Waiting For Michael. Kathy Sr. Sampson

could muster. If there was a sound, it was secondary to a stabbing pain as the force of impact transferred to her wrist, jarring it, knocking the plastic receiver from her grasp.

      She rolled, wriggled and heaved herself from beneath Michael who had become a ton weight. Not dead weight, surely? Please God, not that! Freedom might have been won, but it meant nothing if one prison had merely been exchanged for another. She had to see, had to know.

      Michael was laying face down on the hall carpet, blood trickling from a gash on his temple, soaking into the light-coloured pile. He looked dead! But it wasn't a heavy blow, not as heavy as some he’d inflicted on her. Then again, he had always used his hands, never a blunt instrument. That particular object had broken in two and only half of it remained visible. She must have struck him harder than she thought!

      Estelle advanced cautiously, ready to dart away if he should even twitch. He continued to lay still. Kneeling, she extended a trembling hand towards him, not wanting to touch him, stifling a whimper as fingers contacted flesh clammy and lifeless. There was no pulse. The fingers walked and pressed, walked and pushed harder. Was the procedure just like the hairs across doors, a Hollywood lie? Then she could feel a tickling on the back of her hand, warm breath fanning soundlessly, yet unmistakably from his nostrils.

      Releasing the breath she had been holding, Estelle pulled the hand away and rose quickly. "Thank God," she was whispering on her way through to the kitchen. Snatching her handbag from the table, she swept on to the side door and out into the garage. The open roller-door yawned, a sight both welcoming and heavy with foreboding. What had just been endured might be nothing compared to the unknown that awaited. Teeth sank into a lip as her eyes darted one last time at the entrance to the house. A long blink later, she was throwing herself onto the driver’s seat.

      The key turned, the engine fired. She sat for a moment, foot pressed hard on the brake pedal, eyes closed tightly in prayer. “Please be there, Jason,” she murmured softly. Then Estelle’s little blue car was creeping tentatively into the night.