Whatever corner of the room Stephanie had been tossed into was not a corner anyone was bothering to watch closely, she determined. She could hear a television playing cartoons, but not much else. At first she attempted to keep her movements to a minimum while she tried to untie herself, for fear of a kick in the ribs, but after a fair amount of squirming drew no attention she went to work in earnest. Once she was able to get her hands in front of herself, the rest was easy. When Stephanie got her head out of the bag she discovered she had had an audience all along.

Two children about 5 or 6 years old, one covered in soft, brown hair, the other not, sat on a couch watching her instead of the television. She put her finger to her lips in a "shhh" motion.

"Mom!" called the hairy one.

Stephanie got to her feet, threw off the laundry bag and ran for the front door just across the room.

* * * *

"Who else would have keys to this storage room?" Patrick demanded.

"Well, it's Bob's hotel, but…"

"Two Finger Bob?"

"Yeah."

Patrick dismissed him as a suspect. "Who else?"

"Antonio does some handy-man work," said Landon, "and then there's Karen. She works here part time as a maid."

"Karen?" Patrick said. "Karen – as in Karen who used to date Daniel-the-Monkey-Man Karen?"

Landon turned pale. "That's the one," he said. "They're married now."

"Is she just as crazy as she used to be?"

"Worse," said Landon. "Now she has two kids."

"They live at the old Westcott compound?"

"Just south of it."

"Do you have a phone on you?"

Landon nodded.

"Call the police," Patrick told him.

"The closest station is in Ashland. It'll take half an hour to for them to get here."

"Give me the keys to your rig."

"You can't go out there…" Landon protested.

"Just watch me," Patrick said as he stalked out the door.

Landon followed him as quickly as he could. "You don't understand! Those Westcotts aren't right in the head."

"I understand perfectly. There's a family of madmen with a grudge and my friend is up there with them," Patrick said while hurrying to the truck. "I could have put an end to this when you first showed up at the diner, but I played along just to see what would happen. Now my curiosity could get her killed. Give me your keys."

"You can't drive it," Landon said.

"Don't make me take them from you."

"I mean you physically can't drive my rig," Landon said. "It's been fitted with extensions – only a little person can drive it. As if you could take my keys from me anyway. What do you think your going to do up there with an unloaded pistol? Just sit down and wait for the police. Please, Patty, just wait."

"There's no time," Patrick insisted. "If I have to go on foot I'll do it." Patrick began to jog up the street.

"Wait," called Landon. "Take Ruth's jeep. It's parked behind her diner. Keys are in it. I'm coming too."

* * * *

Stephanie made it out the door and around the side of the house where she hesitated to collect her thoughts. She'd never make it running through the woods – these people lived up here and knew every tree and bush. There were several old wooden buildings within the overgrown yard. She ran for the nearest one. Behind her she could hear Karen shouting, "Damn it Dan, she got away!"

Stephanie tried to get inside the first building, but it was too tightly packed with junk and carnival equipment. She had to run to the next building to duck inside. This building turned out to be a garage of sorts. It had only three walls, the fourth side open with a view of the driveway. A station wagon and an old battered truck were parked inside. Unfortunately, so was one very large, hairy man.

Dan was standing inside the framework of a twelve foot circular cage. He was wearing a welding mask and sparks flew from where he was hunched over a blow torch. He had not seen her, nor could he hear well within the confines of the mask. Karen was yelling for Dan and fast approaching. Stephanie stayed close to the wall and ran toward the truck, hoping the keys would be in it. They were. Just as she opened the driver's side door, the flickering light cast by the torch's sparks went out.

"Hey!" shouted Dan.

"Get her, get her!" shouted Karen.

Stephanie braced her back against the side of the truck and gave the round cage a mighty kick. It rolled off the cement blocks that had been supporting it and crashed to the floor with Dan inside, roaring in pain and anger as he fell against the hot metal edges he had just finished welding. Dust and wood chips on the floor beneath the cage began to smoke.

Stephanie jumped inside the truck, put the key in the ignition and started the engine just as a shotgun blast disintegrated the back window of the pickup. She hunched in her seat, threw the truck into reverse and accelerated out of the garage. Karen had to jump out of the way to avoid being hit and dropped her shotgun.

Stephanie whirled the truck around and headed for the road. Karen recovered quickly and managed to fire off one blast that mangled the truck's left rear tire.

Dan noticed that a small fire had started underneath him and pitched himself against the opposite side of the cage. The cage began to roll, picking up speed as it reached the gravel driveway.

It was a bumpy ride with only three tires, but that wasn't going to stop Stephanie. Keeping her head low, she managed to guide the crippled truck out of the Westcott's yard and onto the dirt road that led back through the woods into town. A quarter mile down the road it wasn't the flat tire that eventually stopped her. It was the axle getting stuck in a pot hole. The truck lurched at a crazy angle so steep that Stephanie wasn't able to open the driver's side door. She looked back long enough to see the garage going up in flames, the round metal cage containing an increasingly furious Dan rolling down the hill toward her and Karen right behind it carrying her shotgun. Stephanie climbed out the window of the truck and ran.