Chapter 7 - The Tire Iron and the Tarmac
Through the side kitchen window, I watched Uncle Mark slip silently along the wooden fence line, using the tall hedges of our neighbors’ yard as cover. My mother was pacing back and forth across the front lawn, her heels digging into Aunt Sarah’s manicured grass, clutching the heavy metal tire iron in her right hand. She raised the tool above her head and slammed it against the wooden porch railing, leaving a deep, splintered gouge in the paint.
“You can’t hide in there forever!” she shrieked, her voice cracking with jagged fury. “Clara! Get out here or I’ll drag you out myself!”
Inside the kitchen, Aunt Sarah pulled me and Leo close, wrapping her arms around us both while keeping her eyes fixed on the front yard. “Any second now, kids. Just hold on.”
Suddenly, the side gate of our yard creaked open.
Mark burst out from behind the hedge, sprinting across the grass straight toward the driver’s side of my mother’s idling red sedan. He didn't waste a second. He pulled the door open, dove into the seat, and slammed it shut with a loud, echoing thud.
My mother spun around, her eyes widening in sheer disbelief as she saw her own car door close from the inside.
“Hey! What are you doing? Get out of my car!” she screamed, dropping the tire iron and sprinting across the lawn like a madwoman, lunging toward the driver’s side window just as Mark threw the transmission into reverse.
The red sedan lurched backward, its tires spitting gravel across the driveway as Mark backed out into the street. My mother grabbed the top of the rolled-down driver’s door, screaming obscenities and clawing at the interior frame as the car gathered speed.
“Mark, stop!” Aunt Sarah yelled from the porch, having thrown open the front door to watch.
Mark didn't stop. He accelerated smoothly down the street, forcing my mother to let go of the moving frame before she tripped and tumbled onto the grass, landing hard on her hands and knees in the middle of the empty road.
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For a terrifying second, she lay there motionless in the dust, her hair falling across her face. Then, slowly, she pushed herself up to her feet, her clothes stained with dirt, her eyes burning with a look of absolute, demonic hatred as she stared after her vanishing vehicle.
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