Sal had gone silent now, so silent, if not for the howling wind, he’d hear me gasping for breath.
Up. Go up. I snuck around the corner of the dining room, poking my head around it to see the stairs, trying to keep my ragged, fear-filled breathing to a minimum. My eye ached like the dickens, making everything feel off kilter.
When I saw the coast was clear, I ran like the hounds of hell were nipping at my heels, clamping my mouth shut when I hit a jagged patch of wood on the stairs.
I’d just made it to the top where the landing met the steps when Sal’s heavy feet touched the first tread. His roar of anger tearing through the air had me biting the inside of my cheek to keep from screaming in terror.
I almost couldn’t make my feet move, but Win was there again. “Hide, Stevie! Choose a room, get into it and around the corner of the doorframe. If he gets to you before the police arrive, whack him again. Run, Stevie!”
I flew down the long, dark hallway to the left, scooting into the second room and directly around the corner just as sirens pealed, piercing the night air. My eye throbbed, my vision becoming worse by the second.
Sal’s footsteps grew closer, pounding, driving, running right past the room I was hidden in, and I almost breathed a sigh of relief, thinking Sal had gone another way, until Win bellowed, “Stevie, now!”
I whacked at the air, not even sure what I was whacking at, it was so dark, but I got him good on some fleshy part of his body I couldn’t distinguish. Judging from Sal’s howl of discontent, it hurt. As my eyes began to adjust, I pushed my way past him, using all my strength to get out the door.
I managed to fumble to the hallway, crashing against the wall before I took off running again, unsure where to go next.
“Stevie! I’m going to tell you to do something crazy, but it’ll buy you time until the police get here! You can’t let him get his hands on you or he’ll strangle you before the police arrive. See that rope on the scaffolding at the edge of the broken railing to the stairs? Grab it, push off the step then make like Tarzan and swing!”
“Are you insane? I’ll never make that! Have I mentioned I failed gym?” I cried as the rope he was talking about came into view. It was hanging from the highest point of the entryway scaffolding that went all the way across to the wall along the stairs—the entryway I’d thought would eventually be so beautiful, not where I’d leap to my death.
Uh, no way.
But Sal’s feet were coming faster now, his insidious footsteps, the rasp of his breath lending to sheer terror like I’ve never known.
So I did it. I ran for that rope like it was the only thing to grab on to that would keep me from falling off the edge of the planet.
The coarse material ripped at my hands as I gripped it, wrapping it around my restrained wrists, panic making me push off the step just as Sal grabbed at my right foot, his fingers slipping off my ankle with a howl of rage.
“Ahhh!” As I flew across the entryway and headed into the parlor, where I was sure I was going to fall to my death, I screamed again.
My scream was matched by Sal’s bone-chilling howl, making me swivel my head to see him fall head first over the banister. His skull hit the table saw with a sick thud before he landed on the entryway floor, a pool of blood spreading out behind his ebony hair.
But Win gave me yet another order. “Don’t look back again, Stevie! Look down and the minute you see the parlor floor, drop, tuck, roll!”
Honest, as I flew over the entryway and into the parlor, I’m not sure I had a choice but to drop because my entire being shook with fear.
“Drop, Stevie! Drop now!”
So, I dropped, probably fifteen feet or so, definitely much higher than the window at Madam Z’s, and fell to the floor on my arm in a crumpling heap.
So much for tuck and roll.
Then there were flashlights and sirens and people yelling and Sandwich on crutches, kneeling down beside me. “Stevie! Don’t move. Stay right there,” he ordered, suddenly sounding incredibly authoritative. “Here, let me get the tape off your wrists.”
But I had to see if Sal was really dead, so I sat up, my body bruised and battered, my feet bloody and raw.
Win’s warmth surrounded me all at once. “Stevie. Don’t look anymore. You’ve seen enough. Please.”
“But Sal…what if—”
“He didn’t,” Win reassured me in soft words. “He’s gone. There’s nothing to fear.”
Sandwich confirmed what Win told me as he took the tape from my wrists with gentle hands. “It’s all okay now, Stevie. There’s nothing to worry about where he’s concerned.”
And then I remembered Forrest, his arm wounded from a bullet, his head gushing blood. “Forrest!”