She had considered carrying a club of some kind. But with her agility impaired by the layers of protective gear, she couldn’t use it effectively enough to hurt any of the Dobermans or even dissuade them from attacking.
Instead, Chyna was equipped with two lever-action spray bottles that she’d found in a laundry-room cabinet. One had been filled with a liquid glass cleaner and the other with a spot remover for use on carpets and upholstery. She had emptied both bottles into the kitchen sink, rinsed them out, considered filling them with bleach, but chose pure ammonia, of which the fastidious Vess, the keeper of a spotless house, possessed two one-quart containers. Now the plastic spray bottles stood beside the front door. The nozzle on each could be adjusted to produce a spray or a stream, and both were set at STREAM.
In the armchair, Ariel continued to hug herself and to rock back and forth in silence, gazing down at the carpet.
Although it was unlikely that the catatonic girl would get up from the chair and go anywhere on her own, Chyna said, “Now, you stay right where you are, honey. Don’t move, okay? I’ll be back for you soon.”
Ariel didn’t reply.
“Don’t move.”
Chyna’s layers of protective clothing were beginning to weigh painfully on her bruised muscles and sore joints. Minute by minute, the discomfort was going to make her slower mentally and physically. She had to act while she was still reasonably sharp.
She put on the visored helmet. She had lined the interior with a folded towel so it wouldn’t sit loosely on her head, and the chin strap helped to keep it secure. The curved shield of Plexiglas came two inches below her chin, but the underside was open to allow air to flow in freely—and there were six small holes across the center of the pane for additional ventilation.
She stepped to one front window and then to the other, looking onto the porch, which was visible in the light that spilled out from the living-room lamps. There were no Dobermans in sight.
The yard beyond the porch was dark, and the meadow beyond the yard seemed as black as the far side of the moon. The dogs might be standing out there, watching her silhouette in the lighted windows. In fact, they might be waiting just beyond the porch balustrade, crouched and ready to spring.
She glanced at the clock.
Ten thirty-eight.
“Oh, God, I don’t want to do this,” she murmured.
Curiously, she remembered a cocoon that she’d found when she and her mother had been staying with some people in Pennsylvania fourteen or fifteen years before. The chrysalis had been hanging from a twig on a birch tree, semitransparent and backlit by a beam of sunlight, so she had been able to see the insect within. It was a butterfly that had passed all the way through the pupa stage, a fully mature imago. Its metamorphosis complete, it had been quivering frantically within the cocoon, its wirelike legs twitching ceaselessly, as if it was eager to be free but frightened of the hostile world into which it would be born. Now, in her padding and hard-plastic armor, Chyna quivered like that butterfly, although she was not eager to burst free into the night world that awaited her but wanted to withdraw even deeper into her chrysalis.
She went to the front door.
She pulled on the stained leather gloves, which were heavy but surprisingly flexible. They were too large but had adjustable Velcro bands at the wrists to hold them in place.
She had sewn a brass key to the thumb of the right-hand glove, running the thread through the hole in the key bow. The entire blade, with all its tumbler-activating serrations, extended beyond the tip of the thumb, so it could be inserted easily into the keyway on the door of the motor home. She didn’t want to have to fumble the key from a pocket with the dogs attacking from all sides—and she sure as hell didn’t want to risk dropping it.
Of course, the vehicle might not be locked. But she wasn’t taking any chances.
From the floor, she picked up the spray bottles. One in each hand. Again, she checked to be sure that they were set on STREAM.