Part 30 (1/2)

”Where's Joey?”

Liz stopped batting at the flames and looked up at him. Her face was dumb and numb. ”I don't know,” she said. ”I couldn't find him either. I went outside to look for him, but he's not out there. I came back in to look upstairs, but I saw the fire.”

Jack turned back and ran for the stairs. Liz dropped the cus.h.i.+on she'd been using to beat at the flames, and took off after him.

Adam stood in the third floor's main room, a circle of ghosts accompanying, his brothers and sister, surrounding their father who'd reappeared semi-solid from the wall, stumbling and dead.

They caught him between them. He stood in the middle, looking from one to the next, first furious, but slowly calming, and finally looking at them pleadingly.

”Let us go,” Adam said. Joey's s.h.i.+rt was soaked and stained, deep red. Blood flowed in a regular stream from his neck, but he seemed neither bothered nor weakened.

His father looked over. ”No,” he said. ”You all belong with your father. We didn't let anything split us up when she died; we won't let anything split us up now.”

”Let us go,” Adam repeated.

Then his father's calm face went back to angry and he sneered, ”You can't save yourself.”

”Let us go,” Adam said for the last time.

”Everyone will suffer now!” Milo Dengler roared as he lunged for Adam.

His hands found the bleeding throat and inertia carried them both into the wall. Adam banged his head and reeled from the shock. He noticed a high ringing sound, wondered what it was, then his attention was brought back to the stinking, rotted, green thing in front of him.

It smiled, showing dead, grey teeth. Its eyes were mad yellow orbs. The breath it blew into Adam's face when it spoke made his stomach churn, like breathing old diapers and rotten fruit.

”Please,” Adam said.

”No,” Dengler yelled, then yanked Adam's arm, swinging him around and tossing him across the room. He flew through his sister, hit the opposite wall, and stumbled around.

He realized suddenly that he didn't know how to end this. There'd been no plan, just a wish. Since the death, they'd been trapped here, invisible in the house, but present, roaming, floating, haunting. Their father had been stronger and his hold unbreakable. But Adam was physical now and that surely had to count against the wraith.

He looked around and saw, for just a flash, his brothers and sister dead again as they'd been that day, b.l.o.o.d.y on the floor, and when he blinked it changed and their spirits stood again in the center of the room, their eyes big and begging, looking at their father.

”You can't go,” he said. Adam saw his anger had once again washed away. The look he showed now was one Adam had seen countless times in his original twelve years, a father's love. ”I didn't mean to hurt any of you,” Dengler said. ”I was trying to spare you.”

”Then let us go,” the girl said.

”I can't.”

”Why?”

”I can't be alone. And if you go, I can't follow.”

Adam took a step forward, calmly. There came a pounding from the roof--Liz and Jack would have recognized it, as would the exterminator Carl and Charley Clark--heavy, frantic, and Dengler glanced up for a second. Adam used that glance and lunged at the man, pinning his arms back and doing what he could to hold him in place.

He looked over his shoulder at the other three and said, ”Hurry.”

Jack and Liz bounded up the stairs, yelling for ”Joey!”

On the second floor, they searched the rooms, hoping to find him, hoping he wasn't upstairs. The rooms were empty. They ran up the last flight and found Joey--no, this wasn't Joey.

Jack stared, wondering what had happened in the forty-five minutes he'd been gone. His son was gone. No, he could see bits of Joey in there, but it looked as if someone had done a bad job erasing Joey and then drawing this new person on top of him.

His chest thumped, his stomach sank. His throat had acquired a curious new lump.

How did this happen? How did I not see it?

He looked at Liz who was watching, in shock.

Joey stood hunched and pressing something into the wall. They had to stare at it for a second before they realized it was a man, struggling against the boy, but having a hard time of it.

”Oh,” Liz said and Jack followed her eyes.

They saw three others, two boys and a girl--Liz recognized them--climbing the walls like spiders with their hands and feet. They stopped every few steps and looked back at Joey and the old man. Joey's face was strained. He was getting weak, they could see it in him.

The children scurried up the walls and crawled along the ceiling.

Where are they going? Liz wondered.

She saw where they were headed and heard the pounding coming from the roof again. She thought, ”So simple. All they have to do is get out.”

They were headed for the trapdoor, which led, not only to the crawls.p.a.ce, but up to the roof as well.

”What's happening?” Jack asked.

Liz said, ”They want out.”

Jack's head pounded and he had to stop and think--he was forgetting. What was it? Then the drilling, shrieking sound woke him up and he remembered.

”Liz, the fire.”

”s.h.i.+t!” she yelled, and took off down the stairs. She got to the top of the last flight before seeing how far it had spread in such a short time. They'd only been upstairs just over a minute--maybe--and already it had grown down the hall. Flames licked upward, threatening to catch Liz if she came down any further.

The phone was down there; there was no way to call for the fire department. The most she could hope for was to get Joey out of here and hope one of the neighbors called. If not, they could call as soon as they were out.

She ran back up and told Jack, ”We've got to get him and get out.”

”What?”

”The fire,” she said. ”It's covered the first floor and it's coming up the stairs. We have to get Joey and get out before it blocks the door.”

”How?”

”I don't know.”

Jack looked at his son, struggling to hold the big man in place.

”Joe, we have to get out of here,” he called.

Joey either hadn't heard him--which Jack didn't think likely, he was ten feet away--or he wasn't listening. Jack didn't know exactly what was happening, but whatever it was didn't lessen the urgency to beat the fire to the front door. Once that was blocked, so was their only exit.