Chapter 7 - The Midnight Break-In
The wail of the sirens sounded close, but on these winding county roads, sound traveled deceptively far through the timber. They were still at least two miles out.
Behind me, the sound of splintering wood echoed from my back patio.
Marcus wasn't running away. Cornered, injured, and blinded by frantic rage, he had abandoned all caution. He had retrieved his tire iron and was savagely bashing it against the lower glass pane of my patio door.
SHATTER.
The sound of reinforced glass exploding into thousands of pebbles cascaded through the hallway. I heard the crunch of heavy boots stepping across the shards into my dining room.
I didn't scream. Panic was a luxury I couldn't afford.
I slipped down the hallway toward the master bedroom, pulling the heavy solid-oak door shut behind me and turning the interior brass thumb-lock. I walked straight to my closet, opened the door, and knelt down before the mountain of winter coats.
Lily and Maya were still there. They hadn't moved an inch. Their little hands were clamped over their mouths, their eyes huge and wet with tears.
"Listen to me," I whispered, pulling them both out into the bedroom. "We're going out the front window. Right now."
I hoisted the heavy wooden sash of my bedroom window, pushing open the screen with a firm shove. The drop to the soft flowerbed below was barely four feet.
Down the hallway, heavy, limping footsteps thudded against the hardwood floor.
THUD. DRAG. THUD. DRAG.
He was coming straight for the bedrooms.
"Where are they, you old witch?" Marcus roared from the living room, kicking open closet doors and overturning furniture. "I know they're in here!"
I lifted Maya first, holding her by her tiny armpits. "Land on your feet in the mulch, baby. Be quiet."
She dropped softly into the marigolds below without making a sound.
Next was Lily. As I leaned out the window to lower her down, the master bedroom door rattled under a massive shoulder strike.
BAM!
The wooden frame groaned, splinters popping from the jamb.
"I see you!" Marcus screamed through the cracked wood, catching a glimpse of my silhouette against the morning light.
I dropped Lily gently into the bushes beside her sister, swung one leg over the sill, and tumbled out into the garden just as the bedroom door gave way with a deafening crash inside.
"Run to the street!" I whispered fiercely, grabbing both girls by their little hands.
We scrambled through the rhododendron bushes, our shoes slipping on the wet leaves. As we broke through onto the front lawn, Marcus’s contorted, bleeding face appeared in the open bedroom window above us. He began clambering through the frame, heedless of the jagged glass, dropping into the flowerbeds like a rabid animal.
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"Get back here!" he shrieked, limping furiously across the grass toward us.
Just as he reached the edge of my driveway, two black-and-white county cruisers roared over the crest of Oakridge Lane, their red and blue strobe lights painting the autumn trees in vivid, blinding flashes.
