THE CHOICE

SIX

A TICKING NOISE COMING FROM the front door.

Jack kept on dreaming.

The scratchy scrape of metal being forced into the keyhole.

Jack rustled a bit then inhaled deeply and fell back asleep.

The hard click of a lock being released.

Jack's eyes popped open. He looked at the door trying to determine if what he'd heard was for real or all in his head.

There was nothing for several seconds.

In his tired stupor, Jack convinced himself that the noise had either been imagined or was nothing to worry about-perhaps just the wind. He closed his eyes again.

BAM!!

A hard shoulder thrown into the door.

Jack bolted from his recliner and did the only thing he could think to try and keep the intruder out. He shoved their heavy sofa backwards and then pushed it against the door as hard as he could.

Another shoulder into the door.

Whoever the man was on the other side was he had picked the deadbolt and now all that stood between him and the inside of the house was the locked doorknob and a sixty-pound couch. Jack hunkered beside the sofa, placing his lower back under the armrest and using his feet to keep it pressed against the entrance. Every time the intruder would shoulder the door, Jack would feel the couch shift and have to reset his footing. He knew this wouldn't hold the man off forever.

"MADISON!" Jack screamed down the hall.

He hoped that once the intruder heard him calling out, the man would realize someone was awake and run away for fear of being found out. But the loud booms of human flesh assaulting the wooden door like a battering ram kept coming, almost seeming to intensify.

"MADISON! MADISON!" Jack bellowed again.

Finally, she came flying down the hallway, half-asleep and nearly tripping over a toy car Connor had left on the floor.

"For God's sake, Jack, what are you doing?"

"Someone's trying to break in!" he said, frantically. He spoke his next words loud enough for the intruder to hear, hoping they would scare him away. "Call 911 and go get my gun!"

Madison bounded back toward the bedroom but dropped to her face in the hallway when a single gunshot exploded through the front door. Jack screamed in surprise and fear. Madison lay sobbing in the hallway with her arms covering her head for protection.

Suddenly, the booming at the front door stopped and everything went dead quiet.

Jack was afraid to get up from the couch. For all he knew, the guy on the other side of the door was only taking a breather, and as soon as Jack moved, there'd be one more surprise push and the guy would burst through the door and blow them all away.

"Madison..." Jack whispered. "Go get Connor and go to the closet."

She shook her head, too frightened to move.

"Damnit, Madison... Go!" he said louder.

She couldn't move a muscle. Shock had set in. All she could think about was getting to Connor, but no matter how hard she willed her legs to work, they stayed on the floor completely immobile.

Jack looked over at the recliner and saw his cell phone. It was only ten feet away, but what if he moved and the intruder picked that exact moment to push his way in? It was maybe too coincidental to be probable, but Jack couldn't justify taking the chance, no matter how unlikely it might be.

There was only one thing he could do. His pistol was in the top of their walk-in closet in the master bedroom. He would tell Madison to run to the bedroom, (hoping that if she knew he was right behind her it would give her the courage to start moving), Jack would grab Connor then make a break for the closet. With all three of them inside, Madison could call 911 while Jack kept the pistol pointed at the door. And if anything decided to come in, he would shoot now and ask questions later.

He looked over at Madison. "When I count to three, run to the bedroom, get your phone, and go straight to the closet. I'll grab Connor and be right behind you."

Her eyes were full of tears, but she nodded that she understood.

Jack kept his eyes locked on hers.

"You ready?" he asked. "One...

"Two...

"THREE!"

Jack jumped up and Madison scrambled to her feet. She ran into their bedroom and Jack ducked into Connor's room, grabbed him up (momentarily mystified that the toddler had slept through the whole ordeal), and ran for the closet.

Madison was already inside when he entered with Connor still sleeping in his arms. Jack handed the boy over to Madison and turned on the closet light. He felt around the top shelf for his pistol in its holster. Finally, he touched something cool and solid. He grabbed the butt of the pistol and brought it down. It wasn't the most accessible place to keep a gun in a situation like this, but Jack had heard too many horror stories of toddlers getting guns out of bedside tables. He wasn't going to let the same thing happen to his son. With his pistol unholstered, Jack looked down and switched off the safety. He turned back to Madison.

"What are you doing, babe? Why aren't you calling 911?"

He waited for her to pull her phone out of her pajama bottoms, but the look on her face told him all he needed to know. In her mad scramble to the closet she had completely forgotten to grab her phone off the nightstand. Now they were stuck at a dead end, with no escape except a closet door where a very bad man could be waiting for them on the other side.