Lips pressed tight, Karen gave her mother a brief nod, went down several steps before reaching up to grab the door and flip it closed. Laurie stared after her, watched the island spin back to its normal location, once again hiding the shelter entrance.
Immediately, she returned to the front door with her shotgun to keep an eye on The Shape. As she neared the right vertical pane of distorted glass, a fist smashed through the left window and Michael’s right hand grabbed her face, dislodging her glasses as he pulled her closer to the door. She tried to twist free, but his powerful arm slipped lower and wrapped around her throat, shoving her face against the wooden door. Despite her struggles, her strength was no match for his and she remained helplessly pinned there. With the door separating them, he couldn’t strangle her, only hold her in place, until—
—his left arm burst through the other window-pane, his hand reaching desperately for her. If he got both hands on her head—her face—
She blocked the gruesome thought. Since she couldn’t pull herself away from the door, she twisted around within his grasp, trying to loosen his hold, and ended up with her back pressed tight to the door. But that freed her arms and her hands.
Angling the shotgun barrel toward the window, she switched off the safety and pumped a round into the empty chamber. A second later, Michael’s frantically grasping left hand closed over the top of the barrel—
Laurie pulled the trigger, momentarily deafened by the roar as she watched Michael’s left hand explode in a mist of blood, his index and middle fingers completely disintegrated. Only his thumb, ring and little fingers remained.
As both his arms let go and withdrew through the broken windows, Laurie staggered away from the door, her momentum carrying her to the base of the stairs before she regained her balance.
Glancing back at the shattered windowpanes—new breaches into her home—Laurie needed time to reassess. Crossing through to the kitchen, she moved the island along its turning axis and opened the secret door to join Karen in the shelter below. Once there, she flipped a circuit breaker to turn off the upstairs lights, then turned the switch to slide the island back into place.
Breathing deep and measured, The Shape reaches his intact right hand through the broken window closest to the locks and lifts the open bar barricade, tossing it aside. Then The Shape feels along the doorjamb for the locks, unlatching them one by one, finally turning the deadbolt above the doorknob. With the restraints gone or disabled, The Shape turns the doorknob and enters her house, now cloaked in darkness.
In the basement shelter, Laurie opened the weapons locker and swapped her 12-gauge shotgun for the high-powered bolt-action rifle with its detachable magazine. Then she stood before a frightened Karen and squeezed her hand.
“This is it. It all ends tonight,” Laurie said softly, repeating her statement from earlier, hoping it would comfort her daughter, knowing the fear would end—and soon. “I’m ready—we both are. Do you believe me?” After a moment, Karen nodded. “Good!”
In the momentary silence, they both heard distant footfalls on the floorboards, the slight creak of the joists. From the direction of the sound, Laurie placed him in the living room.
Karen glanced up at the ceiling, following the sound. “That’s him,” she whispered. “Isn’t it?”
Laurie nodded.
Minutes ticked by and Laurie began to wonder. What the hell is he up to? What’s taking him so long to search the house?
Then she heard the creak of the stairs.
She should have had security cameras in the house, with monitors in the shelter. It was maddening to have him roaming through her house with no idea where he was or what he might do next…
Before the growing anxiety became overwhelming, Laurie said, “I’m not going to let anything happen to you. You think this house is my cage?” She smiled. “You’re right. But not tonight. Tonight, it’s a trap.”
They both looked up. Finally, the measured footsteps had moved closer, almost directly overhead. A fine mist of dust motes filtered down, glinting in the light.
He’s in the kitchen.
“I’m scared,” Karen said.
“We can do this. We can kill him,” Laurie whispered, her voice even softer than before. “Let’s burn this motherfucker to the ground.”
Then Laurie held her hand up for silence.
They waited, listening. The footfalls sounded directly overhead.
Raising the rifle to her shoulder and tilting the barrel upward, Laurie tracked the steps. With her eyes closed for a moment to focus only on the sound, she visualized where he was with each methodical step. Then she opened her eyes, worked the bolt, aimed and fired, then repeated the well-practiced firing motion again, and a third time, in rapid succession.
BOOM!—BOOM!—BOOM!
Standing motionless, Laurie cocked her head and listened for any sound from above. Other than bits of wood fluttering down to the floor, she heard nothing.
Into the renewed silence, Karen said, “This is your fate.”
Laurie looked at Karen. She no longer saw fear in her daughter’s eyes, only the grim determination to see the family nightmare finally come to an end. And, at last, the acknowledgment that Laurie really had prepared herself for this, that she would rise to the ultimate challenge of stopping Michael—permanently.
Karen distilled all those feelings into two words, spoken with icy calm: “Kill him.”
After turning the switch to move the kitchen island, Laurie scaled the basement steps and lifted the secret door high enough to scan the kitchen for any sign of him. When she saw the immediate area was clear, she opened the door the rest of the way, lowering it quietly to the tile floor before climbing the rest of the way into the kitchen.
In the dark and quiet house, her senses were on high alert, looking left and right, anticipating the slightest sound, the smallest movement…
She stalked into the living room, stepping lightly so as not to give away her own position. Turning to face the living room closet, she worked the bolt in one smooth motion and fired a shot right through the closed door. Then she stood still, listening. After a moment, she yanked open the door—
—but the closet was empty.
She closed the door and moved on, down a short hallway to a first-floor bedroom. She opened that door and peered inside the dark room. Taking a small flashlight out of her pocket, she flicked it on, took a step through the doorway and swept the room with the narrow beam. No furniture. No hiding places. Empty.
Backing out of the room, she reached for a switch mounted on the wall and flipped it. Instantly, a metal security gate dropped down from within the wall with a metallic shunnnk! sound—and locked in place.
She repeated the whole sequence on the last room downstairs, also empty, her flashlight revealing nobody inside before she flipped another switch, dropping a second security gate—shunnnk!
Shining her flashlight along the hardwood floor, she spotted a trail of blood, the glistening drops leading to the stairs and up the steps. At the top of the staircase, the blood trail turned right. Laurie turned left, creeping toward Karen’s childhood room. Flipping the switch on the exterior wall, she dropped another security gate in place—shunnnk!
Retracing her steps, she passed the staircase, following the blood trail on the floor to the other end of the hallway, to her bedroom. Gradually, she noticed her bedroom door was slightly ajar. When she’d left the room earlier, she’d closed the door. From within the dark room, a dim light glowed.