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CHAPTER 35
Kara ran!
Like she’d never run in twenty years.
Heart racing, blood pounding in her ears, she flew down the attic steps and onto the second floor.
In her mind’s eye she still saw Jonas’s face slowly revolving, his haunted eyes visible through the tattered cloth covering the console.
Her stomach roiled.
Faster! Faster!
Down the stairs and through the living room, where, flashing through her brain, she saw her brothers as they had been, lying dead, in thick pools of their own blood, the embers of the fire hissing and seething a brilliant glowing red. All the while the grandfather clock in the hallway had loudly counted off the hours over the sound of the Christmas carol.
Bong, bong, bong.
“Silent night. Holy night. . . .”
The sights and sounds of that blood-drenched night thundered through her brain, and she nearly tripped as she slid around the corner and ran through the dining room.
Bong! Bong! Bong!
“Shepherds quake—”
Bong!
“—at the sight. . . .”
Louder and louder, over the sound of running footsteps following after her, chasing her down!
“Kara!” she heard, and she sped faster, seven years old again, racing out the back door, flying down the steps, frantically scrambling through the snow, her heart in her throat, tears streaming from her eyes. Dead! They were all dead!
“Mama,” she whispered, her lips frozen. “Daddy.” Through the trees she dashed, her feet slipping and sliding, but she plowed forward.
“Kara! Stop!”
Never!
“I love you, Kara-Bear. . . . I’ll come get you. I promise.” Marlie’s words came back to her, haunted her, and just like before, as the frozen branches slapped her face, she saw the ghosts of her family through the trees, peering out at her through the snowy veil, their faces drawn and white. All crying her name over the howl of the wind, “Kara! Kara!”
Mama.
Daddy.
Sam Junior.
Donner.
And now Marlie, distorted, but peering around the rough bark of a fir tree, half hidden by the snow-laden branches.
Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God!
She glanced over her shoulder. Through the thick, ever-changing screen of the snow, she spied the man running after her, chasing her down. Tall and looming, his face obscured, he ran with purpose.
She couldn’t let him catch her!
The attacker—the killer—running her to ground, a huge man who had so brutally slain her family was bearing down on her.