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Abraham Khan had just sat down for dinner when his wife gasped. He frowned and lowered his fork to his plate. Following her gaze, he looked out the windows.
Belinda pointed shakily. ‘There’s someone in the garden.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes.’
Abraham pushed his chair back and stood. Craning his neck, he swept his eyes over the fish pond. The flower beds. The shrubs. The fence line. But all he saw were their plants swaying in the drizzling twilight.
Eventually, he shook his head. ‘I don’t see anything.’
‘Abe, I’m telling you, there’s a man outside.’
Abraham reached for a switch on the wall, flipping on the spotlights. They blazed to life, blanketing the yard in a warm glow, chasing away all the shadows. He gave everything another look. Nothing. No bogeyman anywhere.
He turned back to his wife, agitation creeping into his voice. ‘There’s no one there.’
‘We should call the police anyway.’
‘We are not going to call the police every time you imagine a prowler.’
Belinda scrunched up her face. ‘I didn’t imagine it!’
Abraham wanted to snap back, but he dug his fingernails into his palms instead. They had been on edge for two months now. It had started with phone calls threatening obscenities, then dog shit stuffed into their mailbox, red paint splashed on their bonsai shrubs, arsenic dumped into their fish pond.
Eventually, the police had arrested the boy and the girl responsible – religious nuts who had taken things too far. That should have been the end of the matter. But not for Belinda. She had remained a nervous wreck ever since. Always jumping at shadows. She just couldn’t shake the feeling that there were more crazies out there. Watching. Waiting.
Abraham forced himself to smile, but it felt more like a grimace. ‘The rain and the wind are playing tricks on your eyes. You have to let it go.’
Belinda gazed down at her plate. ‘I can’t.’
‘Try, darling.’
‘Don’t you know how scared I am?’
Belinda blinked back tears. She looked so small right then. So vulnerable.
Abraham regretted his tone. It wasn’t like them to get angry with each other. It wasn’t like them at all. Softening, he reached out to touch her, to comfort her. ‘I’m sorry—’
That’s when the glass door in the lounge behind them exploded. Fragments shrieked, peppering the floor.
Abraham froze in mid-step.
Belinda clutched her mouth.
A hooded intruder loomed on the patio just outside, smashing away at the glass frame with a rock before plunging his arm through, reaching for the door handle.
Abraham stared with his eyes wide, unable to move, unable to breathe, unable to comprehend, panic shutting down his brain, paralysing his limbs. Everything was happening in slow motion. But then Belinda’s scream jolted him, and he snapped out of his stupor.
He knew they had to get upstairs.
Damn it, their only chance was to get upstairs.
So he caught Belinda’s arm, pulling her to her feet, her chair toppling, and he spun her around, pushing her towards the staircase, urging her to run like the wind.
Dear God...
The intruder was already through the door, his shoes crunching on broken glass, his voice booming, calling Abraham a blasphemer, calling for him to die.
Belinda hit the stairs with her legs pumping, surging ahead, taking two steps at a time, and that’s when Abraham heard a click. It was an ominous click, a terrifying click, like a gun’s hammer being cocked.
Fear squeezed his throat shut.
God Almighty.
He choked, wishing he could move faster and wasn’t stuck in slow motion. He could feel an icy spot building right at the back of his skull as if a bullet was going to smash into him at any second and blow his head apart.