NaNoWriMo 2009 is over. I finished a rough draft of a novel, 51,563 words, over the thirty days of November. Here’s a little bit where Mayumi shows Cooper how it’s done. Hope you like it.
There were apple trees growing in front of Number One. A frontal assault was out of the question, but May showed Cooper how they could work around to the side and get in through one of the basement windows.
“Just me and you. We go up the basement stairs. They’ll be on the second floor. Because they think it’s safer there. Once we’re in the house, we’ll make some noise, and they’ll tell us where they are.”
“You make it sound easy,” Cooper smiled.
“Let’s not kill ‘em. Might be worth asking where they’ve been, who they’ve seen. If there’s a crowd coming up from the city, we need to know.”
“So we can set more places at the dinner table for them? You’re quite the hostess.”
May grinned. “It’d be easier with pistols, though.”
Cooper happened to have two Glock 17s. He handed her one. “We’ll leave the Bushmasters here with the rest of my boys. That’s an extended magazine. Nineteen rounds.”
May checked the magazine, slammed it into the pistol, made sure the safety was on, and shoved the Glock into the waistband of her jeans. “If I need more than one, you can spank me. Okay. Let’s go.”
They moved through the shadows behind Number Three, and saw the blind spot May had noted on the side of Number One.
“See that? There’s a great room over the garage. And they’re on the second floor, where they think they’re safer. That great room has a vaulted ceiling. Nobody’s in there, so nobody will be watching us from that window. We can walk right up.”
They dashed across the gap between houses and pressed themselves against the garage. May signaled that they would go low around the corner, staying close to the house, and through the basement window.
When they got to it, it was open. They squeezed through, May first. She slipped through feet first and felt for the top of the washing machine. Crouching on it, she tried to adjust her eyes to the darkness. Then she climbed down out of the way so Cooper could get through.
“How’d you know it was open?” Cooper whispered after they had gotten inside.
“I left it that way.”
“Planning a little game of hide and seek?”
May grinned. “You never know.” She took out the Glock, flipped the safety off, and chambered a round. “Hold on to my back,” she said. “There’s a couple of things we could bump into down here. We’ll get some moonlight through the windows once we get upstairs.”
May felt her way forward to the base of the stairs. “Okay. Third step up squeaks.”
“You’ve cased this place out pretty thoroughly.”
“Like I said. You never know.”
At the top of the stairs, May peered under the door, then turned the doorknob with her left hand and opened the door just a sliver. She stayed low; the Glock in her right was now cocked. She pushed the door wider and slid through, holding the pistol in front of her and signaling for Cooper to follow.
“Stairs are around the corner. That way’s the great room. Remember that big window? When I get in position at the bottom of the stairs, throw something through it. I think the poker from the fireplace will do it.”
Cooper went through the kitchen to the great room. He found the poker, just like May said, hefted it. He could look back through the kitchen and see May crouching near the refrigerator, watching him. She nodded and moved. He saw her squat at the end of the hall and aim her pistol, and he turned and flung the poker as hard as he could at the big window. It shattered with a crash. Immediately, there were shouts and footsteps on the second floor.
He moved back towards May, but before he had gone down the stairs from the great room into the kitchen she fired, one shot, up the stairs. Someone tumbled down them, and Cooper saw May reach, grab, and slide a dropped handgun onto the kitchen tiles with her left hand while she kept aiming her Glock up the stairs. Whoever it was that had tumbled down the stairs tried to get up, but May spun and kicked and her victim stopped moving.
Now someone on the second floor was yelling. “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot! I give up!”
May stood, still aiming up the stairs. “Come down slow, and keep your hands in the air, asshole,” she said. The guy who was already lying on the landing started to move, and May calmly put her foot on his back, right between his shoulder blades, and pushed him back down.
May was beckoning to the guy on the stairs with her left hand, and when he got close enough, she grabbed his shirt and pulled him so he smashed his face into the wall and fell on his partner.
“They’re all yours, Coop,” she said, and put the Glock back into her waistband.