Hands shaking badly, she pulled the shotgun off her shoulder and drew back the slide, sending a cartridge into the chamber. She had just about run out of time, she saw people beginning to swarm onto Nina’s lawn, yelling and screaming, waving their flaming torches. It was now or never. She flew across the lawn and crouched down against the wall next to the kitchen door, the blood pounding in her ears. Her throat tight, her lips numb with terror.
‘Please God,’ she prayed, ‘help me to not mess up.’
She strained to hear what was happening indoors. She heard thudding footfalls fading away and realized that unbelievably, the intruders were going down into the basement. It isn’t possible to be that lucky.
She bounded into the smoke filled kitchen and through the short hall to the basement door. It was wide open. She peered down and could just make out several people at the bottom, illuminated by the glare from a smoky torch. They were opening the door to her workshop. She slammed the basement door shut, feeling the heat from the living room as she threw the bolt. For now, anyway they were locked in.
There was a muffled, ‘hey.’ and then boots pounding up the stairs.
The lounge was burning furiously now, roaring, and she knew that it was not going to be long before the whole house went up, choking on the smoke, she staggered back through the kitchen, pulling her pajama top up over her mouth and nose, tears streaming from her eyes. Behind her, she could hear the thud…, thud…, as the captives threw themselves at the door.
She rounded the corner to the bedroom and came face to face with another intruder. At the sight of his tattooed face, bulging eyes and bared teeth, Georgia came to a skidding halt. A scream stifled in her throat.
‘What the fuck!’ he bellowed and came at her, his balled up fist striking her with the speed of a brown snake. His blow catching the side of her head sending stars pinging in her mind. She staggered back against the wall, jarring her spine, her shotgun skidding back down the hall, out of reach. He struck at her again. She managed to move out of the way at the last moment and he punched the wall with a satisfying crunch. Cursing he drew back his fist to hit her again. In the eerie gloom of the hallway, she could see blood on his knuckles and then she could feel blackness swallowing her up.
She struggled against it, if she blacked out, she was dead, either he would kill her, or she would burn to death, the end would be the same, the kids would be out there on their own. She began to slide down the wall, her legs splayed and then he was down on top of her, yanking at her pajama bottoms. Completely disorientated, her thoughts confused she tried to understand what he was doing. Then she distinctly heard a zipping sound and she knew. The house was burning down around them and he was going to take time out to rape her?
Her inner voice yelled at her. And what? Are you just going to lay there and take it? Where is your great Aussie spirit now? Two hits and you’re anyone’s?
Then he was pushing her legs apart with his knees, the foul reek of his breath as he leaned over her. ‘I am going to ram you good, you fucking trash,’ he said, ‘and when I am finished you are going to know…..’
What he had been going to say, would never be known, for suddenly Georgia felt a white hot rage take over her very being.
‘Like fuck you are,’ she screamed, pulling her legs up against her body, and with her back against the wall giving her extra purchase, her feet firmly together, she kicked out at him with all the strength of her anger and frustration and fury.
The balls of her feet struck him hard in his abdomen and sent him flying backwards. He made a sort of oomph noise as he hit the wall. On all fours, Georgia began to scuttle away, her hands scrabbling for the shotgun. Where was the damn shotgun?
‘You bitch,’ he gasped, desperately trying to draw in air, ‘I am… going to… kill you.’ He got to his knees and started towards her. Then Georgia’s fingers closed over the stock of shotgun, and with herculean effort she managed to regain her footing.
She swung the weapon in his direction just as he lunged at her, and before she had even really thought about whether or not to shoot him, she had pulled the trigger. The sound was deafening, the front of her attackers t-shirt seemed to blossom with a dark red mushiness. She felt his blood spattering her face, the ringing of tiny bells in her ears and the strong smell of cordite burning her nostrils.
He opened his mouth as though he was trying to say something, but just a horrible animal-like sound came out. One hand raised still towards her. She pumped the action, ejecting the used cartridge as the next one slid into place and stood ready to shoot.
