Gingerbread Man

door.
    Holly jumped out of her skin, and Amanda gripped her arm. "Come on."
    Slowly, they moved forward, into the dining room. The kitchen and its side door were off to the right, but Holly could see nothing that way except more chaos. Certainly no one was out there. The screen door was banging in the wind, though. That must have been the slam she had heard.
    To the left was a short hallway, leading to the bedroom. She turned in that direction, with Amanda clinging to her arm, and went to the master bedroom door. "Aunt Jen?"
    No sound came in reply.
    She pushed the door open. The light in there was off, so she reached around to snap it on.
    In the middle of the floor, Aunt Jen was curled into a tight ball, in a pool of crimson. It looked as if a pile of raw meat had been dumped on her back, but only at first glance. A large meat cleaver was implanted in the back of her head.
    Amanda made a choking sound, and twisted away, stumbling back down the hall.
    Holly, shaking all over, didn't. She moved forward. "Aunt Jen? Oh. God, Aunt Jen?"
    Her feet stopping at the outermost edge of the blood pool, she reached down to grip her aunt's warm wrist. She had to. The edge of Aunt Jen's sleeve was soaked in crimson. It touched Holly's fingers as she searched for a pulse, but she found none.
    Vaguely she heard a motor start. She dropped her aunt's wrist and left the bedroom. Amanda was standing in the dining room, staring out a window, and looking close to the edge of endurance. Eyes wide, pupils dilated, not even blinking. Holly went to her. "Are you all right?"
    "I was never in this house, but I saw him come in here. That's why I had to run away from it. That's why I saw it from outside. I was never in the house. I was in the truck."
    Holly looked, just in time to see the taillights of the familiar bakery truck drive away. It was her uncle's truck. He'd driven it for years. The familiarity of it now seemed ominous rather than comforting.
    "I was in the truck!" Amanda shouted. "Holly, he's getting away!"
    "I know, I know. But we'll never catch him on foot." Holly ran to the phone in the kitchen, yanked it up. Silence greeted her. She looked at the line, saw it cut cleanly in two. "Damn!" Then her gaze hit the key rack hanging beside the phone. Aunt Jen's car keys, or God she hoped they were. She snatched them. "Come on, Amanda! We'll take my aunt's car. We have to stop him."
    Amanda nodded, running into the kitchen. They ran through the door at the far end that led to the attached garage, and Holly hit the button to raise the overhead door as she passed.
    She got behind the wheel. Amanda grabbed something off the workbench in the garage as she passed, before diving into the passenger side, while Holly frantically jammed keys into the switch until one fit. She twisted it. The car started. "Thank God." As she shoved it into gear and pulled out into the pouring rain, she glanced sideways at Amanda.
    In her lap were a hammer and a tire iron.
    * * *
    HOLLY'S HOUSE HAD been empty, and Vince saw no signs that anyone had been near it. But at Reginald D'Voe's, it was a different story. The gate was unlocked, closed, but unlocked. Amanda's car was in the driveway. No one in it, though. And the house was pitch dark.
    He went to the door, rang the bell, pounded on the wood. "Amanda! Holly, open up, it's Vince!"
    No answer. He tried only once more before drawing his gun, breaking the glass, and reaching through it to unlock the door.
    "Jesus, Vince, you don't have a warrant," Jerry said.
    He said nothing, just ducked inside, Jerry right on his heels. He paused there, flipping on the lights, and looking around. Wet footprints still dampened the floor in the foyer. "They've been here. But why the hell would they leave on foot?" He crept through the darkened mausoleum, calling, but there was no reply.
    * * *
    HOLLY STEERED THE car in the direction Uncle Marty's bakery truck had gone.
    "What if we've lost him?" Amanda asked, knuckles flexing and releasing on the tire iron, eyes wide and fixed straight ahead.
    "We won't. There are no turns off this road for miles, and the truck can only go so fast." She hit a pothole as if to emphasize her point.
    "Where does it go?" Amanda asked.
    "It hugs the lake, most of the way around it. Passes through some towns farther north, but it's damn barren up to that point." She glanced sideways at Amanda. She was rocking now, slowly, steadily back and forth in her seat "Amanda?"
    Amanda gave her head a shake,