Keep going! Keep going! -S.
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In the other room, Lisbeth was preoccupied with a puzzle. She had seen two 10-inch nails that had been twisted around each other laying on the same coffee table that Jet had just banged his shins on. She recognized them immediately as a hand-held brainteaser similar to those her grandmother had kept around her house. There was a trick to separating the nails, a certain twist and suddenly she was holding two curlicued nails in her hands. She looked up to show Jet, but he wasn't there any more.
A fear that Lisbeth recognized as completely rational gripped her stomach. Jet was the one who was armed, who had the experience. Without him, she was just an over-educated short person with a flashlight in the same house as a wanted felon. She flipped on her flashlight again and followed the path across the room to where she would have sworn there was a doorway. Lisbeth mentally kicked herself for being so unobservant. Sure, she had a photographic memory, but it only worked if she paid attention. Now, alone in a room that she felt was closing in on her, she promised herself she would do nothing but pay attention to her surroundings from now on.
-Fine,- she thought. –No door here. I'll just go back and start over to where I DID see the door.- On the way back to the foyer, she noticed where the major chairs and desks were in the room, noted the mirror built into the wall above what used to be a bar area, and even set her mind to the shape of the path the junk make through the room. However, as she retraced her steps across the room, she caught no glimpse of the foyer. She found herself standing at another doorless wall, with no exit from the room in sight.
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Jet pounded his fist into the wall where the door had been. "Beth? Beth! Be-eth!" he called, but heard no answer. He felt along the wall, sure that the doorway was there, but camouflaged in some way. He pulled out his comm. He didn't know if Lisbeth had brought hers, but he wanted to call Spike or Faye in for some backup. Jet did not like that things had already started out so poorly. To his utter lack of surprise, the comm did not register a signal and he was cut off not only from Lisbeth, but also from the outside world.
Then, from behind him, Jet heard a light, tinkling sound. He spun around with his flashlight so fast that it slipped from his fingers and dropped to the ground with an ear-splintering crash. He picked it up and discovered that the bulb had fractured. It was useless and now most of the room crouched safely behind the new shadows. The tinkling sound continued and Jet realized that it was coming from where he remembered seeing the grand piano on the right side of the room. Someone was playing the highest two notes again and again, very softly.
-Carter!- thought Jet. In a way, he was relieved that Carter Foxx was in the room with him rather than somewhere else where Beth would have to deal with him on her own.
Jet moved to the right, stumbling around boxes and chairs and other furniture, clamoring as quietly as possible to the location he remembered the piano being. Abruptly the playing stopped and Jet was face-to-face with the desert painting again. It was queerly illuminated by some outside light. Jet wondered briefly how it had moved from one side of the room to the other. But then he noticed that the picture was slightly different from the first one that he had seen. The picture was darker, depicting a later time of day. The blooms on the cactus had wilted, a putrid brown color tinged the vibrant scarlet color shown in the other picture. Also, there were weird insect footprints in the sand around the cactus, giving the impression that there was something hiding behind the prickly vegetation.
Jet had not seen or heard either the piano or Carter on this side of the room, which was perplexing. To his memory, the piano had been the only major piece. And the quiet of the house magnified every sound in that room. He could even hear the echo of his own soft breathing. There was no way that Carter could hope to hide. Jet was almost sure that he would be able to hear the heartbeat of another living creature in this stillness.
As he backed away from the painting, Jet kept expecting to bump into more furniture as he had when he made his way around this side of the room. However, he did not collide with anything and he suddenly got the uneasy feeling that the room had somehow emptied. Then, yanking Jet out of his reverie, the piano again began to play; the notes were deeper and tuneless. Only the sound was coming from the left side of the room. Jet felt confused, disoriented, and was beginning to get mad. Someone was toying with him. He shook his head slightly and focused on locating the sound. He felt his way past the Chinese screen that bisected the room. Once he stepped past it onto the other side of the room, the piano again fell silent. And on the wall was a new, more ominous version of the painting.
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Lisbeth turned away from the wall and began feeling in her pockets for her comm. She remembered leaving it behind because she knew that Jet had his. She never intended to become separated from him. She sighed in frustration and surveyed the room again.
The major pieces of furniture that she had previously noted where still the same, as was the basic shape of the pathway. But all of the details that had lingered in the corners of her eyes were different.
Lisbeth was still unwilling to concede the idea that the house was haunted. But she was even more unwilling to believe that someone was running around, changing the furniture, replacing walls, and hiding doorways. She decided to shelve trying to accurately define her situation for the moment and instead worked on finding a way to get out of the house. Or, at least, out of the room.
