Lineage(130)

“I forged these knives myself, boy. Did you really believe that they could harm me? I don’t fear them; they’re one with my flesh and bone. They are part of me.” Erwin reached up and drew the knife from the wound. Nothing issued from the small gash, and as Lance watched, the wound vanished, the skin knitting together seamlessly.

The house shivered. Vibrations ran beneath their feet and all around them, as the entire structure shifted in the direction of the lake. It was only an inch or so, but Lance noticed it and risked another look out of the curved glass of the alcove.

The lake had advanced even more since the last time he checked. The water lapped around the sides of the gazebo, which tilted at an odd angle. As Lance watched, a wave reached up and pulled several boards from the side of the small structure. The approaching water looked dark beneath its rolling surface. It had a depth that belied its perceived measure. That’s really deep—how can it be so deep? Lance thought as he looked back toward Erwin, who now held both weapons in his bloodless grip.

“Mary, run!” Lance yelled again, and watched out of the corner of his eye as she backed a few extra steps away but didn’t leave entirely. The dead thing that once had been a man walked forward, both knives held at its sides, ready to deliver the killing blow.

This is what I’ve amounted to, Lance thought. I’ll die here in this house, killed by something not of this world. He saw Mary’s white face floating off to his left, and despair nearly swallowed him entirely. The urge to just sit down came and went. He knew if he chose that path, Mary would be condemned to the same fate. The ghost now blocked her exit, a knife twitching menacingly in her direction. They needed time.

“Run, Mary! Upstairs! Go!”

His words finally registered and she blinked at him, dropping the pieces of stool to the floor. She spun on her heel and bolted up the stairs two at a time. Erwin’s head turned to follow her progress, and that was all the time Lance needed.

Flinging himself away from the desk, he dove toward the kitchen and heard the air split behind him. He waited for the sting of the blade in his back, but felt nothing as he slipped on a rug near the fridge and almost fell. His mind raced to find a way out. Lance stopped midway through the kitchen, looking first to his right and then to his left as he searched for movement. The smell of gasoline permeated the air and he blinked away the stinging in his eyes. For a moment he considered reaching down and plucking the lighter from John’s hand. He could set the place ablaze and burn the evil that lived within its walls. But would it stop when there was nothing but a smoking pile left? Would he awake somewhere else to see Erwin’s face inches from his and the cold smile of a knife-edge at his throat? No, fire wasn’t the answer.

Lance backed up a step while still scanning the two doorways, and felt his heel touch something on the floor behind him. The ax lay in the shadows of the counters, its head obscured beneath the foot space in the cabinets. Without thinking, he reached down and grabbed the weapon, hoisting it over his shoulder. The handle felt slippery with blood and gas, and he tried to dry his hands on his shirt for a better grip.

A dawning realization flooded his stomach with ice water—Erwin had gone upstairs after Mary. Any moment now he would hear her garbled scream and then a terrible heavy silence. The thought nearly made him bolt from the room, but then he saw the point of a blade slide into view above John’s body.

The ax weighed a thousand pounds as he drew it high over his head and sidled toward the doorway. The ghost edged into the opening and stepped onto John’s corpse. More congealed blood flowed from the wound in the caretaker’s neck, and it was this, more than anything, that fueled the rage that brought the ax down in a perfect arc toward Erwin’s grinning face.

The bit of the ax buried itself in the ghost’s forehead with a wet chunking sound that reminded Lance of a melon splitting open. The steel didn’t quit moving until it had cleaved Erwin’s head completely in two. His head hung open like a splayed phone book, an eye blinking rapidly on either side of the yawning canyon between them, shattered teeth scraping against the ax with a high, squeaking sound.

Lance released his hold on the handle and watched the ghost reel backward. The knife in its right hand clattered to the floor, and it grasped the ax handle and began to work it back and forth in a seesaw motion. Lance didn’t wait to see what would happen next. He ran back the way he came, slamming into the doorjamb with his shoulder and continuing on into the living room without breaking his stride.

The floor quaked beneath his feet and he fell against his writing desk. The storm still raged and the lake was even closer, but what he saw as he looked out the atrium window didn’t make sense and it sent a wave of sickening vertigo flowing through him.