I tried to shift around the floor, the chair legs digging sideways into the carpet. I thought about how Sarah would hear him kill me before her. From where I lay, I could see the stairs to the second floor, and of course he’d spot me first on the way down. Sarah would have to listen to me scream as he cut me open. I wondered if there was a way I could face the end with anything resembling dignity. If I could keep from screaming, would it make Sarah’s last few moments any less terrifying? At that moment, that was all I could think to give to her, to let her die knowing that I had not suffered that severely. That while not painless, it had not gone on long. It wasn’t much of a birthday present, but it was all I had to give.

“He’s in! He’s in!”

She didn’t have to tell me. Rick’s entrance into our bedroom had been announced with a crash. Our dresser is under the window, and in coming through it, Rick had sent a lamp to the floor.

I heard him cackle. “Your hearts!” he screamed. “I’m gonna fucking eat them!”

And I thought about Paul and Angie, about how sorry I was to have done this to them, to have allowed their parents to be taken away from them, much too soon, and in such an ugly fashion. Would my dad take them in, or maybe Sarah’s parents? Or would Angie turn into an adult overnight, look after Paul herself, tell her grandparents that she could handle this on her own? It would be like her to try, I thought. She was tough, and proud, and she’d feel honor bound to look after her little brother all by herself.

Rick was out of the bedroom and running down the hall. I saw his shadow fall across the top of the stairs.

This was it.

“Sarah,” I said. Not a scream. I just wanted to say her name. And to make one final apology: “I’m sorry.”

Rick came flying down the stairs. I don’t mean he was running quickly, taking the steps two or three at a time. He was airborne.

His head was thrust out well ahead of his body. His arms were outstretched, the knife forging out ahead of him in his right hand. His feet were off the ground. If he’d worn a cape, it would have been flowing and rippling in the breeze behind him.

His mouth was open in astonishment. This, evidently, was not how he’d planned to come down this flight of stairs. Now his arms were waving, his legs kicking, trying to make some sort of purchase, to regain his footing.