-Ok, Beth,- she told herself. –Think calmly and rationally. It's a big puzzle that only needs the right perspective to be solved.- The items in her eye line did not seem to be of any use to her, so she shifted her gaze down. She stood on a carpet-covered floor. She stamped her feet. It felt solid, either hardwood or concrete. It was nothing that could easily be broken. Lisbeth looked upward and the flashlight beam illuminated the ceiling fan and air vent.
Lisbeth shuddered as she considered navigating the house's air ventilation system. Even if she could fit, it was probably dark, dusty, and grimy. Not to mention full of spiders. Lisbeth feared spiders more than she feared her own mortality. She had spent her high school years on Venus where spiders thrived and grew to be bigger, quicker, and more aggressive than normal. She was fine with them if they were across the room. She could even hide her apprehension of them if they were a mere two feet away. But if a spider was bigger than a poker chip and moving her way, she would always panic, would usually shriek, and would sometimes run away.
However, this room, this house, was creeping her out far worse than hypothetical spiders. She figured that she would just have to face her fear, bite the bullet, and take her medicine and try to think up more trite expressions that might help her through the situation.
Lisbeth moved a nearby heavy wooden chair under the air vent. "No spiders, no spiders, no spiders," was her mantra as she climbed up and examined the vent. The screws were gone and after just a little bit of wiggling, the panel came loose from the ceiling. –Too easy,- a voice in the back of her head warned. But she couldn't think of another way out.
As Lisbeth examined the vent to see if she could fit, she thought she heard a sound, a sick muffled clicking. –Spider feet,- the voice warned. –They're coming.- Lisbeth brought up the flashlight and frowned when she saw how unsteady her hand was, how the light jittered and bounced because of her shaking. She also saw, to her dismay, that it looked as if she could just squeeze into the vent to make her way into the next part of the house. Fear about the possibility of climbing through the vent caused her teeth to chatter, almost masking the clicking noise she had heard before as it steadily grew louder and more ominous.
"Ok, Beth," she chided herself quietly. "You're being silly. What would Jet think if he knew you were afraid of spiders. He'd think you were a weak little girl. Now stop it. You're just imagining things. There is no spider in this vent."
Lisbeth lifted her arms to clasp the sides of the vent opening to pull herself up. When her hands came down, they grabbed something spindly and hairy. Staring down at Lisbeth from the vent was a tarantula the size of Ein. Lisbeth panicked. She shrieked. She swung the hand holding the flashlight in an arc at the spider. The butt of the flashlight crunched somewhere between the arachnid's several eyes. The spider let out a high-pitched squeal of surprise and pain and recoiled back into the vent and out of sight.
Acting on pure adrenaline and instinct, Lisbeth jumped off the chair, grabbed the ceiling panel she had worked loose, hopped back on the chair, and slammed the panel home. Like before, it stayed in place without the screws to hold it there.
Once she felt safer, Lisbeth noticed she had no feeling in her legs due to the extreme relief she felt in having survived the spider. She half-sank, half-collapsed ungracefully into a sitting position on the chair. She let out the breath she had been unconsciously holding. "Well, that didn't work," she said out loud with a dejected laugh. Lisbeth tried to calm her adrenaline-soaked mind in order to find another way out of that room.
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Jet stepped up to the painting, still somehow lit with an eerie glow. It was in the same place as the painting he had originally seen. But this picture showed an even later scene, dusk in the desert. The cactus's flowers were all brown and black, dead and rotting. The insect footprints were more numerous. And Jet could see a hint of carapace, the thorax of a bug, as it betrayed itself through the cactus needles that were more visible in the relief of the darker colors of the sky.
Jet felt drawn in by the painting, fascinated. Again, he felt as though he could be standing there beside the cactus. He could smell and hear and feel the desert. He also knew that this was the exact same painting he had seen when he had first entered the room. It was also the same painting he had seen on the other side of the room where the piano should have been. Jet didn't question how the picture moved about the room, or how it was changing. He just accepted that it was.
Jet shook his head and tried to break the spell the painting seemed to cast over him. But, instead of feeling the hardwood floor of the room beneath his feet, his boot sank slightly into a cushioning substance. –Sand,- he thought. –How am I standing in sand?- He flicked on his lighter, sacrificing the butane to get a better look at his surroundings.
