No Way Out
I shoved myself under the guest room bed, trembling as I listened to the heavy footsteps echoing down the hallway. I dialed 911, pressing the phone tight against my ear. “Please hurry, he’s in the house,” I whispered.
The dispatcher’s voice was calm, almost amused. “We know,” she said softly. “We told him exactly where you were hiding.”
The line went dead with a hollow click.
I stared at the glowing screen of my phone in the dusty darkness beneath the bed, my brain violently refusing to process what I had just heard. A cold, suffocating dread washed over me. The police weren’t coming. The 911 operator was in on it.
Who is this guy? I thought frantically, remembering the charming local who had offered to show me the way to the interstate when I got lost in this secluded mountain town just two hours ago.
The heavy, rhythmic thud, thud, thud of boots stopped just outside the bedroom door.
I clamped a hand over my mouth, terrified that the sound of my own ragged breathing would give me away—even though I now knew it didn’t matter. He already knew.
The brass doorknob slowly clicked and turned. The hinges shrieked in the quiet house as the door swung open. A sliver of pale moonlight spilled across the hardwood floor, illuminating the scuffed steel toes of his heavy work boots.
“Ollie, ollie, oxen free,” a deep, raspy voice purred. It was the man from the gas station. The one with the friendly smile.
He didn’t search the closet. He didn’t check behind the door. He walked in a deliberate, straight line toward the foot of the bed. I squeezed my eyes shut, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.
Suddenly, the mattress above me shifted. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, right above my head. The springs groaned under his weight.
“You know, you’re the third out-of-towner we’ve had this month,” he said conversationally, tapping a heavy metal object—a crowbar, by the sound of the metallic clink against the floorboards—right next to my face. “Usually, folks try to run out the back door. Hiding under the bed? That’s classic. Betty down at dispatch owes me twenty bucks. I bet her you’d go for the guest room.”
Panic gave way to a sudden, blinding surge of adrenaline. I wasn’t going to die cowering in the dust.
My hand frantically patted the floorboards until my fingers brushed against the heavy, cast-iron base of a forgotten floor lamp shoved deep under the bed. I gripped it with both hands, the metal biting into my palms.
“Alright, playtime’s over,” he sighed, his boots shifting as he prepared to lean down and look under the frame.
The second his face appeared upside-down in my line of sight, I swung the iron base with everything I had.
CRACK. The heavy metal connected squarely with his jaw. He let out a wet, strangled yell and fell backward, dropping the crowbar.
I didn’t hesitate. I scrambled out from under the opposite side of the bed, gasping for air. The man was thrashing on the floor, clutching his bleeding face. I grabbed the heavy wooden chair sitting by the vanity and hurled it through the closed bedroom window. Glass exploded outward in a glittering shower.
Without looking back, I vaulted over the sill, ignoring the sharp shards that tore at my jeans and hands. I hit the soft dirt of the flowerbed and scrambled to my feet, sprinting toward the tree line at the edge of the property.
I pulled my phone from my pocket to dial for help again, but stopped cold. Who was I going to call? The police were part of the game. The whole town was a trap.
I crushed the phone under the heel of my shoe to stop them from tracking the GPS, swallowed the copper taste of fear in my mouth, and disappeared into the dark woods. I was entirely alone, and the hunt had just begun.
