fumbled at the deadbolt, keys jangling. Metal scraped against metal inside the doorframe.
Thud.
The door shuddered as something heavy collided with the other side.
Thud. Thud.
With the flick of a switch, bright light flickered and lit up the garage. A staircase with half a dozen steps led down to a concrete-floor with a Toyota Camry on our side and an old Buick on the other. A broom, rake, and electric hedge trimmer hung on the far wall, and a door lift motor was mounted to the ceiling.
I reached for the garage-door wall button, and Allie grabbed my arm. “No! Drac might be out there.”
Thud.
The doorframe splintered.
I swept her hair from her eyes. “The cops will be here soon. We’ll look after ourselves till they get here.” I adjusted my fingers around the carving knife. She put her phone in her bag and held her knife close to her chest.
Taking her hand, I led the way down the stairs, past the workbench, between the Camry and a set of stacked drawers against the wall. I lifted the driver’s side door handle, but there was no weight in it. Allie pressed her fingertips to the side window and frowned. “The keys are in the kitchen.”
With nowhere to go, we crouched behind the rear wheel and leaned to keep an eye on the door at the top of the stairs.
Allie whispered, “Do you think–”
A hollow, booming crash thundered through the garage and the door flew off its hinges and tumbled down the stairs. Allie whimpered, clutching her knife with both hands.
Drac marched down the stairs, gripping his steel pipe and rubbing his nose like this was just another day at the office. Kyle followed, wiping blood from his face with the back of one hand and dragging his thick metal chain with the other. I crouched lower and held my breath. Why a pipe and a chain? Either one of them could kill us barehanded.
Stepping onto the concrete floor, Drac headed for the far wall, and Kyle started in our direction.
With my hand on Allie’s back, we crept along the side of the Camry to its trunk. In the Buick’s side window, Kyle’s distorted reflection circled around the Camry’s hood, peering through the windscreen. His chain was more than ten times longer than my knife. He’d have me bleeding out before I could even get near him with the pointy end. Any hope we had was gone: we were trapped, the cops were nowhere near, and the knives seemed like a good idea at the time. A hundred and eighty thousand USSC members, and not one of them could help us. My only hope was that Kyle and Drac wouldn’t hurt Allie. I put my lips to her ear and spoke under my breath. “When I say, run into the house and get far away from here. You understand?”
She screwed up her face to hold back tears.
At the far wall, Drac drummed his fingers on the Buick’s roof.
Less than fifteen feet away in the other direction, Kyle stepped around the Camry’s side mirror and stopped. He tapped his fingers twice on the car’s roof. In the reflection of the Buick’s side window, I could make out his hand pointing in our direction.
I put the handle of my knife into Allie’s free hand and pressed my lips to hers. Adrenaline kicked in and my muscles tightened. Straightening my legs, I gradually stood. Kyle’s eyes narrowed as they met mine, and a line of blood dripped down his cheek onto the concrete. He lifted his chain.
When I was a kid, my old man shredded his hand with a hedge trimmer, the steel teeth lacerating the flesh of his fingers and splattering blood like a crime scene. Ever since, I’d had a fear of power tools with blades. I lifted the trimmer off the wall. “Allie, go!” I gripped the handle with one hand and squeezed the trigger with the other.
Chik-chik.
The blades turned lazily and stopped.
Before Allie could move, Kyle lunged at us, windmilling his arm up over his head and casting the chain down hard at me. I lifted the trimmer’s arm across my face and ducked as the chain snagged the blades. He yanked on the chain and the trimmer sailed out of my hands and clattered onto the concrete.
Allie rose to her feet, holding a knife in each hand, her wide eyes flicking between the two intruders. Drac stepped out from behind the Buick and approached her, one deliberate step at a time, like a tightrope walker. Her hands trembled, and tears formed in her eyes as he edged closer.
In the other direction, Kyle slung his chain back over his shoulder and stepped toward me. Drac ran a hand through his greasy hair and adjusted his grip on his pipe as he moved away from the Buick toward us.
Clang.
The knife in Allie’s left hand fell to the concrete, the desperation in her eyes turning to anger. She relaxed her grip on the other knife, and it slipped through her fingers and fell to the concrete, echoing through the garage like the second ring of a warning bell, a warning that might have worked half an hour ago. Turning her upper body, she snatched open the top drawer behind her and rifled through the contents. Drac stepped closer, and she whipped around to face him, arms outstretched and teeth clenched.
