hinges are on this side.
I spy the automatic garage door opener next to the door. I could open it, run outside, and find another way into the house. But then I’d be opening myself up for target practice.
I glance at the door to the house again. Maybe there’s a key for the dead bolt in the garage somewhere. I check the workbench and see something even better than a key.
I walk over to it, feeling a warmth well up inside me, the same warmth I always feel when I have a chance to kill someone in an exciting new way.
It’s not gas powered, unfortunately. It’s electric. But Jack has thoughtfully provided me with a fifty-foot extension cord, easily long enough to reach the hallway bathroom where everyone is hiding.
I pick it up. It feels natural in my hands, like something I was born to hold. I smile.
Then I search around for an outlet, so I can plug in my new chain saw.
11:07 P.M.
JACK
A BEE IS IN THE CAR with me. A giant bee, the size of an egg. It buzzes around my head, and I try to get out of the car but the doors are broken. I’m terrified of bees, because I’m allergic to them. So when it lands on my shoulder I can’t swat it because I don’t want to get stung, and it stares at me with malevolent eyes, knowing I’m helpless, knowing it can kill me whenever it wants to.
The car crashes into a tree and begins to roll down the side of a hill. I open my eyes, panicked and dizzy and hurting all over.
I’m not in a car. I’m on the floor, and Harry is shaking me.
But I can still hear the bee buzzing.
“Wake up, Jackie! We’re in some shit.”
I look over my shoulder, see a chain saw sticking through the door to the garage. The buzzing blade is gradually cutting away the door-knob and dead bolt.
I try to stand up, and Harry drags me back down. There’s a
“We’re pinned down,” Harry says. “Can you move?”
I nod, and that simple movement causes everything to go black again. More shaking from Harry.
“Dammit, Jackie! Stay awake!”
“Breaker,” I mumble.
“What?”
“Circuit… breaker.”
“Mom!” Harry screams. “Cut off the electricity!”
I glance back at the door. The chain saw is really throwing off some sparks. It’s almost pretty, like fireworks.
I close my eyes and think about the Fourth of July.
11:09 P.M.
MARY
MARY STRENG HEARS the chain saw in the garage. She sticks her head out of the bathroom, around the refrigerator, and sees it cutting through the door.
She knows the chain saw is electric. Knows they need to trip the circuit breaker.
Mary also knows that the circuit breaker is behind a small childproof door. When you have rheumatoid arthritis,
She looks at Herb, sprawled out on the bathroom floor, clutching his leg in a codeine/pain fever dream.
Then she looks at Latham, who doesn’t appear much better. His eyelids are halfway closed, and he’s white as milk.
Neither one of them can make it to the fuse box.
A woman screams, “Mom! Cut off the electricity!”
But the woman isn’t Jacqueline. Mary looks in the hall again.
“Mom!”
It’s Harry. Apparently his voice goes up a few octaves when he’s terrified.
Mary tries to think of an answer, comes up blank, and hurries down the hallway, into the laundry room. She hooks a finger into the cruel metal ring on the circuit breaker door. That simple act alone brings agony. Even with the codeine, and the vodka, Mary’s hands have never hurt so badly.
And it’s about to get worse.
Mary sets her jaw and tugs, fast and hard.
It’s like sticking her hand in a furnace.
The door doesn’t budge.
She eases up, tries to change fingers. Her hand is shaking so much she can’t get ahold of the handle. Mary switches to lefty.
“Mom! I’m too pretty to die!”
Harry again. That guy certainly is a complainer. Must be Ralph the sailor’s genes.
She hooks her left index finger in the ring, closes her eyes, and jerks her whole arm back.
The pain takes away her breath. But the door swings open.
Mary releases the handle, reaching for the breaker, but the spring engages and slaps the door closed.
Now both of Mary’s hands are trembling. She tries her right hand, then her left hand, and can’t grip the damnable metal ring. Despair mingles with anguish, and Mary curses herself for being a worthless old woman, of no use to anyone, not even able to-
On the dryer, atop a stack of sweaters, is a coat hanger.
She snatches it up, puts the hook through the metal ring, and pulls like hell.
The door swings open.
Mary reaches inside the panel and jabs at the main breaker switch, plunging the house into darkness and silence.
11:11 P.M.
MUNCHEL
AGAIN WITH THE GODDAMN LIGHTS. Munchel sighs, wondering why the military doesn’t make a scope that works in the daylight
He sits up, rubs his eyes, and sees Pessolano in the truck up the street.
Munchel stands, stretches, and begins to walk across the grass toward him. The wind is still strong, and has dropped a dozen degrees, hinting at the harsh winter doubtlessly drawing near. Once he spreads the word to the soldier-for-hire underground that he was part of the Chicago pervert murders, he expects his ser vices to be in great
