“Don’t fight,” he commanded. “Just scream for me.”
“Damn you! Damn you! Get away from me!”
She dropped the hose and ran through the rose garden. Thorns tore at her hands and arms and snagged in her caftan. She came out from the center of the heart-shaped garden and ran along the flagstone walkway under the oaks. She looked over her shoulder and saw him not far behind. His head was down and he was meticulously extracting a thorn from his wrist. She pressed her back to one of the oak’s far sides and clutched the garden trowel to her heaving bosom. All she could hear was her own breath.
When he passed by the tree, she swung at him with the forked garden instrument. He grabbed her quivering wrist, the trowel inches from his face. She was breathing into his shirt, smelling him, her eyes out of focus.
She was mad with fear, insane with the prospect of her death. Her mouth opened, her head lurched into the cold, wet material, and pure instinct made her bite his chest with a fury she never knew she had.
He screamed in agony. He released her wrist and the trowel fell to the ground. His hands, the wire hooked into his fingers, covered her buried head and forced her away. With a horrible sucking sound Helen’s teeth were torn from his chest and she pushed at him, upsetting his balance so that he hit the tree.
Again she ran. Through the roses, unmindful of tears and scrapes, through the open beautiful lawn. From the corner of her eye she saw him gaining, running to her left, going for the gate, to block her escape. She went through the open doorway of the house. There was no time to bar the doors. She flew through the kitchen, down the two steps to the den, and had the telephone receiver off the hook while still in flight.
Frantically she put it against her ear and heard—nothing.
“You!” she screamed at him as he came down the steps to her. “Get away! Get away from me!”
She tried to reach the front door, but he was too close. She opened the door into the library, trying to keep her mind calm enough to remember what rooms had openings out of them so that she would not be trapped.
Blood dripped from her thorn wounds onto the pearly white carpet, spotting her trail. She grabbed an onyx horse head and flung it at him as he came into the library. She heard it miss, hitting the wall as she collided with the shut door of a bathroom. Quickly she fumbled with the brass knob, slipped inside, and slammed it behind her. She pushed the lock button, smiling as his fist banged on the other side. She slipped out the other door of the bathroom into the hall, rushing for the living room and freedom.
Behind her a crystal lamp fell. Helen’s head swiveled to see her attacker crossing the room. One side of his face was bloodied. He was clawing his way toward her, spilling the Chinese vase of flowers, the garrote swinging wildly from one hand.
The stairs, the upstairs! Lock him out!
She was on the seventh step when his hand snaked through the spokes of the banister and caught her ankle.
She went down to her knees painfully, hearing a snap, feeling the surge of pain travel up her calf to her thigh. She twisted away from him, kicked with her other foot, and got free. She crawled up one step, got to her feet, steeling herself against the pain from her cracked kneecap, and half hopped, half crawled to the second floor.
Four bedrooms, two baths, dressing rooms, closets, a balcony. She had no time to devise a plan. She fell into a hall closet and managed to shut the door just as he was about to clear the stairway. She held her breath, hands tight over her mouth, eyes wide open in the dark. She was surrounded by their tennis rackets, jogging shoes, and scuba-diving gear.
She heard his footsteps pound past her hiding place. She waited, feeling faint from the pain in her knee.
Blood from her hands trickled down her arms. Her heart beat so rapidly she could not catch her breath. The fear of dying thumped through her thoughts like a monster rampaging through a small village. Her fear was Frankenstein and the town was her brain. Footfalls echoed inside the dark confinement of the musty closet until Helen thought he would burst through the plaster and wood. She whimpered inside like a small child waiting to be punished. Let me out! Let me out of here! Oh God, I can’t stand to be locked in here waiting for him!
When the claustrophobia was too much, Helen ripped open the closet door.
She blinked. Her eyes slowly adjusted to the light, and she saw nothing, no one. She let out her breath and heard something crash downstairs.
Limping and crying silently from the pain and fear, she started for her bedroom. In some small kernel of her soul she knew she would not give up, would never give up without using all her resources to outwit him.
At her bedroom door she saw the whole room. It looked empty, but was it? Had the crash downstairs come from his plundering the rooms for her or had it been mere accident—- book, a vase, a statue tumbling on its own?
She moved as quietly as possible across the room, all the while watching the closet door, the bathroom full of shadows, the rose-patterned drapes on each side of the French doors leading to the balcony. At any moment she anticipated the pounce of her attacker. She stared ahead of her bravely, holding her body erect even though her knee throbbed relentlessly. She was past the bed, past the extravagant dresser with its tremendous array of cosmetics. She had the doorknobs of the double French doors in her hands.
Outside was sunlight, her garden, the unplanted roses. Freedom waited at the bottom of the drop to the terrace floor. She had to do it. She had to make the effort. She would not give her life willingly to a madman. She knew who he was. She had known it in the garden when she saw the wire and understood how the wire was used. He was in all the newspapers and on the television newscasts. He had killed a little boy and two women. He had taken two of the heads and now he wanted hers, but she would not make it easy for him!
At the white balcony railing she leaned out into the air and felt a soft breeze caress her wet cheeks. She glanced behind her then peered over the drop. He was nowhere in sight. Quickly now, she told herself, hoisting her good leg over the railing to stand on the narrow ledge. Quickly and be done with it before he comes.
Her weight dragged her earthward. She hung from the rail by her hands. She chanced a last look at the terrace that seemed to be so far down. You’re going to break your legs on the bricks, she thought. You’re going to have to crawl out the gate.
Panic began to invade her mind, making her not want to let go. Because… was it worth it? Would it save her? She did not want to find herself shattered and helpless on the cold, unyielding bricks below.
She looked up above her, and for an instant she thought the man’s hands clutching her hands belonged to her husband, who had come to save her at last. Then she realized the truth.
“No!” she screamed, falling, twisting.
The pain on impact was too much. She could see nothing but a black, starry void. She instinctively began to grope her way across the smooth squares of brick to where she thought the gate must be. Her vision slowly returned, and with it came the reality of her situation. For the first time she felt as if she was not going to make it. Both her legs were bent at ludicrous angles, and she could see her left anklebone protruding through the skin like a piece of splintered wood. Blood was splattered all over her pale green skirt. She turned her head and looked to the balcony. He was not there. She looked through the French doors into the kitchen. He was not there either.
Helen crawled, breathing laboriously, grunting at each half foot she took.
Finally, after an eternity, she was at the gate, close enough to touch the gray planks. She was sobbing and weakly calling for someone to help her, to rescue her. The gate would not move. She gazed without comprehension at the latch. She reached out one scraped and bleeding arm, but there was so far to go, so much she had to do, and no one to help her. She couldn’t reach the latch, oh God, she couldn’t get to it.