Authors: James Barney
K
athleen pressed her eye against the peephole of her grandfather's door and peered out into the hallway. Seeing nobody, she asked, “Who is it?”
“I'm here with sheets and pillows,” said a man's muffled voice, indistinct and oddly garbled.
Kathleen didn't recognize the voice, but, then again, she didn't know everyone at Garrison Manor. She wondered briefly why she couldn't see the man's face through the peephole but decided not to let paranoia get the better of her. Drawing a deep breath, she carefully engaged the security chain above the doorknob and slowly cracked open the door.
Which was all Luce Venfeld needed.
In an instant, he smashed the door open with a vicious kick of his foot, tearing the security chain clear out of its bracket and sending the door slamming hard into Kathleen's shoulder.
Kathleen let out a terrified yelp and stumbled backward into the room, managing to regain her balance before nearly smashing into the glass-top coffee table behind her. Before she could do anything else, Venfeld was practically on top of her, pointing his 9 mm pistol directly at her face.
“Where is it?” he demanded angrily.
Kathleen knew better than to play dumb this time. “There,” she sputtered, nodding at the coffee table behind her.
“Hand it to me.”
Kathleen slowly turned and bent down to retrieve the neoprene sample bottle from the coffee table. Venfeld kept the barrel of the pistol hovering an inch from her head the whole time.
“That's it,” he cooed nastily, extending his left palm. “Hand it over. Nice and easy . . .”
J
ohn Sainsbury awoke to a raucous commotion in his room. It took him the better part of a minute to figure out exactly what was happening. These days, it wasn't unusual for him to be awakened by nurses or orderlies in the middle of the night to give him his pills or to change his linens. But this was different. Someone had just broken down the door. And there was a man with a gun in his room!
John Sainsbury's life at Garrison Manor was largely a blur of medications, changes of clothes, nurses and orderlies, bland meals, and televisionâhours and hours of mindless television. He knew he was illâseriously ill. He knew something was terribly wrong with his mind, although he had no idea what it was. He just . . . couldn't . . . remember . . . anything. In fact, most days, it took all his mental energy just to remember who he was, let alone anyone else.
But there was one person in particular (although he couldn't remember her name) who was especially nice to him.
She brought him Oreo cookies.
And, right now, someone was pointing a gun at her head.
That's all John Sainsbury needed to know.
He kicked off his covers and clumsily rolled himself out bed. The gunman had his back turned and didn't seem to notice. Without a second thought, John Sainsburyâeighty-five years old and feebleâgrabbed the metal clipboard from the foot of his bed, raised it high over his head with two trembling hands, and brought it crashing down on the gunman's head.
“J
esus fucking Christ!” Venfeld screamed as he was struck. He spun angrily and smacked John Sainsbury across the cheek with the handle of his pistol. Sainsbury grunted and fell backward to the floor like a sack of potatoes.
“Grandpa!” Kathleen shrieked.
Venfeld quickly shifted his attention back to Kathleen.
This time, however, she was prepared. Just as Venfeld turned to face her, she brought up her knee forcefully, summoning all the power of her days as a high-school soccer player, and landed it squarely in the center of his crotch.
Venfeld groaned loudly and doubled over, wincing in pain. “Fucking bitch!” he hissed through gritted teeth.
But Kathleen wasn't done. She answered Venfeld's insult with a roundhouse kick to the side of his head. The powerful blow landed flat on his left temple and sent him sprawling across the floor in agony.
Kathleen wasted no time. She scooped up the remaining items from the coffee table and shoved them all into her pocket.
Venfeld was already struggling to his feet. “Give me that sample!” he demanded, scrambling for his gun.
Kathleen ignored him and stole a look at her grandfather, who was still lying motionless on the floor. Her heart sank. She desperately wanted to help him, but Venfeld was already on his feet, stumbling awkwardly toward her with the gun in his hand. She realized that her grandfather was safer wherever she wasn't.
She had to go.
Kathleen turned and bolted through the open doorway. No time to wait for an elevator, she sprinted full speed toward the central marble staircase. Seconds later, she heard Venfeld's voice in the hallway behind her.