Behind her, she was aware that the thudding against the door had stopped. Had they escaped? Had the gunshot silenced them? She didn’t know and right now she really didn’t care, she had just seen what a gun could do to a chest and it wasn’t pretty.
Time seemed to stand still. The man sat slumped before her, twitching from time to time. Then he made a horrible sound way down in his throat, as though he was trying to clear it of phlegm, and slowly he began to topple forward. His face hit the ground first, with a crunch and he lay still.
Georgia suddenly became aware of the sounds again outside, the mob rampaging and shouting, glass breaking, people screaming. Then she heard a huge crash and splintering of wood. Had they smashed open the basement door? She had to move.
She flung open the bedroom door, and shut it behind her, locking it with trembling fingers. ‘Ant,’ she whispered into the darkness as she slung the shotgun back over her shoulder.
There was no sound and in blind panic she swept her hand across the bed covers feeling for the dog, looking for a bump, but there was no sign of her, and then suddenly there was a lump that moved as she touched it. She yanked aside the bedding and snatched Ant up. ‘Thank God,’ she whispered, hugging her close. The tiny form trembling in her arms.
All of a sudden, there was a huge whoomph sound that buffeted the room and then she could hear flames crackling just on the other side of the door, a line of red licking along the floor showing beneath the gap and above her the ceiling was glowing orange. Acrid smoke started seeping through the walls.
Absolute terror sent a surge of adrenaline through her veins, spurring her into action. Dumping Ant back onto the bed, she snatched at the shoes on the floor, flinging them onto the blanket, then she swept the clothes from the top of the dresser and dumped them on top of the shoes.
She hastily rolled the blanket up, tucked Ant under one arm and raced over to the window. This place was going to burn down, with both of them in it, if they did not get out in the next few seconds.
She tugged at the window. It would not open. ‘Oh Shit!’ she screamed, in rage and terror. The window was stuck. She put the rolled up blanket and Ant down on the ground, her heart thudding furiously. ‘Don’t you dare move,’ she screamed.
Then she attacked the sash window again, desperately trying to force it upwards, but it would not budge. Oh God, they were going to die in here. There was no way to smash these windows, last year they had put security glass in all the bedrooms.
Smoke was billowing in now, and the heat was becoming unbearable. Ant started sneezing. This is so not good. ‘Think woman, think,’ she said aloud, her voice nearly drowned out by the rushing and roaring from the flames. Suddenly she recalled that with some of these old windows you could pull the top half down. They could get out that way.
She ran her fingers along the wood, trying to find a place to grip, and it was then that her trembling fingers found the window catch. The window was not jammed shut. It was locked! In her panic she had forgotten that she had gone round yesterday, making sure all the catches were secure. She flipped the catch to one side and then with an almighty heave, shoved the window up so hard that if it hadn’t been security glass, it would have shattered.
Instantly she bent down, snatched up Ant and the bundled blanket and then they were out into the night and into the sweet night air. All around her was madness, but the back yard, unbelievably, was still clear. She did
a running crouch to the side fence, crawling down into the thick foliage of the Hydrangeas that grew in abundance.
Ant was kicking against her, struggling indignantly to be set free. Georgia realized she was holding her upside down, and rearranged her as she stared across the lawn. In the half dark she could see shadows flitting back and forth, men with glowing torches, flames smoking, rocks being thrown against Nina’s house.
The bags still lay outside the back door, so near and yet so far. Now the house was nearly fully engulfed in flames, virtually lighting up the entire yard. She no longer had a choice. She could not stay hiding amongst the shrubs any longer, it would only take one of the mob to spy her, and they would all be upon her.
