“Get out of here!” Paula yelled. Karen, though woozy, managed to get to her feet and stumble over to the window.

Paula and Chelsea were fast on her heels. Paula practically threw Karen out on to the lawn, then turned to do the same to Chelsea. But by now David Cooke was on his feet-and on them. Paula felt his cold fingers brush her neck. With his other hand he was reaching for Chelsea. But Paula was just a little quicker than her cousin. She was able to pull away from the brute.

No such luck for Chelsea.

Paula watched in horror as David Cooke, enraged now, grabbed Chelsea in his dead hands and lifted her up over his head. With speed and strength that Paula didn’t believe possible, he tore Chelsea’s right arm off her shoulder, then her left. The girl screamed as blood spurted everywhere. Then the madman let out a loud roar and tore Chelsea in half, splitting her just above the waist. He tossed the bottom half of her body to the floor and raised the armless top half at Paula.

He was tossing the bloody stump at her when she leapt from the window. Out on the lawn Paula heard the sickening thud of her cousin’s remains hitting the glass.

Chapter Thirty-four

Douglas peered out of the door of the library into the corridor.

“I’m sure I heard something,” he said.

Carolyn looked from him back to Uncle Howie, who sat in his chair with his hands folded in his lap.

“David has probably revived,” she said to the old man. “He may be terrifying them in the parlor even as we speak. You must tell us what you know.”

“Yes, Uncle Howie,” Douglas said, closing the door and turning to face his uncle. “For God’s sake, no more stonewalling.”

He had finally admitted to himself that his uncle knew more than he was saying, that maybe in fact Uncle Howie had been suppressing information all along. Information that might have saved so many of the people who had died from this long curse. People like his father.

At the moment, his biggest worry was for the people he had left behind in the parlor, especially Zac and Callie. Douglas had taken the rifle with him. He knew bullets couldn’t stop David Cooke, but they could slow him down. The people in the parlor were therefore defenseless. He had seen the madman’s body sprawled on the floor of the study before he’d found Carolyn and Uncle Howie here in the library, and he saw that Carolyn had taken the knife. But Douglas knew it wouldn’t be long before the zombie was on its feet again, and finding another weapon wouldn’t be difficult for it. Even its bare hands were surely weapon enough. Douglas feared that the sounds he’d heard a moment ago had come from the direction of the parlor. Who else, he wondered, was going to die?

“You’ve got to speak,” Douglas shouted at his uncle. “How many more deaths? How many more deaths before you tell us what you know?”

“Are you somehow prevented from telling us?” Carolyn asked. “Is the force of that room so great?”

“It doesn’t matter what I know,” Uncle Howie said. “Even if I told you everything, we couldn’t prevent the killings. My hope was always to find a force greater than it was, something that could overpower it. That was the only way we could end the power of that room. Because there is no appealing to it. It is irrational. It is fueled by instinct and the simplest of emotions, like anger and fear and rage and hunger.”

“So are you saying that you can tell us,” Douglas asked, getting close to the old man’s face, “but that you choose not to, because you think it’s pointless?”

“I’m sorry, my little hoodlum,” Uncle Howie said. “Sorry that I have let you down.”

They were startled by a sound from the hallway. They all tensed. Douglas moved closer to the door, brandishing the rifle.

He listened. Footsteps. Two people. It was not the heavy clomping of David Cooke.

Still, both he and Carolyn pointed their rifles at the door as it opened.

But who was there on the other side caused both of them to gasp out loud.

Uncle Howie shouted, “Jeanette!”

It was Jeanette Young, with Michael O’Toole close behind her.

“Hello, Uncle Howard,” she said calmly. She moved her eyes over to Douglas and then to Carolyn. “Cousin Douglas. Miss Cartwright. It’s good to see you both again, though I wish the circumstances were more pleasant.”

“Dear God,” Uncle Howie exclaimed.

“How is this possible?” Douglas asked.

Jeanette smiled. She still looked frail, and she walked with some stiffness and difficulty. But she seemed in full control of all of her senses. Michael rested a hand on her shoulder for support.

“I awoke this morning and was able to speak,” she said. “The veil that had so long separated me from the rest of the world was lifted. I could speak, I could move, I could communicate.”

“It was a miracle,” Michael said.

Jeanette sighed. “I knew right away that the curse had been lifted, that someone had survived a night in that room.” Her face saddened. “We came over here at once, thinking we’d find the house in celebration. I did my best to explain to Michael all of the terrible details on the drive over here. But what we found was no celebration.”

“The force is angry that we survived,” Douglas explained.

Jeanette nodded. “I deduced that. In the study we saw a dead man.”

“Dean,” Uncle Howard said with evident grief.

“And in the parlor were the bloody remains of a young woman,” Jeanette added.

“Oh, no,” Carolyn cried.

“Who?” Douglas asked.

“It was hard to see for all the blood,” Jeanette said. Her long years of silence seemed to have left her unnaturally calm. She did not blanch as she described the scene. “The woman had been terribly mutilated. She seemed young, so I wouldn’t remember her. No doubt she was born after my own night in that room.” She paused. “But she was blond. I could see that much.”

“Chelsea,” Uncle Howie said, his voice breaking.

“Was there anyone else in the parlor?” Douglas asked.

“No one else,” Jeanette informed him. Douglas didn’t know if that was a hopeful or an ominous sign.

“Jeanette,” Carolyn said, “you need to know you’re in danger here. And so is Michael. There is a killer in the house, and unless we can find out a way to stop him, he is bent on taking us all before the day is over.”

“We should call the police!” Michael said, whipping out his phone only to see it had lost all service.

“I told you as we walked through the house viewing the carnage that the police were useless,” Jeanette said. “In my long years sitting there at Windcliffe, I saw many things. I saw that what happens here is beyond the control of ordinary humans. I saw things that no one else could see in this house, sitting here all alone, isolated on top of this hill.” She paused. “And from everything that I have seen, I think I know who’s doing the killing here.”

“His name is David Cooke,” Carolyn told her. “And I need to tell you again that he is extremely dangerous.”

Jeanette shrugged. “I’m not frightened. I survived a night in that room, remember? You did, too, didn’t you? I saw you in there, Carolyn. You and Douglas. You saw what I saw. You saw the terrible thing that happened that night.”

“The murder of Beatrice?” Douglas asked.

“You didn’t see that, because neither did I,” Jeanette corrected him. “You saw her dead body. But it was someone else you saw murdered.”

“Beatrice’s baby,” Carolyn said.

Jeanette nodded.

Uncle Howie groaned. They all turned to look at him.

“We saw Clem kill the baby,” Jeanette said, approaching her uncle. “It was a terrible thing to see.”

The old man was silently crying.

“It’s Malcolm doing this, isn’t it, Uncle Howard?” Jeanette asked. “It’s Malcolm who’s the controlling force of that room.”

The old man just continued to sob.

“Who is Malcolm?” Douglas asked.