Sweet lord, what was wrong with his body?
Maria pulled her eyes away and attacked the stairs with every bit of her energy. The hundreds of hours she spent training paid off, and she climbed so quickly the man—don’t look at his horrible face—on the second floor couldn’t react in time to grab her. She ducked past, inhaling a stench of body odor and rot, heading for the only other room she knew to be occupied, the two men arguing sports.
And they were still arguing, behind the door labeled Theodore Roosevelt. Maria threw herself into the room without knocking, slamming and locking the door behind her.
“You’ve got to help—”
The lights were on, but the room was empty. Maria looked for the voices, which hadn’t abated, and quickly focused on the nightstand next to the bed. Setting on top was an old reel-to-reel tape recorder. The voices of the arguing men droned through its speakers in an endless loop.
A trick. To distract her. Make her feel like she wasn’t alone.
Or maybe the purpose of the recording was to lure her into this room.
Then the tape recorder, and the lights, abruptly went off.
Maria froze. She heard someone crying, and with no small surprise realized the sound was coming from her. Dropping onto all fours, she crawled toward the bed. This room was laid out the same way as the Lincoln room, and she quickly bumped against the dust ruffle, brought her legs in front of her, and eased underneath on her belly, feet first, keeping her head poking out so she could listen.
At first she couldn’t hear anything above her heart hammering in her ears and her own shallow panting. She forced her breathing to slow down, sucking in air through her nose, blowing it out softly through her puffed cheeks.
Then she heard the footsteps. From the hallway. Getting closer. First one set, slow and deliberate, each footfall sounding like a thunderclap. Then another set, equally heavy, running up fast.
Both of them stopped at the door.
“I think the girly is in here.”
“That’s Teddy’s room. We can’t go in.”
“But she’s in there. It’s bleedin’ time.”
Maria heard the doorknob turn. She scooted further under the bed, the dust ruffle covering her hair.
“You shouldn’t do that. You really shouldn’t do that.”
The door creaked, inching open. Maria saw a beam of light sliver through the crack. It widened until she could see two huge figures silhouetted in the doorway. They each held flashlights.
“The one that catches her, bleeds her first. Them’s the rules.”
“I ain’t goin’ in. You shouldn’t neither.”
“Shuddup. This girlie is mine.”
“It’s Teddy’s room.”
“Shuddup!”
The man dressed in the George Washington outfit shone his light on the other man’s face. Maria put her hand in her mouth and bit down so she didn’t scream. His face was... dear God... it was...
“Watch my eyes!”
“I said shuddup!”
“I’m tellin’ on you!”
“Hey! Don’t!”
The door abruptly closed, and both sets of footsteps retreated up the hall, down the stairs.
Maria’s whole body shivered like she was freezing to death. Terror locked her muscles and she couldn’t move. But she had to move. She had to find some kind of way out of there.
Were all the windows bricked-over? Maybe some of them weren’t. Maybe she could get out of a window, climb down somehow. Or get up on the roof. The roof sounded a lot better than waiting around for those freaks to come back.
Maria heard something soft. Faint. Nearby.
Some kind of scratching sound.
She concentrated on listening, but couldn’t hear anything above her own labored gasping. She took a deep breath, held it in.
And could still hear the breathing.
Raspy, wet breathing.
Right next to her.
Someone else is under the bed.
“I’m Teddy.”
His voice was deep, rough, and hearing it that close scared Maria so badly her bladder let loose.
“I’m gonna bleed you, girly girl. Bleed you nice and long.”
Then something grabbed Maria’s legs, and she screamed louder than she’d ever screamed in her life, screamed louder than she’d ever thought possible, kicking and clawing as she was dragged down through the trap-door in the floor.
Excerpt from AFRAID by Jack Kilborn
The hunter’s moon, a shade of orange so dark it appeared to be filled with blood, hung fat and low over the mirror surface of Big Lake McDonald. Sal Morton took in a lungful of crisp Wisconsin air, shifted on his seat cushion, and cast his Lucky 13 over the stern. The night of fishing had been uneventful; a few small bass earlier in the evening, half a dozen Northern Pike—none bigger than a pickle—and then, nothing. The zip of his baitcaster unspooling and the plop of the bait hitting the water were the only sounds he’d heard for the last hour.
Until the helicopter exploded.
It was already over the water before Sal noticed it. Black, without any lights, silhouetted by the moon. And quiet. Twenty years ago Sal had taken his wife Maggie on a helicopter ride at the Dells, both of them forced to ride with their hands clamped over their ears to muffle the sound. This one made a fraction of that noise. It hummed, like a refrigerator.
The chopper came over the lake on the east side, low enough that its downdraft produced large eddies and waves. So close to the water Sal wondered if its wake might overturn his twelve foot aluminum boat. He ducked as it passed over him, knocking off his Packers baseball cap, scattering lures, lifting several empty Schmidt beer cans and tossing them overboard.
Sal dropped his pole next to his feet and gripped the sides of the boat, moving his body against the pitch and yaw. When capsizing ceased to be a fear, Sal squinted at the helicopter for a tag, a marking, some sort of ID, but it lacked both writing and numbers. It might as well have been a black ghost.
Three heartbeats later the helicopter had crossed the thousand yard expanse of lake and dipped down over the tree line on the opposite shore. What was a helicopter doing in Safe Haven? Especially at night? Why was it flying so low? And why did it appear to have landed near his house?
Then came the explosion.
He felt it a moment after he saw it. A vibration in his feet, as if someone had hit the bow with a bat. Then a soft warm breeze on his face, carrying mingling scents of burning wood and gasoline. The cloud of flames and smoke went up at least fifty feet.
After watching for a moment, Sal retrieved his pole and reeled in his lure, then pulled the starter cord on his 7.5 horsepower Evinrude. The motor didn’t turn over. The second and third yank yielded similar results. Sal swore and began to play with the choke, wondering if Maggie was scared by the crash, hoping she was all right.
Maggie Morton awoke to what she thought was thunder. Storms in upper Wisconsin could be as mean as anywhere on earth, and in the twenty-six years they’d owned this house she and Sal had to replace several cracked windows and half the roof due to weather damage.
She opened her eyes, listened for the dual accompaniment of wind and rain. Strangely, she heard neither.
Maggie squinted at the red blur next to the bed, groped for her glasses, pushed them on her face. The blur focused and became the time: 10:46