F. Paul Wilson - Haunted Air

Jack said, "That's not..."

"Damn right it is," Lyle said. "Can't you smell it?"

Gia's fingers suddenly turned into talons, digging into Jack's shoulders.

"There's someone in there!" she cried.

Jack leaned forward, squinting at the surface of the red lake. "Where?"

"There!" An arm speared over his right shoulder, finger pointing. "Dear God, don't you see it? Right there! A hand, reaching up from the surface! It's a child! That little girl! She's in there!"

"What you talking 'bout?" Charlie said. "Ain't nobody in there."

Jack had to agree. Barely a ripple on the surface from wall to wall.

"I don't see anything either, Gi."

"Are you all blind?" Her voice was taking on a panicky tone. "That little girl is drowning! There's her arm, reaching up for help! Can't you see it? For God's sake, somebody grab it! Please!"

Lyle turned to her. "I don't see a thing. I'm not saying you're not, okay, but even if somebody were in here, it's only a foot deep, tops."

Her eyes wild, Gia began trying to squeeze past Jack. "I can't stand this, Jack! I've got to do something!"

Jack wouldn't let her pass. "Gia, no. We don't know what's going down here, and you're too close already." He didn't know what effect whatever was happening might have on the baby.

"Jack-"

"You know what I'm talking about. You shouldn't-"

"The level's rising!" Charlie cried.

Jack turned and saw that the blood had reached the tread of the next to last step.

"Let's all back up a little," Lyle said.

But as he stepped up, his foot slipped. He let out a startled cry as he fell back, arms out, one hand clawing for purchase on the wall, the other reaching for his brother. But Charlie had turned his back and by the time he responded it was too late.

With pinwheeling arms, Lyle hit the pool and sank from sight. Charlie shouted and crouched to jump in after him, but Jack reached out and grabbed his shoulder.

"Wait!"

Jack stared in mute shock at the crimson froth where Lyle had disappeared.

What the hell? Even though the level continued its rise, faster than ever now, the pool couldn't be more than two feet deep. And was it his imagination or was the blood circulating faster too?

Seconds later Lyle broke the surface, splashing and gasping, his head and face coated with blood.

"Praise God!" Charlie cried. He gripped the rickety railing with one hand and leaned out over the pool, reaching with his other. "Get up here!"

But Lyle continued to splash about, trying to shake the blood out of his eyes as the flow pulled him away from the stairs.

"Lyle!" Jack called. "Stand up!"

"Can't! Floor's gone! No bottom!"

"Jack!" Gia said. "The little girl-I don't see her arm anymore! She's gone!"

The blood was lapping at the fourth step now. The flow had rotated Lyle to the far side of the cellar, and as Jack watched he saw an eddying depression begin to form in the center of the blood. The velocity of the rotation accelerated.

"A whirlpool!" Charlie shouted. He leaned further out over the blood, stretching his arms, reaching toward his brother. "Lyle! Grab hold when you come 'round!"

A bottomless whirlpool of blood, Jack thought. Turning counterclockwise. With the level rising instead of falling. In a cellar in Queens.

Not the weirdest sight he'd ever seen, not by a long shot, but he knew of only one thing that could be behind something like this.

He'd deal with that later. Right now he had to get Lyle out of that pool and Gia out of this house.

He gripped Charlie's arm as Lyle started to float toward them. "I've got you. Grab him as he comes by."

But as Lyle rotated their way, the sucking center of the whirlpool pulled him closer to it and further from the walls. He tried to swim toward Charlie's outstretched hand; Jack could see the desperation in his blood-soaked features as he reached for it, heard his cry of dismay as his fingers fell short by inches and he swirled away.

"Swim!" Charlie shouted. "Swim toward the walls!"

Jack could see Lyle struggling in the thick fluid, doing a crude dog-paddle. He was a lousy swimmer.

"Can't!" he gasped. "Current's too strong!"

"We need rope!" Jack told Charlie. "Got any?"

"Rope?" Charlie's panic seemed to ease as he concentrated on the question. "No... we've got string but-"

"Never mind," Jack said. The solution had been right in his hand. He turned to Gia. "I need you to go back up to the kitchen for a minute."

"I'm not leaving-"

"Just stand in the doorway. Please. I need you out of the stairwell to do this. Hurry. We may not get another shot."

She turned and padded back to the top step and turned, watching him with frightened eyes. Jack followed her a few steps, then grabbed the railing with both hands.

"Charlie-help me rip this out of the wall."

Charlie frowned, then brightened. "Right!"

Ten seconds later Jack was easing toward the red pool with the ten-foot railing in his hands. The blood had risen past the halfway mark on the walls and was moving faster. Lyle had rounded the far side of the whirlpool and was coming their way again, but now he was even closer to the black-hole center.

"Quick!" Jack said to Charlie as he stepped onto a blood-covered step. His stomach clenched-it was warm. "Grab my belt so I don't go in too."

"Oh, Jack, please be careful!" Gia called from above.

With Charlie steadying him from behind, Jack gripped one end of the railing and thrust the other toward Lyle as he swirled by. The far end struck the surface, splashing blood into Lyle's face. He whipped his arms about blindly, slapping his hands on the surface, grasping only air. Jack leaned farther out and felt a tearing pain in his right flank but kept trying to steady the railing against the current and push it closer to Lyle. He hoped he hadn't popped his stitches.

And then one of Lyle's flailing arms made contact. His fingers clutched the wood, then wrapped around it.

"You've got it!" Jack said, feeling himself tilting toward the pool by the extra pull on the railing. Over his shoulder he said to Charlie, "And I hope you've got me."

"Don't worry," Charlie said, then raised his voice. "Get both hands on it, Lyle!"

Lyle did just that, and then Jack and Charlie began hauling him in.

But the pool didn't seem to want to give him up. The maelstrom turned faster and the level began to drop as a loud sucking sound echoed from the center. It took all of Jack and Charlie's combined strength to hold onto the railing, but they were losing this tug of war. Jack tried to put more of his back into it but the pain in his side worsened. He shifted and that caused his feet to slip on the blood.

No! With the speed of that whirlpool now, if he went in too they'd both be lost.

Gia cried, "Jack!"

He heard a thumping behind him and then a slim arm wrapped around his neck, pulling him back.

With Gia hanging on as ballast, Jack and Charlie were able to pull Lyle clese enough so he could grab Charlie's hand. Jack tossed the railing into the pool and helped Charlie drag Lyle out. As his brother lay gasping and retching on the steps, Charlie placed his hands on him and bent his head. He seemed to be praying.

Jack slumped back against Gia. "Thanks."

She kissed him on the ear and whispered, "You saved him."

"And you saved me."

As Jack watched the level of the blood fall, he noticed something.

"Look at the walls," he said. "They're dry... and no stains."

"Not quite," Gia said, pointing over Jack's shoulder. "What about those?"

Jack saw them too. Halfway up the pecan paneling... oddly shaped blotches, evenly spaced around the room. They reminded him of-

"Crosses!" Charlie cried. "Praise God, my prayers have been answered! He's driven the evil from this house!"