Mr. Murder

Other remained at a distance from the church, out of range of the two rounds Paige had fired. He was a black figure on a field of white, the details of his too-familiar face unrevealed by the waning gray light. Ranging back and forth through the snow, back and forth, lanky and quick, he seemed to be a wolf stalking a herd of sheep, watchful and patient, biding his time until the moment of ultimate vulnerability arrived.
        The poniard of ice that transfixed Marty became, from one second to the next, a stiletto of fire. With the heat came excruciating pain that made him gasp. At last the abstract concept of a bullet wound was translated into the language of reality.
        Paige lifted the Mossberg again.
        Regaining clarity of mind with the pain, Marty said, "Don't waste the ammo. Let him go for now. Help me up."
        With her assistance, he was able to get to his feet.
        "How bad?" she asked worriedly.
        "I'm not dying. Let's get inside before he decides to take another shot at us."
        He followed her through the door into the narthex, where the darkness was relieved only by faint rays penetrating the partly open door and glassless fanlights.
        The girls were crying, Charlotte louder than Emily, and Marty tried to reassure them. "It's okay, I'm all right, just a little nick. All I need is a Band-Aid, one with a picture of Snoopy on it, and I'll feel all better."
        In truth, his left arm was half numb. He only had partial use of it.
        When he flexed his hand, he couldn't curl it into a tight fist.
        Paige eased to the eighteen-inch gap between the big door and the jamb, where the wind whistled and gibbered. She peered out at The Other.
        Trying to get a better sense of the damage the bullet had done, Marty slipped his right hand inside his ski jacket and gingerly explored the front of his left shoulder. Even a light touch ignited a flare of pain that made him grit his teeth. His wool sweater was saturated with blood.
        "Take the girls farther back into the church," Paige whispered urgently, though their enemy could not possibly have heard her out there in the storm. "All the way to the other end."
        "What're you talking about?"
        "I'll wait here for him."
        The girls protested. "Mommy, don't."
        "Mom, come with us, you gotta."
        "Mommy, please."
        "I'll be fine," Paige said, "I'll be safe. Really. It'll be perfect.
        Don't you see? Marty, when the creep senses you moving away, he'll come into the church. He'll expect us to be together." As she talked, she put two more shells into the Mossberg magazine to replace the most recent rounds she'd expended. "He won't expect me to be waiting right here for him."
        Marty remembered having this same discussion before, back at the cabin, when she wanted to go outside and hide in the rocks. Her plan hadn't worked then, although not because it was flawed. The Other had driven past her in the Jeep, evidently unaware that she was lying in wait. If he hadn't pulled such an unpredictable stunt, ramming the station wagon right into the house, she might have slipped up on him and dropped him from behind.
        Nevertheless, Marty didn't want to leave her alone by the door.
        But there was no time for debate because he suspected his wound was soon going to begin sapping what strength he still had.
        Besides, he didn't have a better plan to suggest.
        In the gloom, he could barely recognize Paige's face.
        He hoped this wouldn't be the last time he saw it.
        He shepherded Charlotte and Emily out of the narthex and into the nave.
        It smelled of dust and dampness and the wild things that nested there in the years since the cultists had left to resume their shattered lives instead of rising to sit at the right hand of the Lord.
        On the north side, the restless wind hartied snow through the broken windows. If winter had a heart, inanimate and carved of ice, it would have been no more frigid than that place, nor could death have been more arctic.
        "My feet are cold," Emily said.
        He said, "Sssshhh. I know."
        "Mine too," Charlotte said in a whisper.
        "I know."
        Having something so ordinary to complain about helped to make their situation seem less bizarre, less frightening.
        "Really cold," Charlotte elaborated.
        "Keep going. All the way to the