Shiver

only thing keeping them from storming the door.
    “Will you really shoot them if they come?” Tyler whispered. He was holding tightly to her, hampering her movements more than a little as she tried rocking the window, shoving hard against the frame, jiggling the sash this way and that, but there was no way she was pushing him away.
    “Yes,” she said, and this time she wasn’t lying. If they came anywhere near Tyler, she absolutely would. Although, and she hated to even let the grim truth into her consciousness, it still might not be enough to save him.
    Another bullet plowed through the door. Silent and deadly, it buried itself in the wall maybe a foot away from the window with a sound like a hand slapping flesh. She and Tyler both froze, staring at the pale pockmark where the bullet had hit with widening eyes, before Sam roused herself and gave a desperate, do-or-die heave to the handles. Nothing; she came to the terrifying conclusion that the window was painted shut.
    “Are we trapped, Mom?” Tyler sounded on the verge of tears.
    “No way.” She gave Tyler a fierce, one-armed hug while she frantically assessed the window. She was so frightened that shecould hardly stand still. Sweat poured over her body in a wave. She could not—“Tyler?”
    He had broken away from her. “I have to get something.”
    From the corner of her eye she saw him slide partway under his bed and emerge with—of course—Ted. The sliver of her attention that had gone with him returned to rejoin the rest in focusing on the window.
    Could she break it? Even if she broke the glass, the wood would still be intact. Maybe . . .
    “Mom, here.” Tyler was back, holding trusty Ted by the paw, thrusting something—a glance down discovered a cell phone, to which she reacted with a quick, hopeful thrill—into her hand. “I called Trey. You can call somebody.”
    Trey again. Even as she drew a blank once more on the name—superhero? imaginary friend? playmate she couldn’t place?—she gave Tyler a you did good look and started punching in 911.
    Pheww. Pheww. The peculiar hissing sounds were immediately followed by a pair of sharp smacks as two objects hit the baseboard opposite the door at maybe an inch above floor level. An awful chill of premonition slid down her spine. Casting a startled glance around, Sam heard another breathy pheww and watched a shiny sphere the size of a paintball blast beneath the door to slam with a smack into the baseboard maybe a yard away, where it burst. A shimmery aerosol was released into the air, expanding outward in a growing cloud. Two other similar clouds stretched toward each other, the products, she concluded with a thrill of horror, of the other two smacking sounds. Samdidn’t have to smell the acrid odor, to feel the first burning tingles in her nostrils, to realize what was happening: they were shooting pepper balls under the door.
    To drive her and Tyler out.
    “Come to Papa, bitch,” one of them yelled gloatingly from just beyond the door.
    Sam’s blood ran cold.

CHAPTER ELEVEN
     

     
    “M om, what is it?” Tyler started rubbing at his eyes.
    “Close your eyes! Don’t touch your face!”
    “It burns!”
    It did, like airborne acid feathering across her skin, searing the inside of her nose, making her eyes water, making them sting . . .
    “Hold your breath, baby!”
    Coughing, gasping, Sam jammed the phone into her pocket, yanked out her gun, pointed it at the window, and shot the glass and the center of the wood strips, aiming right for the spot where the strips crossed: bang, bang. She used her last bullets, then kicked out the shards and decimated wooden supports with a desperate strength. Snatching up Tyler, whose eyes were shut and whose face was all puckered up like it got when he got ready to jump off the side of the pool in the summer, which she knew meant that he was holding his breath, she lifted him through the hole she had made into the blessedly fresh night air.
    “Watch the glass,” she warned in an urgent undertone asmoonlight glinted off the debris from the window that was scattered beneath the honeysuckle bush. Even in this moment of extremis, she took care to set him down in a clear spot.
    “Mom!” As his feet touched the ground his eyes popped open and he clung to her.
    “Run, Tyler.” She pulled free of his grip. “ Go. Head for the truck. I’m coming.”
    With one last look at her he turned, shoved his way through the honeysuckle branches, and