Because she didn’t run, that was why.
Three, two, one—
Erika yanked open the door, jumped free of the jambs, and pointed her gun directly in front of her, at the stairwell.
Which shouldn’t have been dark.
The light fixture over the staircase, which she always left on, was off for some reason, so there was nothing but a dense void in front of her—and down below, she should have been able to catch the glow from the porch fixture. It was off as well.
Nothing but shadows.
Her breath was loud. Her heart thundered.
Something in her dream had been as black as the void in front of her. Something… that had curled out of the mouth of—
Creeeeeeaaaaaaaaaaak.
“Get out of my house!” she yelled as she slapped for the light switch.
When she flipped it, nothing happened. No illumination. A brief recap of locking herself into her room and taking the window escape to the garage occurred to her. It didn’t last. As if she were compelled by a force outside of herself, she went forward, even as her legs began to tremble.
“When I find you,” she called out as she looked down into what felt like the pit of Hell, “I’m not arresting you. I’m shooting you in the chest.”
Holding her position, her eyes finally adjusted enough so that a gray glow from the slot windows on either side of her front door pulled free of all the unseeable.
Tap.
“I have a gun,” she said hoarsely. “I have… a gun.”
Tap. Tap.
The repetitive sound was soft, softer than the creaking had been; it was barely audible.
Erika swallowed through a dry throat and extended her bare foot over the first step of the stairwell. Even though she knew that her weight would be caught, she felt as though she were tilting into oblivion, initiating a free fall she wouldn’t be able to pull herself back from, plunging into a descent that would end in something far, far worse than broken bones and torn veins and…
Tap. Tap. Tap.
…a pool of her blood beneath her dead body.
The ball of her foot landed on cold wood and she wanted to grip the banister, but she needed her gun controlled as she took another step down. And another. Her hands were shaking so badly—maybe that was her whole body, especially as the hair on the back of her neck stood straight up, and everything felt icy, her skin prickling.
Tap.Tap.Tap.
She was halfway down when she recognized what the sound was. It was a finger, softly hitting on a window—
The shadow that crossed the foyer at the foot of the stairwell was quick as a blink, obvious as a scream.
The sudden rage that gripped her was the kind of thing she’d have to figure out later. The moment it hit, she gave in to the wave of aggression: Against everything rational, she pile-drove the rest of the way down, her feet thundering over the remaining steps. Leaping off the end, she landed with a thud, her gun pointed in the direction the intruder had gone, through the archway into her little living room.
Dear God, what was that smell? Like… spoiled meat.
All of a sudden, the temperature dropped so far that her breath became clouds in front of her face.
Creeeeeeeeaaaaaaaak.
Her eyes shifted to the front door, where a mirror hung by the exit so you could check your makeup as you left. The smooth glass reflected her own image back at her… as well as that of the darkened kitchen in the rear of the townhouse.
There was someone in there.
No, it was more like something. Something was there—
The shadow rushed up on her from behind, coming from out of nowhere.
As Erika was punched in the back, she screamed and turned and pulled the trigger, bullets discharging in a fat circle, shattering the mirror, hitting the door, penetrating one of the side windows, before passing through an indescribably evil entity—
* * *
Erika shouted and put her hands up to her face, shielding herself from attack as her recoil took her backwards. Set into a free fall, she had a brief, confusing impression of her work computer screen and then she was ass-over-tea-kettling it and landing faceup on a crash—
In the aisle between cubicle rows? At homicide?
For a couple of dragging breaths, she stayed where she was, wondering if she were still dreaming, if she was going to “wake up” another time. Or two. Or twelve.
When nothing happened and nothing changed, she patted the carpet with her palms. She was too shaken to look around properly, too confused as to whether she was awake or not, but she better get over all that quick. As fear shimmied over her skin, she turned her head and went eye to eye with the wastepaper basket under her desk. The Post-its she’d wadded up earlier and thrown badly in a series of near-misses were a little halo of yellow and blue on the carpet.