Fire and iron… fire and iron… The words burned across his brain as he raced around the roof in a futile search for something to defend himself with. There was no iron up here! Everything was aluminum, tin, plastic, wood! If only he could find a crowbar or even a piece of rusted iron railing—something, anything to swing at her head as she poked it up over the edge!

There was nothing. The only thing that even remotely resembled a weapon was the broken remnant of the flagpole. It wasn’t iron and it wasn’t fire… but with its sharp, splintered lower end it might serve as a twelve-foot spear. He picked it up by its top end—there was a ball at the tip—and hefted it. It wobbled like a vaulting pole and the oscillations caused waves of pain in his back. It was heavy, it was crude, it was unwieldy, but it was all he had.

Jack put it down and loped over to the edge of the roof. The Mother was no more than a dozen feet below him and climbing fast.

It’s not fair! he thought as he ran back to where the pole lay. He had as good as killed her twice in ten minutes, yet here he was hurt and bleeding and she was climbing a brick wall as if nothing had happened to her.

He picked up the pole by the balled end and levered it to a horizontal position by using his left arm as a fulcrum. Groaning with the pain, he pointed the splintered end toward the spot where he expected the Mother to appear and began to run. His left arm began to lose strength as he ran. The point sank toward the roof surface but he clenched his teeth and forced it upward.

Have to keep it up… go for the throat…

Again, he knew timing would be critical: If the Mother gained the roof too soon, she would dodge him; too late and he would miss her completely.

He saw one three-fingered hand slip over the edge of the parapet, then another. He adjusted his direction to the area above and between those hands.

“Come on!” he screamed at her as he increased his speed. “Keep coming!”

His voice sounded hysterical but he couldn’t let that bother him now. He had to keep that goddamned point up and ram it right through her—

Her head appeared and then she was pulling herself up onto the parapet. Too fast! She was too fast! He couldn’t control the wavering point, couldn’t lift it high enough! He was going to miss his target!

With a cry of rage and desperation, Jack put every pound of his body and every remaining ounce of strength left to him behind a final thrust against the balled end of the pole. Despite all his effort, the point never reached the level of the Mother’s throat. Instead, it rammed into her chest with a force that nearly dislocated Jack’s right shoulder. But Jack didn’t let up—with his eyes squeezed shut he followed through with barely a break in his stride, keeping all his weight behind the makeshift spear. There was a moment of resistance to the spear’s path, followed by a sensation of breaking free, then it was yanked out of his hands and he fell to his knees.