If she lived that long.
“The address is Pole 147, Chestnut Court,” Murphy said into the phone, reading the address Tom had printed so perfectly on the now limp, body-heat warm sheet of blue-lined notebook paper. At another time, she might have laughed at the irony of the narrow, snow-strewn, pot-hole ridden dirt road she'd driven down being called a “Court".
The operator repeated the address, and Murphy confirmed its accuracy.
“And the nature of the problem?” the woman asked.
“It's not a problem,” Murphy corrected tightly, “it's an emergency.”
“Of course it is, ma'am.” The woman sighed. “The nature of the ‘emergency'?”
“Someone is—”
It was no use. Dead air echoed flatly in her ear. The connection had been broken.
She replaced the receiver, this time gently, quietly, in its black plastic cradle.
Murphy glanced to the side, and gasped. If not for the wall at her back, her knees would have buckled. There was no longer a shadow at the sliding glass doors. There was a figure.
Tall.
Wide shouldered.
Lean hipped.
Thick, powerful legs.
That was all she took the time to notice. Clutching the skillet tightly in one fist, she hunched over and snatched up Moonshine with her free hand. If the intruder was at the back door, she'd go out the front. Good. It was closer to the car anyway.
Her sneakers squeaking on the linoleum, she raced for the front door. Moonshine must have sensed her fright, because he turned his body inward, his belly pressed flat against her chest. Murphy barely felt his claws—this time they sank well past her sweater—needling into her shoulder as she fumbled with the deadbolt and yanked open the door.
She froze in the act of crossing the threshold. The wind that even now cut through her sweater and jeans had drifted two feet of snow against the door.
That wasn't what stopped her; the snow was an inconvenience.
No, what stopped her was the blood.
Large stains of it marred the otherwise pristine carpet of white. There was, she noticed with a growing nausea, more than a dozen misshapen splotches leading up to, and away from, the front door. Even as she watched, the puddles spread wider, unevenly tainting the snow and melting into it with fresh heat.
The sound of glass shattering behind her propelled Murphy into action. Whoever was out there had broken the sliding glass door.
Reeboks were great, but they did nothing to keep feet warm and dry in blizzard conditions. Murphy learned that quickly as she bolted straight into the snowdrift, then straight out of it. Her attention never strayed from the snow-covered windshield of her decrepit VW. Even when she heard the heavy, staggered chase of footsteps closing in behind her.
Tom could tease her about the car all he wanted, but right now the ratty looking VW that was more parts rust than metal and paint looked like heaven.
The door handle felt like sculpted ice in her hand. The muscles in her shoulders screamed a protest as she wrenched the door open and tossed Moonshine into the driver's seat.
The overhead light had stopped working years ago; she didn't expect it to flick on and she wasn't disappointed as she scooted behind the steering wheel and slammed the door shut.
Murphy didn't glance at the house, didn't dare. She could feel the intruder's presence bearing down on her. With her elbow, she jammed down the lock on the driver's door. It was a two door car, so she only had to stretch to the right to punch the passenger door's lock down, too.
Then and only then did she allow herself a small sigh of relief. The biting cold air turned her breath to mist as she fumbled in her coat pocket for her…
“No. No!” Murphy punched her fist hard against the steering wheel. The blow rocked up her arm, past her shoulder. The pain didn't change anything. Moonshine meowed next to her, as though confirming what she'd already realized with a mounting sense of dread.
Her keys were in her coat pocket. Her coat was back in the house, draped atop her brother's bed in the master bedroom…where she'd tossed it an hour ago when she'd arrived.
A fist slammed against the window next to Murphy's head.