alley, back into a darkened area that serves as a corridor between the houses on this block and the block behind it.
There are sheds and Dumpsters back there as well, but it’s hard to navigate in the darkness. I can hear someone pursuing us from behind, so I pull Karen down behind one of the Dumpsters. It is so dark that I can’t see Karen, which means the intruder shouldn’t be able to see us.
My heart is pounding so hard that it feels like somebody is using the Dumpster we’re leaning on for a bongo drum. “Andy?” Karen whispers—I guess, to confirm that I’m still there, since we’re not actually touching. I reach out and touch her arm, hoping it will stop her from talking.
I can clearly hear someone coming toward us, stalking us. I’m in a near panic, not knowing whether we should try to run some more or stay there and hope the night makes us invisible. The danger in running is that we are likely to bang into something and call attention to ourselves. Based on what happened to the door, the shooter has such a powerful weapon that he will not have to be terribly accurate to hit us in this enclosed area.
I can hear the shooter coming closer. I can’t tell how close, but I would guess he’s thirty feet away. It is impossible to avoid the realization that this person is going to kill us unless I do something to stop him. I have no idea how to do so, and even if I did, I probably wouldn’t have the courage or ability to pull it off.
On the other hand, I do have Karen, and she pushes something into me which feels rock hard. I reach out and take it; it feels like a piece of firewood. It makes sense; if she or her neighbor has a fireplace, this would be a likely place to keep the wood.
So I have a log, and he has a large gun. Advantage, bad guy, although I wouldn’t feel confident even if the weapons were reversed.
I whisper to Karen: “Move as slowly and quietly as you can away from the Dumpster and back toward that wall.” I say it so softly that I’m not even sure if actual sounds are coming out of my mouth, but she must hear me, because I can feel her slowly move away.
I can hear the shooter’s footsteps move toward me, and I force myself to come up with a plan. It’s not a good one, but it’s the best that I can do.
As he gets closer, I slowly stand, dreading the clicking sound that my knee usually makes when I get up after sitting for a while. This time it doesn’t; I wonder if fear-induced adrenaline is a cure for knee clicking.
Taking a deep breath, I quickly raise the lid of the Dumpster a few inches and let it drop. It is a distinctive sound, and I want the shooter to think we have taken refuge inside.
It seems to work, because I can hear him move quickly to the Dumpster. He opens the lid, and the next sounds I hear are bullets being fired into it.
Using that deafening sound to camouflage the sounds I will make, I stand and start swinging the log at the spot where his head and body are most likely to be. I seem to strike him a glancing blow, probably on the shoulder, and I hear him yell in pain.
I know that he must be readying the gun to fire, and I make an adjustment and bring the log down as hard as I can at where I think his head must be. It makes a crunching sound, and he moans and seems to fall.
I’m not taking anything for granted, and I keep swinging the log at him, alternating between hitting cement, Dumpster, and something else that I hope is his head. I’m sure the sound of wood hitting skull is quite disgusting to most humans, but right now it sounds pretty good to me.
I start screaming to Karen to run into the house and call 911. I eventually stop swinging the log, because the shooter is completely silent and apparently unmoving. Lights go on in Karen’s neighbor’s house, probably because they are wondering what the racket is about.
My eyes adjust to the dim light, and I can see the shooter at my feet. His head is literally smashed in, and a pool of blood is forming