Story code: ST-000881
Part 2: Point of Impact
The metallic object slammed into the reinforced glass with a concussive boom that rattled the fillings in Vance’s teeth. The pane did not shatter, but a dense, opaque spiderweb of fractures exploded outward from the point of impact, instantly obscuring the man’s face behind a veil of broken white lines. Vance flinched, his breath catching in his throat, instinctively lowering the barrel of the shotgun a fraction of an inch. His finger still rode the precipice of the trigger guard. He had fully expected the glass to explode inward, showering the marble foyer in deadly shrapnel, but the heavy laminate core held firm.
The man hit it again. *Boom.* Another jagged halo of white cracks joined the first, overlapping and turning the center of the door into a crushed mosaic. Through the distorted, blood-smeared pane, Vance could see the intruder was wielding a four-way steel lug wrench, swinging it with a desperate, uncoordinated frenzy that spoke of pure adrenaline and absolute madness. Vance took a slow, calculated step backward, his bare heels sliding against the icy, polished floor. Shooting through the reinforced laminate was a massive gamble; the heavy buckshot might bounce back or lose its lethal velocity in the thick acrylic layers. He only had the shells in the weapon and the few bouncing in his robe pocket. He needed the man to actually breach the threshold. Once the intruder crossed into the house, the legal justification for lethal force was absolute.
Keeping the shotgun tucked firmly against his shoulder with his right arm, Vance used his left hand to dig his smartphone from his silk pocket. He kept his eyes locked on the deteriorating front door, his thumb swiping blindly across the screen to activate the emergency dialer. He pressed the cold glass of the phone to his ear, listening to the agonizing, hollow rings playing over the relentless, rhythmic battering of the lug wrench. When the county dispatcher finally answered, her voice was painfully, almost offensively calm.
“911, what is your emergency?”
“Home invasion in progress,” Vance barked, his voice tight, refusing to take his eyes off the splintering mahogany doorframe. He rattled off his address, a secluded, heavily wooded estate at the absolute edge of the county lines. “A man just drove his truck through my security gate. He’s trying to break through my front door with a heavy steel tool. I am armed, and I will defend myself.”
Keys clacked rapidly on the other end of the line. “Sir, I am dispatching deputies to your location now,” the voice crackled, suddenly losing its practiced calm. “But you are in sector four. You’re out in the hills. It is going to take at least twenty minutes for the nearest cruiser to reach your property. Do not engage the intruder if you can avoid it. Is there a safe room you can secure yourself in?”
*Boom.* The lug wrench missed the center of the glass and struck the brass lock cylinder. The heavy mahogany frame around the door groaned, a terrible sound of stressing wood and bending metal.
“I don’t have twenty minutes,” Vance snarled. He dropped the phone onto the marble floor. It skittered away into the shadows beneath a console table, the dispatcher’s tiny, tinny voice pleading with him to stay on the line and lock himself in a bathroom. Vance gripped the ribbed pump of the shotgun with his left hand, planting his feet firmly in a modified weaver stance, perfectly centering his balance. He was not going to cower in a panic room while some disgruntled, drug-fueled hospital worker tore apart his sanctuary. He had built this life, this wealth, with ruthless efficiency, cutting away the dead weight of a failing medical center to ensure the survival of the corporate parent. This moment was no different. It was basic survival of the fittest.
Through the shattered, blood-streaked glass, Vance could see the blurry silhouette of the man shifting tactics. The intruder suddenly dropped the heavy lug wrench; it clattered loudly against the stone porch. For a split second, Vance felt a surge of relief, thinking the man was finally giving up, perhaps realizing the absolute futility of breaking through a fortress door with hand tools.
Instead, the man pressed his bleeding face directly against the few remaining clear inches of the glass at the very edge of the pane. His mouth was wide open in an agonizing scream that Vance couldn’t quite hear over the ringing in his own ears. The man was frantically slapping something against the glass with his left hand. It looked like a small, flat rectangle. A cell phone? A hastily scribbled manifesto? A photograph of the family he claimed Vance had destroyed with the layoffs?
Vance’s heart hammered a frantic rhythm against his ribs. The sheer irrationality of the act terrified him far more than the blunt violence had. The man was bleeding profusely, his dark jacket soaked in heavy, wet stains that Vance assumed came from the violent truck crash on the lawn. Yet the intruder seemed to feel no pain, no exhaustion. He was a machine fueled by nothing but blind, obsessive hatred for the executive standing in the shadows.
“Get back!” Vance roared, his voice echoing in the cavernous foyer, knowing the thick glass would muffle his warning just as it did the intruder’s screams. He didn’t care. He needed the man to know death was waiting. He pumped the shotgun once-a sharp, deliberate threat-ejecting the unfired shell onto the floor to chamber a fresh one. He prayed the universal, intimidating mechanical sound of a shotgun racking would pierce the man’s psychosis. “I have a gun! I will shoot you!”
The man didn’t flinch. He didn’t retreat down the steps. Instead, he slammed his bloody palms against the weakening brass handle of the door. The lock mechanism, severely battered from the heavy wrench strikes, emitted a high-pitched metallic squeal. The reinforced glass had held perfectly, but the luxury wood framing around it had not been rated for a sustained siege. A long, jagged splinter of imported mahogany ruptured inward with a loud crack, dropping a thick shower of sawdust and wood shards onto the pristine marble floor.
The heavy door shifted inward by half an inch. A sliver of freezing night air sliced into the warm foyer, carrying with it the acrid smell of copper, burning rubber, and raw engine exhaust. Through that tiny, violently created crack, the man’s muffled screams finally found an opening. They twisted into an agonizing, hysterical pitch that echoed off the vaulted ceilings, though the words were still too frantic and breathless to comprehend. The intruder jammed his bare fingers into the narrow gap, tearing his own flesh against the splintered wood and shattered brass, desperately trying to pry the heavy door open with his bare hands. Vance raised the barrel, aiming directly at the widening gap, his finger tightening on the trigger as the deadbolt finally snapped.