Lucy Alex

Chapter 5

The Visitor

Things stayed the same for the next few days, Chrissy avoided contact, preferring to stay in her room. Sometimes I could hear music drift along the passage way from her room but that was all that indicated that she was there.

Saturday arrived and, understandably, Lorraine did not want to go out and leave Chrissy on her own in the house at night. We ordered a Chinese takeaway and settled down to watch a DVD.

At around midnight, just as the movie finished, there was an almighty crash of broken glass from upstairs. I jumped up from my chair and ran to the stairs and shouted up "are you OK Christine?"

I got no answer so I went up to check what had happened. I walked toward Chrissy's room as she appeared at her door. She asked "What was the crash?"

I replied "I thought it was you..."

As I spoke I felt a draft from behind me, and turned to see that the door to Lorraine's and my bedroom was moving in the breeze and I could hear someone shouting. I went in to find that the window was smashed and a large rock was on the carpet amongst the shards of glass that had been the window. I carefully picked my way across the carpet and looked out; Dean was on the front lawn, another rock in his hand, shouting at the house.

I probably touched four stairs on the way down, I landed at the foot of stairs and called for Lorraine to call the police as a rock bounced off the dining room window, Lorraine screamed. She looked at me and asked "What's happening?"

"Dean is trying to rebuild your rockery inside your house, call the police."

Chrissy was half way down the stairs as I got to the front door. She asked "Is that Dean outside?"

I nodded and said "Keep away from the windows."

She saw me reaching for the door lock and said with panic in her voice "Don't go out there, he'll kill you!"

I replied grimly "I hope he tries."

I stepped out through the door as Dean tried again to put a rock through the lounge window. He saw me and ran at me with a look of fury on his face.

I ran to my left then angled round him to provide some space and then he was on me. He was not subtle; he used his huge fists like hammers, trying to hit my face and upper body. I kept moving backwards and blocking and dodging his swinging fists. I could smell alcohol on him and I could see his eyes were bloodshot in the light from the street light.

One of his wild swings caught the top of my left arm and I could feel it go numb almost immediately, fortunately was he was tiring from his initial onslaught and he stopped, hands on knees, watching me move my shoulder. He was grinning malevolently and said "I'm going to fucking rip you apart, you fucking piece of shit."

He ran at me again, swinging his fist back for a roundhouse punch designed to take my head off, but this time I stepped inside the swing and hit his right shoulder hard before stepping back out of his reach.

The punch had hurt him, I could see from the expression on his face as he tried to lift his arm up. He stepped forward more warily and his grin had slipped. He said "Is that karate shit? That's not going to save you!" I did not reply.

He went for me again, this time trying to grab me. I caught his fingers as they got to my shirt, twisted them hard and bent them to force him down, they clicked and he grunted in pain and he started to drop to the floor to stop the pain, but I let go, I hadn't finished with him yet. The police were on the way and I did not want them turning up and seeing that I could have had him in a wrist lock from the start.

Dean was more wary now, the adrenaline had had an affect on the alcohol in his bloodstream and he stood just out of reach, hunched like boxer, massaging his fingers, looking for an opening. I started backing off toward the house, as if to get away from him and he followed me step for step.

When my back hit the garage door I glanced over my shoulder as if I was surprised that I'd reached it, then I looked both ways as if trying to find an avenue of escape. The grin came back to Dean's face and he made his move.

Dean pulled his right shoulder back with his fist at shoulder height, he stepped forward and launched his fist in an arc toward my chest. I pivoted on my left foot and as his right foot touched the floor, and as he transferred his weight to that foot my right heal hit his knee and continued on with a lot of force.

I could hear and feel bone and sinew giving way and I knew that he would not be walking without pain for a long time, if ever.

Due to the momentum of his attack we both went down, but his pain receptors were starting to tell his brain of the damage to his knee and he was not interested in grappling with me. As I got to my feet a hand slipped under my arm pit and helped me up, it was a uniformed policeman. He asked "Are you OK? Are you hurt?"

I shook my head and he led me toward the front door whilst his colleague tried to calm Dean down. He said "I thought you were a goner then, I was on the radio calling for an ambulance and backup. I take it you managed to kick his knee?"

"It was the only thing I could think to do" I replied "I'd run out of places to go to get away from him and I didn't want him starting on the ladies in the house or putting rocks through any more windows."

"Did he break some windows then?"

I was about to point at the bedroom window when Chrissy appeared at the door and ran and threw her arms round me. "I thought he was going to kill you!" she exclaimed "are you badly hurt?"

More for the benefit of the police I said "Not too bad, no broken bones, just bruising, I thought I would be a lot worse."

Untangling her arms from round my neck Chrissy turned to the constable and said "It's a good job you turned up when you did." She was obviously under the misapprehension that the police had stopped Dean from attacking me.

When the policeman said "It was all over by the time we arrived." Chrissy look a little confused.

I pointed up to the broken bedroom window and the policeman made notes in his book. I walked through the door and let Chrissy and the policeman go through into the living room before me. I closed the front door with my left hand and could feel the bruise on my shoulder stiffening the muscle. As I walked through the doorway into living room I rolled my shoulder to keep it from becoming immobile.

The next thing I was nearly knocked off my feet as Lorraine ran into me and hugged me. She yelled "Why did you go out there? You should have waited for the police!"

"If I had not gone out there then your rockery would have been evenly distributed through your house and you would not have been able to walk barefoot in here for weeks."

She shot back "But he could have really hurt you, or even killed you, I saw the mood he was in!"

I replied "Wasn't going to happen, I can run faster than him."

Her voice softened and cracked "I was so scared; don't ever do anything like that again."

An ambulance arrived and took Dean to hospital, the uniform policeman took statements, starting with me, and while he took Lorraine's and Chrissy's statements I found the number for a 24 hour glazier and called them to come and put some boarding over the bedroom window. It was two thirty am before we got to bed.