“I wish I had a cross or a rosary or something,” Moni said.
“That’s for vampires.”
“Did you hear about that vampire outbreak in Colorado? At some hospital? I read it in a tabloid. They said crosses didn’t work.”
“Can you please stop talking?”
“Do you believe in bigfoot?”
“Christ, Moni, can you please—”
That’s when Tom smelled something.
BBQ?
He sniffed the air, trying to pinpoint where it was coming from.
Moni grabbed Tom’s shoulder, startling him.
“Didn’t that doctor guy talk about a ghost that smelled like burnt meat?”
Tom remembered. Sturgis Butler. A serial killer from the 1800s who killed prostitutes in satanic rituals. According to that website, he was caught and burned alive, laughing as he died.
Was the odor coming from around the corner?
Tom’s heart rate, already above normal, got even faster. Against his better judgment he began to imagine Sturgis, his flesh burned black, his charred bones poking out through his crispy skin.
“Moni, let go of me,” he said softly.
She did.
“I hear something, Tom.”
Tom listened. He heard it, too. A shuffling sound. Not a scraping, like a machete being dragged. More like someone scuffing their shoes across the floor.
Tom flashed the light into the hallway behind him.
Empty.
The shuffling drew closer.
Tom gritted his teeth and did a quick peek around the corner.
Clear.
“Okay, we’re going to run down the hallway. Keep up with me. And no matter what happens, keep silent. On three. One… two… three!”
Tom sprinted around the corner, barreling down the hallway as fast as he could, gun pointed ahead, flashlight bobbing and throwing crazy shadows. Right before he got to the great room he stopped, putting his back against the wall, sweeping his light ahead of him.
Moni stopped right behind him, again clutching his shoulder.
Tom didn’t see anyone in the great room. But the charred pork smell had become overpowering. Like he’d stuck his nose over a meat smoker.
“Aabir,” he said in a stage whisper. “Dr. Madison. Are you here?”
He focused the beam on the table where Aabir had been sitting. She was gone.
“I’m going to check the front door,” Tom said. He was close to gagging from the stench. “If it’s open, we’ll go back and get the others, find the cars. Do you want to stay here?”
Moni squeezed him.
“Is that a yes?”
Moni squeezed again, so hard it hurt.
Tom laughed softly. “I’m glad you’re finally taking this silence thing to heart.”
He turned to look at her, and his smile froze when he saw it wasn’t Moni grabbing him.
It was a man with a charred black face who smelled like burnt meat.
Frank
As a scientist, everything that had happened in the last half an hour ate away at Frank’s rational side.
As a man who once lived through unimaginable horrors, it all seemed uncomfortably familiar.
Belgium locked eyes with Sara. He saw fear there. But determination, too. Frank couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have a child taken away, especially after going through whatever hell she’d endured on Rock Island. This house had offered some hope to get Jack back, but after watching Wellington die, Frank reasoned it had been a false hope. Sara must have realized it as well.
They weren’t brought here to be part of some fear experiment.
They were brought here to be slaughtered.
But why?
Frank knew national secrets, and could be considered a security leak. Perhaps the same could be said of the others. But the FBI could have shot Frank when he answered the door back at his apartment. Why all of this preparation if the goal was just to kill them all?
Unless…
“Maybe this is all a hoax,” he said, trying the idea on for size.
“What do you mean?” Sara asked.
“Well, if this really is an experiment to study fear, we’re behaving exactly as they they they want us to.”
Mal came over, shaking his head in the pale green light of the glow stick he held. “That Cornelius Wellington was practically decapitated. And Tom shot Ol’ Jasper at least ten times.”
Belgium tapped his chin. “Are we sure?”
“That’s what we saw,” Pang chimed in.
“And we see magic all the time. Chris Angel levitating on the street. David Copperfield making the Statue of Liberty disappear.”
“How about all the blood?” Mal asked.
Belgium shrugged. “Special effects. Movie props. Maybe Wellington is even in on it. It happened after the lights were out. How can we be sure what we saw?”
“That man, in the exam room.” Deb’s voice was still raspy and faint. “Franklin. He was real.”
“Could he have been someone made up to look like Franklin? With make up? A good make-up artist can make Dustin Hoffman look a hundred years old, and Eddie Murphy look like a five hundred pound woman.”
Deb seemed unconvinced. “He was going to drill my leg.”
“But he stopped before he could. He scared you. And hurt hurt hurt you while drawing some blood. But what if all of that was scripted out? What if he wasn’t a real threat?”
“So Tom is in on it too?” Sara asked.
Frank turned up his palms. “He certainly could could could be. I suppose any of us could be. We all just met today.”
Mal rubbed his chin. “So this could still all be part of the experiment. They’re just trying to scare us, but it’s all a hoax.”
“Shouldn’t we consider that it’s at least a possibility?”
“So Ol’ Jasper was fake as well?” Sara asked. She looked so hopeful, Frank’s heart fluttered.
“Dr. Forenzi said that Colton Butler was trying to sew extra limbs on slaves. Even with today’s advancements in medical technology, that’s impossible. Isn’t it a more reasonable explanation to believe it’s fake?”
Pang shook his head. “What about Aabir? She spiked on my EMF meter. And with my full spectrum camera, she looked like she was on fire.”
Frank brushed away a drop of sweat from his forehead. “When you arrived, did you have your equipment with you the whole time?”
“Yes.”
“How about when we were eating? Did you have it with you then?”
Another drip of sweat, and Frank wiped it off and looked at his hand.
It wasn’t sweat. The smear was blackish in the glow lights.
Blood?
Was something above him dripping blood?
Frank looked up, but couldn’t see the high ceiling. He raised his glow stick up over his head—
—and saw a man staring down at him, his back pressed to the ceiling.
A smiling man, his clothing soaked with blood.
Frank yelped, and jumped to the side just as the man dropped down, landing on the floor in a crouch, then rising to his full height. He shook like a dog, spraying blood everywhere.
“An… interesting… theory… Dr… Belgium…” the man said. There was something messed up about his voice. It sounded like two or three people talking in unison. The sclera—the whites of his eyes—were black.
“It’s Jebediah Butler,” Pang squeaked, pointing his camcorder at him. “Floating on a pool of his own blood.”
Frank didn’t know what to do. He wasn’t a fighter. And even if he was, would fighting work against a supernatural being?
“Tell… me… something…” Jebediah said with his freaky voice. His hand shot out, grabbing Frank by the wrist. Frank tried to pull away, but the grip was unbelievable. “Am… I… a… hoax… or… a… real… threat?”