Worse Things Waiting by Brian McNaughton

Author:Brian McNaughton [McNaughton, Brian]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Horror
ISBN: 9781587152603
Google: th9FKVg42-kC
Amazon: B005BDBGAE
Barnesnoble: B005BDBGAE
Goodreads: 19469117
Publisher: Wildside Press
Published: 2000-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

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Chapter Nine

The door swung out until it lay against the roof, which was very nearly vertical. Martin could not have stood on it, but he was able to ease some of the strain on his arms by lying against it. At the bottom of the slight slope, the frilly grillwork he had admired from a distance looked alarmingly sharp and sturdy. It wasn't strong enough to stop him, but it would give him a gratuitous impalement on his way down.

More ironwork decorated the top, where the mansard roof flattened. He might use it to haul himself up if he could scale the door, which seemed beyond his ability, and then balance himself on top of it, which seemed beyond his courage. Even if he succeeded, he would be stuck on top of the roof, where he would abide until he starved to death or the police came to take him away.

The thought of the police made him look over his shoulder at the picture-postcard view of Mt. Tabor, snuggling with its church steeple and iron bridge in a pocket of comfortably rounded green hills. Anyone in town who happened to look up would see him, the electric-blue cat-burglar, hanging in the wind. But he wouldn't hang for long. His arms were beginning to tremble from the exertion of suspending himself.

He tried to brace his feet and swing the door back the way it had come, but his Taiwanese shoes slid on the slates like glass slippers. He could brace them against the door—and he did—while gripping the doorknob less securely, but that ended his hope of swinging the door back. He wanted more than anything else to scream, but he knew that for a symptom of panic that could lead nowhere but to the unyielding flagstones below.

He took a tentative step toward the doorway on his right. Lying at the angle it did, the inconsequential molding of the door-panel seemed a secure toehold. It encouraged him to take another step, still clinging to the doorknob on his left—but what if that came loose, as doorknobs often did?

He knew that he had come as close to the doorway as he possibly could by that method. It was now up to him to release the knob, seize the jamb, and pull himself inward, diving headfirst. If he failed: thrashing, pinwheeling, screaming, it would take two seconds—and how long was two seconds? One Mississippi, two Mississipi. God!—to hit the patio.

His task seemed impossible, but he told himself that the doorknob was a bomb that could kill him, that he must let it go. Some dim ancestor that had lived through a tight spot by clinging for dear life to its mother's fur rejected his logic. He himself would leave no descendants smart enough to know when to let go. Thinking of his descendants made him think of their other ancestor, Amy. He had to get out of this for her sake. He had a compelling reason to act bravely and live. He let go of the knob and stretched.

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