a soft thud, and the cat dropped like a stone.
“Guess I still have the old pitching arm,” Barry said, grim satisfaction in his tone as he strode over to where the still black form lay sprawled on the brick.
Dead?
Darla stared in shock, unable to believe that the valiant feline had not risen for another attack. But Hamlet didn’t move, not even when Barry picked him up by the scruff of the neck and carried the cat’s limp body to the boiler. To Darla’s horror, he yanked open the firebox and tossed Hamlet inside, then slammed the rusty iron door shut.
“I don’t think you’ll be trying that trick again,” he said with a humorless laugh. “Now, Darla, where were we?”
Where Darla was, was halfway up the stairs. Gasping for breath, she shoved through the basement door and shut it behind her, then made a beeline for the front door. She twisted the ornate knob and yanked, but the door remained stubbornly closed.
“No, no, no!” she shrieked. How could the door suddenly be stuck like that? It had opened fine just a few minutes before.
Locked!
Barry must have taken a moment to lock the front door before following her down to the basement. Almost sobbing now, she flipped the latch and gasped in relief when the knob turned freely. She was almost home free. All she had to do was reach the street. But barely had she dragged the reluctant door a few inches open when it slammed shut again.
“You’re worse than that damn cat of yours, the way you just won’t quit!”
Arms on either side of her, Barry held her pinned against the door, his breath now coming in angry, ragged gasps.
“You know, I felt kind of bad about this at first,” he went on in the same outraged voice. “I really liked you . . . not like that bitch Tera. But now, you’ve really pissed me off. I think I’m going to enjoy getting rid of you after all!”
Later on, Darla realized that this should have been her moment of greatest terror. Instead, something had kick-started her redhead’s temper into overdrive, enveloping her in white-hot fury, the likes of which she’d never before felt. Maybe it was hearing Barry’s total disregard for his victims, or his casual assumption that he would kill her, too. Or maybe it was just recalling how he had tossed away the fearless Hamlet like so much garbage. Whatever the cause, she knew with sudden certainty that she wasn’t going down without a fight.
And with that flash of emotion came something just as useful: the memory of Robert’s eager comment from the previous day. Those fancy chopstick things in her hair? Those would make, like, really sick weapons, just like in the movies.
With a scream of pure fury, Darla smashed her foot onto Barry’s sneakered instep; then, as he stumbled back in pain, she snatched the hair sticks from her bun and stabbed him.
Had this been one of Robert’s movies, each carved stick would have plunged with painful accuracy deep into Barry’s chest, immediately taking him out like a staked vampire. The reality was that he easily blocked the first attempt, catching her wrist in his hand and squeezing it so tightly that her makeshift weapon dropped from her suddenly nerveless fingers. Her second attack was more successful, with the hair stick driving a good inch into his bicep. If far from fatal, the effort was enough to gain her a momentary advantage.
Barry gave a wordless, agonized shout and promptly released her. And in that instant while he was yanking the stick from his injured arm, she was free again and running, her red hair sailing about her shoulders.
Her options for what to do next had long since flashed through her mind, the first two already considered and dismissed in the space of a heartbeat. Her first escape route was the front door, but Barry—though momentarily distracted by the pain of her attack—still blocked that way. The rear door was of no use, for the stack of lumber she’d seen on her last visit still blocked that exit. Her last chance at escape, then, was through one of the unboarded windows on an upper floor.
Which was how she came to be halfway up the stairs when Barry recouped from his shock and turned to pursue her.
Holes in the floor, watch out for holes in the floor!
Remembering from last time that portions of the subfloor had been sawed through, Darla dodged the first hole she encountered, only