.
“John said the sewing room. If I have my bearings straight, that’s the one to your right.”
George tried the panel in front of him. It didn’t move.
“Try sliding it,” Julie said at his shoulder.
George placed both hands on the panel and pushed to the left — nothing. Then he tried to the right and the panel moved. He pushed it all the way open and then slowly and cautiously stepped into the sewing room.
As they all joined George, Gabriel brushed a small table and bumped against something. He picked it up to examine it and some liquid splashed in his hands — kerosene.
“Anyone got a light, a match, anything? I have a storm lamp.”
Suddenly the room flashed brightly as Lionel Peterson lit his lighter. Gabriel raised the glass chimney on the storm lantern and Peterson lit the wick. Kennedy closed the chimney and adjusted the flame.
The sewing room was laid out neatly. There were three sewing machines, half body mannequins and old bolts of materials of all colors and make, strewn across the room. All covered in a thick layer of dust. This was one room Eunice Johannson never touched in her daily cleaning of Summer Place. The dust and disarray made the room seem frozen in time. The many closets in the room were all locked with small padlocks. Damian Jackson noticed them just as Gabriel did.
“I guess Mrs. Lindemann took the security of her wardrobe seriously,” Jackson said. He walked up to one and grasped the old brass lock with his uninjured left hand. The big state policeman pulled down as hard as he could. The lock held, but he heard a small cracking of the wood that the hasp was attached to. He pulled again and this time the old wood gave way and the lock and its hasp came off in his hand. “Oops.”
Gabriel came forward with the lamp as Damian pulled open the closet door. Several items hung inside. Jackson took a step back in stunned silence. Julie mustered all of her courage to keep the sickness she felt from exiting her stomach.
“My God, what are those?” Peterson asked. Now they knew who they were dealing with, and what was walking the hallways of Summer Place.
John had made it to the second floor landing, but he felt the entity close behind. The flashing of the motion sensors and the beeping of the laser grid told him the beast had gained the second floor and was just across the house from where he was. He knew beyond a doubt that if the entity could catch him in his dream state, it could kill him just as surely as if it was confronting his real body.
John held his ground on the landing, waiting for the black mass to reach the corner of the hallway, baiting it away from Gabriel and George. The black force rounded the corner, and John knew he could lead it away successfully — his bait had worked.