Ray Gorham - 77 Days in September

She worried about her kids, wishing they could have typical childhood experiences like attending a real school, visiting relatives, going to the zoo, and watching TV. She hated that they were worrying about whether or not they would see their dad again and had to work for food or help with the burial of a neighbor. Emma struggled the most, and Jennifer didn’t know what to do. Their night together had helped some, plus Jennifer had tried playing games and reading books with Emma, and even going on mother-daughter walks, but was still having limited success in helping her daughter cope with their new way of life. David was becoming a man, having matured rapidly in the past few weeks, but Jennifer worried about him too, that he was having to grow up too quickly. His work at the Shipley farm was tough, but the milk, meat, and other food he was earning were a huge help to the family, and David knew the value it had for them, which added to his pressure and responsibilities. Spencer, on the other hand, was young and taking everything in stride, not worrying about things too much, just innocently accepting the situation for what it was. Still thinking about her kids, Jennifer drifted off to sleep where she dreamed about easier times.

Jennifer slept peacefully until a noise broke through her dreams and abruptly woke her. Without moving from the couch, Jennifer tried to regain her bearings as she listened for the noise to repeat. A neighbor’s dog barked in the distance, and comfortable that she’d identified the disturbance, Jennifer relaxed and drifted off to sleep again. Just as she lost consciousness, she heard muffled footsteps in the house. Her mind focused immediately and she sat up. “David?” she called out and waited for an answer. The noise stopped, but no answer came. “David, is that you? Are you feeling okay?” The house was eerily still.

Darkness surrounded her, the dim glow of the moonlight barely illuminating the windows let alone the rest of the house. Now sitting on the edge of the couch, she held her breath and leaned forward, straining to hear the sound. She heard the neighbor’s dog again, but was certain that wasn’t what had awakened her. The silence was thick and heavy, and Jennifer listened and waited, but still nothing.

After a tense minute, she exhaled slowly and leaned back against the couch. Her heart raced, but she tried to dismiss the noises as “night-sounds” amplified by her stressed-out situation. Too wound up to go back to sleep, Jennifer felt with her feet for her slippers, then got up and walked into the kitchen for a drink of water. A cool breeze drifted across her ankles, covering her legs with goose bumps. She looked for the source of the breeze and saw that the front door was open with a narrow wedge of moonlight illuminating the gap.

Jennifer’s mind raced. Had she closed and locked the door earlier in the evening? She was positive she had. Had one of the children wandered off? Emma had been so unsettled — was it her? Filled with dread, Jennifer ran outside to the porch and scanned the street in front of the house. She saw nothing and hurried back inside, her heart pounding like a piston. She walked as quickly as she dared in the darkness down the hall towards Emma’s room.

Passing the open door to her own bedroom, Jennifer sensed movement. She stopped and turned. “Emma?” she said in a hushed voice. “Are you…” she started to say before being silenced by a shape, much too large to be Emma, moving rapidly towards her from inside her bedroom. Petrified, she stood in front of the door wanting to scream, but only a dull gasp escaped her lips. She tried to pull herself away from the door, but her legs wouldn’t respond. She raised her hands in front of her for protection just as the intruder, in his attempt to flee, collided with her and sent her careening backwards into the wall of the hallway. Her arms flailed behind her to find the wall and catch herself, but the impact was too violent and she only managed to knock the pictures that were hanging there to the floor with her as she fell.

As the intruder dashed towards the front door to escape, his legs tangled with hers and he fell with a loud crash to the ground, then quickly recovered, scrambled for the door, and was swallowed by the darkness of the night as he fled through the front door.

Jennifer lay on the floor, stunned and trying to make sense of what had happened. As she began to pick herself up, a sound came from the basement stairs and terror took root again. Jennifer crawled silently into her room as the footsteps approached the top of the stairs. She reached under the mattress for Kyle’s gun, her heart skipping a beat when she heard a hinge on the basement door squeak as it opened.

Who was in her house? What had they done to her children? Rumors of gangs had spread through the community in recent weeks, but so far there hadn’t been any problems locally. Was she the first victim? Jennifer’s fingers found the cold, reassuring steel, and she quickly pulled the gun from under the mattress. With her hands shaking violently, Jennifer tossed the holster to the floor and turned back towards the door.

Images of David and Spencer butchered in their beds in the basement terrorized her. What had happened to sweet Emma? Was it too late to save any of them? She could feel her heart pounding, then her fear dissolved into a rage more intense than she had ever felt in her life.

Jennifer held the gun tightly with both hands and pointed it towards the open doorway. She had shot the gun a few times in the past and knew how to use it, if she needed to. Aiming the gun at chest level, she pressed her right index finger lightly against the trigger, ready to squeeze as soon as the intruder appeared. She listened, senses magnified, adrenaline pumping, exhaling in short, shallow puffs, her mind focused on the gun in her hands.

In her other life she would have called 911, but not now. Being able to call for help, or even just flip on a light was a distant memory. She longed for the sound of approaching sirens and flashing blue lights racing down the road to save her, but knew they would never come.

A loose floorboard produced a barely audible creak, but it echoed loudly in her head. She squeezed the grip of the gun tighter. In her head, she heard Kyle’s instructions. “Squeeze the trigger, don’t pull it.” Jennifer’s arms began to tingle from holding the gun extended, but she blocked the discomfort from her mind.

Her eyes straining in the darkness, Jennifer saw the dark shape of a hand placed carefully on her doorway. She tensed and waited, ready to fire, knowing that she would need to incapacitate the intruder before he could return fire. She felt the pressure of the trigger against her finger, and braced herself for the recoil and sound of the shot, knowing it would echo loudly throughout the house.

As she waited and watched, poised to shoot, she heard a voice from down the hallway calling timidly for her. It was Emma. Jennifer wanted to scream out to her, to tell her not to draw attention to herself, but she was too afraid.

Jennifer forced herself to breathe, still watching the hand on the doorway. Something crunched and she knew the intruder had stepped on glass from one of the broken pictures. The hand pulled away from the doorway, and she heard a muffled noise. The noise came again, then again. A stifled cough!

Jennifer lowered the gun. “David?” she hissed, listening for a response, “David? Is that you?” she hissed again, more urgently this time.

“Mom?” came David’s frightened voice. “Mom, it’s me. Are you okay?”

Jennifer started to shake. She dropped the gun and crawled across the room to her bedroom doorway. “David, you scared me,” she said, her voice choking off. Tears flowed down her cheeks as she envisioned herself shooting David and watching him die by her hand. She reached him and wrapped her arms around his head as he sat on the floor in the hallway holding his foot.