The Monster Within

Chapter 56

Mary Margret screams out, still pushing on the door, trying to keep this intruder out, but he is far stronger than she is. Her heart is pounding loudly in her ears and the breath in her throat cannot be exhaled. She feels as if she's drowning in fear.

"HENRY!" she screams, her voice strained from pushing against this monstrous man.

The teenager, who had heard the entire exchange has dropped his books and run to try and aid her. He grabs the nearest thing he can find for a weapon, which happens to be a sharpened pencil. He runs over, ignoring Sophie's frightened cries, to help push the intruder back. The man's gloved hand is wrapped around the door as he struggles with the two of them. Impulsively, Henry stabs the man's hand with the pencil, which causes him to recoil and shout in pain. He steps back, allowing for both of them to slam the door.

Mary Margret puts the lock and chain on it and tries to catch her breath. She's wheezing heavily and still adrenaline and panic are coursing through her body.

"What the hell?!" Henry is saying to himself. "What the hell?! What the F*** is happening?!"

She knows that this will only hold the man for so long. She needs time to think, but Sophie's frightened screams and Henry muttering curses under his breath is not helping with her thought process. She gazes at Henry and then to the kitchen island, where her phone is. She tries to remember where Emma kept her gun or if she was able to find any other types of weapons. While most of the time she prefers non-violent methods of defence, she has no idea what this man's intentions are and how dangerous he truly might be.

"Henry," she gasps, her mind still racing heavily. "Do you... do you know where your mother keeps her gun?"

"Yeah, upstairs in her room why?"

"Grab Sophie and go upstairs to your parent's room."

"What? Why? What's going on?"

"I-I don't know... but he's not going to stop here. He'll find another way in... we need to protect ourselves. I'll meet you up there in a minute..."

"What about you?"

"Just worry about your sister right now!" she orders, this was no time for questions, it was time for action.

Confused and equally afraid, Henry feels like he's starting to run on pure instinct. He races over into the kitchen and picks up a screaming Sophie. He places her against his shoulder but does little to soothe her agitated state. Both he and Mary Margret gasp when there's rattling at the door; the teacher was right, and he wasn't going to quit until he had what he wanted. In the frenzy, he also grabs his phone and then races upstairs to his mom's and Killian's room.

Mary Margret races into the kitchen to grab her phone and then goes to the nearest kitchen drawer. The door is still rattling with more and more aggression. She knew it was only a matter of time until he broke through or found another way inside. She searches through the drawer, but when she doesn't find what she needs, she goes to the next one. Her heart is threatening to burst through her chest as she finally finds the biggest butcher's knife she can find. Gripping the handle tightly, she races to the basement door and locks it. She then goes to the back door and deadbolts it as well.

Meanwhile, upstairs, Henry rushes into the master bedroom and lays Sophie in her bassinette.

"It's okay Soph..." he says, trying to sound soothing as she continues to scream. The cries are becoming almost numbing to his senses as the teenager tears his way across the room and digs into his mother's nightstand. He finds all the ammunition, but his heart drops when he realizes the gun is missing. He hurries to her holster, which is in the closet, but it's empty too.

Where the hell could it be?! He can feel himself beginning to hyperventilate in a panic, trying to find out where it could be. He can still hear the pounding on the door from downstairs. He can also hear Mary Margret's frantic footsteps racing across the hardwood floor.

"MARY MARGRET!" Henry yells from the doorway. "I CAN'T FIND THE GUN!"

"WHAT?!" the teacher shrieks in terror at this realization as she comes from the back room having locked the door.

"IT'S NOT WHERE SHE USUALLY KEEPS IT!"

"WELL, WHERE THE HELL COULD IT..."

Before she can even finish her sentence, a fist smashes through the glass of the door, causing Mary Margret to scream so loudly that it makes Henry nearly jump out of his skin in fear. She looks at the door in unbelievable fear, tears now streaming down her face.

The gloved hand and the dark coat of the man are seen sticking his arm through the shattered hole in the door, trying to find the lock.

Next to the door on a nearby table, Mary Margret sees a handle sticking out of one of Emma's handbags. She realizes immediately that it's Emma's gun. Why it was in her purse, she had no time to ask questions. Keeping the knife raised she races towards the table as the stranger's hand continues to fumble with the lock. She grabs Emma's whole bag and then goes racing towards the stairs.

"HENRY!" she screamed. "I GOT IT! I'LL BE RIGHT THERE!" She does, however, slip a bit while climbing the stairs.

However, what the teacher had not anticipated was how quickly the man would unlock the door and get into the house. She's almost half-way up the stairs when a gloved hand reaches out and grabs her ankle.

She loses the grip on her knife and she screams as loud as she can as the strong hand tries to pull her down the stairs again. Her stomach and elbows take the brunt of the fall and she feels the sharpness of the wooden step hit her in the stomach, knocking the wind out of her. She kicks at him with her other foot and she tries to use the bag to hit the man in the head with it, but the contents spill everywhere, and he still has a tight grip on her ankle. She fumbles with the gun as the man continues pulling her down towards him. She cocks the hammer and aims it at the man, hesitating but she must be prepared to protect her and the children at all costs. However, to her horror, the gun is jammed and before she can do anything else, the man has her in his grasp before she can do anything else.

"I wouldn't try anything if I were you," the man hisses under his breath as he pulls Mary Margret into a chokehold, cutting off her air supply. She begins seeing black spots in her vision as she continues to struggle.

...

Upstairs, Henry hears Mary Margret's cries for help and the sound of her seemingly being choked. He panics, unsure since he doesn't have any other type of weapon in the room except coat hangers.

He then remembers the wooden baseball bat that his dad had bought for him and they would sometimes play ball with it. The only problem was, it was in his room.

He knows he has to help Mary Margret so he rushes down the hall while trying to call for help. Immediately he regrets being a teenager as his room is a complete mess and that adds time to his search for help. Ignoring the scattered clothes on the floor, he goes for his closet and begins shoving things out of the way, trying to find the bat. He hears the phone ringing, and he thinks he's dialled 9-1-1, but his heart drops when he hears his mother's voice. He must've pressed a button that began spelling out a contact's name instead of hitting 9-1-1. He tries to keep the phone under his chin as he uses both hands to dig.

"Henry?" his mother's voice is heard as he continues to dig through the mess in his closet. "What's going on? Is everything..."

"Mom!" he shouts, as he realizes he has to dig through one of his packaged boxes from moving to get the bat. "A man is breaking... into the house... he has Mary... Margret... I need..."

He doesn't get a chance to say anything else as the phone falls from his chin and onto the floor. Unable to think straight, the teenager rips open the first box he finds and digs for the baseball bat, the entire time he can still hear his sister screaming in terror.

However, just as his hands wrap around the wood of the bat, an arm reaches out and pulls him into a chokehold, cutting off his air.

"Listen, Kid, I won't hurt either of you, I just need to get what is mine," the voice sneers.

A/N: I'm back, please review.