The intruder’s tread is heavy on the stair, a steady whump like Mothra stomping through Tokyo. Gathering the strength in her legs, Rose lifts again. The window does not budge. Not one quarter of an inch.

Rose hears the footsteps even out. Monster Man is upstairs.

Bending at the waist, she shoves her head through the nine-inch gap between window frame and sill. An ear is scraped raw, but she is breathing outside air. She’s heard that if a person’s head fits through, so will the rest of her body. This seems as good a time as any to test that theory.

The crash and snap of splintering wood help her decide to commit to the task. Monster Man did not bother with the knob; he kicked the bedroom door open. To scare her worse than he already has? If so, it is efficacious. In the instant between kick and grunt, when, Rose supposes, the door hit the wall and ricocheted back to smack the intruder, her body squeezes through the window like dried paint from an old tube.

The window delivers her feet. Rose gets them under her and pushes up. The porch roof is a couple of yards wide and slants gently downward. On one side, it curves around the house in a gentle embrace, forming the long wing of the porch. Hiding there would be a short-term solution. If the intruder looks out the side window, there is no way he would miss seeing her.

The other end of the porch ends abruptly over the driveway. The house is raised, making it a twelve- or fifteen-foot drop either way.

A tremendous crash shakes the roof beneath Rose’s feet. Already pounding, her heart feels as if it stops, then lurches back to life at double speed. The intruder must have upended the king-sized bed and hurled it against the wall.

Ultraviolence.

Rose is glad her cats aren’t home. This would traumatize Laura Lei. She is also glad she isn’t under that bed, exposed like a grub under a rock.

Even if Monster Man is of below-average intelligence, he might put the empty bed and the open window together. If he sees it. Blind and curtain are still closed. Rose hopes he will think she is out for the night.

A tinny rattle, then a muted crash, emanate from the window Rose oozed out of. Not a man for gently opening orifices. The intruder has ripped blind and curtain from the wall. Standing straight, Rose shimmies along, her back to the wall, until she runs out of roof.

No light streams through the denuded window. No fist or foot or piece of furniture smashes out the glass. The intruder must be as leery as Rose of attracting attention from neighbors.