Free Glimpses: The Best Short Stories of Rick Hautala by Rick Hautala Page B

the railing. His eyes took too long to adjust to the darkness as he stared at the front door, positive he could see it bulging inward with each heavy blow as the knocking sounded again.
    Tightening his grip on the shotgun, Martin started down the stairs. His gaze was focused on the narrow windows on either side of the door. He wanted to catch some indication of who was out there on the doorstep, but all he could see was the deep, black stain of the night, pressing against the glass like a stray cat, wanting to be let in.
    Martin took a deep breath, preparing to call out a challenge or a warning, but his voice failed him, caught like a fish hook in his throat.
    He didn’t like this.
    Not one bit.
    But in spite of his rising tension, he kept moving forward. Every stair step creaking beneath his weight set his teeth on edge until he made it down to the foyer.
    The only light in the house came from the single candle burning upstairs in his bedroom. Hardly enough light to see by. The darkness within the house pressed close, squeezing against him like soft, crushed velvet. When he realized he was holding his breath, he let it out in a long, slow whistle. His hands were shaking as he raised the shotgun and aimed it at the front door.
    Even though he was expecting it and was convinced that he was ready for it, his heart skipped a beat and he jumped when the knocking came again.
    One ... two ... three times, the heavy blows pounded against the door.
    And then they stopped.
    The sudden silence hummed in Martin’s ears as he stood in the foyer, too frightened to say or do anything.
    His anticipation spiked as he waited for the sound to come again. He looked furtively from side to side as though expecting to see something creeping up behind him in the darkness even though he told himself there was nothing there. His gaze returned to the door when the unseen person on the other side began knocking again, even harder.
    Is it a friend? Martin wondered. Has someone stopped by to check if I’m all right?
    That wasn’t likely.
    Martin didn’t have any friends. He kept pretty much to himself at work, having gotten used to being alone after so many years tending to his invalid mother before she finally died.
    Thinking of his mother sent a tickling electric current racing up his back.
    What if that’s her out there?
    He was unable to repress the deep shudder that shook his insides. He couldn’t help but remember how, during those last, horrible years, when she was ill and bedridden, she would bang on the wall to get his attention, pulling him away from his time alone with his trains.
    He tried not to think about it, but the sounds—the knocking outside now and her banging the walls—were practically identical.
    No , he told himself. Mother is dead!
    He tried not to imagine what she would look like, her wizened form hunched on the crumbling cement stairs, wrapped against the cold night in her yellowing burial shroud as she banged on the door to be let in. After eight years, her skin, gray from the embalming fluid that had replaced her blood, would be peeling off in large, flaky chunks as each knock rang through the house like a hammer on a Chinese gong.
    But no … That couldn’t be her outside.
    It was impossible.
    He had seen her coffin lowered into the ground.
    She was dead.
    Even if he hadn’t smothered her with her pillow, like the detective who had come by several times had suggested, she was dead and buried. And even if he had done something like that, he had only done it out off mercy, to end her suffering following the paralyzing stroke.
    He told himself he shouldn’t let his imagination get fired up like this. It wasn’t healthy. There was definitely someone out there, make no mistake, but it wasn’t—it couldn’t be his mother!
    But it was someone , and when whoever it was began hammering on the door again, Martin told himself that, if they didn’t stop and go away real soon, he was going to unload his shotgun on them