"Yeah it does. I'm making coffee. Did you want some?"
I stare her and can see the day has aged her a little around the eyes. Does it hurt her feelings calling me Marie? Is she hiding her frustration behind a mask?
"That would be amazing," I say. I need the caffeine hit to help keep me awake. Now it's nighttime again, anything could happen. Zach seems to be bold enough to make his move during the middle of the day or the night.
"It's funny," Beth says. "I thought I'd lose it not being able to see what's happening online, but I'm getting used to it, you know."
A smile streaks across my face for the briefest of moments. I had to abandon all social media when I left my old life behind. Sure, social media wasn't as popular five years ago, but I still shared a laugh with my friends and knew what was going on in their lives. Now, the best I can do is stalk them all alone—something I should give up on.
I see Beth fumbling with the milk from the fridge and step over. "Why don't you have a break. Go lie down for a bit. I've had my rest; it's time for yours."
Beth shakes her head. "No, I can't. I need to stay awake for you, Karen. Sorry, I mean..." She holds her hands over her mouth.
"It's fine. Just call me Karen if it makes things easier. My actual name is irrelevant. And best you forget it anyway. Then you have plausible deniability. You can pretend not to know my real name or my ex's. Then he can't hurt you." My words sound like lies.
Beth continues with her coffee making. She finishes up and hands me a steaming mug of the lifesaving liquid, prepared just the way I love it. This girl is too good to me.
Our drinks go down smoothly. We both place our cups into the sink by habit. I reach out and grab the two mugs to wash them up. The water spurts out, causing a horrific noise and finally ceases to flow.
"What was that?" Beth asks.
"No," I utter. I don't have to say another word to know what's happening. Still, I need to confirm the horrible thought running through my head. I charge to the bathroom and run the tap in there. Same result. The animal outside has turned off our water. What's next? The electricity? Would he throw us into the dark with no water and a limited supply of food? This has gone beyond torture.
"The water doesn't work!" Beth yells when I move back out of the bathroom. "Why would he turn the water off? Is he a lunatic?"
"Something like that. I think this is the next phase of the plan to force us outside straight into danger."
"But that's our water supply gone. We have none in the fridge."
"He's stepping up the game," I say as calmly as I can. "Something's forced him to move things along. All we—"
Without warning, the power to the house shuts off. One second, I’m staring at Beth's bewildered face; the next everything is thrown into darkness. Only the streetlights from the front of the living area provide any form of relief.
"Beth," I say to where she was standing only a moment ago. I can hear her breathing spike, so I walk slowly toward her. "Keep calm. I promise you we'll get through tonight if we stick together and—"
I bump into the back of the sofa. "Beth? Where are you? Are you okay?" The breathing has stopped. I wave my arms around to locate her nearby, but it's no use.
"Beth?" I call again. My voice cracks and loses any confidence it was commanding earlier. Has he taken her? Has he come inside to do what Zach paid him to do?
"Beth?" I whisper, closing my eyes.
I never thought I'd die like this. I never once figured I would cause the death of a life well before its time, either, but here I am, crippled in the dark, waiting for a blow to strike from the shadows.
The floor creaks around me. Footsteps. I feel the weight of another body ever so slightly force the ground to dip down and back up again with each step. A hand grabs my wrist, forcing me to flinch.
"It's okay. It's just me," Beth says.
I open my eyes to catch her standing by me in less darkness than before. Her cell's flashlight allows me to see again. "Beth? Where did you go?"
"Sorry. Didn't mean to scare you. I got turned around in the dark and ended up walking into the hallway. Then I remembered my cell."
"That's okay," I say to the outline of her face. "Just don't take off again like that."
"I won't. We should stick together and find more light before we trip over something."
"I have a large flashlight in my room. We can save the battery on your phone."
"Good idea. Let's go before—"
A force crashes hard against the front door.
"What was that?" Beth says.
