Lois quietly moved backward into the living room. The smart thing to do would be to go out the front door, get into her car and leave. She could reach a pay phone at a convenience store in a few minutes and call the police.
Unfortunately, her keys were in her purse upstairs. By the time she got upstairs and back down again, whoever was outside could already be in the house.
She darted toward the fireplace.
Although her father had never bothered using it, it came standard in the area, and fortunately had decorative fireplace pokers. They were heavy and made of iron, perfect for bashing someone’s head in.
She grabbed one of the pokers, and then she darted up her stairs. She heard the sound of cursing from the kitchen, followed by the sound of breaking glass.
Lois darted into her room, dashing across it and grabbing the purse off the computer desk. Her purse was light; she rarely carried much inside and sometimes wondered why she bothered. A heavy purse could at least be used as a weapon.
She considered closing and locking the door to her room, but knew that the thin interior doors wouldn’t last long against someone determined to get in. Lucy had once fallen through one running too hard. A good strong kick would break through, although it might give her time to use her poker.
Still, getting out was probably the better option than trying to hide. Her father’s place wasn’t all that large, and it wouldn’t take them long to find her. If she was hiding in a closet it would be easy for them to pull her out.
After her experience this afternoon, she didn’t think much of her chances against even one large male, much less two.
She moved to her door and listened carefully. She heard the sound of breaking glass and she grimaced. They were in the living room, and weren’t making much of an effort to be quiet.
Locking the door to her room, she ran do her desk and wedged the chair under the doorknob. It would buy her a little time, but if they were determined to get in, there wasn’t much she could do.
She ran to her window. Unlike the windows on the bottom floor, this one didn’t have bars on it. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a ledge she could crawl out onto and it was a fifteen foot drop straight to the concrete. If she broke her ankle in the drop she’d be helpless.
Lois felt her heart beating heavily in her chest and her breathing felt unnaturally loud. She wasn’t sure what to do; it was possible that these were just garden variety burglars, in which case her best option was to keep quiet and let them steal whatever they had come to steal.
But if it was Tom Church...he could have choked her to death and enjoyed it. If he was coming after her now, it meant that he was ready to finish the job.
For the first time Lois wished that her father carried a gun; any weapon would be better than a fireplace poker.
Calling for help would be smart, but it would also alert Tom to where she was. The neighborhood was deserted on a Friday night and Lois didn’t think she had very good odds of being heard.
She froze as she heard the sounds of footsteps outside. Her doorknob rattled.
“What are you doing with that knife?” Lois recognized the voice; it was Joe Malloy. “You said you were only going to scare her!”
Heated whispering from the other side of the door was followed by a thud as her door vibrated. She heard a curse from the other side of the door.
Lois screamed; there was no point in hiding now.
She ran to the window as the door behind her thudded again; the drop to the ground would be punishing, but it was her only option left.
Crawling onto the table, Lois was startled as she heard two even larger thuds from behind her. These were large enough that her corkboards fell off the walls.
“Lois!”
Lois froze; she could hear Clark’s voice from the other side of the door.
“Clark?” Lois said. He’d said he was going to meet her after work.
She crawled off the table and ran to the door.
“Is it safe?”
“It is now,’ Clark said.
Lois grabbed the chair and pulled it away from her door. As she opened it, she could see that the door jamb was splintered.
Clark stood outside, with Tom and Joe lying on the ground, stunned.
Lois rushed into his arms, hugging him tightly. She sobbed, and he stroked her hair. She’d managed to hold it together, but now that it was over her hands were shaking.
From her open window, Lois could hear the sound of a car pulling into her father’s parking spot.
She frowned; her father wasn’t supposed to be home yet.
Clark followed her to the window and they both looked down. Bill Church was getting out of the car followed by three other men; they all had guns.
“Cover all the exits,” Bill said. “We need to get this done as soon as we can.”
Lois glanced at Clark, her heart pounding in her chest. Clark was good at fighting, but he wouldn’t be any good against men with guns.
Clark frowned, and then turned to her. “We’ll go out the window.”
All three men were entering the kitchen; it was too late to get to the front door.
“I’ll go first,” Clark said. “Then I’ll catch you.”
Lois nodded; she didn’t see any other way out. She returned to the door and replaced the chair, and then she and Clark followed this up by moving her desk; it wouldn’t hold the men long, but it got the desk out of their way.
Clark hopped up on the windowsill and a moment later he was gone.
Lois heard the sound of voices from outside, and a moment later her door vibrated with a sturdy kick. Apparently whoever was doing the kicking knew what he was doing because the door jamb shattered completely with one kick. Only the chair kept the door from opening, and Lois realized that one more kick would be all it would take.
She dropped, trying not to scream as she fell.
A moment later she was in Clark’s arms. He held her for a moment, and then froze.
There was a sound from the doorway; apparently Lois hadn’t been as quiet as she thought when she fell. The man covering the doorway looked out into the back yard, but neither of them was there.
Lois felt a sudden burst of wind buffeting her body. She must have blacked out, because she and Clark were suddenly on the other side of the fence in her neighbor’s yard and she didn’t remember how they got there.
