Read After Midnight for Free Online Page A

beyond that. But all those doors could be seen from the back yard, the pool and the woods. If the stranger was watching, he might see me leave the house. He might even see me go to the garage.
    And know where to find me.
    I decided to leave by the front door.
    First, though, I had to pee. The guest bathroom was just off the hall on my way back to the foyer, so I went in. I’d given little Debbie a Winnie the Pooh nightlight for her second birthday, and there it was, spreading a soft glow through the dark.
    I didn’t touch the switch for the overhead lights.
    Late at night, it’s always best to avoid turning on lights. At least if you’re in a room with windows. The sudden brightness, where a moment earlier the windows had been patches of empty black, announces you to the world, gives away your exact location.
    The bathroom had a pair of high, frosted windows that were clearly visible from nearly anywhere outside the front of the house.
    So I settled for the light from Pooh bear.
    With the door open and the lights off, I placed the saber and my purse on the rug just in front of the toilet. Then I took off the robe, draped it over a towel bar, and sat down.
    Too bad I’d already shut off the air conditioning. Not because I suddenly felt hot, but because I was so noisy. Without the air going, the only sound in the house seemed to be me.
    Talk about giving away your location!
    Leaning forward, elbows on my knees, I could see out the open bathroom door. I kept watching. I half expected someone to drift by in the hallway, or come in.
    The thoughts gave me gooseflesh. Prickly bumps sprouted all over me, the way they do sometimes when I try to squash a really awful spider in the corner of a ceiling and it gets away and falls on my bare arm.
    I felt crawly all up and down my body.
    Nobody showed up in the doorway, though.
    Finally, I got finished. I was reluctant to flush, but did it anyway. In the silence, the noise of the flush was like a sudden roar.
    So loud that anything might’ve happened somewhere else in the house: phones might’ve rung; somebody could have shouted out my name; the stranger might’ve smashed the glass of a window or door.
    At last, the noise subsided.
    I put the robe on, belted it shut, then crouched and picked up my purse and the saber. In the doorway, I stopped. I leaned forward, easing my head into the hall, and looked both ways.
    Nobody.
    Of course.
    I stepped out and walked quickly to the front door.
    Getting it unlocked and open would’ve been tricky with my left hand, since I’m a righty. So I switched the sword to my left hand. With the blade resting against my shoulder, I used my right hand to unfasten the deadbolt, turn the knob, and pull the door open.
    It swept toward me.
    For some reason, the porch light was off.
    It shouldn’t have been off.
    And nobody should’ve been standing on the front stoop, but someone was.
    A tall, dark figure reaching for me.
    I shrieked.
    Through the noise of my outcry, he said something. I couldn’t hear it, though. Still shrieking, I swung the saber at him.
    A left-handed, feeble try.
    He staggered backward to avoid the blade.
    It missed him, but he stumbled off the edge of the stoop and fell backward. He landed on the grass. A whoomp exploded out of him; the impact with the lawn must’ve knocked his wind out.
    I leaped over the threshold, ran across the stoop and hopped down. Stradling his hips, I raised the saber high with both hands and swept it down as hard as I could.
    It chopped his head down the middle, cleaving his face in half. It split his head open most of the way to his neck, but his jaw stopped the blade.
    He thrashed and gurgled between my feet.
    My saber was stuck, either between a couple of his lower front teeth or in the bone of his jaw. I shook it and tugged it. Instead of coming loose, it jerked his head this way and that.
    At last, it came out.
    I was all set to give him another chop, but he’d quit moving.
    He looked pretty