Morning all. It is the last prompt of September. Let’s try to make the most of it. Timers set for fifteen minutes and let’s see what happens to out prompt.
Oh I like this. Not sure who Doug is or what he wants but I will certainly be thinking about that the rest of the day.
Wednesday, September 30th: His arms pinwheeled as he tried to keep his balance.
His arms pinwheeled as he tried to keep his balance. The dark chasm of the stairwell loomed before him and he felt himself falling. He put his arms up trying to protect his head as he pitched forward, balance already gone. He landed hard, first on his shoulder then his back. His knee collided painfully with the corner of a stair tread and finally he landed on his stomach, all the air knocked out of him. He lay there for a moment in the dark of the lower levels.
Every part of him hurt. His knee and shoulder were the worst. He felt something sticky trickle down his forehead and realized he must have hit his head at some point during the fall. Head wounds always bled a lot, even the tiniest of cuts. He knew that. He dimly recalled someone mentioning it although he couldn’t recall the details at present.
He wanted to moan and groan and then take stock of his injuries. He forced himself to lay there instead, breathing shallowly and remaining motionless. It was instinct. At first he didn’t realize why he felt the need to lay there quietly with his eyes shut. Then he heard the soft creak of floorboards above as someone crossed the hallway floor.
He remembered the feel of a hand on his back. He hadn’t slipped. He was pushed.
‘And if it were an accident, they would come down the stairs to check. Instead, he could see the light spilling from the open door above even through his closed eyelids and hear the floorboards creak as someone moved stealthily about through the house.
He felt his anger grow. He was pushed down the stairs and someone was leaving him. He expected that they either wanted him to bleed out or for someone else to find him and render assistance. Either way, they were not helping.
His anger helped him tolerate the throbbing pain. He didn’t need to go upstairs and confront his attacker. He knew who it would be, or at least who sent the attacker.
‘I doubt Doug had the stomach to push me himself.’
If the person Doug hired was a professional, then he would face worse if he got to his feet and confronted them. If it was one of Doug’s cronies, then he might fare better or worse depending on how much they didn’t want to get caught.
‘I’m not exactly in fighting shape,’ he reminded himself. He suspected his shoulder would simply be bruised but feared his knee fared the worse. At best he would be limping for a few days, at worse…well it was best not to think about worst case scenarios right now. He lay still allowing himself to recover from the shock of the fall as he listened to the opening and closing of drawers. He could hear the movement in the living room. It stopped and there were footsteps again.
There were the soft sounds of footsteps on the stair treads and then silence as the upper floor was searched. The house wasn’t a large one and there were few places to hide what he suspected Doug sent his friend to find. It wasn’t in the house. Soon enough the searcher realized it and he heard the steps descending the stairs and then crossing the floorboards once more. He heard the squeal of the back screen door. He meant to replace it, but never got around to it. The screen thumped closed and he realized he was alone.
