Page 113 of Deathmarch

Go!

She dropped. Landed on her feet. Saw stars and lost her breath from the pain in her abused ankle. She crept forward anyway, through a dead flower bed, toward the next-door neighbor on the right. No lights, but it was the closest house, a rancher. They’d wake up and help her when she banged on their window.Run.

Floodlights clicked on. Motion sensor.Crap.

She speed-limped forward, toward the chain-link fence, just as a window slammed open behind her.

“Hey!” the kidnapper shouted. “Stop right there!”

Like hell.

Allie scrambled across the frozen grass, then up the fence, lost her grip, fell back, but not on her bad ankle. The next second, she was up again. She was about to heave herself over the top when the kidnapper came barreling through his back door.

Drop and roll.

Except before she could drop, her weight tipped the old fence off its moorings, and the entire section of fencing collapsed into the neighbor’s yard with a loud crash.

Damn, that hurt.

She hissed with pain as she scrambled to her feet.

Go, go, go, don’t look back.

She kept going, heard a grunt and a crash. She hoped the bastard had fallen on his face, but didn’t waste time by turning to check. She climbed up onto the neighbor’s back patio and banged on the sliding glass door. “Help! Let me in! Please! Help!”

No response. No lights flickered on inside.

She threw her weight at the door. Even if they weren’t home, she could use the phone to call 911 if she could get in.

“Help!”

The door didn’t give.

She scrambled off the patio and headed to the next house, where there was a light on upstairs.

“You can’t run from a bullet!”

The kidnapper sounded closer, eating up the distance between them. This time, Allie did glance over her shoulder.

He had his gun in his hand, the metal glinting in the moonlight. When he stopped to aim, she froze for a moment.

His smile was nasty angry. “I’m gonna shoot you, bitch.”

Dagnabbit.

Then again, she wasn’t on a middle school stage, didn’t have to censor her language. Allie looked the bastard in the eye as she gasped for air, and she said, “Fuck you, you fucking bastard.”

Not as creative as Calamity Jane would have been, but at least Allie had expressed her feelings.

She dove into the dark gap between the two houses, throwing herself at the tall bushes, desperate to break through to the front. She bounced back.Another fence.

She felt around and then up, frantic fingers searching for an opening in vain. Climbing the tall barrier would slow her down too much. The man behind her, bent on killing her, was going to catch up to her in another second.

No way forward, and she couldn’t go back.

Her brief flight for freedom was over.Trapped.

Allie screamed into the night, “Help!”