The Final Victim(119)
Silhouetted in the doorway is the unmistakable figure of Aimee Maitland… And she's holding a gun in her right hand.
Lianna flattens her back against the wall, vowing not to move a muscle, not to make a sound, not even if a snake wraps itself around her ankles.
"Lianna… Where are you, little sis?" Deranged laughter echoes eerily off the tabby walls. "Are you afraid of the dark, like your mommy? Here, this will help."
It's only then that Lianna sees the object in her left hand.
A flashlight.
She doesn't stand a chance.
She holds her breath and waits for the beam to flood her hiding spot; waits for the blast of gunfire.
Maybe Adam will be waiting for me, is her last thought before she's blinded by the light.
She squeezes her eyes shut, knowing that any second now…
"No!" With a mighty shove, Charlotte catches Aimee off guard from behind.
Aimee drops to her knees in the waterlogged doorway, the gun flying out of her hand to land with a splash somewhere in the darkened basement beyond.
"Mom!"
"Lianna, stay back!" Charlotte shrieks, spotting her daughter just inside the cellar door as Aimee crawls after the gun.
Charlotte tackles Aimee, clawing at her clothes, her face, her hair.
"Lianna!" she screams. "Run!"
"Mom-"
"Get help! Hurry!"
"But the phone-"
"Not here! Run out to the highway! Keep going until you find someone!" Charlotte screeches before Aimee gets hold of her and flips her onto her back with a guttural curse.
Hearing her distraught daughter sloshing frantically away, Charlotte prays she'll follow through, escape…
Whatever happens to Charlotte now, Lianna's life must be saved.
Yet she'll fight ferociously for her own.
As Aimee reaches for her throat, Charlotte bites her wrist as hard as she can.
A yelp of pain, a window of opportunity.
Fueled by rage, Charlotte seizes the moment, grabbing hold and heaving her attacker with all her might.
Aimee lands beside her.
Go for the eyes, Charlotte thinks frantically.
Coated in thick slime, Charlotte struggles to get on top.
But Aimee is quicker.
Stronger.
As Charlotte goes for Aimee's eyes, Aimee's hands close around Charlotte's throat, constricting her windpipe.
It is Charlotte who is flipped to the flooded floor tiiis time, landing on her stomach in the sludge.
Aimee is on top of her, riding the small of her back, fingers splayed on Charlotte's head. Charlotte's arms are clamped between viselike thighs as Aimee presses her face underwater.
Try as she might to turn her head or buck her attacker, the effort is futile. Charlotte is hopelessly, helplessly pinned.
Oh, God, please help me…
She holds her breath as long as she can.
Then, overcome by the reflexive urge to inhale, her aching lungs are swamped.
No, oh, no…
This time, she really is drowning.
She's going to die.
There's no one to save her…
Lianna has escaped, but help will be too late for Charlotte now.
But Lianna is safe.
Charlotte's chest is burning.
Her useless arms have given up the struggle.
She's delirious, dying…
In the distance, a brilliant light…
Adam… Adam is waiting for me.
Then comes the violent explosion in the distance-and everything goes black.
Lianna is halfway across the great lawn when she hears the gunshot.
"Mommy! No!"
She takes off running, toward the basement and the gun, not away from it. Toward her mother. She can't leave her there to die alone.
Aimee's got a gun.
I don't care.
Aimee's going to shoot me, too. I'm running right into a death trap.
I have no choice.
It's all I can do.
She slips wildly through a grass-slick puddle, fells, picks herself up.
Runs a few more steps, falls again.
Keep going. Get to Mommy…
At last, Lianna skids around the back of the house.
Her mother's body, limp, lies face up just outside the basement door in the pouring rain.
Royce is on top of her, trying to choke her.
"Stop!" Lianna screams.
Just before she spots the gun lying at the edge of a puddle in the grass, a few feet from Royce and her mother.
She lunges for it.
"I swear to God, I'll shoot you, Royce!"
"Help me, for God's sake, Lianna!" he commands hoarsely without even flinching, and she realizes that he isn't trying to choke her mother after all.
He's doing compressions.
Royce, bleeding from a gash in his own forehead, is trying to save her mother's life.
"Oh, my God!" Lianna wails, dropping the gun and sinking to her knees beside her mother. "Mom… I"
It is then that Lianna spots Aimee, face down in the muddy water beyond the basement doorway.
A pool of scarlet is seeping into her blond hair where the back of her head has been blown away.
Royce pumps furiously.
Lianna prays.
Her mother gasps.
"Yes," Royce whispers. "There, babe. Yes."