House by Frank E. Peretti; Ted Dekker

Author:Frank E. Peretti; Ted Dekker
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Fiction
Published: 2012-01-03T16:45:19+00:00

22

3:43 AM

IT TOOK THEM HALF AN HOUR OF ARGUMENT AND SPECULATION to figure out what might have happened in the last several hours. At least they nailed the critical details —or so Jack hoped, although he doubted Randy was as forthcoming as he made himself out to be.

Even after grasping what had supposedly happened to each of them, they still really didn't know what was happening.

What had sucked Jack into the black hall?

What had crawled up Stephanie's leg?

What had happened to Stewart's body?

Who was Susan, and what had happened to her?

The whys were even worse. Why were doors opening and closing on their own? Why couldn't any of them see their reflections in the mirrors? Why hadn't the killer come after them in the basement?

"I can tell you that," Randy said. "He has. You just don't know it."

Leslie frowned. "Okay, so he has some psychological grip

"I'm not talking psychological. I'm talking physical. I saw him come in."

"You what?" Jack said.

Randy sat on a fifty-five-gallon drum with the shotgun across his lap, staring at Jack, who'd stopped his pacing to face him. Leslie and Stephanie each sat on a plate of steel that stuck out from the boilers.

"The back door," Randy said. "I saw him step in out of the rain."

"What back door? Why didn't you tell us about this?"

"He padlocked the door. And it's not as if I could tell you where it is. But he's in here."

"And you just happened to forget this little detail?" Leslie demanded.

Randy sneered at her. "It's not important. We have other problems."

"Like what?"

"Like getting out."

"You mean getting out alive, don't you?" Leslie asked. "Which means we have to know who our enemies are and where they are."

"Then like I said, we have a lot more to worry about than White," Randy said. He grabbed the shotgun by the pump action and chambered a shell with one hand. "White's one guy. We can take one guy. But you have to ask yourself why Stewart disappeared."

"Because you were hallucinating," Leslie said.

He grabbed his wet shirt. "You call this a hallucination?"

"You let Stewart drown," Leslie said. "Have you ever drowned someone before, Randy? I don't think so. Do you know why they put infantry through hell week at boot camp? So that when they get in a bloody battle they don't start seeing things. The mind is a fragile instrument. It snaps easily. If there's anything you have to ask yourself, it's why you've become a completely different person since you entered this house."

Randy stared at her without responding. It was a good question. Even he had to see what the stress had done to him.

"She has a point, Randy," Jack said. "Think about it. You talk about Stewart dying in the most graphic terms without batting an eye, and none of us care. You get to a point where everything starts to shut down, right? The problem is, we can't shut down yet."

"Excuse me," Stephanie said, "but do we really care about all this psychobabble?

Didn't you

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