Suddenly, as he turned to run down the stairs in his dream, a cold splash — or flash, really — struck his face. It was so cold that he gasped for breath. Then, to his horror, he opened his eyes. The entity roared in pure animalistic anger and turned back the way it had come. John knew it had figured out where Gabriel and the others were.
“No, it’s going back to the third floor — it’s going to the sewing room!”
He tried to scream at the retreating entity to regain its attention, but just as he opened his mouth in his dream state, another splash of freezing cold struck him. Like the witch in the Wizard of Oz, he began to dissolve.
John opened his eyes and tried to catch his breath. He was coughing and spitting as the cold water ran down his throat and windpipe. A pair of reaching arms helped him to sit up.
“John, are you okay?”
John tried to clear his head, shaking cold water from him and slinging his long wet hair around. He managed to draw in a deep breath. He finally opened his eyes and looked around. Shaking, he saw Jennifer standing over him. She was holding a large glass that still dripped water.
“You…you woke me,” he said as he rubbed his swollen eyes. “I wasn’t done.”
“You were dying, John. You were breathing too hard and your pulse was racing. You were about to go into cardiac arrest, or have a stroke.”
Before John could say anything, a crash at the door brought his head around. The entity, or the part that took occupancy near the ballroom, had smashed the left side of the door to splinters. Leonard Sickles was still throwing anything he could through the large opening at the roaring beast.
“We’re out of time here!” Leonard shouted as he threw a computer monitor through the door.
“I have to get to the subbasement!” John stood. “Can we get out of one of the French doors?”
Jenny shook her head. “We’ve been trying ever since you went under.”
“Damn it, we’re going to lose them if I don’t get to the basement!”
Jenny suddenly felt weak. She sat on the edge of the couch. At first, John thought the situation was just overwhelming her, but then he saw her eyes roll into the back of her head. Her entire body shook and then she moaned deep in her throat. She suddenly stood and looked down at John.
“I didn’t think that bitch would ever let me squeeze though that hole,” Jenny said, her voice decidedly male.
“Bobby Lee?” John asked.
Jenny looked up at the large Indian and shook her head in wonder. “Well, it ain’t Chuck Berry. Look, you don’t have the time.” Jenny touched her own cheek. “And my Jenny girl doesn’t, and believe me, that’s the only reason I’m turning into Gary Cooper here.”
“What are you—”
“Shut up man. Listen, you tell Jenny I never meant no harm. I loved her and that’s why I chose her. That’s why I stayed and that’s why I made her life hell. This is my make up to her. You’ll know when to run, Tonto. Now get her ready to go, get to your basement and kill this fucking thing. It gives ghosts a bad fucking name.”
Jennifer fell forward into John’s arms. She moaned and started to come around almost immediately. She had tears in her eyes, as if she knew exactly what her personal ghost was going to do for her.
John looked up at the exact moment that Leonard Sickles was pushed out of the way by an unseen force. Leonard hit the Persian rug on his back and watched as a sparkling wave of light shot through the exposed hole in the large door. Suddenly the beast roared in anger and the pounding stopped. The only sound in the ballroom was the crying coming from Wallace Lindemann at the back of the bar.
The doorway on the left side slowly opened. Leonard ran, with John carrying Jennifer close behind.
Bobby Lee McKinnon was giving them the time they needed.
Harris Dalton and the fifteen technicians, assistant directors, and producers split into groups, hoping to keep the thing they had sought earlier in the television special out of the production van. All of the enthusiasm they had shown in the beginning had vanished now that the scenario facing them was real. If the thing now punching five- and six-foot dents into the trailer’s steel frame got inside, they would be devoured. All of them knew it.
“I think it’s drawing power from our electronics. What if we get outside somehow and kill the generator?” Nancy, his assistant director, asked as she picked herself off the carpeted deck.
“Okay, I’m game. Do you want me to open the door and you just squeeze by whatever the fuck it is that’s out there and make a run for the genny?” Harris shouted. He watched a corner of the steel door pull outward from the trailer’s frame.
“Oh man, look at that,” Nancy said. There was no way past the thing that was outside.
A large flash of lightning illuminated the grounds and they saw a large arm, mist-shrouded and black, reach in and take a swipe at the closest technician, striking him in the chest and sending him flying. Harris reached for the phone and placed it to his ear, trying desperately to punch in the numbers for New York. As the tones sounded, he heard laughter through the phone line. “They’re mine…they’re mine…they are MINE!”
The corner of the large door peeled down from the hinge that held it in place.
“Oh, crap,” Harris said.
When the door to the sewing room bent inward, Gabriel knew that the entity had discovered their whereabouts. Each person took a step back from the discovery inside the closet that had unnerved them all. Gabe turned the storm lamp toward the open closet one last time to absorb what he was seeing.
The door was slammed again. Damian Jackson saw to his horror that the lock was unlatched. He dove for the door and tried desperately to slam the lock home with his good hand, but the door bent inward with such force that the wood cracked and splintered. Julie saw what he was trying to do and reached for the lock herself, finally getting a hold on it and ramming it home. The beast outside seemed enraged that Gabriel and the others had managed to penetrate its inner sanctum. The pounding and thrashing became more intense, slinging splinters of wood off the cracked door into the interior of the sewing room.
Gabriel moved to the closet and ran his hand over the garment at the front. It looked to be a bodysuit of some kind. Made of white cloth, it was knee length and ended at the collar. To his horror, it was complete with breasts — cloth, to be sure, but full and ample breasts. And it had many companions. Some were heavier than others, but all came equipped with breasts. Gabriel quickly counted twenty bodysuits, each one meticulously hand sewn. Worn underneath a dress, no one would be able to tell that they were false forms for a woman who wasn’t a real woman at all.
“It’s all fitting together.” Gabriel hurried from the open closet to the door. He held the lamp high. Jackson, George and Peterson had their weight firmly planted against the wood, trying to keep the entity at bay.
“We know…” Gabriel shouted. “We know who you are. We know why you weren’t in any of the pictures of your family. You weren’t one of the girls; you’re the son, Mrs. Lindemann!”
The beating against the door stopped. A screech followed, shattering the standing mirror closest to the door.
“You were born a boy. You became a woman!”
The scream of rage came again and the entity came at the door with its full force behind it. The door bent, cracked halfway up, and sent Damian Jackson flying back into the room. George and Lionel Peterson were thrown to the floor. The door was there for the taking, and the entity took full advantage of it.