Instead of a dark room filled with clutter and junk, Jet stood in the vast void of the desert landscape from the painting. Above him, stars flickered and shone. A warm gust of air that blew past him smelled like sand and parched rocks. Jet spun around and saw nothing but dark shadows of endless dunes. He heard nothing but the gritty scratch of sand sliding past sand. He was alone. There was no one for miles. He had no one to talk to, no one he could fight.
In the distance, Jet could make out the image of a cactus. –No, not A cactus, THE cactus. The one from the painting,- he told himself. There seemed to be nothing else for him to do but go to it.
His heart felt like a lump of cold lead in his chest. He had no memory. The sadness and loneliness of his surrounding forced him into a desperation where he couldn't think or feel anything but his current anguish. He had been alone in the past, but his work and the people he knew kept him from ever really feeling lonely. This was different. No other thoughts could find a grip in the slick melancholy focus of his mind. And Jet was afraid. Being by himself in a vast universe terrified him beyond any hope of redemption. He vaguely thought, -I asked for this. This is what I wanted, but I didn't know how bad it could be.- All he could do was accept his fate and move toward the only other life he could see.
As he trudged through the deep sand and as the cactus grew nearer, a brief memory escaped from the prison in which his fear and solitude had encased his consciousness. –The house. Beth. The painting. This isn't right.- But the calming fear and depression took hold once more and all he could remember was that he had seen this cactus before. And that there was something behind it. That realization sparked life in him. There were footprints. There would be something that he could fight.
-I am not alone,- he thought with a smile. His step quickened toward the cactus.
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As Lisbeth caught her breath and feeling returned to her mortified extremities, she tried to work out another plan of escape.
-Ok, Beth,- she thought. –None of this REALLY makes sense. But there seems to be a method to this madness. It's like a dream. The house is playing by dream rules. If I expect a big scary spider, it'll give me a big scary spider. I think I only beat it because I acted without thinking. The house couldn't read my thoughts, so I won.- The skeptical, rational, book-smart part of her mind must have either balked or fainted at this internal dialogue because, for whatever reason, it didn't argue. –I have to make a move out of this room without thinking about it.-
That was easier said than done. Lisbeth couldn't remember the last time she had taken any action in her life without evaluating all of the possible pros, cons, and equal and opposite reactions she might be faced with as a result. This would be like jumping off of a 100-foot cliff into shallow, rocky, snake and shark infested waters without a bathing suit. But it was the only thing that she could think to do.
Lisbeth stood, shut her eyes, took a deep inhalation, and just let herself go. Her body reacted like it had just been itching for the chance to show her what it could do without a set of instructions from her brain. Her hands flew to the back of the chair and gripped tightly. Her arms and back lifted the chair and her torso bent and weaved under the weight of the heavy wood as she prepared to throw. Her feet pivoted and her hips lunged and she threw the chair discus-style through the mirror that had stood over the bar. Lisbeth's mind, but not her ears, registered a pained scream that she knew was coming from the house.
The chair sailed into the next room and light spilled through into to room where Lisbeth stood. She pumped her fist in victory, but she knew that she wasn't safe yet. But she would be glad to be away from the spider. Lisbeth grabbed another chair and dragged it over to the gaping, teeth-filled maw of her improvised doorway. The opening was big enough that she could jump through without damaging herself on the jagged glass.
Lisbeth, still acting more on impulse than on carefully considered decision-making stood on the chair and hopped through the looking glass. She fell into the next room, landing on the upturned chair she had just thrown. She rolled off of it in a tangled, unorganized heap.
Lisbeth turned onto her back, careful of the scattered mirror shavings and looked up at her new surroundings. Despite the light, it was far more spooky than her previous surroundings. Someone had gotten a hold of a can of cerulean-tinted spray paint and drawn huge blue X's on every stationary object in the room. It looked like she had escaped to a demented funhouse.
Still slightly stunned by her ungraceful tumble into the room, Lisbeth rolled her eyes around the room, searching for her bearings. As she struggled to sit up, she noticed a figure crouching in the corner of the room. It was Carter Foxx.
His once-handsome face was twisted into an aspect of fear and paranoia. He wore a grimace like a smile. His dark hair was dirty and matted. His eyes goggled and rolled and his tongue poked in and out of his mouth on its own volition as he shivered in his own madness. Worst of all, he had found a large knife and carved an X into his forehead, between his eyes. He was still clutching the butcher knife. His blood had dried and stained the blade a dull brown color.
He seemed to notice Lisbeth for the first time. He stood and regarded her with a child-like smile. "You are me," he whispered, taking small, unsteady steps to where she sat. He held out the knife in a menacing way. "You are me. You are me. You are me," he repeated.
