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Tyler’s eyelids clamped tight against the smoke. His body shook as he hooked his right elbow onto the edge of the hatch, his stomach muscles quivering as he hoisted his weight inside the broiling attic.
Should he be back at the window, covering Mom and Kevin’s descent? If the noise they’d heard had been Beth’s signal, it meant they could climb down in safety. It should have been him that had clambered up here in the first place. He had the gun, knew how to use it and shouldn’t have let her come alone. Tyler thought about Beth Jordan swinging her fists at him at the roadside and how he’d hid behind his iPhone.
He got to his feet, crouched low and cupped his hand over his mouth and nostrils. Through the rolling waves of smoke, he could locate the other hatch by the orange fire jetting through it. Maybe it was too late. He would just take a look; see if she was below. Maybe she’d passed out. If the flames were too intense, he would return to the bedroom and follow his family out the lodge that way.
His stomach pumped, retching against the fumes. He’d already breathed some in through his nostrils. Tyler reached the hatch and leaned over the opening, the blazing current forcing him back.
“Beth!” He leaned over before being repelled again. The billowing smoke made it impossible for him to see anything below. She said the fire hadn’t spread to the stairs. If he dropped down he could head straight for them, have the rifle ready to shoot. But the flames could have blocked that exit by now, in which case he’d be trapped on the landing.
*
Beth was halfway down the passage. She knew the gunman was waiting for her just before the kitchen door, concealed at the entrance to the cellar. Black vapour surged past her and was sucked through the screen of the open back door. The smoke alarm joined the cacophony in the kitchen. Was a sprint her best option? Try to run past him and close the inner kitchen door?
It would give her a few valuable seconds to ram the screen and dive over the balustrade into the river, swim down so he couldn’t get a clear shot and hold her breath as long as she could. She couldn’t think beyond that. Beth hoped the O’Dooles had heard the signal and were getting out of the house. Perhaps they were already at the patrol car.
If she started her run up here, it would alert him of her approach, however. She had to get as close to him as possible before she made a break for it. Beth flattened herself to the staircase panel and crouched low, sliding her back towards the right turning to the cellar where he was waiting for her.
*
Tyler realised it was foolish. But the woman had come to warn them, and his mother had locked her up in the cellar. Now it looked like she was alone with the maniac. Could they leave her without a weapon? Tyler knew he couldn’t live with himself if they waited outside while she lay unconscious and the lodge burnt down.
But how long would he have to live with it? And if he dropped through the hatch, he was likely to be roasted alive.
Tyler wasn’t ready to die. Even though he was always so gung-ho about his condition for everyone else’s benefit and knew he might not see Kevin’s sixteenth, he wasn’t ready to die down there.
“Fuck,” he said into his palm and turned back to the bedroom hatch.
*
Marcia O’Doole stood on the concrete in front of the lodge, clasping Kevin to her and watching the smoke gushing from the bedroom window. She couldn’t have stopped Tyler. She’d already dangled out of the window and had to make sure Kevin got down safely. She’d thought she wouldn’t be able to climb back and that Kevin would remain frozen there, but, to her relief he’d quickly followed her out, and she’d talked him down until it was time to drop the few feet from the end of their makeshift rope.
It flailed gently in the breeze, and Marcia knew they couldn’t wait for Tyler. She had to bottle her anger, concentrate on getting Kevin to safety before she came back for him. They still had to make it up the steps. If they did, they wouldn’t stop at the patrol car; she’d drag Kevin to Saw Creek and call the police from there.
There was a scrabbling above them, and Mrs O’Doole looked up. Tyler’s leg cocked over the ledge, and soon his entire body was sliding down the sheets. He dropped to join them and unshouldered the rifle. She hugged him. He was rigid.
“I couldn’t get through. Couldn’t reach her,” he said emotionlessly.
“We have to go.” She grabbed both her sons and hurried them to the steps.
*
Beth was covering her mouth, stifling her fear and her need to cough against the smoke that had filled the hallway. Its curtain was now only a foot from the floor, and it wouldn’t be long until the gunman would be overcome as well. She was about three feet from the turning to the cellar entrance and edging nearer. He must have heard her come down the stairs, knew she was working her way towards him. Perhaps he thought she had the rifle. She wished she had.
It was time to make her move. If the smoke forced the gunman to make his presence known, she was an easy target.
*
Mrs O’Doole and her boys reached the top of the steps and the patrol car. Its red-and-blues were still switched on.
“This way.” She led them along the bank. They would skirt it under cover of the trees until they reached the next lodge.
Tyler headed for the vehicle. “Let’s see if they’ve left the keys in it.”
“Tyler, no! He’ll hear the engine.”
He was nearly at the driver’s door. “Just let me look. We could use the radio.”
“Tyler, stay with me!”
He opened it.
