Page 85 of Forever Dead

He could call Connor now. Stand in the yard until a deputy arrived. That was the sensible thing.

Then he imagined some fool collapsed behind the door after taking pills or falling down the stairs. Harold had found livestock in impossible situations often enough to learn that when something could not move itself, waiting rarely improved matters.

He put the phone back in his pocket.

“Move away from the door.”

Thud.

Harold braced one boot against the floor and pushed harder. The door opened four inches. Resistance met it. Then the pressure eased. He shoved again.

Six inches.

Something came back.

Harold jammed the baseball bat into the opening before the door could close. The impact struck.

Thud.

Wood knocked against wood. The bat held.

Harold crouched slightly and tried to peer through the gap. Darkness filled most of the room.

The laundry room had only one small window near the rear wall. The blind was down, and the first daylight reached around its edges in narrow gray bands.

“Can you hear me?”

No response.

The door pushed against the bat again.

Thud.

Harold repositioned his grip.

Then he smelled it.

The scent was metallic and warm beneath the cooler smell of the old house. Harold stopped breathing for a second. Copper. Blood.

For an instant, Kentucky disappeared. He was back in the desert with heat pressing through his uniform, an engine burning beyond a low wall and a young man on the ground while somebody shouted for a medic. The first Gulf War had been more than thirty years ago, but some memories waited patiently.

Harold swallowed and backed away from the door. “Jesus.”

Something struck the other side again, shifting the bat in the gap.

He pulled out his phone. One bar. His thumb moved toward the emergency call when a soft scraping noise came from inside the laundry room.

“Hello?”

Nobody answered.

The door pushed against the bat again. Whatever was inside had weight behind it but no urgency, the same slow pressure returning each time.

If somebody was bleeding in there, waiting for the sheriff could cost them whatever time they had left.

Harold shoved the phone back into his jacket, gripped the bat near the middle and planted one shoulder against the door. Resistance met him almost immediately, but this time he kept pushing. The gap widened as whatever blocked the door swung away from it.

He drove forward again and stumbled half a step into the room when the resistance suddenly vanished.