“It’s like the damn thing’s been nailed into the floor,” he said, exasperated. The wild commotion in the room had finally died down. Even the air felt empty. But that didn’t change the fact that they were trapped.

Mitch stomped over to the dresser. “If you can’t move it, break it.” Lashing out with his boot, he punched a small hole in one of the drawers, splitting it in half.

Taking his lead, Nina tried to yank the other drawers free, but they remained glued in place. Like Mitch, she started kicking, battering the old wood until it gave way.

“Nina, what’s on the other side of the door once we get through?” Tobe asked, delivering a savage kick to the side of the dresser. The wood cracked, but didn’t give.

“I don’t know,” she replied, breathless. “Probably nothing. Maybe the kids are keeping us in here as a punishment, just like a parent would do to a child. In this case, the child has the upper hand.”

Damn little bastards, Tobe seethed. Mitch’s camera was in pieces. He wondered if any of the footage they had captured throughout the night was even useful. A creeping dread told him the ghost children had sabotaged that as well. He’d never felt so angry, so helpless.

Stepping up his efforts, he, Nina and Mitch beat at the dresser until it was nothing but a pile of splintered wood.

Eddie tried the bedroom door, wondering where all the EBs had gone.

“It’s locked.”

“That can’t be,” Jessica said. Putting the books down, she retrieved her lock-picking kit and tried to open the door. The paperclip and screwdriver weren’t able to penetrate the lock. It was as if glue had been poured into the opening.

“It’s gotta be the EBs,” she said. “You think you can get them to open it?”

“I don’t think they’re going to listen to me.” He closed his eyes, opening his mind as much as he could, listening for scraps of conversation or thoughts between the spirit children. Most had flitted from the house, dispersing among the trees.

Those left behind guarded the doors like powerful lookouts. He was amazed by how much stronger they’d become in just the last hour. He heard Tobe, Mitch and Nina shouting, a demolition derby in the room down the hall. Daphne must have been across the way, beating at the door and calling her children’s names.

“They want us to be afraid,” he suddenly said.

Jessica worried the doorknob. “Tell them it’ll take more than this.”

He shook his head as if warding off a nightmare. “No, not us, them. And it’s working.”

Giving up, Jessica sat on the floor and opened Nathaniel’s journal, using a penlight to read by. “I have to keep reading,” she said. “You’re the door man.”

Eddie realized there was no reasoning with the EBs, not now. He’d have to force the door open. Brute strength wouldn’t do.

George Ormsby’s children were gone, but that was just the tip of the iceberg. Everything had fallen into place. George’s son Nathan picked up where he’d left off, siring even more children, conducting even more terrible experiments in a quest for human perfection. When his life’s endeavor failed, his own son, Alexander, was handpicked to carry on.

Creating children that were perfect, just the way their mothers had seen them, but not perfect in their possessed father’s eyes.

The Last Kids were the final generation of Ormsbys. Alexander must have felt his time was coming to a close. There would be no sons to pass his dementia on to. None had measured up. So he killed them, as surely and easily as so many others. He took his life not out of guilt, but a selfish desire to die without prolonged pain and suffering.

Alexander and Nathaniel, I’m coming for you.

Taking several deep breaths, he flexed his fingers, loosening his muscles as best he could in the extreme cold, a bitterness that had turned his sweat to ice.

Moving objects with his mind was as natural to him as using his own two hands. However, the more exertion he had to put into it, the heavier the repercussion. As with all of his latent abilities, there was a give and take. He knew he’d have a bitch of a headache when this was done. He just hoped it didn’t take too much out of him.

Eddie stared at the door, burning the image in his mind. His lids slowly closed, but he could still see the door plain as day. It was only a matter of wishing the door open. The knob began to turn in fits and starts. The EBs, unseen in his image, fought against him.

They were strong, but he was stronger. With a great mental tug, he pulled the door free. It slammed into the wall, making Jessica jump back, the journal still tight in her hand.

Daphne’s head whipped around. “I can’t get inside!” she pleaded.

The door to the children’s room was easier. The EBs, seeing Eddie break their hold, didn’t give him much resistance. The door flew open and Daphne rushed inside. Eddie grabbed two of the heavy journals. He and Jessica had just stepped into the hallway when the door to the master bedroom cracked in half. Tobe and Mitch came tumbling through, bouncing off the floor with pained grunts. Nina was framed in the doorway, looking exhausted and terrified.

It felt like someone had cleaved Eddie’s skull in two. Bright, white fireworks exploded in his periphery. He had to shake it off, quick. Where he was going next would require every bit of gas he had in the tank.

Chapter Thirty-Six

Rusty lay on his back, shivering in the cold. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t sit up. Frigid, invisible hands pressed against his shoulders, his legs, froze the liquid in his eyes, making it difficult to see the moon cresting above the tree line.

He wanted to get up and go, but where?

The island was alive with them.

Even though he couldn’t see the ones that held him in place, icing the marrow in his bones, there were others walking in the woods, feet crunching through the brambles, a seemingly aimless shamble to and from the crumbling Colonial mansion.

Eyes rolled up in his head, he was able to make out great parchments of faded paint and splinters of wood sloughing free from the house as if it were an enormous, prehistoric reptile shedding its skin. Only what lay below was not vital and fresh. Surface rot gave way to true death’s decay.

Ormsby House was dying.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

When Jessica entered the hallway, her arms laden with the heavy journals, she was not alone. Daphne held Jason and Alice close to her waist, the children wiping sleep from their eyes.

How the hell did they sleep through all that noise?

Tobe, Nina and a shirtless Mitch stood outside the smashed master bedroom door. Whereas Mitch and Nina looked like a pair that had barely survived their first ride on a corkscrewing rollercoaster, Tobe wore a mask of barely contained fury that seemed completely out of place on the middle-aged aristocrat.

Eddie leaned against the wall, collecting himself.

“Jessica, what’s happening?” Daphne asked.

“We’re just finding out,” she said. “It’s not good. Terrible, terrible things happened here. I was able to free some of the children, but there are so many more.”

Daphne’s eyes grew wide, panicked. “Paul! He fell down the stairs. It…it looked like he was pushed, but I was there. He was alone. I…I…”

Eddie touched her shoulder. “I’ll go check on him. You need to stay up here with the kids and Jessica.” He turned to Jessica. “After that, I’m going outside, to the little cemetery between the trees. It’s time I spoke to the Ormsby men.”

“Don’t go alone. I’ll come with you.”

To her complete shock, he pulled her in and kissed her on the forehead. “I need you here. The children won’t hurt you. They need you.”

“Need me?”

His face turned grave.

“Oh,” she said.

They don’t need me to solve the mystery. They need me so they can grow stronger. They’re afraid of me sending them away. No matter how horrible their time here, this island is all they know. They’re terrified of what lies beyond, or maybe they’re not even aware there is more.