Clark gently lowered her to the ground, and then held one finger up.
Lois turned slightly and looked through the cracks in the fence. She couldn’t understand how they’d gotten here; the fence was too high to jump and there was no way Clark could have run all the way out into the alley and around to her neighbor’s yard.
The man was on the other side of the fence, checking the low bushes that bordered parts of the fence. He had a flashlight, and Lois closed her eyes a moment before it passed over them.
A moment later, Bill Church senior came out with the two boys.
“I’m glad you called me about this,” he was saying to Joe.
“He said he was just going to scare her, but he was acting crazy,” Joe said. “I didn’t know what else I could do.”
He could have called the police, Lois thought savagely. Even Principal Hardwick would have been a better choice.
“I can’t believe you were this stupid,” Bill Church said to Tom. “What were you going to do? Play with her?”
“I just thought…”
“You didn’t think!” Bill said. “That’s your problem! I always knew you were dumber than a box of rocks, but this…”
Tom stared at the concrete.
Bill Church turned to Joe. “I’ve always liked you, son. You come from a good family.”
Joe nodded.
“Would you hold this for me?” Bill asked, holding the gun out to him in black gloved hands. “I need to teach my son a lesson.
Joe stared at the outstretched gun, and then gingerly took it.
“The first lesson is this,” Bill said. He grabbed Joe’s arm and forced it upwards toward his face. There was a sound like a heavy dumpster lid falling, and it took Lois a moment to understand what she was seeing.
Clark tensed beside her, but Lois grabbed his arm tightly and shook her head.
“You never leave witnesses.”
In the dimness of the streetlight, it was hard to see Tom’s expression as his teammate’s body hit the ground, but Bill Church reached into his pocket and wiped something off his face with his handkerchief.
“Here’s what’s going to happen. I’ve got a hundred people who will swear you were with me at a fundraiser for the mayor tonight. When the police come to you, and they will, you tell them that Joe here was even more upset about this whole football thing than you were.”
“He killed himself,” Tom said, staring at his friend’s body.
“Maybe you aren’t entirely stupid after all.” Bill chuckled. “At least you were smart enough to come here in Joe’s car.”
“The cops won’t believe it.”
“They’ll believe what I want them to believe! I’ve got guys on the force on the payroll,” Bill said. “There will be gunpowder residue on his hands, and our man in the coroner’s office will smooth over any discrepancies.”
“There’s no sign of them boss,” one of the men came from inside the house. He glanced down at the body.
“Get the gas cans,” Bill said. “No telling how many fingerprints stupid here left; it’ll be better to get rid of everything.”
Lois watched helplessly as the three men entered her house with gasoline cans. Several times Clark jerked in her grasp, but Lois only held him tighter.
Bill Church spoke to the men as they left the house. “We need to get everybody looking for Miss Lane and the Kent kid. Offer a hundred gees to whoever caps them both and twenty five gees for any information leading to them being taken care of.”
As the men left, she could see a sudden brightness coming from inside her house.
Lois hesitated; everything she owned was in that house, with the exception of the little she had in her purse.
They could wait for the fire department; get in touch with the police. Of course, there was no guarantee that the police she talked to wouldn’t be on the Church’s payroll.
Her mother was safe in rehab; her father was out of town and Uncle Mike and Lucy were away. She’d only endanger their lives by getting in contact with them.
“I didn’t know,” Clark muttered beside her. “I didn’t think he’d actually…”
“There was nothing you could have done,” Lois said absently, staring at her house. She wondered if there was any way of saving anything. Surely six gallons of gasoline couldn’t set things on fire that quickly.
Clark flinched as though she’d struck him. “If I’d only….I could have…”
“Gotten both of us killed,” Lois said. She winced as she saw flames coming up from her living room. “We need to get out of here.”
“We can go to the police,” he said. He still seemed dazed.
Lois knew she’d replay what she’d seen over and over in her mind, but now wasn’t the time to check out mentally.
“You heard what they said!” Lois said. “They’ve got cops on their payroll!”
The thought occurred that he might have said that just for their benefit, but Lois suspected that if he’d known they were listening, he’d have simply had them shot.
“I need you to focus,” she said. “Is there some place we can go?”
He stared at her for a moment, and then seemed to gather himself. “I’ve got a place.”
“Ok,” she said. She turned away from her house; she couldn’t bear to see it burn.
A whooshing sound came from behind her, and a moment later everything went dark. Lois fell forward, and then got back on her feet.
The light from her house was gone.
“What just happened?”
“A freak windstorm?” Clark offered feebly. “We need to get going. They may have people watching the neighborhood already.”
They carefully made their way to the back gate. Lois wondered again how Clark had gotten her into her neighbor’s yard.
Too many things about Clark didn’t add up.
Of course, she knew she was fretting over this because it was easier to think about than either the things she’d just seen or what was likely coming next.
If she thought too much about it, she’d collapse, and she didn’t have time for that. She had to live in the moment.
It was the only way she’d be able to survive.
