Karen ran to the front door and fumbled with the locks. It took her a second, and then she threw it open. “Jordan, now!” she whispered as fervently as she could.
Jordan was crouched by the side, hidden in the darkness. The night seemed like tendrils wrapping her so tightly she was immobilized. She could feel herself giving commands to muscles that wouldn’t answer. Then, as if she were floating above herself, looking down like some spectral figure, she saw the stranger Jordan rising, nearly tripping on the front steps, half-tumbling into the house, and grabbing at Karen to keep from falling.
Karen pushed the youngest of the three Reds to her feet, closed the front door behind them, and then jumped to the stairs and raced to catch up to Red Two.
It was not a lot of noise they were making.
But it was enough.
Ripped by the sounds of the break-in from the vaporous territory between dream and reality, the Big Bad Wolf felt a blistering bolt of fear slice through his core. He sat upright in the bed, his breath suddenly coming in shallow gasps, and swung a fist through the black air, punching at unknown and unseen terror, choking words off in some sort of animal cry, unsure whether he was striking out at a nightmare or at something real but ghostlike. At his side his wife coughed out a scream of her own that became more gurgle than shout. Mrs. Big Bad Wolf felt her throat close, as if someone were choking her.
The bedroom door burst wide, and a figure-in the dark they could not tell if it was human; it was just a shape that matched the night-thrust toward them. Wild blades of light sliced across the bedroom, as Sarah waved her flashlight back and forth.
She raised her gun, trying to remember everything she had been taught by the director of the women’s shelter.
Use two hands.
Flick off the safety.
Hold your breath.
Take careful aim.
Make every shot count.
She fumbled and dropped the flashlight to the floor as she tried to handle the gun as she had been shown, and the couple on the bed in front of her disappeared into crazy shadows. She thought she was screaming “Kill him! Kill him!” but again she couldn’t hear the words, or even feel her lips moving with sound. In that second of hesitation, a shock of orange and red exploded in her eyes as the man she wanted to shoot clubbed her across the face with a wild roundhouse punch. The Wolf, all battle instinct, had thrown himself at Sarah, knocking her sideways. Mrs. Big Bad Wolf had jerked forward, flailing crazily at the dark, viciously grabbing at any shape she could find.
Sarah staggered, and as she did, a second blow landed on her chest, knocking the wind from her lungs. She bounced off a bureau and was suddenly thrown sideways and fell across the bed. She felt a hand grabbing at her gun. She knew only that she had to fight back, but exactly how to do this slipped through her consciousness. The only thought she had was Don’t let go! Don’t let go! She was twisted about, spinning like a top, and she felt her feet slipping as she fell from the edge of the bed and slammed against the floor, a sudden immense weight pressing down on her and sharp nails clawing at her face as if trying to rip her mask free.
Behind her, two other black shapes barreled into the room. Karen had the billy club in her hand and was swinging it wildly, ineffectively. It smashed into a bedside lamp, shattering china. A second uncontrolled swing crashed into knickknacks on a drawer top, sending debris flying.
The darkness cheated them all.
The Big Bad Wolf and Mrs. Big Bad Wolf fought desperately. The two of them kicked, bit, punched, used teeth, fists, feet. Bedclothes landed in piles. The wooden frame of their bed groaned beneath their frenzy. It was Mrs. Big Bad Wolf who’d grabbed the gun in Sarah’s hands, holding it by the barrel, wrestling it back and forth, trying frantically to pull it free. She barely understood what it was-she knew only that it was something that could kill them and that she had to seize it, and not let go. Animal-like, aware only that they had plunged from sleep into a fight for their lives, they fought ferociously. Guttural grunts and sounds of battle filled the room.
The Wolf leapt through the black at Karen. He smashed a blow against her ear. Her head spun. Another blow slammed into Karen’s midsection and the doctor felt a rib crack and sheets of agony pummel her body. Gasping, she expected a third, something that would knock her unconscious, and she swung the billy club crazily, feeling it crunch against skin and bone. She heard a high-pitched cry of pain.
A second sudden howl pierced the room. Jordan had slashed at the Big Bad Wolf with her filleting knife, catching his arm just as he pulled it back to slam into Karen. With a roar, the Wolf grasped Karen and swung her savagely into Jordan, knocking the youngest Red to the wall, slamming her head into a framed picture that shattered with an explosion.
The Wolf battled, knowing now that there was a club, a knife, and a gun, which his wife seemed to have a grip on. The only light in the room came from the abandoned flashlight that had rolled uselessly into a corner, so the fight had little organization and no rationale; it was simply bleeding, gouging, kicking, and trying to survive in darkness and shadow.
He still did not know whom he was fighting. If he’d had an instant to reflect, he would have perceived three forms, all female, and perhaps this would have made the mathematics of the struggle clear. But the blows raining down, the pain from his sliced forearm, and the shock of going from sleep to a deadly attack all conspired to push clarity aside. All he could think of was getting to his hunting knife on the desk in his downstairs office, or seizing the gun he knew was somewhere in the room, and evening the odds.
He pushed Karen aside, tossing her against the same wall that Jordan lay slumped against. He threw himself on the two figures-his wife and a shadow-locked together in their struggle for the pistol. He smashed into the two of them not knowing which body was which, pummeling everything he could feel. In the confusion, the Wolf heard the distinct clatter of the weapon coming free and falling to the wood floor. He groped around for it, but could not find it.
And then, suddenly, a hand grasped his forehead and his head was jerked back savagely. He felt a blade at his throat.
Words seemed to come from oblivion. “I will kill you if you move again.”
Jordan was behind him, almost straddling his form, one hand holding his head, the other gripping the knife, like a farmer ready to slaughter some animal for dinner.
His first instinct was to burst forward. The pressure of the knife dissuaded him.
And then the telephone rang.
42
“What Big Teeth You Have, Grandmother…”
At first the telephone’s insistence seemed utterly bizarre, some infusion of mundane normalcy into a situation that had none. It stifled the fight, froze everyone in position like in a children’s game.
It was Karen who immediately understood the ringing’s importance. It had to be answered without delay. It never occurred to her to answer it herself.
She frantically seized the flashlight from the corner where it had fallen, and shined it into the eyes of the Big Bad Wolf. “Answer it!” she shouted. This was impossible-he was pinned beside the bed, kneeling on the floor, between Jordan and her filleting knife. The phone was on a bedside table across the far side of the room. Each ring screamed louder. Karen focused her light on Mrs. Big Bad Wolf, who was entwined with Sarah. “Answer it!” she cried again. She raised her billy club as if ready to crush the woman’s skull-which, even in the near-panic that Karen felt surging though her, she knew would defeat the purpose of the threat. “It’s the alarm company. Answer the fucking phone!”