GRACE sat on the edge of the bed, holding the .22 pistol, considering her options. She didn’t have many.
In fact, the more she thought about it, the more it seemed to her that the cat had a better chance of winning this duel than she did.
If she attempted to leave the house by way of the bedroom window, she would surely break a leg and probably her neck as well. If she had been only twenty years younger, she might have tried it. But at seventy, with her swollen joints and brittle bones, jumping from a second-floor window onto a concrete patio could only end in misery. Anyway, the point wasn’t just to get out of the house, but to get out in one piece, so she could make it across town to Carol’s and Paul’s place.
She could open the window and start screaming for help. But she was afraid that Aristophanes—or the thing using Aristophanes’ body—would attack anyone who showed up and tried to assist her, and she didn’t want a neighbor’s death on her conscience.
This was her battle. No one else’s. She would have to fight it alone.
She considered all the routes by which she might possibly leave the house once she had reached the bottom floor—if she reached the bottom floor—but no particular route seemed less dangerous than any other. The cat could be anywhere. Everywhere. The bedroom was the only safe place in the house. If she ventured out of this sanctuary, the cat would be waiting for her and would attack her, regardless of whether she tried to exit the house by the front door, the kitchen door, or one of the ground-floor windows. It would be crouched in one shadow or another, perhaps perched atop a bookcase or cupboard or hutch, tensed and ready to launch itself down onto her startled, upturned face.
She had the gun, of course. But the cat, stealthy by nature, would always have the advantage of surprise. If it got just a two- or three-second lead on her, if she was only that little bit slower to react than was the cat, it would have ample time to fasten onto her face, tear open her throat, or gouge her eyes out with its quick, stiletto claws.
Strangely, though she had accepted the doctrine of reincarnation, though she now knew beyond doubt that there was some kind of life after death, she nevertheless feared dying. The certainty of eternal life in no way diminished the value of this life. Indeed, now that she could discern godlike machinery just below the visible surface of the world, her life seemed to have more meaning and purpose than ever before.
She didn’t want to die.
However, although the odds of her leaving the house alive were, at best, only fifty-fifty, she couldn’t stay in the bedroom indefinitely. She had no water, no food. Besides, if she didn’t get out of here in the next few minutes, she might be too late to be of any help to Carol.
If Carol is killed simply because I lack the courage to face that damned cat, she thought, then I might as well be dead anyway.
She switched off the two safeties on the pistol.
She got up and went to the door.
For nearly a minute she stood with one ear pressed to the door, listening for scratching noises or other indications that Aristophanes was nearby. She heard nothing.
Holding the pistol in her right hand, she used her bloody, claw-torn left hand to turn the knob. She opened the door with the utmost caution, half an inch at a time, expecting the cat to dart through the opening the instant it was wide enough to admit him. But he didn’t.
Finally, reluctantly, she poked her head out into the hall. Looked left. Right.
The cat wasn’t anywhere in sight.
She stepped into the hall and paused, afraid to move away from the bedroom door.
Go! she told herself angrily. Move your ass, Gracie!
She took a step toward the head of the stairs. Then another step. Trying to be quiet.
The stairs appeared to be a mile away.
She looked behind her.