New to the story? Start here: Memorial Day Chapter 1: Welcome to Bright Hill

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20 – Two or Three Careful Steps

He froze, one hand gripping the duffel bag, the other resting on the island.  His head had snapped to the left so quickly that his helmet shifted a fraction, twisting the strap enough to tug painfully at the stubble on his chin.

It took a moment or two, but the adrenaline hit him again and harder, making him truly short of breath and making the pulsing in his ear double in volume.  He tried to be as quiet as he could, but even over the sound of the crickets he felt like he was breathing very loudly.

He was holding the bag in his right hand, and in a moment of disordered thought he considered dropping it to clutch at the carbine’s pistol grip.  He stopped himself, wobbling as his body tried to put the bag down before he’d thought it through.

He stood stiffly after that, trying to steady his breathing as his heart pounded away uncomfortably.

Chirp.

He flinched, his left hand clenching into a fist involuntarily on the countertop.

It had only sounded a few times since he’d taken the bag.  It had become a sound that, if not comforting, was representative of success, of triumph.  Standing in the kitchen now straining to listen, it felt like a betrayal.

He didn’t hear another sound after the chirp from the bag.  The tile that had shifted on the other side of the kitchen was the only sound that wasn’t crickets, trees, or him.

He stood there, steadying himself with one hand on the island’s countertop for a while.  He was very aware that his legs were aching with the effort of holding still.  They felt like they wanted to move on their own—though he didn’t think they knew where they wanted to go.  Retreating outside seemed unwise at this point.  The living room was a virtual dead-end.  The study led only to the foyer and the creaky floorboards.

With his hand firmly on the island’s countertop and his weight leaning on it, he became aware that it was vibrating.

Very subtly.  Not enough to rattle anything.  Not enough to make a noise.  More like a brief resonance, as if something large had passed nearby and only the stone had noticed.  There was no other sound.

It was gone almost as soon as he registered it, but it alarmed him.  He’d been listening intently for something in the kitchen; now he strained to hear if there was something outside—a vehicle, a low-flying helicopter, anything that could justify it.

The ambient noise outside was unchanged.  Through the open door he could still hear the crickets, steady and unconcerned, exactly as before.  He found himself cataloging it automatically, the way one did with background noise that wasn’t worth paying atten—

I can’t hear myself breathing.

The realization hit hard enough that he drew a deeper breath, sharp and involuntary.  He hadn’t been breathing slowly before, or gently.  He could feel his chest expanding under the heavy plate carrier, the sudden rush of air unmistakable.

But it was silent.

The quiet rushing of his pulse in his left ear was gone as well, leaving only the unchanged sound of the night beyond the open door.

And then, almost as soon as he registered that absence, the familiar noise of his pulse returned.  His next breath was suddenly loud again, embarrassingly so, as if nothing had been wrong at all.

Waiting for this to make sense, he realized, was no longer useful.  He was standing in the kitchen, an open door at his back, waiting for something he couldn’t articulate.

If something’s going to happen you’re in the worst possible place for it, he thought.

The basement door was near the refrigerator, near the noisy cracked tile.  Not far from him.

And avoiding that end of the room doesn’t make it any safer.

He committed to counting to thirty in his head, listening the whole time.  Then he’d move.

Having something to concentrate on, a micro-goal, helped him focus.  His breathing steadied a little, though it was still elevated.  He counted slowly, waiting for a change.  Waiting for anything—another vibration, a new sound, a smell.

Nothing changed.

When he’d reached thirty, which took close to a minute, he steeled himself to move.  He took his hand off the counter and didn’t feel any less steady.

After a moment’s thought, he carefully lowered the bag to the floor.  It clacked against the kitchen floor as something hard protruding from the bottom of the bag contacted the tile.

He froze again, bent over.  That had startled him—he anticipated the bag making a rustling sound as he set it down, but not that.

He remained bent-over for several seconds, hearing nothing.  He carefully transferred the bag to his left hand and straightened, lifting it.  It made another quiet sound as whatever was on the bottom of it scraped against the tile.

Nothing.  Just the crickets, his pulse, and his breathing.

He knew the island was right there, he had just been touching the countertop.  He inched forward, intuiting its width.  Two or three careful steps, then a left turn.

He’d guessed the space correctly, turning without even bumping the bag into the cabinets.  Five or six small steps forward, and then he could feel for the corner of the wall on his right.

He found it about where he was expecting it, his hand touching the wall just short of the corner.  Just above the light switch that controlled the IR blinker on the roof.  He felt for the switch plate, and used that to orient himself.

The cracked tile was just forward and left of him, the door to the basement just to his right.

He turned, shuffling his feet quietly, and stepped toward it.  The toe of his boot collided with the bottom of the door with a soft thunk.

It jarred him, quickly replaced with fleeting embarrassment.  He’d left the door open when he came up here.

The door had swung partly closed, nudged by his boot, and he pushed it further so he could pass it.  He stepped to his left, one hand on the door, and opened it again.