Woman in the Window (27 page)

Authors: Thomas Gifford

BOOK: Woman in the Window

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Then she heard him scream unintelligibly, heard the cry cut off as if he had fallen in the snow, but it wasn’t a human sound. It was the sound of the instrument of her own death and she gulped, struggled on, ripping her ankles on the frozen snow.

She reached the door to the barn, the same door she’d gone in before, only a few hours ago, and she pushed it open, went inside. Suddenly the sound seemed far away, the wind was reduced to the whining and the draft through the chinks in the walls, and it wasn’t so cold. She stood quietly, willing her eyes to accustom themselves to the darkness.
Don’t turn on that light, Natalie, just find a hiding place, get out of the way
…
feel around for a weapon, a rake, a shovel, anything.

Instead she tripped over some piece of Tony’s apparatus, fell heavily, scraping her hand. She forced herself back to her feet, felt her way slowly toward the narrow stairway she had climbed before, banged into something else in her path, finally reached the bottom step; grabbed on to the handrail, and began climbing past the sacks and boxes and cans stacked on the steps.

The door was ripped open and the night came in again, the wind and the roar like a hungry beast.

“Natalie!” He sounded as if he were speaking in tongues, a different voice, a deep cry from the pit. “Natalie! I’m here! I’ve come to get you. …”

She crouched halfway up the stairs, afraid to move or make a sound. Her mouth was dry and her heartbeat was out of control.

She heard him close the door, sealing them off, heard him stumbling around, muttering. She lay quietly trying to remember what she had seen on the second floor, the balcony where Tony stored his stained glass … there were frames of all sizes, long pieces of wood, shreds of soldering material scattered across the floor like droppings, half-finished sheets of stained glass, several huge completed works, boxes and crates and nondescript bags. …

The dim light suddenly came on and she saw him standing in the doorway, still wearing his gray suit, which was dusted with snow and hung loosely now that he’d removed the padding from his torso. His face was deathly pale, his eyes flickered around the barn like searchlights tilting and out of control.

She could make herself no smaller and even in the dim light with the shadows and the gloom he saw her. He saw her and he smiled.

“Natalie. There you are. Just wait right there, right where you are, Natalie.” He pointed his finger like a schoolteacher warning a difficult student. The burn across his face had bubbled, looked like a parasitic slug clinging to him, eating his flesh.

She was frozen to the spot, trapped.

He began looking around him, making an inventory of materials. He glanced up at her every few seconds, smiling, nodding his head. “Don’t be impatient with me, Natalie.” He laughed to himself. “Let’s take our time with this. …”

On a workbench he found what he wanted but she couldn’t make it out. He was tinkering with it, looking at it.

Suddenly a dart of flame appeared in the darkness; he held it up, admired it. An acetylene torch. One of Tony’s pieces of apparatus, something he used. He admired the flame from all angles, the orange and yellow and blue, adjusted it, stretching the tongue of flame.

“All right, Natalie. Here I come. It’s time, Natalie.”

Holding the angry, fiery needle before him, he began advancing toward the bottom of the stairway. She felt the tremor as he stood on the first step, grinning up at her. He was only fifteen feet below her and frantically she turned, raced to the top of the stairs. Grinning, he plodded on.

All she could find to save herself were the exquisite pieces of stained glass.

She tipped a large frame over and heaved it down the stairway.

Surprised, he stepped aside, kicked at it, shattered it, sending it exploding into the darkness beneath the stairs.

She hurled down another and he stopped, fended it off, the grin remaining in place. He came on. Another plunged toward him and he kicked it away, laughing. Huge pieces of stained glass, crimson and green and yellow, broke off and splintered, raining into the barn below.

He came on, the flame darting like a snakes tongue.

Feeling behind her, she found the immense frame, a piece of antique wood, and she tugged it forward, straining, breaking fingernails to slide it across the uneven wooden floorboards. He was halfway up the stairs now, his face like a mask of laughter, laughter at her helplessness, at this lone woman without protection.

With the last reserves of strength she leaned into the frame, pushing with her shoulder, and sent it spinning and toppling off the top stair. So large that for a moment it blocked her view, it teetered, crashed into the wall, and then slowly seemed to split in two, snapping like a giant slab of ice, and she could see him again throwing one arm up to shield himself from its erratic trajectory. But he had brought his free arm up too high and a jagged splinter of dull yellow glass, like a sword, glanced off the wall and drove underneath his arm and entered his chest, between the flaps of the suit jacket, entered through his shirt and drove him back like a fist. …

He stood still, leaning back against the wall, the smile slowly fading as he looked down at his chest as if he wasn’t quite understanding what had happened. He tried to pull himself together, took a step away from the wall, then another, and then the pain and the weight of the glass that had impaled him began to tear at him. He clutched at his chest as Natalie watched, her hand to her mouth to stop the screaming. …

He looked at her again, his eyes rolling back, and grabbed at the great glass pillar implanted in his chest and turned the torch on himself. Instantaneously it burned his chest black and he cried out; stumbled, fell backward, tumbling down the stairs, crashing face down, driving the glass clear through him, the point ripping open the back of his coat. He lay twitching, lying on top of the torch, and as she crouched, rocking on her heels, clutching her arms around her knees, she realized she was smelling the burning of his flesh … his body was smoking. …

She leaned against the wall and closed her eyes.

Natalie didn’t move for a long time.

The wind and the storm seemed far away.

All the fear seemed somehow as if it had never quite happened to her. Pure fantasy. A bad dream. A story to be told late at night.

She tried to remember the night it had begun, the man throwing the gun, the laughter in the hallway outside her door.

She remembered all the men who had played their parts in the story of the last two weeks, all the men in her life who had been passing through and had been concerned, for her, for themselves, all the men who had wanted something from her, had hoped for something from her, who had tried to help her while helping themselves … all the decent men and those who weren’t so decent. …

Tony, who would soon be gone.

Jay, whose past held such awful secrets and who would never change.

Lew Goldstein, who had worried and tried to help.

Rory Linehan, sniveling and weak and drunk and sad. …

Bradley Nichols, who had run afoul of fate.

Dr. Drummond, who hadn’t been Dr. Drummond at all.

Barry Hughes …

And MacPherson. Who had tried to make her Christmas bright.

She wiped her eyes at last and stood up, waited until her legs stopped shaking.

Slowly, like a very careful child, she descended the stairway toward the body of Barry Hughes. There was no way past him. She stopped near the bottom, unable for a moment to step across him. What if he weren’t dead yet …

In the end—having waited, staring at the still-smoldering body with the stake of glass protruding from its back—she stepped across him and walked out the barn door.

The snow was still blowing and the wind howled.

Through the night she watched as a car pulled off the street and drove slowly up the driveway toward the house.

She stood still in the snow, watching.

The car stopped, lights still on.

A figure was striding toward her, cape swinging, calling to her.

It was Julie. Suddenly Sir was bounding through the snow, disappearing, reappearing as he struggled happily with the depth of it.

Julie and Sir.

They had gotten through.

Julie stopped, cocked her great head with the long mane.

“What the hell are you doing? You’re gonna freeze to death!” She came closer, looked into Natalie’s eyes. Then looked back at the car. “MacPherson brought me. …” He was coming toward them.

Natalie nodded, saw him, tears running down her cheeks, and as MacPherson reached her Natalie opened her arms wide.

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

cover design by Michel Vrana

978-1-4532-6612-0

This 2012 edition distributed by MysteriousPress.com/Open Road Integrated Media

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