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Jet kept smiling as he approached the cactus. From far away, he thought he heard the sound of breaking glass followed by in inhuman scream of pain. Memories rushed back to him. The house, the bounty, Beth, and the painting.
Once again, Jet had his thoughts, his memory, within his grasp. Jet's mind fought free of the painting's hypnosis. He was still in the desert that was somehow still in the house. But Jet no longer felt swamped in sadness and fear. Lisbeth's blow to the house had weaken its hold on him and he was still primed for a good fight.
The cactus was much larger than he thought it would be. Its segmented, bristly, oval arms reached twice as high as he was tall. The blossoms, once rich and full, had rotted and dried in the hot searing sun. The footprints of the insect were still there. They were as big as the prints Jet left behind. Whatever it was, it was huge. Jet didn't care. He was ready for whatever this house could throw at him.
Jet unholstered his gun and flicked off the safety. As quietly as he could in the still night air, he stepped around the cactus to face the insect. It was a scorpion as large as the Hammerhead. It was a shiny black color with read markings down its back. The red continued onto its tail, which was flaccidly resting on the ground. It was facing away and not expecting a fight.
Jet took full advantage of the surprise and fired a shot at what he estimated to be its head. The bullet was easily deflected by the scorpion's armor. And now it was awake, angry, and ready. Its tail stood at full attention as it reared and faced its attacker. The scorpion lunged at Jet with its front feet. Jet dodged it and fired another shot, which missed the insect completely. Jet looked up to the tail and saw clear poison dripping from the tip. He fired another shot at the tail. The bullet broke through the armor and lodged itself within the second to last segment of tail. But the damage did not hinder the scorpion in the least. It brought its tail down and buried it in the sand a few inches away from Jet's foot.
In fear, Jet fired four more times. Two bullets were deflected and two penetrated the scorpion, but seemed to have no effect. Jet had to jump backwards on his back to avoid the lethal stab as the tail came down at him again. He fired at the tail as it flashed in front of him. The bullet found the weak spot between the segmented armor plates. When the scorpion brought its tail up again, it left the poisonous last segment in the sand. It screamed in anger as it reared and regrouped.
Jet laughed victoriously. He took careful aim and emptied his gun at the scorpion as it made its last charge. All three bullets hit it square in the eye, killing it. Unfortunately, its momentum was unimpeded by death and it dealt its last blow. While the scorpion collapsed mere feet in front of Jet, its tail swung around and cuffed the side of Jet's head, sending him sprawling towards the cactus.
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"You are me," said Carter as he swung the knife at Lisbeth. Lisbeth managed to grab the toppled chair that had just caused her fall and held it over her like a shield. It deflected much of the blow of the knife as Carter stabbed at her, but it completely disintegrated under the surprisingly brutal force. Carter stumbled back in surprise. He was still holding the knife.
From the wreckage of the chair that had saved her twice already, Lisbeth pulled out a heavy post, 3 feet long, and held it out in front of her as she scrambled to her feet. "Look, Mr. Foxx, my name is Beth and I'm not here to hurt you."
"Liar!" screamed Carter, his face flushing with desperate anger. "You are ME!" He lunged at her again.
Lisbeth sidestepped him and hit him on the back with her improvised bat as he sailed by. Carter fell to his knees but recouped quickly, turning around and snarling at Lisbeth like a cornered animal.
Carter stepped forward more cautiously and swiped the knife at her, back and forth, aiming for her midsection. She chopped the heavy post at the knife as it sliced by, missing every time. Then, a childhood of softball leagues and batting practices rushed back to her.
Switching to offensive tactics, Lisbeth took a batter's stance, stepped forward as Carter drew back for another lunge, and swung with all of her might at the incoming knife. She made contact with Carter's hand and the knife clattered along the floor before it was swallowed up by the shadows of the room.
Carter recoiled, cradling his wounded hand, then sprung at Lisbeth in attack again. Lisbeth swung and winced as the post made a dull cracking sound when it met Carter's temple. He crumpled to the floor, unconscious.
Lisbeth managed a sigh of relief before she heard the gunfire and the screams that she didn't recognize as her own.
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Jet's artificial arm shot out to defend the rest of him from becoming impaled on the cactus needles. He was successful in that the only needle that drew blood was one that stuck his finger as he was attempting to de-quill his left arm.
Jet sat on the sand facing the cactus, wondering what his next move should be. He had defeated the only opponent available and he didn't see what other options he had left, who else he could fight.
