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Message: <blockquote data-quote="talien" data-source="post: 4491857" data-attributes="member: 3285">Last Rites: Part 4 – The Showdown“Federal agents!  Open up!” came Hammer’s voice from the other side of the partially ajar door to the Springer household.  It was a massive place, a mansion, with sweeping steps that curved up both sides.  When there was no answer, Hammer kicked open the door, both pistols at the ready.  Hammer crept into the room.  The other agents filed in behind him. The place looked as if it had been hit by an earthquake.  A marble pillar was collapsed on one side of the room, and cracked statuary was everywhere. A rumpled red carpet was splayed out the length of the hallway into the room. Oil lamps flickered up and down the length of the upper level. “Something very bad went down here,” said Jim-Bean.  “And I don’t think it was Henry.”“You’re right,” said a young woman’s voice from atop the balcony.  “It was me.”Lucy Ennis, her long dark hair covering much of her face, leaned over the banister.  “Lucy?” asked Jim-Bean.  “Lucy Ennis?”The door slammed shut behind them.  Then the multiple deadlocks and bolts locked the door, seemingly of their own volition. “He won’t stop,” whispered Lucy. “I can’t stop him. No one can.” “Who?” asked Jim-Bean.  He started making his way up the steps along the left side of the stairwell.  “Henry?  Your father?”She slowly nodded. “What happened to Bernadette Springer?” asked Hammer. “This is her place…”Lucy pointed up at the ceiling. An old woman hung from the chandelier, a cord tied around her throat.  Her tongue stuck out from her mouth, her face purple.“She killed herself?” asked Guppy.Lucy shook her head. There was no way the woman could have hung herself from that height without assistance; the chandelier was over twenty feet off the floor. “Lucy,” said Jim-Bean, almost close enough to touch her.  “I understand your pain.  I’ve been there.  I was a patient of Dr. Ettringer’s—“WHAM!  The door shuddered off its hinges.“He’s here,” said Lucy.WHAM! The door buckled as hinges shrieked under the unstoppable force. “Positions!” shouted Hammer, directing Archive and Hammer to either side of the door.  WHAM! The door blew through the hallway, smashing into the far wall.  Plaster and dust filled the room. Father and daughter were united.  Henry Ennis stood, the machete in one hand, gore dripping from the blade.  “Fire!” shouted Hammer. Hammer, Archive, and Guppy unleashed their pistols at the thing.  Henry barely jerked from the multiple impact.“You knew about the orphanage!” shouted Lucy. “You knew about the cult all along!” “He moves slowly,” said Hammer, shouting over his shoulder at Guppy.  “So keep backing up and—““Hammer, look out!’ shouted Archive.Henry was right in front of him, somehow closing the distance without making a sound.  The machete lifted up.“Duck!” shouted Jim-Bean.Hammer ducked just as the marble pillar whistled through the air.  It smashed into Henry across his upper torso, slamming him into the side of the right stairwell.Hammer looked up at Jim-Bean in disbelief.  “Did you do that?”Jim-Bean shook his head and pointed at Lucy.  The power that Lucy was exercising was far beyond what he’d ever witnessed at the Psychic Research Association.  He’d seen spoon-bending, maybe shifting a box of matches around on a table.  But this…this was off the charts.The rubble at the stairwell shifted. “Archive, get down!” shouted Hammer.But it was too late.  Henry hurled the pillar off of him and it struck a glancing blow, clipping Archive’s shoulder.  He spun and fell.“You sold poor Sophie to that bastard at the orphanage,” shouted Lucy, “in exchange for his silence!” One of the marble statues whistled through the air, smashing into Henry’s head.  The zombie paid it no mind as it turned and began to advance up the steps towards Guppy.“Uh...guys?” squeaked Guppy.“Jason’s potion really did its job,” shouted Lucy. “Too well. I should have left your dead body at the bottom of the lake when I drowned you the first time!” “The first time?” asked Jim-Bean with an arched eyebrow.  He slowly drew his SIG Sauer.“It’s got to have a weakness!” Guppy stumbled backwards as Henry climbed the steps.  “Maybe fire!” He grabbed one of the oil lamps off the wall and hurled it at the zombie.  It was a perfect shot, the oil lamp smashing over the corpse of Henry’s head.  The head burst into flames.But it kept coming.  A grinning skull, its eye sockets vacant and wreathed in fire took a swipe at Guppy as if he were an irritating gnat.The machete smacked Guppy sideways, hurling him down the steps.  He lay still at the bottom.“I blame myself,” said Lucy. “I should have known you wouldn’t be able to stop killing.” Cracks appeared in the marble steps in front and behind of Henry.  The zombie looked down…And then was plunged thirty feet below into the basement. Lucy didn’t notice Jim-Bean, her dirty hair clouding her vision and her brow furrowed in concentration as she glared down into the hole her telekinesis had created.  One bullet in her head and Jim-Bean could end it.  He was convinced that Henry’s rampage was somehow tied to her.  But if he was wrong he’d have killed an innocent teenager for nothing.He kept her talking.  “Lucy?  What did you do to Henry?”“I squeezed him…” she didn’t look at Jim-Bean.  “Then I squeezed the furnace.”The familiar sound of screws firing off of the boiler down below signaled what Lucy meant.  She was superheating the furnace to critical mass. Hammer ran over and dragged Guppy off the steps as the masonry continued to crumble inwards. Jim-Bean’s finger tensed on the trigger.“Jim-Bean!  Grab Archive!”Jim-Bean yanked back his pistol, swearing quietly to himself, and ran over to pick up Archive.“What about the girl?” asked Jim-Bean.Hammer had Guppy hoisted over his shoulders in a fireman’s carry.  “Forget her! This place is going to blow!”They jogged out the back door, under the balcony, just as the boiler exploded.</blockquote>

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