I don't speak. Instead, I remain frozen, stunned by the sudden interruption.
Beth holds her cell's light up to the main entry. It fails to pierce through the darkness in any kind of meaningful way, but we can just make out the shape of the front door.
A long silence takes hold as we both fix our gaze in the same direction. What the hell made that big bang?
Beth turns as she lowers her cell. "Maybe it was a bird or something? Maybe we—"
Three huge thuds pound on the door, snapping my neck around to the source of the disturbance, along with Beth's cell.
There's no denying the sounds blaring out at us. Zach's man is at the front door, ready to let himself in.
Chapter 24
He's at the front door. It's finally happening. Zach has sent his last communication from prison to this maniac in a suit. I always thought Zach would prefer to be here when it all went down. I know he loved seeing the look on the face of anyone who betrayed him when he found them. But I guess a proxy is better than letting me continue to live unimpeded while he rots away in prison.
The banging at the front door stops. Beth and I wait in silence, each stuck staring at each other's faces.
"Has he left?" she asks.
Before I can answer, the sound of pounding on the door is replaced by something far worse: a cordless drill. Beth and I listen in as he begins to drill through the first deadbolt, smashing it to pieces in an instant. It's the weakest one. There are still three more deadbolts for him to destroy though, including the heavy duty lock I rarely engage. They'll slow him down, but they won't stop him coming through.
"Where do we go?" Beth asks.
I glance at her and back to the noise at the front door. It limits our options. We either barricade ourselves further into the house or we make a run for it out the side door while Zach's guy is distracted trying to break the locks. The answer is obvious.
"The side door. It's our best bet while the drill is making all that noise."
Beth nods. "Okay."
I rush at the door and unlock it as the drill is still spinning. I stop the moment it does to hear the second deadbolt clatter about and fall to pieces on the floor inside the living room. He’s not wasting this opportunity and drills into the third lock. I continue working on the side door and get stuck on the final heavy-duty deadbolt that matches the one at the front of the house.
"Come on, dammit," I mutter. Why did I think it would be good to install a lock that was too stiff to be of use? Sure, it's a hard bolt to break into, but my wrists sting anytime I've had to use the damn thing.
The third deadbolt falls inside with a clatter. He's onto the last one while Beth and I are still here. We have to get this open.
Beth charges up and helps me twist the lock sideways. The key that lives inside the deadbolt feels like it might snap at any moment. If it does, we're dead.
We both grunt and groan as the key budges and turn. The lock disengages. "Yes!" I shout over the sound of the drill. I don't care if he hears me at the front, whoever he is. I grab the handle and twist as I move through what I think is an opening door, but my body slams into a wall. It's still shut. "What?"
"Isn't that all four locks?" Beth asks.
I nod. "Definitely." I know this house inside out when it comes to security. I even remember which bars on the windows are the strongest and weakest. I grab Beth by the shoulder. "Come on. Let's push on it together. Something must be blocking the
way."
We both get into position to ram into the exit. I hold my fingers wrapped around the knob. "On three. One. Two. Three." We slam our shoulders into the door as I twist the handle and hold it twisted. All the while, the drill continues to make progress on the final deadbolt at the front door.
The two of us grunt and groan against the thick wood of the reinforced door I paid to have installed in the house the second I moved here. Something is blocking it from opening, and it feels like there's an elephant leaning on the side of the house to restrain us from getting through.
"Open, dammit," Beth yells. "What the heck is this?"
"He's blocked it," I say, realizing all too well a method Zach and his group used to block a person from leaving a room. He and his crew would bring along metal wedge pieces that would fit underneath the small gap in a door. He'd hammer them in so no one could open a door from the other side.
"How do you know?"
"Trust me. I know." I shake my head.
"So you're saying we're trapped then? We're stuck?"
The sound of the fourth deadbolt breaking apart pulls our attention. "Let's go," I say as I grab Beth by the arm and drag her to the corridor toward my room.
