Chapter 4 - Escape from Aspen Ridge
Nancy moved up the stairs with a speed that defied her age. She swung the heavy iron poker upward, the tip whistling through the air, barely missing my face as I ducked backward onto the landing.
"Rachel, hold the railing!" I barked, shoving my ex-wife into the corner of the landing.
Rachel slumped against the wall, weeping incoherently, caught in a drug-induced fog. "Mom... please... don't hit David..."
Nancy didn't listen. She lunged again, bringing the poker down toward my head. I raised my arm, taking the blow across my forearm. Pain exploded through my wrist, but the thick leather of my coat absorbed enough force to keep the bone from shattering.
Before she could draw the poker back for a second strike, I drove my boot forward, kicking her squarely in the chest.
Nancy gasped as the impact knocked her off balance. She tumbled backward down the hardwood stairs, landing heavily on the marble floor of the foyer with a sickening thud. The iron poker clattered across the tiles.
I didn't stop to check her pulse. I grabbed Rachel under her arms, lifted her off her feet, and rushed down the remaining steps, stepping right over Nancy’s groaning form.
The smell of gas in the kitchen was unbearable now. My head was spinning; my lungs felt like they were filled with needles.
I kicked open the heavy back door, bursting into the freezing October night air. I drew a massive gulp of clean air into my chest, my body shaking violently as I carried Rachel around the side of the house toward my truck.
Emma was still inside the cab, her little face pressed against the glass, tears streaming down her pale cheeks. When she saw me carrying her mother, she unlocked the door from the inside.
"Mommy!" Emma sobbed, crawling into the back seat to make room.
I slid Rachel onto the passenger seat, pulled the seatbelt over her, and slammed the door shut. I rounded the hood, jumped into the driver’s seat, and jammed the key into the ignition.
The engine roared to life.
Just as I shifted into reverse, the front porch lights of the house flared violently.
Nancy had crawled back inside. She had flipped an emergency generator switch in the basement.
An explosion roared through the structure.
The windows of the second floor shattered into thousands of sparkling glass shards. A wall of orange flame erupted from the garage, blowing the heavy wooden doors off their hinges and sending a wave of heat washing over the truck’s windshield.
I slammed my foot on the accelerator. The truck’s tires screamed against the asphalt as we rocketed down Aspen Ridge Drive, leaving the burning mansion and forty years of buried horrors behind us in the rearview mirror.
In the back seat, Emma wrapped her small arms around her sleeping mother’s shoulders.
"Daddy?" Emma whispered, her voice trembling over the sound of the crackling flames behind us. "Is Grandma dead?"
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I looked at the blazing inferno in the mirror, watching the roof of the house collapse into a fountain of sparks against the night sky.
"I don't know, Emma," I said, my voice cold as ice, gripping the steering wheel as we headed toward the highway. "I don't know."