Ca-chunk.
A nail embedded into the dry wall above Drac’s shoulder.
Allie tightened her white-knuckle grip on her old man’s nail gun, shifting her aim to Drac’s head. He stood motionless.
She screamed, “Back the goddamn fuck away before I nail your eyeballs to your brain! I’m not kidding. Now!”
Silence.
The trembling in her hands was enough to make me think she was serious about pulling the trigger if pushed, hopefully they thought so too. The intruders froze as they reassessed the situation. But not for long. Kyle stepped forward and lashed his chain at Allie. I barreled into his chest and the chain crashed onto the Camry’s trunk. With his elbow in my gut, he launched me back against the wall and straightened. Allie swung her arms, aiming the nail gun in his direction.
Ca-chunk.
Kyle’s gaze drifted down to his chest. His shoulders sank, and the chain slipped through his hand onto the concrete floor. He reached up and touched his finger to the head of a three-inch nail embedded deep in the center of his chest. Confusion spread across his face.
Short, gaspy breaths escaped Allie’s throat as she crumpled against the wall. The nail gun rolled out of her hands and clanked onto the floor.
Grimacing, Kyle grasped at the head of the nail with his thumb and forefinger and pulled at its head. An inch of blood-covered nail was visible before he stopped to adjust his grip.
“Stop…” Allie lifted her hand. “You need help–”
He pulled the nail free, and blood spurted from his chest like a red fountain, gushing into the air and splattering onto the concrete in front of him.
Allie hyperventilated, kicking and thrashing her legs, and pushing herself up against the wall.
Kyle let out a gurgling moan as another spurt sprayed from his chest onto the Camry’s trunk. Shifting his feet, he leaned forward and collapsed, hitting his head on the Camry’s fender and falling to the floor. The crunching thud of his head on the concrete would have been enough to put anyone to sleep.
Silence.
Kyle lay motionless on the floor, his face pressed against the concrete, his eyes glassy and distant, and blood pooling around his chest.
In a burst of movement, Drac rushed at us and lifted his pipe. I dropped to the floor and reached for the nail gun. With no time to aim, I lifted it high and squeezed the trigger.
Ca-chunk.
He recoiled and let out an agonized groan. His pipe fell to the concrete as he stumbled against the workbench and clutched his armpit, his face contorted in pain. With a grunt, he pinched at the skin under his arm and dragged out a nail from deep inside the muscle. Pulling it free, he lifted it to examine the sharp end, his hand smeared in dark blood, and tossed it at the wall.
I pulled Allie to her feet and we ran to the garage door. She pressed a button on the wall and the door slowly cranked open. With barely enough room to crawl, we climbed underneath and clambered down the driveway to her Ford Escort. She reached into her bag to squeeze the remote key, and t
he car gave two beeps.
Ducking under the rising garage door, Drac staggered out, clutching his underarm and leaving a trail of blood behind him.
Allie reached the Escort and grappled with the driver’s side handle while I raced around the hood. Behind us, Drac ran down the driveway, holding one arm tight against his armpit as he swayed with each step. Allie dropped into her seat, slammed the door shut, and thumbed the lock. I leapt into the passenger side and tossed her bag onto the back seat. Stabbing the key into the ignition, she shifted the gearstick and revved the engine, spraying gravel over Drac as he approached. Allie’s door handle rattled, and the car lurched forward, throwing us back in our seats and dragging Drac into a running stumble as the car pulled away. She turned the wheel and the Escort bounced down the curb onto Cedar Grove Avenue.
Sirens wailed in the distance as we followed Cedar Grove for half a mile, and then drove through a maze of backstreets and side streets. The sirens faded until I couldn’t hear them above the engine noise. Allie gazed out the windscreen, choking on sobs, and tears streaming down her cheeks.
I pointed at a sign for the I-96.
Wiping her eyes, she checked the side mirror, flicked the indicator, and merged into the morning traffic. “He’s dead. I killed him.”
A strange feeling of dread and relief hit my gut. “It was self defense.” My voice broke a little on the last word.
She lifted her hands from the wheel and stared at them. “With a nail gun.”
A green road sign said we