by Scott Blade
Either means of transportation for his enemies wouldn’t matter. He was ready at the moment. His main problem hadn’t been how they would come for him. His main problem had been when they would come for him. Any longer and he would either be dead from starvation or unconscious from it.
The owner of the house hadn’t known that he was there. He had been hiding out. He prayed that he wouldn’t be discovered. The last thing that he wanted to do was involve innocent people.
Just then he heard a noise, a creaking on a staircase below him. He stretched back up and craned his head and looked out of the window. He still couldn’t see the front door because of an overbuilt porch, a fact that he had forgotten. Then he remembered that he had just looked down and couldn’t see the front door only moments ago.
The man heard more noises from below him. He heard the footsteps growing louder and louder. A moment later someone was on the floor beneath him and then he heard someone reaching for the rope to the attic door. He heard the creaks and crackles of his frozen bones as he twisted to look at the trapdoor and then the squeaking of springs from the door itself as someone pulled down on it. The sound was deafening in the silence of the house.
The man grabbed his Beretta and quickly pointed it at the attic door as it was pulled downward.
Light flashed in through the crack and up onto the ceiling above him. And then it filled half of the attic. He wanted to slide over and hide behind some of the larger boxes, but he couldn’t really move his legs. He had lost feeling in them some time ago and then he had lost movement. He couldn’t remember when. Truth was that he had forgotten that they were even paralyzed.
The trapdoor came down all the way and the folding staircase attached plopped down below.
The man heard the creak of the wooden latter as someone climbed it, applying their weight to each wrung. A head stuck up into the attic and then a body followed.
The tiny figure in front of him scanned the area and the boxes until their eyes connected.
The man lowered his Beretta when he saw a small boy of approximately six years of age. The boy glowered at him in a peculiar way like a mixture of fright, probably because of the gun, and then recognition and then a face that said hey you know me.
The man had been in and out of sleep for days and had expended so much energy holding the Beretta up that the next thing that happened was the heavy weight of his eyes slammed shut.