“You stupid bitch!” he screamed. “You don't know who you're dealing with!” A split second later, two deafening gunshots exploded behind her.
The first shot whizzed past her left ear and shattered a porcelain vase on a console table several yards ahead of her. She never broke her stride. The second shot splintered the top of the newel post on the staircase banister, just as she was reaching out to grab it. She retracted her hand but did not slow down. Hooking a hard right at the top of the marble stairs, she began descending the steps two at a time. Seconds later, she heard Venfeld's footsteps above her, in hard pursuit.
Kathleen reached the ground floor and darted into the lobby, where Ellie McDougal was frantically punching buttons on the reception desk phone, a terrified expression on her face. “What's going on?” she screamed.
“Ellie, get down!” Kathleen shouted.
Just then, another shot rang out. The bullet ricocheted off the marble floor near Kathleen's feet and slammed hard into an adjacent wall.
Ellie screamed and ducked behind the front desk. Kathleen sprinted for the front doors and ran out into the parking lot.
She reached her car parked near the front entrance and frantically fumbled her keys from her pocket, which seemed to take forever. Panting and shaking with fear, she unlocked the car and slipped into the driver's seat. She was just cranking the ignition when she saw Venfeld barreling out through the front entrance. “Oh no,” she whispered.
Venfeld took a few steps toward her car, stopped, took careful aim with his pistol, and fired
.
Instinctively, Kathleen ducked her head. At the same instant, both the passenger's side and the driver's side windows shattered as Venfeld's bullet passed just inches above her head. Still low in the driver's seat and unable to see above the dash, she threw the car into reverse and floored the accelerator. The Subaru squealed backward across two rows of empty parking spaces until it crashed into Nurse McDougal's lime green VW Beetle. The force of the impact snapped Kathleen's head back awkwardly, and, for a few seconds, left her dizzy and disoriented.
Another 9 mm ACP round shattered a rear passenger window and tore through the driver's headrest, just millimeters above Kathleen's head. Realizing she had to get out of there immediately, Kathleen sat up, put the car in gear, and sped through the parking lot toward the exit.
As she made a hard left onto Route 2, she glanced back and saw Venfeld running through the parking lot in the opposite direction.
T
he white Chevy Suburban squealed out of the bank parking lot next door to Garrison Manor and pulled up quickly behind Kathleen's southbound Subaru. Within seconds, it was less than a car's length away.
Kathleen glanced in her rearview mirror and winced.
McCreary.
She floored the accelerator and braced herself as her damaged car shook and shimmied its way up to 80 miles per hour. To her dismay, however, the 350-horsepower Suburban pulled into the passing lane and drew alongside. Kathleen glanced over and saw Goodwin driving and McCreary in the front passenger's seat of the Suburban. He was signaling to her, pointing emphatically to the side of the road.
“Forget it!” she screamed at him through the Subaru's broken window. “You're all in this together!” She didn't trust McCreary. In fact, she didn't trust anyone anymore.
Why couldn't they just leave her alone?
She saw an exit sign. Without hesitation, she banked sharply to the right, barely managing to keep her car on the road as she skidded into the tight cloverleaf turn onto Route 50 West.
The Suburban slammed on its brakes and skidded seventy-five feet down the emergency lane of Route 2, well beyond the exit Kathleen had taken.
She'd lost them . . . for now.
Kathleen continued west on Route 50 at top speed. Less than three minutes later, however, the Suburban was back on her tail, honking and flashing its lights. Once again, she veered unexpectedly onto an exit ramp, this time onto Route 70. Again, she managed to lose the less nimble Suburban in the process.
The road was deserted at this hour, with virtually no traffic in either direction. After several minutes with no sign of her pursuers, Kathleen breathed a sigh of relief and slowed down.
She seemed to have lost them.
Route 70 terminated at College Avenue. Kathleen turned right toward the historic district of Annapolis, still with no real plan in mind, other than getting away
.
She entered Church Circle, a roundabout in the center of town, and circumnavigated it slowly, trying to figure out which of the eight roads to take.
