Downhill (eBook)

Laszlo Kollar (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2024
195 Seiten
Grosvenor House Publishing (Verlag)
978-1-80381-760-6 (ISBN)

Infos

Austin desperately wants to see his daughter being rid of the wheelchair. Seeing no other solution, he decides to abandon his morals, invade Sam's hillside house and steal money from him. But, once in the house, Austin encounters something truly horrifying. Sam had just then been shot by a masked gunman. Austin fails to get out in time so he is left with no choice but to quickly hide and take cover. Then, as he is trying to make his escape, he discovers the unthinkable: Sam is still alive. Despite his severe injury, Sam manages to get his own gun and move to a place to hide. A surreal standoff forms that threatens to end the lives of everyone involved and ruin numerous others. Three people, three goals, three guns . . . And the clock is ticking. Can any of them come out a winner?

Textauszug

Chapter 6

Sam had always had a thing for heights. But only when it was paired with a sense of security. He’d never felt the need to try skydiving or bungee jumping, and he didn’t even particularly enjoy airplane travel. He enjoyed seeing the world from high places that weren’t moving. So much so that perhaps this was the sole activity that turned him no profit of any kind but kept him occupied for long hours. That says quite a lot about a person with the tendency to text or do business even during movies and sporting events.

He even ignored the advice of his lead architect when he told Sam to look for a spot on a lower slope to build his new home, due to the “far from ideal” features of his preferred location. Sam hadn’t been discouraged by the thought of extending the duration of the construction nor the ballooning cost. He didn’t make the lead architect’s life easy, for sure. But Sam wasn’t the kind of guy who couldn’t be reasoned with, either, so they eventually managed to find common ground. The house was designed so that it would rest on the tallest pillars and float the furthest above the slope, while staying strictly within reasonable architectural boundaries and safety limits. He even once noted it to the architect, “They are called ‘floating houses’ for a reason, so let them float.” The floor space ended up around 2200 square feet, and the external pillars reached almost 30 feet, which completely satisfied Sam.

Despite the beautiful view of the valley and the city lying in the center, Sam didn’t want to build a glass box. Although, the large room on the front might suggest otherwise. He preferred more closed, private interior spaces but since the nearest prying eyes were miles away, he allowed his wife to talk him into using more glass for the large room, at least. Sam would have been perfectly fine with concrete walls all around. To enjoy the view, he would simply sit out on the balcony with a bottle and a glass or a cup, depending on the hour. That is why Sam’s house had more concrete than glass, especially in comparison to other houses built on slope. The kitchen, for instance, was honored with only a small, oblong window between the sink and the wall cabinets. Even less lucky for the small bedroom, that had no window at all, thanks to the exterior stairway between the rooftop and the main entrance. It wouldn’t have made any sense to punch a hole in the bedroom wall since all you’d see was the stairs and the concrete wall that hid the stairs from the outside world. Good question, though, how much sense could be found in the concept of a windowless bedroom in a hillside house. And the answer to that could be found in none other than Sam. After all, whoever in his position got a certain use from their weekend house, which he did, could no doubt benefit from a windowless bedroom.

The large room sat right above the slope and was the full width of the house. There were two doors to this room. They were situated right next to each other, across from the floor-to-ceiling windows, in the center of the wall that divided the house in half. One door came from the kitchen, the other from the corridor. In the center of the windows, the most massive pillar of the house continued up through the floor to the ceiling, jutting out from the wall and creating two areas of the room. Facing the windows, the right was Sam’s bedroom and gym with a double bed, and an exercise bike. The left half was a kind of study, with a sectional sofa, display cabinet, and an elegant coffee table. The famous workstation was between the sofa and the pillar and was separated from the balcony by a floor-to-ceiling concrete wall. And since the exercise bike was right on the other side of the pillar, just in front of the window, Sam sometimes joked that he actually worked on both sides, so the workroom title to this large room totally fit.

Sam’s minimalistic taste could be seen in everything he owned, from his house to his car to his desk. Everything was tasteful, elegant, and free of any flashiness and unusual shapes. If it wasn’t for his wife, Lindsey, the walls wouldn’t be decorated with as many landscapes and photos of cities and buildings. No wonder only one picture qualified to be in the large room, a sunset tinting a major city in a beautiful golden-yellow light. As Sam saw it, Lindsey preferred the city, and Sam preferred the nature, so the combination of these two in one picture was more than enough in the large room. And, as could be seen by looking at the walls, Lindsey accepted it.

