Winter Moon

confident as he sounded. Not by half. And he did feel as if he was running out on them. What if he got help- but they were dead by the time he returned to Quartermass Ranch?
        He might as well kill himself then. Wouldn't be a point in going on.
        Truth was, it probably wouldn't work out that them dead and him alive.
        At best he had a fifty-fifty chance of making it all the way to Ponderosa Pines. If the storm didn't bring him down… something else might. He didn't know how closely they were being observed, whether their adversary would be aware of his departure. If it did see him go, it wouldn't let him get far. Then Heather and Toby would be on their own. Nothing else he could do. No other plan made sense. Zero options.
        And time running out.
        Hammer blows boomed through the house. Hard, hollow, fearful sounds.
        Jack used three-inch steel nails because they were the largest he had been able to find in the garage tool cabinet. Standing in the vestibule at the bottom of the back stairs, he drove those spikes at a severe angle through the outside door and into the jamb. Two above the knob, two below. The door was solid oak, and the long nails bit through it only with relentless hammering. The hinges were on the inside. Nothing on the back porch could pry them loose. Nevertheless, he decided to fix the door to the jamb on that flank as well, though with only two nails instead of four. He drove another two through the upper part of the door and into the header, just for good measure. Any intruder that entered those back stairs could take two immediate routes once it crossed the outer threshold, instead of just one as with the other doors. It could enter the kitchen and confront Heathen-or turn the other way and swiftly ascend to Toby's room. Jack wanted to prevent anything from reaching the second floor because, from there, it could slip into several rooms, avoiding a frontal assault, forcing Heather to search for it until it had a chance to attack her from behind. After he'd driven the final nail home, he disengaged the dead-bolt lock and tried to open the door. He couldn't budge it, no matter how hard he strained. No intruder could get through it quietly anymore, it would have to be broken down, and Heather would hear it regardless of where she was. He twisted the thumb-turn. The lock clacked into the striker plate again. Secure.
        While Jack nailed shut the other door at the back of the house, Toby helped Heather pile pots, pans, dishes, flatware, and drinking glasses in front of the door between the kitchen and the back porch. That carefully balanced tower would topple with a resounding crash if the door was pushed open even slowly, alerting them if they were elsewhere in the house. Falstaff kept his distance from the rickety assemblage, as if he understood that he would be in big trouble if he was the one to knock it over. "What about the cellar door?" Toby said. "That's safe," Heather assured him. "There's no way into the cellar from outside." As Falstaff watched with interest, they constructed a.similar security device in front of the door between the kitchen and the garage. Toby crowned it with a glassful of spoons atop an inverted metal bowl. They carried bowls, dishes, pots, baking pans, and forks to the foyer. After Jack left, they would construct a third tower inside the front door. Heather couldn't help feeling that the alarms were inadequate. Pathetic, actually. However, they couldn't nail shut all the first-floor doors, because they might have to escape by one-in which case they could just shove the tottering housewares aside, slip the lock, and be gone. And they hadn't time to transform the house into a sealed fortress.
        Besides, every fortress had the potential to become a prison. Even if Jack had felt there was time enough to attempt to secure the house a little better, he might not have tried. Regardless of what measures were taken, the large number of windows made the place difficult to defend. The best he could do was hurry from window to window upstairs-while Heather checked those on the ground floor-to make sure they were locked. A lot of them appeared to be painted shut and not easy to open in any case. Pane after pane revealed a misery of snow and wind. He caught no glimpse of anything unearthly.
        In Heather's closet off the master bedroom, Jack sorted through her wool scarves. He selected one that was loosely knit. He found his