You Can’t Stop Me Read Online Free PDF Page A

fired the gun.
    Orange and yellow flame and sparks erupted from the barrel like the sparklers last Fourth of July….
    Mom took an involuntarily step back, her other hand coming up as if to protect herself, but it was too late. A tiny pink misty cloud hovered as she teetered.
    Jessica screamed—it was shrill and almost fake-sounding.
    “ Mom! ” Jeff shouted, his voice barely a whisper in his own head as his ears rang from the roar of the pistol in the enclosed space.
    Frozen, Jeff watched as the stranger with the gun swivelled toward Jessica. Down on the floor, Mom had stopped moving, her eyes open, staring but not seeing.
    Another loud pop turned Jessica’s scream into a gurgle, as she made a slow pirouette, her shirt blossoming crimson as she held out her hand to her brother, then sagged to her knees, then fell onto her side.
    As the stranger turned in his direction, Jeff ducked into the bathroom and slammed the door. He managed to push in the knob lock and twist it, but knew the killer wouldn’t need long to get through. Only one thing to do—the bathroom had a window overlooking the fenced-in backyard. Jeff’s only chance.
    He heard two more pops and dove into the tub. Peeking, he saw holes in the door, around the knob….
    …but for now the barrier held.
    The boy climbed up onto the toilet, stretched to unlock the window. Though seldom used, the mechanism worked fine. Lifting the window, though, proved harder—stiff in its tracks, the thing did not want to move ….
    Jeff glanced toward the door just as two more bullets punched through. They barely missed him, thunking into the wall beside him, cracking wall tiles like eggs. Blinking at sweat, heart pounding, Jeff gave a mighty tug, and the window moved just enough. He grabbed the frame and swung through feet first, kicking out the screen, even as he heard the bathroom door splinter open.
    He flew through the opening, his back scraping the bottom of the frame, and dropped into dusk that was almost darkness, landing with a jolt on the grass, a good six feet below, his stockinged feet stinging. He rolled and came up running, his legs hurting, his back burning, as he half sprinted, half limped around the corner of his home. Not home free, however—the backyard was enclosed by a six-foot wooden privacy fence.
    He hoped the bathroom window was too small for the killer to get out—if so, that would give the boy more time. More time to do what , he didn’t know. He had no idea why this was happening or what was really going on. His mom and sister were dead; despite all the gunfire and blood, that tragedy seemed abstract to the child, though he did sense he was next on the stranger’s list. Why he was next, he had no idea.
    That was the extent of his mental processing of what had happened to bring him to this moment. And now that moment, and the moments tumbling thereafter, were all that concerned him.
    If he tried to get to the neighbors, could he make it? From the fenced-in backyard, he could get into the garage, and out onto the driveway. Dad’s shed, back here, led nowhere, a dead end. But the fence between the house and its freestanding garage had a gate—through there, Jeff could get to the street and the neighbors.
    As he neared that gate, however, Jeff heard the back door swing open, nearby, and light poured out. If the boy went through, he would walk into the stranger’s path. In any case, the killer would turn toward the fenced-in yard and come through, looking.
    Jeff figured if he ducked into the shed, he could at least hide in there long enough for the killer to go in to check the garage. Then the boy could make a run for the gate and the neighbors.
    That seemed his best chance.
    He slid open the shed door as quietly as he could, then squeezed into the hot, musty-smelling metal structure and just as carefully closed the door. Dad’s lawn mower shared space with a roto-tiller, a weed-whacker, and some garden tools inside the dark, cramped space.
    He