Crimson Shore (Agent Pendergast, #15)(70)

“Some crazy person at the door.” He turned back. “Who is it?”

Now came the sound of a heavy body pressing itself against the door, which groaned with the pressure.

“Who the hell’s there?” Lake yelled.

This time the body slammed against the door, rattling the hardware. Carole gave a short scream and jumped back.

“Carole, get me the baseball bat!”

She disappeared into the darkness of the kitchen. A moment later, she returned with the birch Louisville Slugger they kept in the broom closet.

Another body-slam against the door, more powerful this time. The wood cracked around the frame.

“You son of a bitch, you come in here and I’ll kill you!” Lake cried. It was dark and he could hardly see. “Carole, shine this flashlight over here!”

He stood back, cocking the bat, while she stood behind him, holding the flashlight with shaking hands.

Another powerful slam, more cracking of wood. The lock plate jarred loose with a rattle.

“Stop it!” he screamed. “I’ve got a gun! I’ll shoot you, God help me if I won’t!” He wished to hell he did have a gun.

Another crash and the door flew open, splinters of wood scattering. A figure burst in and Lake swung the bat hard, but the figure, leaping over the shattered remains of the door, moved so fast that he got in only a glancing blow to its shoulder as it blew past him, filling his nostrils with a sudden overwhelming stench. He turned around and drew back the bat just as Carole let out a bloodcurdling scream, the flashlight dropping to the floor and plunging the room into gloom. At the same time there was a wet sound, like a water balloon bursting. In the dimness, Lake saw the dark shape drop down to its knees and hunch over Carole, lying splayed on the Persian rug. He could hear the sodden sounds of mastication. With a roar he rushed over and swung the bat at the shape, but it rotated upward, two blunt hands rising to catch the bat; it was twisted out of his hands with horrific force; and then he felt a gigantic ripping jerk to his midriff, heard the sound of something wet and heavy hitting the ground, before he himself fell backward, screaming, into a bottomless pit of pain and horror.





43



I told you we were out of candles,” Mark Lillie said, opening and slamming drawers, his voice raised over the banging of a loose shutter in the wind. “Two weeks ago when we had the last blackout, I told you we needed candles.”

“You only imagine you told me that,” said Sarah. “What about the shutters I’ve been telling you to fix for the past year?”

As if to underscore her comment, the shutter banged again. He pulled a flashlight out of a drawer, cursing.

“What’s wrong with that?” Sarah asked.

Mark turned it on, shining it in her face. “A flashlight doesn’t exactly light up a room.”

“Get that out of my eyes.”

“I’m just making a point. This is like the fifth blackout this year. You’d think that you—of all people—would have a good supply of candles.”

“No one’s stopping you from buying candles when you’re in town—which you are every day.”

“I assumed you’d taken care of it. There’s this thing called a division of labor.”

“You never mentioned we were out of candles.”

“I did. You just forgot.” He threw himself down on the sofa in disgust. This was what their life was like, fighting every damn day over the stupidest of things. He wondered what he’d ever seen in this woman. They didn’t have kids. No reason they couldn’t end it now. But there were complications, financial entanglements…

The shutter slammed into the side of the house again, and a strong gust rattled the windows in their frames. The shutter slammed yet again, harder, and this time a windowpane broke with a tinkling of glass. A howl of wind came in, accompanied by a gust of rain, knocking over a photo frame standing on the sill.

“There!” Sarah cried triumphantly. “Now look at what’s happened!”

The wind gusted again, a splatter of raindrops spotting the table—and carried along with it the howl of an animal outside.

“What was that?” Mark asked.

Sarah stood where she was, not saying anything, straining to look into the darkness. “That was really close to the house.”

“Somebody’s stupid dog, left out in the rain.”

“It didn’t sound like a dog.”

“Of course it’s a dog. What else could it be?”

Another howl, this time from the darkness right before the window.

“Go take a look,” said Sarah.

He took the flashlight and went into the front hall, shining the light out through the door window.

“Ahh!” he screamed, falling back just as the door burst open with a crash. A dark shape out of a nightmare bounded in, cloaked in nothing but a vile stench. Lillie wildly flailed his arms in disbelief and terror, trying to fend the beast off, but with a terrible inchoate roar it swung two stringy arms around him, grasping his midriff with its clawed hands.

“No, no!” he screamed, trying to twist away as he felt the long, sharp nails digging into his gut.

“Stop it! No!” He could vaguely hear his wife in the background, screaming.

A sudden popping sound, like fat being pulled off of meat, and the hands opened him up like drawing back a pair of curtains. All was dark, the flashlight was gone, and he was only able to feel—and what he felt was a blast of cold air inside his very body cavity that, for just a moment, overwhelmed even the sudden agony. He fell back with a scream of horror and pain beyond description, and even as he did he could feel something reaming him out from the inside, accompanied by the loud, wet, busy sound of chewing.