And then there were the others, still lurking close to the tree behind her. Wait, there were more than two. There were a host of others, whose gaze he now felt on him. They were everywhere out here, in this uncertain dawn. He could see the foliage moving where some of them had slunk, their naked bellies flat on the ground. And they were up in the branches too; rotted blossoms came down to add to the muck that slickened the Mexican pavers underfoot.
Eppstadt took a tentative backward step, regretting that he’d ever stepped out of the house. No, not just that. At that moment he was regretting the whole process of events that had brought him to this damned house in the first place. Going to Maxine’s asinine party; having that witless argument with Pickett; then the interrogation of Jerry Brahms and the choice to come up here. Stupid, all of it.
He took a second backward step. As he did so the eyes of the exhibitionist girl who’d first appeared became exceptionally bright, as though something in her head had caught fire. Then, without warning, she broke into a sudden run, racing at Eppstadt. He turned back towards the door, and in the instant that he did so he saw a dozen — no, two dozen — figures who’d been standing camouflaged in the murk break their cover and join her in her dash for the door.
He was a step from reaching the threshold when the young bitch caught hold of his arm.
“Please — ” she said. Her fingers dug deep into the fat where healthier men had biceps.
“Let me go.”
“Don’t go in,” she said.
She pulled him back towards her, her strength uncanny. He reached out and grabbed the doorjamb, thinking as he did so that he’d got through the last twenty-five years of his life without anyone laying an inappropriate hand upon him, and here he was in the midst of his second such indignity in the space of twenty-four hours.
The woman still had fierce hold of him, and she wasn’t about to let him go —
“Stay out here,” she implored.
He flailed away from her. His Armani shirt tore, and he seized the moment to wriggle free. From the corner of his eye he saw a lot of faces, eyes incandescent, converging on the spot.
Terror made him swifter than he’d been in three decades. He leapt over the threshold, and once he got inside, he turned on a quarter, throwing all his weight against the door. It slammed closed. He fumbled with the lock, expecting to feel instant pressure exerted from the other side.
But there was none. Despite the fact that the trespassers could have pushed the door open (smashed it open, lock and all, if they’d so chosen) they didn’t. The girl simply called to him through the door, her voice well-modulated, like that of someone who’d been to a high-grade finishing school:
“You should be careful,” she said, in an eerie sing-song. “This house is going to come down. Do you hear me, mister? It’s coming down.”
He heard; he heard loud and clear. But he didn’t reply. He simply bolted the door, still mystified as to why they hadn’t attempted to break in, and ran up the passageway back to the kitchen. Before he reached the door Joe rounded the corner, coming in the opposite direction, gun in hand.
“Where the hell were you?” Eppstadt demanded.
“I was just about to ask you the same — ”
“We’re under siege.”
“From what?”
“There are crazy people out there. A lot of crazy, fucking people.”
“Where?”
“Right outside that door!”
He pointed back down the passageway. There was nothing visible through the glass panel. They’d retreated in four or five seconds, taking refuge in the murk.
“Trust me,” Eppstadt said, “there’s twenty or thirty people waiting on the other side of that door. One of them tried to drag me out there with them.” He proffered his torn shirt and bloodied arm as proof. “She was probably rabid. I should get shots.”
“I don’t hear anybody,” Joe said.
“They’re out there. Trust me.”
He went back to the kitchen, with Joe on his heels.