Макс Коллинз - You Can’t Stop Me

Smiling to herself, setting the bowl of soup on the counter where Katie would sit, Nola was surprised to see the doorknob turning across the kitchen, on the door off the garage.

A glance up at the clock said it was only 6:45, and she didn’t expect Burl for another hour, at least. Which was why she was serving Katie her dinner now.

Pleased to have Burl home, she half turned to the door and said, “ You’re early! How was your—”

She stopped mid-sentence, frozen at the sight of a strange man at the threshold of her kitchen. Middle-aged, a little chunky. Tennis shoes, blue jeans, and a blue jacket. Blue baseball cap pulled low almost over his eyes.

Pistol in his right hand.

Though physically petrified, Nola was mentally racing, thoughts streaking through her mind:

Katie was still in the bathroom, good.

Nearest knife in the block on the counter behind her.

Soup hot enough to throw at this intruder and burn him?

What then, the knife?

No getting to the phone for 911, too far away.

Duck behind the counter of the island, but what then? Fight or flight?

The presence of Katie in the house made the decision easy.

Nola shouted, “ Katie — run! ”

Then, snarling, she grabbed the pan of soup — maybe it wasn’t hot enough but it was metal and she could swing at him — and moved toward the intruder and the pistol barked.

Like a hard punch, it knocked Nola back, and she felt her balance slipping. The counter’s edge was right there, but when she reached for it, it seemed to move away and she found herself on the floor, tile cool against her flesh.

To her surprise, there was no pain. She knew she had been shot, from the noise echoing in the airy kitchen to the spreading warmth in her chest, but she couldn’t get over the lack of pain. Everything just felt numb. Something smelled bitter — cordite. Burl was a hunter.

She tried to yell again, for Katie to run, but nothing came. She coughed and realized she was spitting up blood. The man stood over her now, his eyes on her but unconcerned, as if he were looking at spilled milk and not a dying woman.

Nola tried to recognize him, couldn’t, then tried to understand why this stranger had just walked into her house and shot her.

Should have locked the door , a voice in her head said.

Too late now, wasn’t it?

Spilled milk.

Sending thoughts to Katie to run, to hide, to get out of the house, was all she could manage for her daughter — a sad desperate attempt at telepathy. She tried to talk, to ask this man why he had done this thing, but her efforts were only rewarded with more coughing.

She struggled to focus on his face again, but her vision blurred.

Was she about to die? Was Katie about to die? Was the price of her happy life these terrible last agonized moments?

He raised the pistol again, and the last thing she saw was the flash.

Katie’s hands were under the warm water when she heard her mother yell for her to run, but that made no sense — her mommy never wanted her to run in the house...

A moment later, she heard what sounded like one of the M-80s the bigger kids had been shooting off last summer, on the Fourth of July, when both her parents warned her about the dangers of firecrackers. They’d finally relented and let her hold a sparkler that her dad lit.

But this bang had been so loud, she jumped, water from the sink spraying the front of her when she pulled her hands back, making a mess Mommy wouldn’t like.

Katie was scared now. Something was going on in the kitchen, something not normal, something wrong, but she had no idea what. She crept closer to the open door.

A second M-80 exploded in the kitchen, and Katie jumped again, her hand stifling a scream. She tiptoed into the hallway, and looked out to the kitchen, where her mother’s feet were sticking out, on the floor! Rest of her hidden by the kitchen’s large island.

Standing over Mommy was a tall man who seemed to be pointing down, maybe with his hand, maybe with something in his hand; but from here, the man’s body blocked the object and Katie couldn’t see.

But she did see a stranger, and she of course understood that a stranger meant danger, and she grasped now that Mommy yelling for her to run was because this stranger meant danger...

As the man turned slowly in her direction, Katie turned and sprinted down the hall to her bedroom and ducked inside, closing the door as quietly as she could.

Had he seen her?

She looked for a place to hide — there were really only two choices: the closet and under her bed. When they played hide and seek, her mommy always looked in the closet first. Under the bed was her best choice. More than once, Mommy had failed to find her there.

She dropped to her knees, breath coming in ragged gasps now, tears running down her cheeks, though she was barely aware of that; then she shimmied under the bed, and tried not to move.

Quiet as a mouse, that was something her grandma would say. Quiet as a mouse.

She knew of better hiding places in the house, but that would mean trying to get past the stranger, and she knew if he saw her, she was in trouble.

Under the bed would have to do.

The springs her roof now, Katie prayed to God that the man wouldn’t find her, and that her daddy would come home. She hoped her mommy was all right. Mommy was on the floor and maybe the man had hit her. But Mommy would be all right. She had to be! Katie would be all right too, if she just stayed quiet as a mouse. This was as far as her mind could take her.

Daddy, she thought. Please come home... please...

When she heard the bedroom door open, she again clamped a hand over her mouth to keep the fright in. Fear gripped her now; she was shaking, nearly uncontrollably. The door was behind her, to her left. She could hear the man coming in — he was not rushing. It was the same way Daddy checked on her when he thought she was asleep, but wasn’t.

Only this wasn’t Daddy.

The closet was to her right and soon she could see the man’s black shoes under the edge of where the bedspread hung down.

He opened the louvered doors one at a time, and poked around in there, among her toys on the floor and the neat hanging clothes. When he shut the closet up, her breath caught in her throat and maybe, maybe, a tiny sound came out.

She was sure he would look under the bed next, that his stranger’s face would be inches from hers; but he didn’t. Instead, he walked around the bed, circling behind her and crossing the room to her desk and the small table where she kept her snow globe collection.

When he stopped before the table, his feet still in view under the bedspread hem, she felt something that wasn’t fear — something that, had she been older, might have been described as a sense of violation.

Her snow globe collection was her most cherished possession, and the stranger was looking at them, maybe even handling them. She felt her face redden but made herself stay silent, knowing that his finding her, and touching her, could be far worse than him touching her toys.

Please, Daddy, please come home, she prayed.

Then the stranger’s feet turned again — was he walking out of the room? Without finding her? A hopeful wave washed over her, but still she stayed quiet as a mouse. Then couldn’t see his feet, couldn’t hear him, didn’t know where he was...

Cold dry hands grabbed her ankles, and yanked.

The scream, the pure animal cry that escaped from her, seemed to echo off the walls, and engulf her whole world. She grabbed at the carpeting, but the nap gave her nothing to hold onto and anyway he was too strong, dragging her.