She just wanted to run for the back fence but she couldn’t leave the knapsacks. Their survival depended upon them. Her legs were shaking so badly now, but she had to get moving. From where she crouched she could see more people streaming up the road, the same dreadful scenes replaying over and over as they smashed in windows three and four houses past her own. Out of sight, she heard the terrible screaming of another woman, and, oh dear God, was that a child she heard screaming in terror and pain. There were shrieks of laughter and hooting and more mind numbing shrieks of mortal agony and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it.
What she could do though, was get moving, force her legs to move, because if she didn’t, then probably the last thing she would be hearing on this earth would be Deedee and Rebecca screaming in that same dreadful way.
‘Here goes,’ she shouted silently in her mind and ran full tilt at the bags, snatching them up awkwardly, one, two, dropping the third, snatching it up again, and then racing for the shelter of the oak tree, the straps cutting into her fingers and Ant bouncing against her chest.
She expected to hear gunfire, to feel the bullets thudding into her back. The mob screaming like crazed banshees, ‘there she is,’ and…, but nothing happened. They had not seen her. Or, if they did, they were too busy with other things.
She glanced back at the house, and from where she was standing, she could look straight through the kitchen into the hallway. The basement door was still firmly closed! When Nathan had installed that bolt, to keep potential burglars from sneaking into the house through a basement window, he had done them proud.
Giving it one last mighty effort, she darted towards the back fence, glancing round as she reached it to make sure she had not been seen. Then she was in the foliage, in the relative safety again.
‘Rebecca?’
Silence.
Her heart began to thud, oh hell..., ‘Rebecca?’ she hissed a little louder into the blackness on the other side of the fence.
‘Georgia?’
Relief flooded through her. ‘Okay Rebecca, I have Ant, passing her over now.’ She felt Rebecca’s hands on hers as she reached up and took the tiny dog, then Georgia dropped the knapsacks and the blanket over.
Behind her, she heard gunfire again and she ducked down instantly, fear turning her legs to jelly, terrified that finally someone had spotted her.
But no one was looking her way, they were all milling around the house, four numbers up. She hoisted herself up over the fence, leaning with her belly against the wood as she slid her legs over, scrapping her inner thigh on something sharp and then she dropped down into the grass on the other side.
The kids were huddled together, the Bostons silent at their feet. She crawled over to them, and it was only now as she put her arms around them and hugged them close that she became aware of her aching body, a dull throbbing across the side of her face, her grazed knees, and a stickiness that caked her pajama top.
‘It’s going to be okay,’ she whispered.
Deedee began to cry.
‘Hush,’ Georgia murmured, ‘you mustn’t cry. They mustn’t hear us. I promise you everything is going to be okay.’
Deedee went silent, but she could feel her small body shuddering from time to time.
‘Did you get our shoes?’ Jamie whispered, his voice tight with fear.
‘Yes, they’re here,’ and as she spoke she moved over to the blanket, feeling round for the footwear.
Hurriedly, they put them on, for a moment there, in the darkness she could not find one of Rebecca’s shoes, had she dropped it, but then she discovered it, hidden in one of the folds and passed it over to her.
‘I am so proud of you guys,’ she whispered, as she pulled her laces tight and tied them. ‘You were so brave and did exactly what I asked. Your dad would be proud of you too.’
From over the top of the fence, Georgia could hear the terrible crackling that came from the burning houses. Their home included. By morning, it would just be charred ruins and there would be nothing left of all their treasures and photographs and…
She suddenly went cold. In the basement, next to the workbench was the gun safe, with the rest of the ammo she had put away for safe keeping, and also next to the workbench was an oxygen bottle and a propane gas bottle, and the house was on fire.
If all that went up, it was going to beat all the 4th of July fireworks for the last ten years put together.
‘Okay, we need to move fast,’ she said. ‘Each of you grab a knapsack and put it on. The dogs will either follow us or not. I don’t have their leads.’ As she spoke, she hastened over to her own pack and hoisted it up over her aching shoulders. Then she slung the shotgun over her shoulder, grabbed the rolled up blanket and bent down to scoop up Ant.
