Blake’s torso covered in blood, the punctured side pumping her life onto the mattress.
… thump …
Brad sliding off her corpse, facing Jessie, teeth bared.
… thump …
Tom, almost smiling at it all, as if amused—amusement that turns to alarm when Brad breaks for Jessie.
“Dude, don’t kill her yet!”
Jessie can’t move. Can’t think. In a matter of seconds this man will put his hands on her throat, drag her to the floor.
And then he’ll … and then … and then ….
Brad takes two strides before the heel of one blood-soaked foot slips on the refinished hardwood. His leg shoots out from under him, and his arms swing wildly before his other ankle twists and his body crashes, like a thrown doll, to the floor.
“Holy shit, man!” Tom screams, then howls in laughter.
Jessie’s subconscious shrieks a command:
GO!
“No,” Jessie mumbles, eyes falling on the impossible murdered body of her friend. “Please ….”
RUN! RUN OR YOU’LL DIE!
Jessie watches numbly as Brad gets to his knees. “Shit shit shit …”
And that’s enough.
She bolts out the door and into the hallway. It’s dark, but she sees a clear lane to the stairs ahead. The house’s front door, she knows, is directly at the bottom. It might be locked, bolted, but she must try.
She takes two steps when a hand catches her ankle.
“Gotcha!”
Jessie falls so hard and fast that her chin bounces off the hardwood floor. Stars burst in her head and her vision swoons. She feels the weight of Brad—like a giant crab—climbing up the backs of her legs. She twists her body, tightens a fist, and swings with everything she has into his leering face. There’s an audible snap as she connects with his nose. He screams, reaches for his face as blood spills over his lips and chin.
“FUUUCK!” he roars, and Jessie bucks, heaving him off.
Loud footsteps pound toward them. Tom.
Panicked and out of time to reach the stairs—which now feel a mile away—Jessie jumps to her feet and pushes through the door of her own room. She spins, slams the door. Not bothering to look for a lock, she turns to the dresser a few feet away and, with a primal scream of rage and fear, yanks it toward her. The dresser topples onto its side, haphazardly blocking the only entrance.
And the only exit.
A second later a body crashes into the door and bangs against the dresser, which only shifts a few inches. A shriek of frustration from the hallway gets Jessie moving again. She spins, furiously examines the room, but knows there’s nothing. No weapon to protect her. No way to stop them from coming in.
She has only seconds.
The silver-tinted window facing the lake stares back at her, the illuminated square contrasting with the surrounding dark, as if offering her a clue in a demented game of life and death.
Jessie runs to the window, grabs the old, rust-speckled handles at the bottom of the sash and jerks upward.
The window doesn’t budge.
There’s a crash behind her as the door slams once more into the dresser. She doesn’t turn around, doesn’t want to see Brad’s blood-slick body squeezing through the gap between the wall and the half-open door. She moves her hands to eye-level and spots an old sash lock, firmly secured. Her fingers fumble with the mechanism, slide the lock open. She reaches down once more, grips the handles, and pulls.
This time the window opens so freely that it smacks into place, causing the glass pane to tremble. A frigid breeze gusts against her heated skin, electrifying her nerves. She dares a look back and sees Brad is indeed squirming through the door, but struggling more than she’d have imagined, or hoped.
Just how heavy’s that dresser? Jessie thinks, thanking her body for the rush of adrenaline that let her pull the damn thing over.
She sticks her head out the window, studies the dark ground below.
Gotta be twenty feet, she thinks, but doesn’t care. She sticks one leg out the window, then the other, resting her butt on the windowsill. She takes a deep breath, presses her palms onto the sill, and pushes herself into space.
What seems an eternity later, Jessie hits the hard ground. Her ankle twists savagely beneath her weight and she screams out in pain, collapses onto the weedy grass. Despite the searing pain in her ankle, she manages to roll over, looks up toward the window high above.
Brad looks down at her, his face unreadable. He turns and says something indecipherable to her ears, apparently letting Tom know where she’s landed, and in what condition.
Not knowing if her ankle is broken or just horribly sprained, Jessie pushes herself onto hands and knees, using her good foot to take her weight as she stands. She takes one step on the injured leg, feels hot needles fry her nerves up to the hip, and hisses in pain.
There will be no running from this.
She looks to the right, sees the deck where they’d ended their evening, debates whether she can make it that far—perhaps hide beneath it—before Tom circles the house from the front door.
She doubts it.
