The water rose and sloshed to and fro, still caught in a contained tempest at the top of the stairs. Lance saw shapes there again, and soon they became clearer. Faces peered out of the water. Their expressions were distorted and full of anguish as they floated in and out of sight in the frothing liquid. Shifting eye sockets, full of blame and hatred, expanded and contracted along with gaping mouths caught in screams of fury. More hands began to surface, and soon there were dozens reaching for the pale white of Erwin’s skin. The ghost struggled in vain against the disembodied fingers and palms, until its bent form was barely visible amidst their writhing numbers.
Erwin’s feet began to slide on the steep floor as the water surged and turned below him. Lance saw his own hand reach out and grasp the rictus face of the dead thing. He turned it toward him and stared into the once-more blue eyes. There was no fear there, only blind rage. Lance leaned close, as he felt his grip slipping and the things in the water straining harder.
“I’m not running anymore.”
Erwin’s disfigured mouth hissed, and then he was gone. The water roiled as if it were boiling, and Lance watched the last traces of white skin sink into the clutches of the dark liquid.
“Lance!” Mary’s voice trembled with her scream, and he turned to see her body hunched and scrabbling to hold on to the windowsill.
Lance crawled to the edge of his bed, which now sat almost upright on its end, and pulled himself slowly up its frame. Each foot gained felt like eight hours of hard labor, and by the time he reached the headboard, he feared his heart would simply detonate within his chest.
Lance climbed onto the back of the headboard, and grabbed Mary’s foot while wrapping his remaining fingers into the stubs, forming a sling.
He looked through the stinging rain that fell through the open window above him. “When I say go, pull yourself up and out. Okay?” He barely discerned a nod, but readied himself anyway. “Ready? Go!”
Lance pulled up as pain shot through his dismembered hand, but he felt Mary’s slight weight lessen, and then her foot lifted completely from his makeshift sling. He looked up and saw her legs and feet vanish through the rectangle of light. Relief settled over him and he crumpled to his knees. He looked up again and saw Mary’s head and reaching arms appear again in the opening.
“Jump!”
Lance shook his head. “Leave me, get off the house!”
A look of disbelief gathered on Mary’s face, visible even in the waning light and the distance between them. “Get up! Jump and reach, dammit!”
He pushed himself away from the floor, which was now a wall, and looked up. Mary’s extended arm appeared to be miles away and his vision dimmed at the edges, tunneling his sight. He would try once and then he would make her leave. He would force her to go and he would sit down. It would be nice to sit and close his eyes for a while. Lance tilted his head back and stared at her hand. I think I’d like to hold that again, he thought, as he bent his legs and pistoned upward as hard as he could.
An alien strength surged through his muscles at the moment his feet left the bed frame. He shot upward and reached, his arm stretched out so far he was sure it would dislocate.
Then Mary’s palm was clasping his, and his butchered fingers were wrapped solidly around the window’s border.
“Yes!” Mary cried, and stood on the uneven surface as she heaved him fully outdoors. His body slid free of the structure and he lay on his back, panting into the falling rain.
“I shouldn’t have made that,” he said between breaths.
Mary knelt beside him and closed her eyes as she let her tears begin to flow. Lance turned his head and risked a last look into the bowels of the house.
A watery form was dissolving into the waves that were now well inside the room. For a moment Lance thought the blood loss had finally caught up with him, but then the shape shifted, and he saw eyes gaze up at him through the darkness.
Rhinelander’s rippling face stared at him, and then the barest of smiles pulled at the corners of his watery mouth. A heartbeat later the apparition was gone, enfolded back into the grave it shared with so many others.