‘Rebecca, Jamie, I need you to each take an end of the shopping caddy and carry it, when we are in a safer place we can pull it behind us, but right now we don’t want to risk making any noise.’
Cautiously, they set off along the long drive leading down to the road running parallel to their own. Somewhere to their right, Georgia heard a whimpering sound, and peering under the bushes near the front of the house she saw that it was Zeus, the German shepherd that belonged to one of the neighbors.
There was a dull glint from a chain, leading from his collar. Jamie whispered, ‘he’s chained up, we can’t just leave him like that.’ and before she could stop him, and she was not even sure that she would have, he was under the bushes and then he was back.
‘His chain was all tangled,’ he whispered, ‘I just took his collar off.’
‘Okay let’s go then.’
They turned right and headed towards Warnall road.
‘Don’t you ever do that again, Jamie,’ Georgia said in a low voice, feeling a hypocrite even as she said it, because she was very glad he had untangled Zeus, but also really angry, and yes, scared, with him for darting off like that.
‘I am sorry Georgia,’ he said, but he did not sound sorry at all.
Warnall road was just in sight when suddenly there was an almighty explosion. ‘Get down,’ she shrieked, roughly pushing the kids to the ground, and for a long moment ash and debris rained down upon them.
‘Holy cow,’ Jamie said, ‘what was that?’
‘That,’ Georgia said, ‘was our house. I think the gas bottles in the workshop just blew up.’
‘I hope it killed lots of the bad guys,’ Deedee said.
‘Yes, I think that it probably did,’ Georgia replied, and then thought about the basement door and how it had still been locked, and she was only marginally taken aback that she didn’t care. After a few moments, they all got to their feet and began walking down the road.
They made an odd little group, Georgia reflected. The four of them in pajamas, carrying their entire worldly possessions with them; two dogs pacing alongside keeping very close, and one complaining bitterly, under her arm.
Behind them, the sky glowed orange, reflecting the light of the fires burning where their home had once stood.
Ahead of them lay …., Georgia didn’t know, but perhaps that was a good thing.
Chapter Twelve
It was so very dark, the thin crescent of the moon casting a faint ghostly glow over the streets and the houses, barely enough to see by. Th
e still of the night, broken only by the sound of their hurried steps and the occasional half stifled, ‘ow’, or ‘ouch’, as one or another of them tripped, or walked into something.
Georgia did not dare stop, not yet. The bundled blanket kept slipping and now she was holding it gathered against her chest. Ant was wedged in the crook of her arm, her head tucked under Georgia’s chin. The absolute terror that she had been feeling had abated somewhat. Now she felt numb, as her mind tried to grasp the reality of what had just happened, but through the haze that filled her mind, she knew that they had to keep moving.
She was very familiar with the neighborhood, but tonight as they moved along the silent deserted sidewalks, she found herself disoriented by the absence of light. She had walked these streets at night before and everywhere there had been light. The pools of illumination from the evenly spaced streetlights, the red, greens and yellows from the traffic lights, the sparkling, gem like appearance of the city at night, and the constant stream of passing cars, headlights ablaze as they zipped past. She had never realized how dark a city could be, and tonight Kansas City was a very dark place, black and shadowy and sinister.
It was not until they reached the church on the corner of Warnall and Bannister that she decided they could afford to stop. She led the children round the side of the building and away from the road.
‘Wait here,’ she said.
Deedee clung to Georgia’s elbow. ‘Don’t leave us.’
‘I am not going to leave you, I promise, I am just going to see if there is anyone around.’
She crept to the edge of the building. It was hard to make out anything at all. Here, atop the hill, there was a light breeze stirring through the trees. She hesitated, listening warily. She thought she could still hear the low angry murmur of the crowd they had left behind, but it was so faint, that she may have been imagining it. She walked behind the church and after a moment, realized that the shapes, looming out of the shadows all around her, were in fact gravestones.
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