Michael Prescott: Riptide

But he stopped. He was as blind as she was, and deafened by the reports. He didn’t know-couldn’t know-if he had hit her or not, and he couldn’t risk probing the dark to find out.

Instead he retreated, groping his way back to the stairs. She could see him faintly limned by the fall of light down the staircase. She heard the slow march of feet as he climbed to ground level.

“Looks like I can’t do you the way I’d prefer,” he said, his voice reaching her over the chiming in her ears. “But that’s all right. I have a backup plan.”

He paused, no doubt hoping she would ask a question and establish that she was alive. She said nothing.

“Staying mum, are you? I’ll tell you anyway. I saw how chummy you were with Sandra Price. I watched you break bread with her. Since I can’t have my way with you, I’ll have to take it out on her.”

Another pause. She was tempted to argue, to tell him she hardly knew Sandra, that Maura had been her friend and he’d already taken her. But she knew if she said anything, she would only be playing into his hands.

He resumed his march up the stairs. “If you can hear me, if you’re still alive, then think about what’s going to happen to Sandra. It’s on your head, Dr. Silence.”

The trapdoor slammed down again, all light was gone, and she was alone in the blackness.

She felt herself all over, probing for a wound. Sometimes a person could be shot and not even know it. The tissue damage had a numbing effect, at least at first. But she discovered no damage other than small nicks and scrapes. The shots had missed.

Had she won then? Was he giving up on her? She didn’t believe it. Edward Hare would not have given up, and neither would this man.

She crawled out of the crypt. Over the diminishing clamor in her ears, she heard something big and ponderous being dragged across the floor above her. The sofa in the living room, probably. He was blocking the trapdoor, shutting her in.

His footsteps retreated to the rear of the house, then returned. She listened to him circling the living room, his tread slow and deliberate.

Then he went down the rear hall again, and she heard the slam of the back door.

No more sounds after that. He was gone.

She climbed the stairs in the dark and tried to push the trapdoor open. As she’d expected, it was blocked from above. She had no leverage, and the sofa was too heavy for her to lift unaided.

Then she smelled smoke.

Fire.

He’d started a fire in the house, and the old wood, the antique furniture, the century-old drywall would go up like so much tinder.

She pushed on the trapdoor, trying to force it open, but made no headway.

The smell of smoke was stronger. She was going to die in here. Die in the House of Silence.

She ought to have been afraid. What she felt was rage.

Since childhood she’d been trapped in this house, trapped by memories and family history, bloodlines and madness. She’d tried to make peace with the past, but still it smothered her, choked off her life like the tendrils of smoke curling through the crack in the door.

Maura was right. Family loyalty was not a suicide pact.

And she was damned if she would let this goddamned house kill her now.

She braced her shoulder against the trapdoor and shoved with more strength than she’d known she had.

And the door moved. Only an inch, but it yielded. Red glare, flickering wildly, shone through the gap.

Then the weight of the sofa overwhelmed her, and the trapdoor dropped shut again.

The house still wouldn’t let her go. It would hold her till the end.

“ Fuck you!” she screamed.

She tried again, lifting the door two or three inches. The cellar brightened, waves of heat pulsing through the opening like the blast of an oven, the sofa’s legs grinding in protest as they shuddered across the pantry floor.

She was going to do it. Another few seconds-

The sofa stopped with a thud.

She strained against the trapdoor, but the sofa surrendered no more ground.

It must have hit the wall. It was wedged in place. She couldn’t move it.

Maybe she didn’t have to. Though the door wasn’t fully raised, there was an opening that might be wide enough to crawl through.

She wriggled through the gap, twisting and turning as she hauled herself into an orange blaze thick with clots of smoke.

Halfway out now, her upper body stretched across the floor, only her hips and legs still trapped below. She was caught on something. Her fingers probed for the snag. Found it-her blouse, speared by splinters of wood around the smashed dead bolt. She tore her shirt free and climbed the rest of the way out, snaking past the sofa, then rising to her feet, bent double to keep her head low and avoid the worst of the smoke.

In the pantry there was a fire extinguisher. She grabbed it before heading into the living room. The walls and drapes were ablaze. Everything was on fire, the heat beyond belief.

With the fire extinguisher, she might be able to get through the scrim of flame that hung between her and the front door. But Casey was still in the house.

She turned toward the rear hallway. Both sides were blazing, but a narrow aisle down the middle remained open.

Gulping air, fighting the sting of tears from the acrid smoke, she plunged into the corridor.

The heat here was even more intense. It was like standing on the sun. Lurid red-orange glare surrounded her. Choking smoke hung in gray drifts of poison cloud. She couldn’t breathe, the air was too hot, it seared her throat. Squinting against smoke and light, she squeezed the fire extinguisher’s handle. The white spray cleared a path as she made her way down the hall.

The cylinder was getting lighter, its contents disappearing all too quickly. She moved faster, trying to ration the remaining spray but needing it to make any progress at all. She stumbled once, on a floorboard warping in the heat, and nearly fell. Time slowed as she struggled for balance, knowing that if she fell against the wall she would be instantly immersed in flame.

Somehow she kept her footing and reached the end of the hall. The study lay to one side. Before her was the back door. The instinct to flee into the backyard was almost irresistible. She willed herself to enter the study.

Casey was there, the broken lamp alongside him on the floor. There was no fire in here, not yet. She could breathe. She drew in a great swallow of air, too much, and coughed uncontrollably, expelling a viscid stream of black ooze.

The fire extinguisher was empty. She pitched it aside, crouched, felt Casey’s head, found a bulbous bruise on his scalp. No blood, no indication that his skull had been opened. A sluggish pulse beat in the carotid artery at the side of his neck.

He lay face down, eyes shut. She shook him. Slapped his cheek. No response. And the room was getting hotter, smokier, the flames advancing this way.

She shouted in his ear. “ Casey !”

He groaned, and his eyelids twitched, but he was still out.

She couldn’t rouse him. And he was too big and heavy for her to carry. But she could drag him. Maybe.

She rolled him onto his back, grabbed his arms and tried pulling him across the floor. Damn, he weighed a ton. He was weighted down by boots and belt, and she didn’t have time to strip him of his gear. The room was becoming an oven, and the smoke was thicker, and there was an awful stink in the air.

Gasoline. That was what she smelled.

Now she understood how the flames had spread so fast. She didn’t know where Parkinson had obtained the gas, and she couldn’t stop to puzzle it out now. All she knew was that the house would be completely engulfed in flame before long.