Sensing she had little choice, Kim slipped through the door. After a quick scan of the immediate area, she dashed to the cat, snatched it from the ground, and turned, only to see the front door closing.
Screaming a silent “no,” Kim lunged for the door, but she was too late. It shut with a heavy thud followed by a sharp metallic click of the bolt engaging the striker plate.
Kim vainly tried the handle. It was locked as she’d expected. She pushed the door ineffectually with her shoulder, but it was of no use.
Hunching her shoulders against the cold rain, Kim slowly turned to face the blackness of the night. She shivered with fear and cold, marveling at her desperate circumstance. She was in her robe and pajamas, locked out of her house on a rainy night with a disgruntled cat in one hand and an ineffectual flashlight in the other, facing an unknown nocturnal creature lurking somewhere in the shrubbery.
Sheba struggled to be put down and audibly complained. Kim shushed her. Stepping away from the house, Kim scanned the front casement windows, but all were shut. She knew they were locked. Turning around, she gauged the distance to the lab, where the lights were finally off. Then she looked at the castle. The castle was farther away, but she knew the doors to the wings were unlocked. She didn’t know about the door to the lab.
Suddenly Kim heard the sound of a large creature moving in the gravel along the right side of the house. Knowing she could not stay where she was, she ran in the opposite direction, going around the left side of the house, away from the approaching bear or whatever animal had been at her new trash containers.
Desperately Kim tried the kitchen door. But it was locked, as she was sure it would be. Using her shoulder, she hit it several times, but it was no use. All she managed to do was make the cat howl.
Turning from the house, she spied the shed. Clutching the cat closer to her chest and holding the flashlight like a club, Kim ran as quickly as her backless mules would allow. When she got to the shed, she undid the hook that held the door closed, opened it, and squeezed into the shed’s inner blackness.
Kim pulled the door shut behind her. Just to the right of the door was a tiny, dirty window that afforded a meager view of the yard behind the cottage. The only illumination came from a pool of light spilling from her bedroom window and the luminous glow of the low swirling cloud cover.
As she watched, a hulking figure rounded the house from the same direction she had come. It was a person, not an animal, but he was acting in a most peculiar fashion. Kim watched him pause to smell the wind just as an animal might do. To her dismay he turned in her direction and appeared to be staring at the shed. In the darkness she could see no features, just his dark silhouette.
Dismay turned to horror as Kim watched the figure lurch toward her with a slow, dragging gait, still sniffing the air as if following a scent. Kim held her breath and prayed the cat would be still. When the figure was a mere ten feet away, Kim shrank back into the dark recess of the shed, pushing against tools and bicycles.
She could now hear his footfalls in the gravel. They came closer, then stopped. There was an agonizing pause. Kim held her breath.
Suddenly the door was rudely yanked open. Losing control, Kim screamed. Sheba answered with her own scream and leaped from Kim’s arms. The man screamed as well.
Kim grasped the flashlight in both hands and turned it on, flashing the beam directly into the man’s face. He shielded himself from the unexpected blast of light with his hands and forearms.
Kim’s mouth clamped shut in surprised relief. She recognized it was Edward!
“Thank God,” she said, lowering the flashlight.
Scrambling from her position wedged among bikes, lawnmower, and old trash containers, Kim burst from the shed and threw her arms around Edward. The beam of her flashlight played haphazardly in the trees.