Der Schädelring: Thriller (German Edition)

couldn't help it. She turned.
    The Creep stood on the porch, six-foot-two.
    Metal glinted in his fist.
    The fish-eye lens of panic both distorted and magnified her vision. Julia tried to scream but had no breath, she rose, glanced frantically for the canister of mace she had dropped, knowing it was too late, it had always been too late, they’d had her since she was four.
    The Creep's hulk blocked the doorway, a belt loaded with weapons circling his waist. His eyes were hot and steely, his mouth open in passionate rage.
    He had long, long fingers.
    The blade flashed, quivered.
    Her heart had been set afire and shot from a catapult.
    The past had reached her, despite all her running and hiding and pretending. It was here, now, come to towering, fire-breathing life. She would never make it to the bedroom door in time. If she fled, his pleasure would only intensify, and her legs were like stacks of wooden blocks shot through with string.
    Why fight any longer?
    The Creep was silhouetted against a backdrop of sun and light blue sky, the wild colors of autumn wreathing his head like a halo.
    Julia lifted her forearms out of instinct, shut her eyes, and waited for the swift delivery of his decades'-old promise. But first would come the benediction, the words that would cut deeper than any blade.
    His voice came, not in the thunder of a murderer, but in a soft, shocked exhalation. "Jesus, lady."
    She peeked from behind her arms. The stranger's eyebrows furrowed in concern. His eyes were light green, the color of a murky pond under sunlight. Light green, not red like The Creep’s. His arm lowered to his side, and she saw that it was a screwdriver he held loosely in his fist, not a knife.
    The man took two steps backward, almost losing his balance at the edge of the porch. "I was sent here to check the windows."
    "Windows?" She managed to squeeze the word through her constricted throat.
    "With winter coming on and all. The landlord sent me." He paused, squinted, and continued, his vowels stretched by his native Southern Appalachian accent. "This is 102 Buckeye Creek Road, isn't it?"
    She forced her head to nod twice. She saw now that the weapons at his waist were only tools, a hammer, tape measure, a couple of screwdrivers, all tucked into his leather belt that had pouches on each hip.
    "I was just going to knock when you popped around the corner," he said hurriedly, as embarrassed as she was. He patted his chest with exaggerated force. "Whew. About made my heart jump like an electrified frog."
    She nearly grinned in relief, but the muscles of her face were frozen. This was no Creep, after all.
    Or was it? Sometimes they were clever, took their enjoyment more from the playing of the game than from the final victory. They’d played their games for years.
    But she had asked the landlord two days ago if all the windows could be checked, both the sash locks and the weather stripping. Unless this Creep had tapped the phone line and knew—
    No, Dr. Forrest wouldn’t like that line of thinking. I’m new and improved, remember?
    Looking past the handyman, she saw an old green Jeep parked off the far edge of the road. It was parked under the trees where she wouldn't have seen it while driving up.
    A Creep in a Jeep? Sounded too much like Dr. Seuss to be dangerous. Silly. A coy boy with a toy, bark in the dark, a metal muddle mental puddle. Still, the adrenaline jolt tingled her nerves at a hundred amps and caused her fingers to twitch.
    She cleared her throat. One final test. "Did George Wellman send you?"
    "Webster," he said, staring at her strangely, as if not sure what to make of someone who didn't know the name of her own landlord. "Mister George Webster from Silver Key Properties. I do a lot of work for him. Name’s Walter."
    "Of course," she said, gathering her nerve enough to step forward. They were both looking at the red canister of mace on the floor. His forced smile was more like an embarrassed grimace, his cheeks creasing and blushing slightly. She bent and picked up the mace, kicking aside one of the wooden blocks.
    "You have kids?" he asked.
    She shook her head, avoiding his eyes. How could she explain that the blocks weren’t hers without sounding like a lunatic? But the problem was she couldn’t be sure the blocks weren’t hers or whether or not she was a lunatic.
    "Listen, I can come back later," he said. "I'll just pick up a key from Mister Webster and do it while you're at work."
    "No, I'm fine. Really."