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Why are so many dying for a Stupid Girl like me?
I careen wildly toward the kitchen. The building moans again. Wind whips the tangled knots of my hair, though the doors are closed and the house shuttered tight. The girls, my mother. I can feel them all. The Bad Man is feasting. And they are as angry as I am.
I make it across the marble foyer into the breakfast room. Through the window I see a police officer standing guard. He catches the shadow of my movement, bobbing up and down as I drag my right leg. His eyes widen.
I try to shake my head, warn him away, but he doesn’t notice.
He runs down the porch, bursting through the front doors behind me.
“Hey there—”
Just as the basement door flies open, cracking against the sidewall. The deputy turns, caught between a sobbing little girl and a hulking fiend with a knife. He doesn’t need any help figuring it out.
“Stop! Police!”
Does he pull his weapon? Does he manage to fend off the first blow or two? I don’t have it in me to turn and look, as once again the Bad Man charges. The officer goes down.
I hear a gurgle I know too well. The young man dying. Alive one moment, gone the next. The Bad Man isn’t just a monster. He is the devil himself.
I crash through the swinging door into the kitchen. More wind whips around my face, tears at my hair. I want to be angry at them. Stop picking on me. Attack him instead.
But I get it. Even in death, they are afraid. I would be, too.
I snap on the commercial dishwasher. Once it reaches temperature, it’ll fill the kitchen with steam as boiling hot water sprays from inside the hood. I’ve worked with the dishwasher. I know how to withstand its spray. Does he?
I want a knife, but I’ve already been through that. Waving a butter knife at him. Only to have him attack, disarm, then carve me up with his much larger blade.
He’s so big, so strong. He stood behind Mrs. Counsel and squeezed the life out of her without breaking a sweat. He took out my blond protector in a single tackle, leaving her broken on the floor. Then dashed upstairs and killed a second armed deputy in a matter of minutes.
I feel a fresh hitch in my throat, panic rising, choking me. In desperation, I yank open the door to the broom closet. The mop sits inside, long handle protruding from its rolling yellow bucket. Maybe I can use the wooden handle to hit him, like the older woman attacking D.D. with the poker. The handle is long enough, maybe I can stay out of reach of his blade.
Then I see the bottle of bleach and am seized by a second idea.
I grab the bottle, unscrew the cap, douse the mophead liberally. I just finish emptying the bottle when the kitchen door bangs open. The Bad Man looms before me, his face flecked with blood, his hunting knife still dripping.
The room goes still. No more wind, restless spirits. We are all, living and dead, equally terrified.
“Did you miss me?” he asks.
I tighten my hands on the mop handle, and prepare to make my last stand.