The irony did not escape her. Her own life was now at a crossroadsâa bewildering intersection of dimly lit paths, each leading to an unknown destiny. Literally and figuratively, she had no idea which way to go.
Without warning, Venfeld's black BMW careened into the roundabout at high speed, causing Kathleen to swerve sharply to the left. The BMW slowed and maneuvered alongside her car, so that both vehicles were now traveling side by side around Church Circle, with Kathleen's car trapped on the inside.
She glanced over at the BMW and saw Venfeld glaring at her, his eyes hard with anger. Suddenly, he cut his steering wheel sharply to the left.
The BMW slammed violently into the passenger's side of Kathleen's car, causing her to lose control and bounce up over the inner curb of the traffic circle. The Subaru crashed through a wrought-iron fence into the grounds of St. Anne's Church, where it stopped dead.
She punched the accelerator, anyway.
To her surprise, the Subaru lurched forward across the grass. Kathleen coaxed the damaged vehicle back onto the roadway, barely able to control the steering wheel as it yanked wildly left and right, nearly escaping her grasp in both directions. The Subaru wobbled around Church Circle, squealing like a wounded animal.
Out of the corner of her eye, Kathleen could see Venfeld coming at her again from the right, approaching fast at an oblique angle, obviously trying to sideswipe her. Instinctively, she stepped hard on the brakes and simultaneously cut the wheel sharply to the right. A half second later, the BMW whizzed in front of her car, missing it by inches and plowing into the curb ahead of her. Without hesitation, she floored the accelerator and veered right, guiding the squealing Subaru with great effort down the first available side street, a narrow cobblestone alley lined with brick buildings.
To Kathleen's dismay, the street soon terminated at College Creek. There was nowhere left to go. She stepped hard on the brakes, and the crippled Subaru shuddered to a halt.
The wash of headlights from a vehicle was already approaching from behind. Kathleen's heart skipped a beat. She opened the driver's side door, wrangled herself free of the seat belt, and jumped out of the car. With the rumble of the approaching vehicle growing louder, she sprinted toward a high wrought-iron fence that ran along the side of the road. She approached it, looked up and groaned.
Too high.
She looked right.
Nowhere to run.
She looked left.
Set into the fence a few yards away was a black wrought-iron gate that led into the darkened expanse beyond. Kathleen reached it just as the headlights of the approaching vehicle flicked across the vertical fence balusters, casting strange linear shadows. She pressed down hard on the latch and was amazed when it clicked open.
Slipping through the gate, Kathleen found herself in a large, manicured courtyard. In the moonlight, she could see a maze of waist-high boxwoods, perfectly trimmed and squared, stretching out before her in the fashion of an English garden. She glanced at the red brick building to her left and realized she was standing behind the caretaker's house at Saint Anne's Cedar Bluff Cemetery.
A car door slammed out on the street.
Terrified, Kathleen darted down a narrow gravel path that led into the boxwood labyrinth, ducking low so she couldn't be seen. As quietly as possible, she navigated her way through the maze, the stones crunching softly beneath her shoes. As she exited the other side, she heard the garden gate screech open and clank quietly shut.
Kathleen froze in place. Breathing became more difficult as panic set in.
Ahead in the moonlight, she saw a white wooden gate between two stone pillars. Leaving the boxwoods behind, she scurried across the lawn to the white gate. Behind her, she could hear the sound of shuffling feet in the boxwood garden.
He was searching for her
.
The painted wooden sign beside the white gate read:
S
T
. A
NNE'S
C
EMETERY
F
OUNDED
1783
Kathleen opened the gate slowly about a quarter of the way, cringing at the slight squeak it emitted. She slipped stealthily through the opening and closed the gate quietly behind her.
Spread before her in the moonlight were hundreds of headstones, monuments, statues, and crosses, some grouped together, others standing alone in the manicured grass, all stained dark with age.
She drew a deep breath and headed toward the largest marker she could see, which stood alone in the middle of the cemetery. It was a towering granite memorial crowned with a thick stone cross.