"Wait. What are we doing?" she asks.
"Not letting this asshole reach us." We charge through to the hallway as one. The front door bursts open, clattering about with more metal debris. Beth glances back and trips over the cheap runner rug in the opening, dropping her cell. It hits the ground with a crunch, turning its flashlight app off, throwing us into darkness.
Chapter 25
Adrenaline is a funny thing. Not only does it help us handle a fight-or-flight moment but it imprints these times in our lives onto our long-term memories almost better than any other experience. We all remember the time we faced real danger and had to choose whether we met it head on or if we ran away as fast as we could to survive. We tell those stories to every person we meet. Today will forever be in my brain. That much I know for certain.
In the dark, I pull Beth along to my room, my pupils dilating to allow enough light in as possible. We reach my bedroom and charge inside, guided by moonlight filtering in through the barred windows. I slam the door hard. "Hold the handle and press your whole body against it."
"Okay," Beth mutters. "What are you going to do?"
I don't stop moving and rush over to my cupboard. I fling it open and drop to my knees to find what I'm looking for.
"Oh my God!" Beth yells. "He's pushing on the door."
"Don't let him in. I've almost found what I need."
"Hurry," she whispers.
The door bulges. I don't know how she's stopping him from barging through. I can only guess fear is giving her the strength to fight and survive.
"Got them," I say as I pull out two door jams from a dusty box. I rush back and install them as fast as I can where Beth is standing. The second I'm done, she falls to the ground exhausted. She sits there, catching her breath, while I check on the locks again. I bought the door jams ages ago, planning on placing the reinforced devices on the front and side doors. But I soon realized they would be too inconvenient to use regularly. I figured the extra thick external doors and barred windows seemed enough to keep unwanted guests out. I was wrong.
"That was lucky," Beth says in a hushed voice.
"Yeah, I don't know about it being lucky. More paranoia saving the day than anything else."
Beth chuckles. "Whatever those things are, they've just saved us."
"For now," I mutter. I look up and hear the man in the suit banging on the door with his fist. "Dammit," he yells through the wood as he stops. The next thing we sense are his footsteps as he walks away, back to the front door to swing it shut. I figure he doesn't want to be interrupted by anyone walking by to see the entrance to the home has been drilled open. It's only a matter of time before he uses another tool to cut through this internal door in front of us. I never thought I'd have to pay for a special barricade within the home itself. If only I had taken that extra step and built a panic room.
Needing to know where our invader is at all times, I press my ear against the door and listen. His footsteps seem erratic and unfocused. Have things not gone down as planned? Were we not supposed to retreat further back into the house? I soon realize he must be on the phone as I pick up his muffled voice. Is he speaking to Zach? I'd kill to give him a piece of my mind.
"Can you hear what he's saying?" Beth asks.
I shake my head and press my ear tighter against the door. He's still chatting, but I can't understand a word. Frustration takes over. "How is he using his cell?" I ask Beth. "He did the same thing outside near the garden shed."
She shrugs in the dull light. "I guess he must have a way to get only his phone to work through the jammer." Beth steps back from the door. She seems to be coming down a little from the excitement, only allowing herself to think about where we are now. It's a lot to take on, I know. I'm doing what I can to stay ahead of complete and utter defeat. The second I give up is the exact moment Zach wins.
"What now?" Beth asks.
I pull my head away from the door and face her. What do I say? I've got no other moves left to use. We are trapped inside my small bedroom with no way to communicate with the outside world while some crazed man tries to smash his way inside. I realize the truth.
"We're done. All that's between us and that guy out there is this door. The second he breaks through it we're dead."
"No. You can't be serious," Beth says as her breathing intensifies. "There must be something we can do. You must have an idea or a plan."
I don't say a word. I can't think straight. Instead I move to my bed and sit down. I hoped we'd find a way in here. My idea was to run in and jam up the door. We managed to pull that off. Beyond surviving for another moment, I had nothing else up my sleeve.
