Free Running Shoes (The Shades of Northwood) by Wendy Maddocks

as
they could because that supply might be cut off at any moment. The
oxygen was going to be all around her for a very long time, Katie
promised herself. If she stood still, maybe the shadow-man would
not see her, would not look for her, would go away and leave her
alone. Something inside, though, insisted that to shy away from
this confrontation would be unwise. This intruder was already
staring at her as she stood here with her spoon. Not facing him
down would be like letting her fear of the unknown – and what she did know about the world – get the better of her. She had
spent too long already being scared of things. Katie flipped the
spoon in her hand thinking that the weight of it and her bit of
strength behind it might give him a nasty bump on the head. She
flicked on the light and ran towards the shadow man, aiming the
spoon at his face and not looking at him.
    “Jesus Christ!”
The man threw an arm up to shield his eyes but not fast enough. On
a stroke of impulse, Katie thrust the spoon handle up and jabbed it
in his eye. He screamed and swore and Katie let go of the bowl of
the spoon. The metal handle was lodged between his eye and eyelid.
She looked at the man before her; tall, chunky and wearing dark
clothes about a size too small… and all she saw was the pain and
lines of blood on his face. Not a man she knew. “What a
welcome!”
    “You nearly
gave me a heart attack.”
    “You might’ve
blinded me.”
    He kept a hand
slapped to the eye she had stabbed while the skin around it turned
red. Katie looked down at her hand, still gripping the spoon, and
saw blood speckling the metal handle. She threw it to the floor
with a clang, wanting it as far away from her as possible. There
seemed to be blood on her hands. Stabbing a man who might yet be
completely innocent was unforgiveable.
    “You really
know how to make a guy feel wanted, don’t ya, Kate?”
    “Uncle
Billy?”
    “The very
same.”
    “What are you
doing here? In my house?”
    “I was coming
to say hi.”
    “At three in
the morning? And I thought I was keeping strange hours lately.”
    A light snapped
on in the hallway. “What’s all the noise for?” mumbled Lainy as she
padded into the kitchen, rubbing sleep from her eyes. “Who
died?”
    “Nearly me,”
said Uncle Billy and Katie together.
    Lainy rushed
over to the bleeding man, and after confirming he was in no
life-threatening conditioning, shrugged off her robe and offered it
to Katie who was shivering. “Put it on.”
    She did and
then belted it. The dressing gown was quite a bit bigger than her
but it was cosy and warm with body heat. “Why are you here?”
    “I came to
collect my van.”
    “Again, at
three in the morning?”
    “It’s a long
walk. Your dad said he left the keys here and even I’m not stupid
enough to knock and wake everyone up.”
    “So you thought
you’d try a little breaking and entering instead?” Katie stalked
out of the room, went upstairs to get the van keys, then stomped
back down with them. Lainy was standing with Uncle Billy and trying
to pry his fingers away from his face. Katie put the keys on the
table and sat down, arms folded. “Lainy, I tried to take his eye
out with a spoon.”
    “Ow ow ow!” he
yelped when Lainy prodded the flesh around his left eye.
    “He broke in
and tried to snoop around while we were sleeping. You had every
right to defend yourself. But if anyone asks,” she turned to Billy,
“you did this to yourself.”
    “Yeah, yeah.”
Billy sat down opposite his niece and waited until she was looking
at him before he took his hand away from his face. “Look what you
did. I might be permanently scarred.”
    “And I wouldn’t
know anything about that, would I?” Katie slid the keys over. “Good
luck starting that heap of junk.”
    Lainy soaked a
piece of cotton wool in warm water with a drop of antiseptic and
tried to clean the marks around his eyes. Billy took the cotton
wool from her and did it himself. “Just let me