25
Burt chose that time to stagger to his feet. The blade of the axe caught the big deputy on the shoulder. It bit deep, whacking off his left arm. Burt howled in agony and looked down at the severed arm, lying on the ground. Blood gushed from the hideous wound. The deputy ran off toward the woods, leaving a trail of blood behind him.
“Stupid jerk!” Ira screamed at the back of the running deputy.
The spell of the moment was gone. Lucas felt it leave the house. That glowing became stronger near the edge of the woods. The house sighed, but it was not a sigh of victory. More a sigh of resignation. Someone in the house yelled.
Lucas jerked his pistol from leather and jacked back the hammer. He got off one round, the slug whanging and clanging off the head of the axe. The force of the striking bullet tore the axe from Ira’s hands, numbing them. Ira screamed in pain and rage and frustration.
“You goddamned God-loving scum!” Ira howled. He jumped back, out of sight, out of the line of fire, jumping into the thick shrubbery that surrounded the mansion. “Get him!” Ira screamed. “Take him alive—but get him!”
Lucas ran into the house, slamming the kitchen door and locking it. He found his shotgun and ran back into the kitchen. Kyle ran into the room, trying to zip up his pants.
“Damned zipper’s stuck!” he said. He jerked upward and tore the whole front out of his slacks. “Damn!” he said.
“We’re going to win!” Lucas yelled. “We are. Don’t ask me how I know. I just do. Stay strong and keep your faith.”
Lucas ran to the window above the sink, threw it open, and leveled his shotgun at a group of men running toward the house. Over his brother’s insane screaming, Lucas began pulling the trigger, the shotgun pounding his shoulder. Two of the running men went down, kicking and sprawling as their blood stained the green grass. The other men changed directions, running for cover.
“Goddamn you all!” Ira screamed. “Come back and charge the house.”
Kyle tried to use his M-16. It would not fire. He jerked his .38 from leather and tried to use the weapon. It would not fire.
They heard Jan scream. “What the hell’s the matter with this gun? It won’t fire.”
Then there were no more men from the Brotherhood to be seen. The land grew quiet. Lucas lowered the shotgun and began to reload.
Jackie came into the kitchen, her face pale. “No more guns,” she said. “On either side. Randolph is telling me that.”
“Then we’ve had it!” Kyle said.
“I don’t think so,” Lucas said. “I think the odds have just been shifted to our favor.”
“Without weapons?” Kyle said. “Man, we’re outnumbered five or six to one!”
“Try the lights,” Lucas said.
Kyle flipped the light switch. Nothing happened.
“Jackie,” Lucas said. “Try your portable radio, please.”
In half a minute she called, “I can’t even get static on it, Daddy!”
Lucas smiled. Turning to Kyle, he said, “You were trained in living off the land, making do with what’s at hand, right?”
“Sure.”
“You know how to make spears and booby traps and things like that?”
“God, yes.”
Lucas looked up as Jackie reentered the kitchen. Despite what she’d been through, the girl had a half smile on her face. “You have an idea what’s happening, don’t you, honey?”
“Yes, sir. Someone of a . . . well, higher power, has stepped in. I think we, and they,” she pointed toward the outside, “are now pretty much equal. I don’t believe their guns will work, either.”
Louisa said, “Didn’t we find a boxful, or crateful, of archery sets up in the attic, Tracy?”
“Yes. That’s right. We sure did. But the . . . whatever you call them, strings, would be all rotted, surely.”
Kyle smiled. “You just get them, folks. I’ll restring them.”
“I can shoot a bow,” Paul said. “I was an Eagle Scout. Earned a merit badge for archery.”
“Now we’re cooking,” Lucas said.
“Lucas,” Kyle spoke slowly. “You may know what’s going on; you may have everything all worked out in your mind; but I’m totally in the dark. What in the hell is going on around here?”
Lucas said, “We’re frozen in place, in time. I don’t mean to imply we’ve been hurled back in time, house and all. But just that . . . ” he sighed, “well, like Jackie said. Somebody of a higher power is lending us a hand. I’ll bet the water won’t work, either. Try it.”
Since the pump was electrically operated, nothing came out of the faucets.
“The tanks on top of the house,” Lucas said with a smile. “I had Lige clean them out first week we were here. And we’ve had half a dozen good long rains since then.”
“And there’s one of those old-timey hand pumps back there in the washroom,” Jackie said.
“Sure is,” Tracy said. “But I couldn’t get it to work.”
“Did you prime it first?” Kyle asked.
“Do what with it?”
He grinned. “I’ll check it. It probably still works.”
“But couldn’t they set the house on fire?” Harry asked. “Drive us out and kill us?”
“No,” Johnny said. “That’s what’s so cool about what He did.” He pointed upward. “He knew the house was important to the Brotherhood. We’re safe in here.”
“Yeah,” Kyle said quietly. “The house is very important to them.” His grin was nasty.
“What are you thinking?” Lucas asked him.
“Cocktails,” the ex-SEAL said. “The exploding kind. We don’t have to worry. They’ll bust their asses to keep this house from burning. I’m going to need a lot of empty whiskey bottles or wine bottles.”
“ ’Bout ten boxes of them back there,” Johnny pointed to the rear of the house. “Real old ones.”
“Good, good!” Kyle rubbed his hands together. “I’m gonna need some gas and some flour.”
“Why flour?” Mark asked.
“Homemade napalm,” Kyle explained. “The burning flour will stick to them.”
“What wonderful things they taught you,” Louisa said.
“I’ll get a hose and siphon the gas,” Harry volunteered.
“You?” Jan looked at him.
“I . . . ah, well, I did some probation time as a kid for smoking cars.”
“How do you smoke a car?” Jackie asked.
“That’s street slang for stealing one,” Jan told her. She grinned as she looked at her husband. “You were a bad little boy, weren’t you?”
“Until I got caught,” Harry said, redfaced.
“Wow, Dad!” Peter said. “Did you outrun the cops and all that stuff?”
“No,” Harry said stiffly, knowing he had a lot of talking to do with his kids after this was all over.
“We need spears, too.” Kyle momentarily took Harry off the hook. “I don’t really understand what is happening. But if we have to fight with homemade weapons, I can damn sure make some that’ll give the survivors nightmares.” He glanced around the kitchen. “Get all the big butcher knives you can find. Lucas, you and I will make machetes and cut some poles. I’ll fashion and fasten the blades. We’ve got to keep that old wood-burning stove hot at all times. With containers of water boiling. All the time.”
“Why?” Tracy asked. “For wounds?”
“No,” David said. “Nothing like pouring boiling water on someone who is trying to break in.”
Kyle looked at him. “You and me, David, we think alike.”
“My people have had six thousand years to perfect the art of survival,” he replied.
“Oh, my Lord!” Mimi said, looking out the kitchen window. “Good God, people—look!”
All heads turned. Horrified eyes witnessed the severed arm of Burt Simmons moving across the yard. Every few inches, the pale fingers would clutch at grass and dirt, to aid at pulling the hideousness along.
“That’s impossible,” Mark said.
The hand clawed its way out of sight, dragging the bloody arm. It left a bloody trail as it moved across the lawn, finally disappearing out of sight.
“Everything that’s been happening to us is impossible,” Tracy said. “But it’s still happening.”
“Look!” Jackie cried, pointing to a strange glow at woods’ edge. “It’s Randolph.”
“The glow I spotted,” Lucas muttered.
Randolph waved at the house, turned his pony, and galloped into the woods.
“That’s impossible, too,” Harry muttered. “But I damn sure saw it.”
“So did I!” Peter said.