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Message: <blockquote data-quote="HeapThaumaturgist" data-source="post: 939286" data-attributes="member: 12332">Cabin Fever Pt. 3“Did you hear that?”  Frank asked.Wiley looked up from his cards.”I did.”The five sat around the dining room table in the L-crook of the greatroom.”Hear what?”  Scott turned and looked out one of the back windows.”Probably a cat or a badger or a ‘mountain critter’ of some sort.”  He said.“No, something bumped against the house.  It would have to be bigger than that.”  Frank said and looked out another window.  Nothing but the reflection of the interior lights.  “There.  I heard it again.”The lights went out.  Everyone froze in that moment of terror that comes when you can’t see what was just there a moment before.”Sh**”Click.  Light bloomed across the table.”Told you.”  Brickel said.”The wiring in places like this is always bad.”  Penick said, groping toward the kitchen counter and the four-pack of Eveready flashlights.“Right.  This place is maybe ten years old.  It’s a clear night.  I heard a noise, the lights went out.  Franky-no-likey.””Maybe that was a fuse blowing?”  Penick said and passed the pack down.  Scott and Wiley took the last two of the plastic flashlights.  Frank moved to the fireplace and pulled the poker with a soft-ringing hiss.”Yea, uh huh.”Wiley made his way across the great-room to the table with the phone.  Frank moved from the fireplace toward the couch and his backpack. “Don’t tell me it’s dead, damnit.”  He said.Wiley looked up from the phone, receiver in hand.  “No phone.”  He said, quietly.“Okay, so somebody is out there.”  Scott whispered.”And if they cut the juice and the phone …”  Penick said.Scott moved toward the kitchen and the butcher’s block.  Wiley leaned down by the door and picked up the unused bottle of lighter fluid that stood by the bags of charcoal.  Frank came up from his bag holding a large rectangular flashlight.Outside, the porch steps squeaked.  Everyone clutched their make-shift weapons tightly, their fear suddenly confirmed.”We need to …”  Brickel began, pointed meaningfully at the floor, then pantomimed pulling the slide back on his Glock.”Move.”  Frank hissed.-Something- moved across the front porch, visible mostly as a darkening against the windows.  They all moved toward the basement door, quickly but stealthily.  Brickel opened the door and started down the stairs with Penick hard behind.  The steps were wooden, lumber-yard plank, and rattled as they stormed down for the car.  Inside, Wiley winced:  Whatever was out there HAD to hear that.It did.The front door gave way with a crash and a scream of metal.  Frank turned, drawn to look by the sound.  The deadbolt and door-pin were sheared through like broken icicles, one hinge knocked half- from the wall, and a split like a fault ran down the center of the heavy oak.  He bellowed in fear, surprise, and defiance, raising his poker and stumbling backward toward the steps.  The powerful beam of his flashlight played drunkenly across the doorway, but he was the only one to see.  The intruder shouldered its way through the broken doorway and roared.  Of a sudden Frank’s bellow turned into a scream.Already downstairs, Brickel ran toward the Explorer.  He fumbled in his pocket for his keys and the unlock button on the keyfob.  Wiley ran to place the water-heater between himself and the steps.  Upstairs, Frank screamed again, a wrenching, sickening cry.  Everyone’s stomachs tightened.  What could make the largest and strongest of them make that sound?  At six-foot-eight and 350lbs, Frank was as large as many pro football players.  Mercifully the lights came on in the SUV and the locks clicked open.  Brickel wrenched open the driver’s-side door and groped his handgun blindly out from under the seat.  Penick ran to the back hatch of the Explorer.  He was still unarmed, but he had the swords he’d bought somewhere in the back.  They weren’t great, but they were sharp and steel and had to be better than nothing.On the stairs they heard pounding, a short yell, and a clatter.  Frank tumbled down and spilled out onto the concrete floor.  His black t-shirt was dark with wetness and he fell wrongly, like something broken.  Brickel chambered a round in the Glock and crouched with the gun braced on the hood.  Frank turned his head weakly on the floor, searching.  One lens of his glasses was gone, the black frame twisted, his face running with blood.  Frantically he clawed at the floor, pushing with one leg and pulling with his fingers toward the lights.  In the silence of the moment, everyone could hear him whispering “Oh God please, Oh God please” and the wet scrape of his passing.  Behind him a wide streak of crimson glistened in the glare of his fallen flashlight.</blockquote>

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