Instinct Jason Hough (best mobile ebook reader .txt) 📖

“Think, think,” I whisper. There’s a small bathroom in here. I haven’t looked through it yet. Tools, maybe? Take the door off its hinges? I search under the sink and find nothing but a roll of toilet paper and three extra bars of soap. The paper I leave, but the soap I take. Back in the bedroom I remove the pillowcase from the pillow and stuff the soap inside, then tie it off. I swing it around a few times. The soap’s not that heavy, but as weapons go it’s better than nothing. If I can crack someone in the temple with this, I think they’ll at least be stunned, if not out cold for a bit.

On a whim I take the towel that’s hanging over the small bathroom’s shower stall and roll it into a loose tube, stuffing it under the blanket on the bed. I arrange the pillow to be mostly underneath, too, and plump up the blanket where I can. Let them come in and think I’m still here, asleep. For a few seconds only, sure, but it’s better than nothing.

Now what? Wait for someone to come to collect the food tray? Thump them on the head and make a dash?

Could be hours. Even until morning.

Go out the window? I cross to it again and peek through. It can open, and the screen on the outside looks flimsy, but the only place to go from here is down to the patio, which is illuminated by the expansive windows looking in on the great living room. Someone would see me. I study the ground below. What I can see of it, at least. There is the guy sitting with the rifle on his lap, but he’s a good five feet to the left, so dropping on him is unlikely in the extreme.

I pace for a moment, then sit again, suddenly dejected. It’s no use. I get one shot at this, and none of the options are good. I want to be well away from this place before anyone knows I’m missing. A fifteen-foot drop onto a stone patio is likely to leave me with a sprained ankle, maybe even a broken one, only to then be chased down into the valley. With no shoes or socks on, either. It’s useless. But I can’t think of a better idea.

I go to the window and pry with my fingertips, dragging it aside as slowly as I can, not wanting to make any noise. When it’s finally open all the way I go to work on the screen, lifting the two plastic tabs at the bottom and trying to lift it out of the frame. The tabs are stiff, though, and the screen refuses to budge. I try harder, straining as much as I dare, ignoring the cool early autumn breeze on my skin and the sounds of the night. Crickets, leaves stirred by wind, and the babble of the low river somewhere farther off like a whisper.

And then another sound begins to register, so faint and subtle at first I think I’m imagining it. But the sound grows steadily.

An airplane, I think. Small one, prop engine. Can I use that? Light a fire, get their attention? They’ll report it, and the National Parks Service fire response would come.

As the sound grows, though, it changes. Becomes more like a rhythm, or a pulse. Helicopter, then. The sound is growing by the second now. Police, searching for me?

There’s a flurry of activity downstairs. I hear a door opening, and the voices get louder. From the yard below me I hear Chief Greg call out.

“Ang, it’s them!” he says.

My heart skips a beat as I picture SWAT officers rappelling down from a chopper as a sniper in the doorway picks off the hapless, panicked members of the Broken Nose Gang.

But then I recognize Greg’s tone. It’s not alarm. It’s expectation.

There’s a muffled reply.

The sound of the aircraft becomes a sudden roar, and the yard is illuminated by its landing lights.

Suddenly the ring of lit paving stones makes sense. They aren’t for some kind of satanic ritual. They’re a goddamn landing pad.

The vertical blinds before me begin to whip and twist as the great wash of the rotor buffets the back of the house. Shadows dance through the room, the light a brilliant erratic strobe, hitting my face like a physical force as I try to bat the blinds into position and hold them down. I can only hope no one aboard is looking this way.

I give up and crouch below the window. The sound of the helicopter is tremendous, drowning out everything else, and I realize this is the chance I’ve been waiting for. As distractions go it’s magnificent. But not for exiting via my window.

Grabbing the pillowcase with the soap in it, I rush to the door. It takes one swift kick to get it open, wood splintering in the jamb where the latch had been. Between all the activity downstairs, and the thunderous wind of the helicopter, the noise is inaudible even to me. Going to have a hell of a bruised foot, but thanks to Doc my body is still loaded with painkillers.

A quick glance left and right. The hall is empty. I go right, toward the center of the house, running with the pillowcase held low and loose, swinging at my shins. Doors blur by on either side, all closed. I keep going. At the corner I peer around and then move again, finding the next leg of the hall empty as well.

Halfway down its length, the hall reaches the center of the great house and the walls to either side become railings. When I reach that spot I’ll have no cover to either side, so I slow to a stop just before.

The span of hallway before me is really more like an elevated bridge looking down on the living room to the right and the foyer to the left. On the other