-All because of that damned painting of a cactus,- he thought miserably. He kicked sand petulantly at the annoying vegetation, enjoying the whisper sound the grains made as they pelted the dead, dried flowers. –This damned cactus.-
Jet pulled out a cigarette and put it in his mouth. He pulled out his lighter and thumbed on the flame. Then, seemingly moving of its own accord, instead of lighting the tip of his cigarette, his hand reached out and touched fire to the nearest dead cactus blossom.
Instantly, the fire caught and spread from blossom to blossom, engulfing the entire cactus in flame within seconds. Then, Jet was no longer sitting on the desert sand, but a hardwood floor, ogling the painting burning in its frame when he heard the gunfire.
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Lisbeth had dived under a large desk and covered the back of her head and neck with her hands. The insular world of the house was disrupted with the smell of a crisp spring night and the sound of a landing starship.
Lisbeth peeked out of one eye to survey the damage. An ugly hole in the wall let in fresh air and moonlight. And through the hole stepped Spike Spiegel.
Lisbeth crawled shakily out from under the desk towards Spike.
Spike looked around at the room, saw Carter's still form and rushed over to Lisbeth. Her face was a scary ashen color that made her light smattering of freckles stand out like leftover coffee grounds stuck to the filter. Her dark eyes lost focus and she couldn't coordinate her limbs well enough to stand up. Spike squatted next to her.
"Beth, where's Jet? Are you ok? What took so long? What happened?" he asked in quick succession.
Lisbeth's eyes were still unfocused and she mumbled, "There was a spider…"
Spike clasped her shoulders and shook her lightly. Anger flashed through her eyes with all of the heat and intensity of a wildfire. Color returned to her face as she came back to herself. She lashed out and punched Spike's upper arm with surprising force. "Jackass! You scared the shit out of me!"
Spike chuckled as he rubbed his arm. "I didn't even come close to hitting you. What's with Carter? Is he dead?"
"If he's dead, then I fucking quit," Lisbeth spat with anger and concern in her voice.
As if to answer Spike's question and Lisbeth's worry, Carter moaned, stirred, then fell quiet once again.
"You did that?" Lisbeth nodded solemnly. "How?" he asked.
"Eight years of softball."
"Hmm. I'm impressed."
"You should see me play soccer."
"Oh, yeah?"
Instead of answering, Lisbeth swiveled her head around to where she heard wood scraping against wood. She saw a wardrobe that was placed against the far wall jostling back and forth.
Spike stood and raised his gun, stepping between Lisbeth and the moving wardrobe. Lisbeth sighed in annoyance, stood, picked up her wooden post (which she'd decided to dub "The Clunker") and stepped up beside Spike.
Spike asked, "Do you smell something?"
"Smoke," she replied. The wardrobe tipped over and Spike curled his finger around his trigger. "Wait," whispered Lisbeth. "Don't shoot, it's Jet."
Indeed, as the wardrobe fell, it revealed a door. As the door opened, smoke billowed out and Jet jumped through, coving his mouth and nose with his hand.
He said, "Beth, Spike, we need to get out of here!"
Lisbeth nodded readily and turned to get Carter. Jet helped her lift him as Spike led the way through his doorway.
They all packed Carter into the hold in Jet's Hammerhead and prepared to leave before the police and fire crews showed up.
"What are you doing here anyway?" Jet asked Spike.
"You've been gone for 10 hours. I thought something went wrong."
Jet was incredulous. "No way. What time is it?" he asked gruffly.
"Midnight. What happened here? Is the house really haunted?"
"Christ," breathed Lisbeth. "I don't even know." Jet turned his back on the two, unwilling to talk about his experiences in the house. "No," continued Lisbeth. "The house isn't haunted. It's the people in there who are haunted. The house just makes people see…"
"See what?" prodded Spike.
"I don't even know. I can't explain," finished Lisbeth, saying all she would say about the house.
Before Lisbeth could close the hatch on her mono racer, Jet looked over his shoulder at her and said, "You did really well, Beth. Good job."
Lisbeth frowned and looked to be suppressing a gag. "Thanks. But if another bust goes like this, I fucking quit." Jet nodded in a kind of agreement. He didn't think he could take it, either. The three got into their ships and took off back to the Bebop. None of them saw the smoke that had been seeping out of 1013 E. Redlum disperse into the night as the flames extinguished themselves. They also didn't see the hole made by Spike's artillery rounds heal itself, betraying only the slightest scar that could barely be seen from the street and would be noticed by no one. The house had survived since being built and would survive the Bebop crew. And it would wait patiently until it could feed again.
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Phew! This was too much fun to write. Was it good for anyone else?