How It All Goes Down
Redrum
- Danny is sleeping. Wendy hopes he'll be able to sleep for a whole night for once, without being plagued by nightmares.
- She thought she heard Jack and someone else talking about freeing Jack from the cellar.
- Wendy really needs to know if Jack somehow managed to get out.
- She doesn't think he did, but she needs to make sure. She also wants to get the tray with Danny's soup and omelet. They can at least eat the soup.
- Still she's caught between staying here with Danny, and checking on Jack.
- The need to check on Jack wins out.
- Holding tight to the knife, Wendy leaves the quarters.
- From the stairs she can see that the lights in the kitchen are on, but she can't remember if she'd left them that way.
- When she gets near the ballroom she hears the clock under glass ticking.
- It begins to strike the hours. When it gets to twelve, Wendy hears the call to, "Unmask!" (50.69), and for moments the party is in swing.
- Then she sees that a Jack-like being is coming angrily toward her swinging the roque mallet.
- He hits her hard in the stomach with it.
- She rolls out of the way of his next swing.
- He tries to hit her again and drops the mallet. She takes advantage of this situation and runs to the stairs.
- Jack follows and smashes her in the ribs with the mallet, breaking at least two.
- On the floor, rolling to avoid the mallet, Wendy sees the knife where she dropped it on the stairs.
- As she moves toward it, Jack hits her just under the knee with the mallet.
- After avoiding more swings of the mallet, Wendy rolls her body down the stairs, hard into Jack. He falls.
- As Jack is about to pick up the mallet, Wendy jumps on him, plunging "the kitchen knife in his lower back up to the handle" (50.89).
- She rests for a few minutes, expecting to see Danny any moment. With relief she thinks that maybe they didn't wake him up.
- Her body a mass of pain, Wendy pulls herself up the stairs to Danny.
- At the halfway point, she sees that Jack is getting up.
- He begins to come after her.