Page 10 of Hide In The House

I think it is.

I also think that is what a coward would choose to do.

As I am forced to face the fact that I’m nowhere near as bold and brave as I’d like to be, I hear Maggie calling out again.

‘Get back here!’ she cries, a command that tells me that the other woman is still doing well to evade her and the knife that could now be slashing through the air, only inches away from drawing blood again.

I can’t see what is happening out there, but I can imagine that it is only going to end one way.

With another death.

With another body.

With another memory that I’ll never be able to forget.

I can’t do this. I can’t stay here and do nothing.

I’m getting out from under this bed.

I’m going to try and save that woman’s life, if it’s the last thing I ever do.

Crawling out of my hiding place, the one that has kept me safe so far, but now will no longer come to my aid, I have no option but to pass perilously close to the corpse on the carpet.

I do my best not to touch the body or look at it any more than I have to, just as I do my best not to get any of the blood that surrounds it on my clothes too. But it’s not an easy task, and I wretch as I get to my feet, surrounded by a crimson carpet and a stark reminder of the danger anyone who is unluckily enough to be in this house now is facing.

I wasn’t quick enough to save this man.

But can I save that woman?

I rush to the bedroom door and out into the hallway, looking ahead and preparing myself to soon be in a battle with a knife-wielding maniac. But while I do see the woman with the knife, I stop when I see that she is already in a struggle.

The mistress is fighting back. She is trying to wrestle the knife from Maggie’s bloodstained hands. And to add to the tension, this tussle is taking place at the top of the staircase.

‘Get off me!’ Maggie cries as she tries to free her hand that holds the knife from the vice-like grip that the other woman has on it. But to let go would be certain death, which is why that woman is holding on to Maggie’s wrist with everything she has got and together, the pair of warring women are deadlocked in this desperate battle for supremacy.

Who is going to gain the advantage?

Who will live and who will die?

And what will happen if I intervene?

Before I can find out what consequences would occur if I were to enter the fray, I see the mistress gain the upper hand.

She twists Maggie’s wrist, causing her to cry out in pain, before taking control of the knife.

As I step forward to try and prevent the woman from stabbing Maggie, I watch as Maggie loses her footing and stumbles off the step she stands on.

As one woman falls down the stairs while the other watches on with the knife in her hand, I can only stand and think about one thing.

I wish I’d stay under that bed.

I wish I’d stayed hidden.

Most of all, I wish I’d never come into this house.

7

‘Is she dead?’ I have to ask when a quiet moment has passed, and I have failed to hear Maggie move at the bottom of the stairs. But no sooner have those words left my lips then the woman with the knife spins around and raises the blade in my direction.