"There has to be something we can do," Beth whispers.
I pity her optimism. I prayed we'd come out of this thing alive, but Zach planned this well. How could I beat him? He’s spent years thinking about this while I've sat around wasting the same time hiding away from the world in a giant rut.
"Karen," Beth snaps, grabbing my attention. "Sorry, I know that's not your name, but we can't just close down and give up. Not now."
"Why not?" I ask.
"Because," Beth says. Her eyes dance around my room, seeking a solution. She won't find one. "Because, it's not over. He's not bashing on that door yet. Something is holding him back."
I can't imagine what. He seemed determined when he was using a power drill to break his way inside the house. But he keeps talking on his cell, pacing around the living area. Maybe we still have a chance to escape.
I turn to one of the two barred windows in my room and smile.
Chapter 26
I'm not sure if it was panic or defeat making me forget about the windows in the house, but every one of them can have their bars removed. It's just a matter of unscrewing the frame that wraps around the glass.
I fish through my cupboards again, hoping to locate a screwdriver. I know the tool has to be in here. Hell, at this stage I'd accept something left over from an Ikea box.
"Anything?" Beth asks.
I shake my head without answering. There's annoyance in her voice. I told her my idea a moment ago and was a little surprised to see her not jump up and down for joy. She voiced her concerns about trying to remove the bars when we should work on a ‘better’ idea. I had none, and she wasn't pitching anything. So for now, this was the plan.
It had gone quiet out in the living room. I don't know what to make of the absence of the man's voice. He isn't trashing the place by the sounds of things, so I have no clue why we are still alive.
I reach the end of another carton and retrieve a small pocketknife. I'm about to toss it back in its box but think better. Not only can I use the thing to defend myself, but it might just serve the purpose I need more than anything else.
"Please work," I mutter as I stan
d and move toward a window. Beth steps out of my way.
"What's that?" she asks.
"A pocketknife. I'm gonna try it on the window bar screws and hope for the best."
Beth crosses her arms over her chest. It's not cold in the house at all, so I can only imagine that this is a comfort thing.
I pull the blade out from its protective casing. It's not a full Swiss army knife that comes complete with a screwdriver, but it will have to do. I stand on my bed to get closer to one window. I press the point of the knife inside the grooves and attempt to twist. Nothing budges.
"Please work," I say. "Don't let this be it. Not now." I keep trying the blade at different angles and pressures, but it's no use. Nothing wants to turn. I struggle to think about how old these bars are and if I've ever maintained them. I installed them within the first week of living here. I never once sprayed the ends with lubricant oil. All I ever thought to do was to check how secure they felt.
"The window's too old, isn't it," Beth says.
I try to ignore her question as best I can until the tip of the blade snaps, sending my hand through to punch one bar. The pain is instant. "I guess so," I reply with a gasp as I pull my arm back a moment to shake it out.
"Taking the bars off would have been too easy," Beth says.
I let a sigh escape my lips as I fold the knife back in and throw it on my bed. It bounces off onto the floor. "What else will go wrong?" I yell before I slump down on the mattress and press myself into the wall, defeated again.
Beth doesn't answer my hypothetical question and moves back to the door. She takes a quick listen in for our aggressive attacker. She doesn't flinch or move. Why isn't he on the other side of the door ripping it apart with his bare hands?
I glance up to the bars above, knowing freedom is beyond the small barrier. The pain in my hand burns my knuckles but it's nothing compared to the agony in my stomach as I realize how damned we are.
"Maybe he doesn't want us dead. Maybe he needs us contained."
My head lowers to Beth. "What are you saying?"
"Think about it. Why hasn't he drilled his way through yet? It's only a cheap internal door made of wood and cardboard, right? You may have blocked it with those jams, but one swift kick would snap it in two."
He's At Your Door: a gripping psychological thriller Page 8