Ed Gorman - Nightmare Child

"I'll be back today to get you, Jenny. Within a few hours. I promise."

Paralyzed on the stairs-a part of her wanting to go back up to find the girl; the more sensible part knowing she had to get out of there-she said, "Jenny, I love you."

Again, there was only the empty silence, gray as the shadows on the second floor.

"Aunt Diane," Jenny called again.

"Just hold on, honey. Just a little while longer."

Torn with guilt and a sense that she'd really let the little girl down, Diane started her descent again, taking the steps two at a time until, out of breath, she reached the front door.

She had only to open it a few inches to see that Mindy and Jeff were coming up the walk, gaunt and dark figures against the white snow, wrapped up like lepers in the eighteenth century.

The back presented her only means of escape. Starting through the house, stumbling against the edge of a chair, she reached the kitchen and the rear door. It was locked. As she fumbled with the doorknob, trying to open it, she heard tramping feet coming in through the front door.

The door would not unlock.

The footsteps were louder now, tramping toward the kitchen in heavy snow boots.

Damn this door!

Just as the footsteps reached the dining room, which was adjacent to the kitchen, she saw what her trouble had been. Hanging on a small nail behind the curtain was a tiny key. Taking it down, she inserted it in the lock. The door opened with no problem.

Gasping, saying a prayer of thanks at the same time, she had just taken a step onto the back porch when a voice behind her said, "Diane, what are you doing in our house?"

The voice was Jeff's.

When she turned to glance at him, she saw that his face, bundled inside a parka hood, seemed to have no details; it was just a dark area with burning, yellow eyes.

Screaming, she pushed even farther out onto the porch, slamming into the screen door and falling down three steps leading to the ground.

She fell head first into a snowbank, but even as she struck, she was already scrambling to her feet, ready to sprint across the yards of knee-deep white stuff separating the McCay's place from hers.

"Diane! Come back! We'd like to talk to you!"

This time it was Mindy's voice calling her. Diane did not even pause in her run, however. She wanted to be in her own home, on the phone to Robert, describing what she'd found, convincing him to get a search warrant.

The run was exhausting, the snow heavy as she lifted one foot and then the other to make her way.

When she reached her property, she turned back once and there they were, two people swathed in heavy clothes, their faces only dark emptiness, except for the burning, yellow eyes that watched her…

…watched her.

In her own kitchen, Diane threw off her coat and let it fall to the floor. Leaning toward the window for a secretive glance, she found that the McCays still stood on their back porch, their eyes glowing within the smoky darkness of their faces.

Struggling for breath, Diane pulled herself to the wall phone and lifted the receiver. Punching the proper digits for the police station, she forced her breathing to slow with the same exercises she used to instill calm.

A female voice answered this time.

"Chief Clark, please."

"I'm afraid he's not here. May I help you with something?"

"Is he still at the fire?"

The female officer sounded hesitant, as if she should neither confirm nor deny the question. "He's…not here at the moment."

"Thank you."

Hanging up, Diane allowed herself a brief smile. She probably hadn't made her best case when she'd called so out of breath.

Panting, she went into the half-bath beneath the staircase and carefully washed her face and hands, which relaxed her more than the breathing exercises had. The odor of the McCay's house still burned in her nose, and the sight of the dead, decaying animals still imposed itself on her vision.

In the hall, she found a blue knit cap she liked, put it on, buttoned up her coat once more, and then went through the breezeway to the double garage, where two cars stood in the gathering dusk of the afternoon, a gray Volvo sedan and a red Subaru station wagon.

She chose the Volvo. Once inside, she reached up and depressed the button on the garage door opener.

The door had long been in need of repair-something wrong with the motor-and it went up, creeping inch by creeping inch.

Diane sat behind the wheel, the engine running smoothly, waiting to shoot out through the open door.

In the meantime, while she waited, she busied herself by emptying the ashtray-filled with gum wrappers, mostly-into the small white plastic garbage bag that hung off one of the radio knobs.

Finished with this, she glanced in the rearview mirror again. Her response was a gasp.

The garage door was fully open now, but in it stood, outlined against the white snow, the two dark shapes she had come to fear, Mindy and Jeff McCay, their eyes tiny glowing circles in their otherwise empty faces.

They started walking into the garage, one on either side of the car.

Knowing she had to make a quick and dangerous decision, Diane floored the Volvo, screeching backward across the concrete floor, slamming into Jeff McCay as she did so.

Jeff went flying backward, the sound of his head smacking the garage wall with a sickening crunch.

Mindy shouted several obscenities at her, but nothing could deter Diane now. She left the garage doing twenty-two miles an hour in reverse, beginning to fishtail as soon as the steel-belted radials touched the ice-covered snow on the driveway.

She continued fishtailing all the way down the drive to the street, where, sliding, she ran into a wall of snow piled there by city graders. Mindy and Jeff ran down the drive toward her.

Letting a sob fill her throat, Diane started dropping the car into a forward gear, then slamming it back into re-verse in order to get traction and pull away from the wall of snow. Even through the closed window, she could smell tire rubber burning.

Jeff's gloved hand appeared from nowhere and started opening the door. Somewhere behind him, Mindy was shouting again.

Jeff's hand reached through the opening between the door and post.

Diane pulled the door shut quickly and viciously, making Jeff cry out.

Just then the car shot backward once again, both rear tires finally obtaining traction.

This time it was Mindy who she ran into as she escaped, Mindy throwing herself on the trunk of the car and beating on the back window, her glowing eyes larger and more furious now. Diane deliberately fishtailed this time so that Mindy was hurled off the trunk and thrown into the wall of snow.

Once on the street, Diane did not look back. She just drove, sobbing as she went. All she could think of was poor Jenny trapped in that terrible house and unable to escape.

Then she thought of empty faces and glowing eyes.

From two miles away, Diane could see the smoke smudge the dusk sky, heavy black smoke in several columns against wintry, crimson clouds, a silver slice of crescent moon in the west.

Roadblocks had been placed at several main intersections, traffic rerouted around the seven-block area affected by the fire. Diane listened to updates on the radio as finally, she realized she'd gone as far as she could by car. Pulling into an alley behind a medical complex, Diane parked her car and locked it, then set off walking.

The air, which should have been clear on such a chilly evening, was instead heavy with smoke. Diane coughed as she moved down crowded sidewalks toward the sky that was lighted now with dozens of emergency lights flashing across the clouds. Nearby, backup fire trucks rumbled down brick streets and emergency band radios crackled through the night like distant gunfire.