Dan had also slapped the detachable emergency beacon to the roof. He rocketed down the long hill, pressing the accelerator almost to the floor, counting on the gateman to get the barrier out of his way in time to prevent a nasty collision. That ironwork had appeared to be capable of stopping a tank. If he hit it, he would most likely be decapitated or skewered by a jagged bar that would pierce the windshield.
He could have descended the hill at a more reasonable pace, but seconds counted. Even if the girl’s astral body did not finish with Boothe and Uhlander for a few minutes, it would no doubt return to that Westwood theater well ahead of Dan; the spirit surely didn’t travel as slowly as an automobile, but moved from place to place in the wink of an eye. Besides, the butler might soon collect his wits and get the idea that Dan had done something to cause all the screaming in the library. If such a suspicion arose, the gatehouse guard might be alerted to close the gates again the instant that they finished opening, blocking Dan’s escape; then whole minutes would be lost.
Thirty feet from the gates, as they continued to swing open, he finally eased up on the accelerator and touched the brakes. The car started to slide, but he held it to the road and kept its nose pointed where it should be. A sharp snap, a thin squeal: the rear bumper scraped one of the still-moving portals. Then he was on that short length of driveway beyond the walls of the estate. No traffic on the street ahead. He didn’t slow down when he turned left. The sedan fishtailed to the far curb, but he maintained control, losing only a little momentum.
Emergency beacon flashing, he pushed the car to its limits, plunging down from the heights of Bel Air, from one twisting street to another, taking unconscionable chances with his own life and the lives of anyone who might have been in his way around any of several blind and half-blind curves.
His thoughts arced back in time: Delmar, Carrie, Cindy Lakey …
Not again.
Melanie was a killer, yes, but she did not deserve to die for what she had done. She’d not been in her right mind when she killed them. Besides, if murder in self-defense had ever been a justifiable plea, it was now. If she hadn’t killed them, every last one, then they would have come for her, not necessarily to exact revenge, but to conduct further experiments with her. If she hadn’t killed all ten men, the torture would have continued.
He had to get that idea through to her. He thought he knew a way of doing it.
God, please, let it work.
Westwood was not far away. With the beacon, with no thought for his own mortality, he should reach the theater in a lot less than five minutes.
Delmar, Carrie, Cindy Lakey … Melanie …
No!
* * *
The theater was a refrigerator.
Melanie whimpered.
Laura leaped up from her seat, not sure what to do, knowing only that she couldn’t sit still as It approached.
The air temperature plummeted. In fact, it seemed colder than it had been in the kitchen the previous night or in the motel room, when It had paid them other visits.
From the row behind, someone asked Laura to please sit down, and heads turned her way from across the aisle too. But after a moment, everyone’s attention shifted to the incredibly abrupt chill that had gripped the theater.
Earl was on his feet too, and this time he’d drawn the revolver from his shoulder holster.
Melanie let out a thin, pathetic cry, but her eyes didn’t open.
Laura grabbed her, shook her. ‘Baby, wake up! Wake up!’ Soft exclamatory comments swept in a wave across the auditorium as other patrons reacted not to Laura and Melanie but to the fact that they were freezing. Then the crowd was shocked into a brief silence as the giant movie screen tore open from top to bottom with a ripping noise that sounded as though God had rent the heavens. A jagged line of blackness appeared through the center of the projected images, and the figures on the screen rippled and acquired distorted faces and bodies as the silvery surface on which they existed began to wrinkle and bulge and sag.