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9-1-1.
But she couldn’t go into Mama’s bedroom again, she couldn’t see her parents that way . . . no, she backed up, scrambling to her feet. There was a phone in the kitchen and Sam Junior’s new cell phone upstairs. She’d call the police. Get an ambulance. But as she raced through the living room, she saw Jonas had collapsed again. She was probably too late!
She started for him.
The front door swung open.
Marlie?
No!
Nother sister.
A man.
A big man filled the doorway.
The killer!
She knew it.
Oh. God.
She let out a short scream and spun, her bare heel sliding in a pool of sticky blood.
“Holy shit! What the fu—?” the man said.
He’d seen her!
She took off at a dead run.
As fast as her feet would carry her, she flew through the dining room, knocking over a chair before she sped across the short span of the butler’s pantry to the kitchen.
“Hey!” The voice was deep and male. Commanding. “Hey! You! Stop!”
She yanked the door open, sprinted across the porch and jumped from the steps to the snow-covered backyard.
“Stop! Little girl!”
No way!
His loud voice only propelled her farther and faster through the drifts. From the corner of her eye she saw his massive shape on the porch.
“Stop! Hey, little girl—”
Without thinking, she ducked under the lowest limbs of the fir trees and cut to the back path, the one that led to the lake. The snow here was packed, as if someone else had trod on it, and it felt like ice between her toes. Still she raced unheeding as branches slapped at her face and berry vines clawed at her pajamas. She heard her sleeve rip, felt the prick of a thorn, but she didn’t stop, didn’t dare chance a look behind her. Her lungs were starting to burn, her breath coming out in a foggy mist, but she didn’t slow. Her heart was pounding and she kept her head down, skimming through a copse of trees, feeling snow fall onto her shoulder as she brushed against the branches.
What had happened?
Who had killed Mama and Daddy?
Why? She felt the tears start to freeze on her cheeks as she ran through the thickets and she saw in her mind’s eye her family, bloodied and slashed, horrid images flashing through her mind, appearing behind the trees that were a blur. Her parents unmoving as they lay in their own blood. Sam Junior and Donner with their hair matted in blood, eyes glazed as they lay next to each other. Jonas raising up, telling her torun. Get help.And Marlie, ghost white, peeking from behind a long-needled pine, urging her to keep going.Run, Kara!she yelled over the pounding in Kara’s ears.
All in her imagination, she knew.
All ghosts.
Her vision blurred with tears, but she forced her legs to keep moving, her near-frozen feet to fly through the snow.
