bed from the cold, multi-brown tones of the Berber carpet. Found quickly, the cold feel of the compact pistol gripped tightly in his warm right hand helped to steady his nerves. Sitting next to the bed was a pile of items that had come off of his belt and from his cargo pockets.
His fingers brushed across the multi-tool. No, not that. His thumb caught the hilt of the sheathed combat knife. No, not that, either. Finally, his pinky found what he was looking for, and he grasped the small flashlight tightly in his left hand.
The single large candle, which sputtered its barely adequate light upon the walls gave an effect reminiscent of being under water. It revealed just enough of the floor ahead of him to avoid stepping on Rebecca’s landmine challenge of plastic building blocks. Straining his ears and eyes, Daniel headed up the stairs into the unknown, cringing at every tread that squeaked, wearing nothing but boxers on his body and concern on his face.
Daniel slowly crossed the kitchen floor, pounding heart straining against the confines of his chest cavity. The heavy drapes that covered the door wall and dehydrator assembly suddenly billowed inward. Daniel dropped to his right knee, simultaneously raising the pistol up and clicking the flashlight on to aim at the movement. His mind envisioned a monster pushing its way inside the house, but the aqua colored drapes mocked him by cresting their movement and settling back into place.
‘Why is the door open?’ Daniel’s stunned brain wondered.
The flashlight then caught something out of place in the center of the living room. There surrounded by a dazzling sea of broken glass, was half of a cinder block. Daniel immediately recognized it by the black overspray as the same block that he used to prop up the solar oven. He struggled to place together a scenario that would result in this heavy block moving thirty feet across the trampled lawn, only to then hurl itself though the sliding glass door.
Daniel turned off the flashlight, trying to listen to what lay beyond the encompassing noise of his beating heart. The wind sounded like the worst kind of noises in his ears, all howls and whispers. But that disturbing wind also brought the gift of unwashed flesh to his nostrils.
‘Someone is out there!’ his mind screamed, trying to force the body into action.
For some reason his brain did not offer up any suggestions to back its desire for movement. Daniel just remained motionless, kneeling on the hard linoleum, staring in mute rapture at the slowly waving draperies.
‘Nine bullets?’ his mind asked meekly, just to see if telling him how many bullets the pistol held helped out in any way. It was scrambling, struggling to relay into his consciousness any pertinent information that it could grab hold of.
Abandoning the inner turmoil Daniel crossed the dining room, moving parallel to the gapping maw that was now his glass door. He took awkward steps down the hardwood hallway to avoid the pitfalls of the bare, creaky spots, heading straight for the pink refuge of Rebecca’s room. The window there had a partial view of the backyard that he hoped could be used to his advantage.
Daniel had to stick his fingers through the small opening in the plywood to bend down a couple of blind slats to see out. It offered only a narrow, blurry view; it was enough. The living room jutted out from the rest of the house to his left, and the door wall was just around the far corner. The view, however did not hide the two shadowed figures that were crouched down facing away from him. The shadows were trying to peer around the corner, obviously waiting for someone to exit out of the newly smashed door. The bats or pipes that they held in front of them foretold of what awaited Daniel if he chose to use that route.
……..
George led the way out of the house, but only after the waiting had become unbearable. The trio backtracked through the two doors in the garage and out into the empty, weed-lined driveway. Jimmy kept pace a few steps behind George and Chase brought up a cautious rear further back. They all swiveled their heads, searching for any signs that might mean they had been given away.
After a few anxious moments, George led them slowly down the driveway and along the sidewalk. They took this longer route to avoid leaving an obvious path across the tall grass that had