She looked around the little bedroom frantically for a place to hide, a weapon, anything. The closet was there, but the door was shattered from the last attack, and besides, it would be the first place he’d look. Fighting panic, she limped back to the open doorway, praying that if it was him, God, please keep him downstairs, just a little longer. The dim light from the bedroom skylight fell in a thin rectangle on the floor of the hallway, not quite reaching the stairs. The hall itself was deeply shrouded in shadows as it led off on one side to the bathroom and on the other to Jessica’s bedroom. It was empty. Still, her heart beat a heavy, constant pulse in her ears, and she felt a wave of dizziness and nausea.

She took one faltering step out into the empty hallway. Her breathing was harsh and ragged, and she tried to gulp it back inside and silence the noise it made. There was a shadow at the bottom of the stairs. She saw it clearly, even from her position, looking down into the darkness. It slipped along the wall among the other vague night forms, a deeper shade of black within the grays. She sucked in her breath and it made a harsh hissing sound through her clenched teeth.

She froze. The shadow had stopped. Now she wasn’t sure if it had been there at all, it was so difficult to see…

She took a step to the left as gently as she could, trying desperately to keep that damned poker from ringing against the wood floor, grateful for the noise of the wind. Off to her right past the stairs, the hallway ended abruptly at the bathroom door, but to her left it stretched out into the darkness, past Jessica’s room and around the corner, where it opened up and looked out over the two-story living room. She shuffled ever so slowly down that way, glancing back and forth from the top of the stairs to the hallway in front of her. As she neared Jessica’s room, she heard another noise, this time much closer.

…Oh God, he’s there he’s on the stairs…

She turned and limped as fast as she could around the corner, the poker scraping softly against the floor, her leg dragging behind like unwanted baggage. As she reached the railing, she clearly heard the sound of a footstep on the wood floor behind her. She whirled around, her back to the opening over the living room.