Barbara Michaels - The Walker in Shadows

It was still raining at twelve thirty, when the men left the house. Without star- or moonlight, the night was as black as pitch. From Mark's bedroom window the house next door was a darker shadow in the darkness, eerily distorted by the water streaming down the windowpane.

Her forehead pressed against the glass, Pat strained her eyes.

"Your father is going to get soaked, squatting in that tree like a pigeon," she muttered.

The inane comment scarcely deserved a reply. Kathy made none. She knelt beside Pat, her face also pressed against the glass, and Pat felt the tension that held the girl rigid. She herself was ready to shriek with nerves. It must be the weather, she thought. There's no reason to be nervous. Nothing much happened last night; if Mark is right, tonight should be without incident.

The weather was certainly responsible for Jud's state of nerves, and no doubt the dog's misery was affecting her. Jud hated rain. No fool he, he knew that thunder and lightning often accompanied that atmospheric disturbance, and he was deathly afraid of thunder. He had been on Pat's heels all evening. Mark was a lot of fun, but when danger threatened, Pat was more dependable. He had accompanied them up the stairs and was now lying on the floor by the bed, his head under it. His agitated panting scratched Pat's nerves like a fingernail on a blackboard.

Something is coming.

The words flashed across her mind with the impact of a hot brand pressed against flesh. So keen was the mental anguish that Pat fell backward, landing with an ignominious thump, her legs doubled up under her. The dog was no longer panting, but whimpering-a craven, abject sound, as if Jud were so terrified he could not even express his feelings in a long howl of woe. Turning, with some difficulty, Pat saw the bed shudder as Jud forced himself under it, well-padded rump and all.

Even then she did not understand. She assumed the danger would come from the house next door, the house where her son and Kathy's father waited. She tried to get back to the window so she could see, and found her limbs so stiff she could barely move.

Then the smell reached her nostrils. The same foul, indescribable stench she had smelled twice before. And it came from behind her.

Squatting, awkward and ungainly, Pat managed to turn.

It filled the doorway. A thin, spinning column of luminescence, taller by several feet than she herself, the color of… But there was no word for that shade. It was part of the infernal aura the thing gave off, a deadly miasma compounded of parts the normal senses could not absorb. It was not heat or cold, not light or color or smell. But because the human sensory organs were limited, they had to translate it into terms they could transmit. So… her nostrils flared and her stomach heaved at the odor; her eyes winced away from the cold, pale burning; the hairs on her arms rose, as a current of… something… filled the room like smoke, acrid, choking.

The feeble remnants of reason left in her flailed helplessly, seeking escape. But she knew she could not allow herself the luxury of fainting; bad as it was to face the thing, it would be much worse to lie powerless before it. It was not after her. She knew that as surely as she knew her name, her age, the color of her hair… It wanted Kathy.

She was fond of this girl; perhaps more than fond. But the strength that came into her body did not come from love or from any hypothetical maternal instinct. It came from without. Not in a great, overwhelming flood; it was more like-the incongruous simile occurred to her-more like liquid from a leaky faucet, slow and trickling. But it was strong enough to raise her, first to her knees, then, swaying, to her feet. With something like horror she felt her knees bend and saw her foot slide forward.

As she moved, one unsteady, reeling step after another, the thing in the doorway changed, in response to her advance. It thickened and shrank in height, as if condensing; and if its former amorphous contours had been hard to contemplate, this was worse, for there was in it a dreadful suggestion of human form. In the crown of the burning column two spots formed, like the low blue flames of a dying fire.

Through the pounding of her pulse, Pat heard a distant sound and recognized it: the door downstairs crashing back against the wall, as it did when Mark was in a hurry. The cold flame in the doorway flared and was gone, as suddenly as if air had first sparked and then overwhelmed its burning.

She was still on her feet when Mark burst into the room. He hit the light switch as he passed it, without pausing. Pat's eyes closed against the brilliance. She felt her son's arm around her, and pushed feebly at him.

"I'm all right," she said. Her voice gurgled idiotically. "I'm… How is Kathy?"

"She's just been sick," said Mark. "Hey, Kath, hang in there, will you? At least wait till I can get you into the bathroom."

The voice came from behind her. Pat opened her eyes.

Not Mark's arms-Josef's. She recognized the blue-and-brown plaid of his shirt. That was all she could see; her face was mashed against his chest and his arms were squeezing the breath out of her.

"I'm all right," she repeated. "I'm-"

"All right?" Josef held her out at arm's length. His voice was quizzical, his expression calm; only the fact that he was paler than the white background of his shirt betrayed his feelings. "Sit down," he said.

"No, I don't want…" Pat glanced around the room. It was unbelievably normal. There ought to be some traces of that incredible presence-the marks of scorching or destruction. From the bathroom she heard gulping sounds, and Mark's voice, forced to calm: "Atta girl, you're okay now. Cool it, love; gotta get back and see how Mom is doing."

Pat pulled away from the hands that held her.

"Where is Jud?" she demanded.

"Under the bed," Mark answered. "Some watchdog!"

He stood in the door, his arm around Kathy. She looked very small and pathetic; her hair hung in dripping strands, darkened by the water she had splashed on her face. She pulled away from Mark and ran to Pat.

"I told him how wonderful you were," she whispered, her head against Pat's shoulder. "I was petrified. And you were so brave. I don't know how you did it."

"Neither do I," Pat said honestly. "It wasn't me. Something… came into me."

She patted Kathy's shaking shoulders.

"You mean that?" Mark demanded. "Tell me what happened, Mom. Exactly. It's very important."

Pat was tempted to swear at her best-beloved son. She didn't blame Kathy for being sick. Her own stomach felt unsteady. She wanted to lie down and have a cold cloth on her head, and someone holding her hand, telling her how wonderful she was… and a sleeping pill, a very large, very strong sleeping pill that would knock her out for about a year. And maybe when she woke up it would turn out that the whole thing was a nightmare, some neurosis from early childhood…

"Leave your mother alone," Josef said. "She's had enough."

Pat turned on him, pushing Kathy out of her way.

"Don't talk to him that way!"

"I'll talk to him any way I like. He is a… Get your things, Kathy. We're spending the rest of the night at a motel. Tomorrow I'll put that damned house on the market."

"You're not serious," Pat said.

"I have never been more serious." He took her hand, his fingers curling around her wrist like manacles. "You're coming too. Pack a bag."

"Wait a minute." Mark advanced on them, his pallor gone, his cheeks flaming with anger. "Who the hell do you think you are? That's my mother you're talking to."

"You seem to have lost sight of that fact." Josef glared at him.

Mark put his arm around Pat's waist. For a moment she was literally pulled between the two of them, for Josef did not release his hold on her wrist.