JACK KILBORN ~ AFRAID by Jack Kilborn Read Free Book Online

precipitate fight or flight. Instead it induced the deer-in-the-headlights response. True fear could be an out-of-body experience, watching what was happening to you, yet unable to do anything about it.
    Fran could picture herself in the darkness. She saw the terrified expression on her face, eyes wide, mouth hanging open. She saw her knees quiver and her shoulders shake. She saw the tears welling up, tears she couldn’t blink away because she was too afraid to even blink.
    Then she heard a footstep on the tile floor.
    Then another.
    Whoever did that to Al was coming for her.
    Fran gasped, managing to get some air into her lungs.
    The light went on, focusing on Al. A black boot stepped on his neck, pinning his face to the floor, making the blood squirt from the wound in his throat. Then a hand in a black glove reached down to him—a hand holding a knife.
    Fran couldn’t close her eyes, couldn’t turn away, as the knife went to work on Al.
    When Al finally stopped moving, the light went off again.
    The silence that followed was the loudest thing Fran had ever heard. Louder than the three hours she spent upside down in the car, her husband Charles dead in the driver’s seat beside her, hanging by his seat belt, his blood dripping onto her face— plop, plop, plop …
    Something hit Fran in the chest, bringing her back to the present, making her flinch. It clung to her shirt. Warm and wet, like a towel. What was it? What had he thrown at her?
    She shook her shoulders, but it didn’t move. Fran needed to let go of the shelf, needed to release her hands so she could knock off whatever—
    The flashlight came on, pointing at her. Fran looked at her chest and saw something red and rubbery and shredded hanging there. Something wearing Al’s walrus mustache.
    And then the light went off.
    Fran screamed. She screamed and screamed and then her paralysis broke and her hands opened up and she batted Al’s face off herself, arms flailing out as if she were being attacked by a swarm of bees.
    After five seconds of pure, explosive panic, Fran froze, the cry dying in her throat, her hands stretched out into the darkness surrounding her.
    Another footstep.
    Then a low chuckle.
    Strangely, Fran no longer thought of herself or the horror of what was happening. Instead, she thought of Duncan. Her son was a miniature version of Charles, except he had Fran’s pale blue eyes—so pale they looked like ice. He had just turned ten, an age when it really wasn’t cool to hang out with Mom anymore. But Duncan still tolerated her attempts at playing catch and her lame efforts at video games. He even allowed her to pick the movies they saw together, occasionally sitting through something more serious than a Jim Carrey comedy.
    She thought of the walks they took when he was younger, and the family vacations they’d gone on when Duncan’s father was still alive, and the day he was born, after sixteen grueling hours of labor, and how holding him for the first time made her cry with unrestrained joy. She thought of his teenage years, just around the corner, which he’d have to face without any parents if she died.
    Fran couldn’t let that happen.
    Reaching behind her, Fran felt along the shelves, her hands clasping around a five-pound can of tomato paste. She raised it over her head and waited.
    The flashlight came on again, less than five feet away from her.
    Fran threw the can as hard as she could. She didn’t wait to find out if she’d hit the killer or see what damage she’d done. She was already running away from him, climbing on the desk, seeking the window to the alley.
    Her fingers met cool glass, covered in a film of grease and dirt and cobwebs. She found the latch, tried to turn it.
    Painted over. Wouldn’t budge.
    Frantic, she reached around on the desktop, found the phone, and cracked it hard against the window.
    Glass shattered, letting in cool night air and the pungent smell of garbage. The window was small, and shards still