Nightstruck - Jenna Black Page 0,58

a heap just a few feet from her back door. There was a pool of blood at the base of our house, just around the corner of the patio, and streaks of that blood led to where Mrs. Pinter lay. Like she had tried to crawl away from her attacker, although there was so much blood it was hard to imagine she had survived long enough to crawl.

A little mewling whimper rose from my throat, and if I’d had a free hand I’d have clapped it over my mouth to try to contain my own horror. I couldn’t see all of Mrs. Pinter’s body because she was all hunched in on herself, but there was no mistaking those sensible shoes, the flowery dress, or the drab cardigan.

I was shaking so hard I could hear my teeth chattering, and I knew for certain that Mrs. Pinter was dead. No one could survive losing as much blood as I saw spattered and pooled around the courtyard.

I remembered the thumping sound on the kitchen window right after Mrs. Pinter’s screams had shut off, and I raised my flashlight to examine the window. Sure enough, there was a big splatter of blood there, though the thump had been too loud to be just the splashing blood.

Looking back, I think a part of my mind had registered the reality of what I was seeing well before I allowed myself to actually take it in. I’d already played the flashlight beam all around the courtyard, so there was nothing there I hadn’t seen yet. I just really, really didn’t want to see it. But there was only so long my subconscious could protect me.

There was a trail of blood droplets leading from the splatter on our window to the darkness across the courtyard, and with great reluctance I allowed my flashlight beam to follow that trail to its conclusion.

I couldn’t stop the scream that tore out of me like a demon trying to escape.

Propped up against the far wall, where it had come to a stop after bouncing off the window of our house, was Mrs. Pinter’s head.

I forgot all about my crime scene protocol worries, forgot about moving cautiously in the dark, forgot about making rational decisions. Forgot everything, basically. My mind filled with white noise as I turned and ran for the kitchen door, desperate to get inside. My feet skidded through blood, and I fell down hard on my hands and knees. I managed to keep hold of the gun, but the flashlight was jarred from my grip, and I was too panicked to reach for it.

Maybe it was just as well I ran the rest of the short distance in the pitch dark. I’d seen enough horror to haunt my nightmares for years already. I skidded and slipped and half-crawled, but I made it to the kitchen door and flung myself through, slamming it shut behind me and throwing all the locks. Then I collapsed in a shivering, hyperventilating heap on the floor, with my back propped against the door.

Bob whimpered softly at me in the darkness, coming over to nose my hand and then licking the skinned area on my palm from when I’d fallen.

“Stop that,” I told him, then buried that hand in his thick, warm coat, clinging to him like I used to cling to my stuffed lamb when I was five.

I don’t know how long it took—maybe five minutes—before I realized that unlike Bob, Piper hadn’t come in to check on me. Surely she had heard me scream, and though she obviously wasn’t the white knight type, once she heard the door close behind me she had to have known she wouldn’t be running straight into danger if she came into the kitchen.

“Piper?” I called out, but there was no answer.

I had a brief, horrible thought that the creature had somehow gotten into the house while I’d been outside, that I would find Piper torn apart just like I had found Mrs. Pinter, but I quickly rejected the thought. I would have heard something, and Bob would have sounded the alarm and thrown himself into the fray.

I forced myself to my feet, keeping hold of Bob’s ruff for comfort as I called out to Piper once more. And once more received no answer. Figuring she must have run off to hide somewhere, I searched the house, room by room, calling for her repeatedly, but I couldn’t find her anywhere.

It wasn’t until I’d gone through the whole house a