None of them were even attempting to take cover. They walked up the hallway, guns extended, acting as if they were bulletproof.
They weren’t. Fran took them out with three quick head shots.
“Clear!” she yelled to Mal and Deb, who had all fallen back.
Then she checked herself for damage. The Kevlar had stopped the rounds, but it still hurt like hell. Like someone had worked her over with a sledgehammer.
“Help! Help!”
Fran raised her weapon, saw a woman coming at her. She had at least a dozen bleeding wounds on her, and appeared unarmed.
“It’s Moni,” Deb said. “She’s with us!”
Fran covered her anyway.
“Frank got shot,” Moni said. “Sara is with him. There’s also another man who needs help. I’m getting a first aid kit. Also, someone may have started a fire.”
Moni ran past. Fran got off the ground and followed Woof as he led them down two turns and straight to the wounded. There was smoke, and it was quickly filling the tunnel.
Fran glanced at the man who was shot, and the other man, who looked like he’d been dropped in a blender on puree.
She didn’t see how either of them were going to survive.
But she shouldered her rifle and helped just the same.
Moni
She wasn’t quite sure where she was going, but she was in a damn big hurry to get there. It didn’t help that the only light she had was the matches she’d found in the lab, and she had to stop constantly to light one to see where she was.
By some extreme stroke of luck, she found the stairs to the upper level, and less than a minute later she was opening the door to Tom’s room.
Her match went out as soon as she entered. As Moni began to strike another one, she heard something that scared the shit out of her.
“Hee hee hee hee.”
Lighting the match, Moni saw she was standing next to a bloody guy with a gas mask on, holding a huge meat cleaver.
“Hee hee,” he said.
Moni cracked him upside the head with her iron bar, and when he fell she kept beating him until he stopped moving.
“What’s so goddamn funny now, asshole?”
She lit one of the candles in the room and held it while she searched, finding Tom’s suitcase open on the bed. The first aid kit was on top, and Moni grabbed it and ran out of the room—
—right into that psycho who shot Frank. The one who smelled like barbecue.
She swung the metal bar, but he ducked and came up behind her, getting Moni in a choke hold. He pressed the gun to her temple.
“Time to die, whore.”
Tom
Torble ran as soon as he saw Tom coming, and after rounding a corner he ducked into a room. Tom followed, going in low, and saw he was in a root cellar.
An empty root cellar.
Torble had disappeared.
Tom looked around, but the room was completely empty. No place to hide. No exits. It didn’t make any sense.
Then he recalled the Butler House website, which talked extensively about secret passages and hidden staircases. Walking to the far wall, he ran his hand across the brick until he found a seam. Tom pushed against it, and it swung on hinges, exposing an old, wooden ladder.
Tom looked up, unable to see where it led. He went up anyway, climbing in the dark, expecting Torble to shoot him at any moment. The smarter thing to do was to go back, meet with the others, and get the hell out. But Tom didn’t want to spend the rest of his life looking over his shoulder, waiting for Torble to come calling. He wanted to finish this, today.
The ladder ended in a small, dark room the size of a closet. Tom found a latch, pushed it open, and then he saw he was on the second floor of Butler House, the only light coming from a candle—
—that Moni held. And behind Moni…
“Hello, Detective. What are you going to do now?”
Tom aimed at Torble’s head.
“Don’t you remember?” Tom said. “I’m the hero, rushing in to save the day.”
“Don’t be stupid. You’re going to drop the gun, or I’ll blow this whore’s head off.”
“I’m not a whore anymore,” Moni said. “And I’m getting goddamn sick of all these goddamn psychos trying to hurt me.”
Moni thrust the candle behind her, into Torble’s face.
He cried out, letting her go.
She dropped to the floor.
Tom fired three times, two in his chest and one in his head.
Then he rushed over, pulling the gun out of Torble’s dead hand.
“Not bad for a pig,” Moni appraised. “I got your kit. Let’s go save Frank.”
They ran for the stairs as smoke began to fill Butler House.
Duncan
The men in gray walked out of the house and began shooting at Josh. He watched as his Dad was hit in both legs, watched as he fell to the ground, pinning his rifle underneath his body, unable to return fire.
The men kept shooting.
Duncan jumped into the van and didn’t remember anything Josh taught him.
He didn’t put on his seatbelt.
He didn’t check his mirrors.
He didn’t put his foot on the brake when he started the engine.
He just cranked it and mashed the gas pedal to the floor, the van spinning tires, and headed straight for those assholes shooting his father. They didn’t even try to get out of the way as he ran them both over, splattering the hood and windshield with blood.
Then he hit the brakes, threw the van into park, and ran to Josh.
“Dad!”
“I’m okay,” he said. “Just winged in the legs. Come here.”
Duncan knelt down and hugged his father, hugged him so tight.
“Nice driving, son.”
Duncan began to cry. “I forgot to wear my seatbelt.”
Josh patted his back. “It’s okay, buddy. It’s okay. You did really, really good.”
And they held each other until Mom and Woof appeared with a group of people, including two wounded. A moment later, two more people came out of Butler House, a man and a woman. The woman helped Mom use a first aid kit on Dad, bandaging his legs. The man put some sort of plastic disk on another guy’s chest, the guy who had been either stabbed or shot.
“I hope hope hope heaven has heroin,” the shot guy said.
Then everyone got into the van and Mom drove away. Duncan watched through the back window, petting Woof, Mathison perched on his shoulder, as Butler House burned, lighting up the night sky.
Epilogue
At Bon Secours-St. Francis Hospital in Charleston, South Carolina, Dr. Frank Belgium died on the operating table at 12:52am from a gunshot wound to the chest.
He was resuscitated at 12:53am.
When he regained consciousness eight hours later, he asked the duty nurse for heroin. He repeated himself three times. He was administered morphine instead.
The woman who was admitted with him, Sara Randhurst, had eighty three stitches in her fingers, which she demanded be done in Frank’s room because she refused to leave his side.
Both were expected to make a full recovery. As was Chicago Homicide Detective Roy Lewis, who was treated for shock, dehydration, and multiple burns, cuts, and contusions.
Josh VanCamp, also treated for GSWs, left the hospital after treatment against doctor’s orders. He and his wife Fran called an immediate press conference, where they were joined by Mal and Deb Deiter. They all spoke at length about what had occurred at Butler House, and about what happened years ago in Safe Haven, Wisconsin.
Public outcry was universal. Full investigations were demanded.