Her sure-footed SUV, bought used three years ago because she’d needed a dependable four-wheel-drive vehicle, climbed steadily. Visibility dropped as the mist grew heavier. She took a quick glance at the outside temperature gauge and saw that the temp was just a couple of degrees above freezing. The trees had a faint silvery cast to them; was ice already beginning to form?
Then she turned into the driveway, powering up the long slope toward home. It wouldn’t be “home” much longer, she thought, but right now it still looked welcoming and somehow just right. Never mind that the house was almost sixty years old, had faded a bit, and sagged here and there; it was still large and solid, offering a warm, safe refuge on a wintry night. Too bad she couldn’t stay here, but if she got iced in it would be a couple of weeks before she could get off the mountain, depending on how bad the damage was and how many trees came down.
Much as she loved this place, she knew it was time for the house she’d grown up in to be home to a family again, as it had been home to her. Once the few remaining personal effects here were packed away, sold, or stored, her childhood home would go on the market, and it would no longer be hers in any way. Too bad she wouldn’t have the few days of escaping into the past that she’d wanted, but the weather had other plans.
She didn’t bother with parking in the detached garage, just pulled up close to the front porch. Keys in hand, she hurried up the steps and unlocked the front door. As soon as she let herself in she shed her heavy, hooded winter coat, tossing it over the newel post and dropping her purse on the bottom step. Detouring to the back, she grabbed her snow boots from the mud room and brought them to join her coat and purse.
She didn’t know when she’d be able to come back, she thought as she started up the stairs. Was there anything in the refrigerator she needed to clean out? No, she didn’t think so. She’d been eating granola bars for breakfast, not bothering even with milk for cereal, and at night she’d either had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or picked up a sandwich in town. She knew how to turn off the water at the valve, and turn off the gas to the water heater; other than locking the door, that was all she could do to get the house ready to withstand the coming storm.
She was halfway up the stairs when she heard the rumble of a vehicle. She stopped, then reversed her path. Knowing the people here as she did, she wouldn’t be at all surprised if someone had heard about the storm, realized she was here with no television or phone, and come to collect her. This had always been the kind of community where neighbors looked after neighbors, and she missed that—some days. She was both glad for the company and concerned at the delay.
Crossing her fingers that she wouldn’t have any trouble getting down the hill, Lolly opened the front door. She expected to find someone she knew, an old friend of her parents or the closest thing she had to a neighbor, and a welcoming smile was on her face. The smile froze when she realized she didn’t know the rough-looking couple coming up the porch steps, though the woman looked vaguely familiar. Then Lolly remembered seeing her in the grocery store earlier, recognized her even though the stringy dark hair was now partially covered by a knit cap, and a thick coat disguised her thinness.
A couple of possibilities rapidly crossed her mind. Were they lost? Looking for shelter? Maybe they were unfamiliar with the area and didn’t know that they did not want to be stuck here on the mountain if the ice was as bad as predicted.
“I’m just on my way out …” Lolly began.
The man right behind the stringy-haired woman pulled a gun from his parka pocket. Shock hit Lolly like a slap in the face; she gaped at the gun, barely comprehending what she saw, then she sucked in a quick breath and instinctively stepped back. The man and woman both rushed at her, shoving her back inside so roughly that she slammed hard into the newel post, staggered, saved herself from falling with a desperate grab at the wood.
The man shoved the door shut behind them. The woman glanced around, at the living room on the left, the flight of stairs straight ahead, the dining room on the right. She smiled, showing discolored and rotten teeth. “See, baby, I told you she was alone.”
Lolly clung to the newel post, literally frozen under the sudden lash of terror, her brain numb, coherent thoughts scattered before they could even form. She groped for understanding, and finally, like a switch being flipped, her sluggish brain began to function. Home invasion—here, in Wilson Creek! It was so wrong, that something like this could happen here, that sheer indignation abruptly shoved terror aside and suddenly she could move, was already moving even before she realized. She ran, ran for her life.
The man shouted, “You bitch! Fuck!” as Lolly darted through the dining room, dodging around the table, grabbing one of the heavy chairs and slinging it in his path then racing into the kitchen. Footsteps thudded behind her but she didn’t look, didn’t spare even a split second, just ran for her life. If she could just get outside—
She grabbed for the doorknob, and a hand grabbed her hair. Pain laced her scalp; her head jerked back and she was sent spinning away from the door. Her feet went out from under her and she fell to the floor, the man’s grip cruelly tight on her hair. He shoved her down and she hit the cold, hard linoleum face-first.
Lolly screamed, then caught her breath and held it. She grabbed for her hair, trying to pry his hands away. The sudden weight of his body on hers was heavy and hot. He pressed her into the floor, forcing her breath out, and she couldn’t take another.
“Now you got me all excited,” he whispered in her ear, grinding himself against her bottom. His breath was hot and fetid, and a rough stubble scratched her cheek. She turned her head away from the stink and roughness, but she couldn’t move far. Her fingers scrabbled at the linoleum, trying to find purchase, trying to find something, anything—