***

Light had not penetrated the darkness yet, but noises had already begun to disrupt the silence. These were very quiet noises and barely detectable—breathing and the friction between floor and clothing. Sam regained his consciousness, but it took him a few seconds to open his eyes. At first, he didn’t know where he was or what had happened. Only the blurred backside of the beige sofa looked familiar. Then, the events leading up to when he had hit the ground began to dawn on him as his right palm and forearm started to ache. He feared turning his head over, but he quickly realized that the tiny, twinging pains were being caused by splinters of the glass that had slipped out of his fingers when he had fallen on the ground. The small shards had dug themselves into his palm and the part of his forearms that had been left uncovered by his rolled-up sleeves. His left hand was still in his pants pocket. The pants were too tightly tailored to release Sam’s hand when he had needed it to buffer the impact of his fall. But he knew that the prickly glass pieces were the least of his problem. He had, in fact, gotten shot!

He carefully rolled his head around, examining the area around him, but he could not find a pool of blood. That led him to the conclusion that the bullet hadn’t traveled all the way through his body. It’s sitting inside my back, he thought. He pulled his left hand out of his pocket in order to gain some leverage to get up from the floor, but a stabbing pain announced itself in his back. Oh my God, he thought, my spine. He quickly checked himself below the belt. Great relief took over as he felt both of his legs moving from hip to toe. Then, as Sam was turning his face back toward his right shoulder, he spotted a moving shadow in the kitchen, the source of which must have been hiding from his eyes behind the kitchen island. His assailant was still here!

This caused his heart to beat more intensely, and he felt it even stronger because his chest was pressed against the floor under his massive torso. All he needed to do was to reprise his role of the deceased, and he’d be fine. But why was the shooter still here? Looking for something? If so, who knows when he would leave. And whatever the answer was, he might not be able to afford the time in his situation, that is, lying on the floor with a hole in his back. Only his back, if he was lucky.

Then he thought of the top drawer of his desk. It was only a long reach away. He knew it could take only one bad moment, one in which he drew the gunman’s attention to the fact that he was not dead, and everything would cease to matter. Then, he would actually be dead. But he chose to risk it.

He slid to the side a bit, careful enough to not make any noise with the glass splinters on the floor. He ignored the pain completely. While keeping an eye on the kitchen, he carefully reached over to the drawer, opened it, and lifted out his gun, a Glock 19. It was loaded, as always. Not the most textbook way of storing a firearm but something to be deeply grateful for now. As soon as he felt the gun in his hand, he pushed in the drawer and lay back in the dead position.

Then, he contemplated what to do. His chances had significantly improved, but his situation was still critical. He figured it would be unwise to conduct a shootout until he fully understood how much control he had over his body. On top of that, his head was lying in a different position, and it could easily give him away. Let alone his right palm, which was now resting on the grip of his handgun. His desk provided partial cover, but that wasn’t life insurance. However, if he were to lie in his original position, facing the sofa, eyes closed or not, he would put himself back at a grave disadvantage. There was no other way—he must give up his current position and get going.

He watched the kitchen for a few seconds, then he braced himself and cautiously lifted his torso up from the floor and kneeled. Slowly, though trying to hurry, he crawled behind the sofa and froze, waiting to see if he could hear any noise that indicated someone had noticed his “resurrection”. He was focused so intently on the noises that he had forgotten to check his upper body for exit wounds. And he had forgotten to unlock his gun. However, he heard nothing—no human voices, no steps, nothing.

On his knees and using his left arm as a crutch, Sam gingerly inched himself all the way along the back of the L-shaped sofa until he reached its other end. As much of a massive piece of furniture it was, Sam didn’t fool himself into believing it could stop bullets. Still, it was a cover, and from there, he had a good view of the two doors. If the shooter were to use either door to enter the room, or even just put an arm inside, Sam could open fire.

Many parts of his body were aching like hell, but Sam tried as hard as he could to prevent his pain from squeezing any kind of noise out of him. Even so, he knew it was only a matter of time before his assailant discovered that his body was missing, although Sam might have just picked the best possible spot for that scenario. If the stranger were to enter the room and look at the spot where he’d left Sam, he’d likely...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 29.2.2024
• Verlagsort: London
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Krimi / Thriller / Horror ► Krimi / Thriller
• Schlagworte: criminal investigation • desperate father • Empathy • gunman • Home Invasion • overcome fear • Suspense
• ISBN-10: 1-80381-760-7 / 1803817607
• ISBN-13: 978-1-80381-760-6 / 9781803817606