Gayle Wilson - Bogeyman

“Go on, Maddie. To the edge of the woods and wait for me.”

As Blythe said the words, she raised her eyes to the thick pine forest that marked the property line. Something in the trees caught her eye. A shape, darker than the trunks themselves, was moving along the edge of the woods.

She blinked, trying to make sense of what she was seeing. When she looked again, whatever she’d seen seemed to have melted into the shadows. Still…

A movement below drew her gaze from the forest. Looking like a small, white ghost in her pale nightgown, Maddie was running across the back lawn toward those woods. Just as Blythe had told her to.

And she was running directly toward whatever—or whoever—had been moving there.

Eyes straining against the darkness, Blythe searched the property line again. There was nothing there now but the trunks of the trees, standing stark against the moonlight.

She knew in her heart that she hadn’t been mistaken. Something had been moving among them. Something upright. Too tall to be an animal.

That thought was almost as unnerving as the other. Whatever was out there, she had to stop Maddie and then get the hell off this roof. In that order.

“Maddie? Maddie,” she screamed.

The little girl didn’t slow. Maybe she couldn’t hear above the noise of the fire, which seemed to have grown louder in the last few seconds.

Blythe looked down at the place where she’d dropped her daughter. The quickest way off the roof—and the quickest way to get to Maddie—would be to jump.

Behind her a whoosh erupted. A flare of heat, strong enough to be painful, assailed her back.

Without looking around, Blythe scrambled to her feet. Her body poised on the edge of the roof, she tried to remember everything she’d ever read or heard about how to fall.

Bend your knees when you hit. Roll. There was nothing else. That was the sole store of her knowledge. Too little. And way too late.

She bent her knees, mentally as well as physically preparing herself, and then leaped out over the edge. The ground rushed up, giving her no time to be afraid.

For a second after she landed, she was aware of nothing. Not of pain. Not even of the impact itself. All she knew was that she was lying on her side on the cold, wet grass.

Then everything seemed to flood her consciousness at once. The burning house, flames and sparks shooting upward into the night sky. And the more frightening realization that Maddie was running toward whoever had been standing in the woods.

Blythe rolled over onto her hands and knees. When she put her weight on her right foot to push off the ground, she realized that she hadn’t escaped the jump unscathed. Even if her ankle was broken, it wouldn’t be enough to keep her from getting to Maddie.

As she got to her feet, her eyes found the small, ghostly figure. Maddie was almost at the edge of the forest, the white nightgown outlined against its darkness.

Blythe began to run, too, her speed hampered by her injury. She didn’t waste breath on shouting, knowing now that she couldn’t be heard above the fire.

Far enough, Maddie. Stop and look back. Look at me.

Even as Blythe willed her daughter to stop, the little girl drew closer and closer to the line of trees. Blythe’s gaze searched them, trying locate again whatever she’d seen before.

When she did, terror squeezed her chest. Although the shadowy form she’d spotted from the rooftop had been moving away from the property, that was no longer the case. The child in the pale gown and the dark shape moving among the trees now appeared to be on a collision course.

“Maddie. Stop, Maddie.”

The words had no effect. As Blythe’s eyes shifted to the other figure, she realized that it at least had stopped. Watching her?

Ignoring the agony in her ankle, she tried to increase her speed. Surely Maddie wouldn’t go into the woods. Surely she had understood…

“Maddie!”

Despite the awkwardness of her hobbling run, Blythe was gaining on the little girl. Encouraged by that realization, her eyes again lifted to search for the figure in the woods.

The shape was no longer in the place where she’d last seen it. Her gaze trailed along the edge of the forest, trying to find that dark anomaly.

Eyes on the trees instead of the ground in front of her, she stumbled, pitching forward despite her frantic efforts to regain her balance. Even as she broke her fall with her outstretched hands, she looked up to locate her daughter.

Perhaps emboldened by her fall, the shadowy figure at the edge of the woods seemed to once more be moving toward the little girl. The light of the fire clearly illuminated what was happening.

Blythe scrambled to her feet, again screaming her daughter’s name. Finally—unbelievably—the little girl turned, looking back across the yard. Looking directly toward her. Slowing. Stopping just short of the woods.

Still Blythe ran, adrenaline pumping so fiercely through her veins that she was conscious of nothing but getting to Maddie before he could. She caught the little girl in her arms, holding the small body against her own as she turned to run back toward the fire.

Its known horror was less now than the unknown that lurked at the edge of the forest. She threw a glance over her shoulder, but the shape seemed to have again melted into the shadows.

Then Blythe, too, heard the sound that had undoubtedly driven him back into the darkness from which he’d materialized. Faintly from the distance came a wail of sirens.

Finally. Finally.

By the time she’d reached the gravel driveway beside the house, which was now totally consumed by the conflagration, the first of the fire trucks had arrived, their sirens drowning out the noise of the blaze.

When the sheriff’s cruiser pulled into the drive, probably twenty minutes after the first of the firefighters, Blythe was sitting on the open back of the paramedic’s van. Someone had wrapped a blanket around her shoulders, but she couldn’t remember who or when that had happened.

Perhaps it had been while they’d checked out Maddie, which she had insisted they do first. Or maybe it had been before the paramedic, who seemed hardly more than a kid himself, examined her ankle. He’d told her that he didn’t think it was broken, but she’d need to have it X-rayed to be sure.

Now her daughter was huddled in her lap, her legs again wrapped around Blythe’s waist. Despite the activity that swirled around them as the men fought a losing battle against the fire, the little girl hadn’t lifted her head from her mother’s shoulder.

Although Blythe had pulled the blanket around them both, Maddie’s body was occasionally racked by tremors. Not the result of the cold, but of the incredible stresses of this night. As soon as they got to Ruth’s, Blythe told herself, Maddie would be okay.

Okay. Incredibly, they both were. Considering that the house where they’d been sleeping was now engulfed in flames, that was a miracle.

Thank you, Father.

She glanced up at the sound of a car door slamming. As she watched, Cade Jackson walked up her drive. Although she couldn’t see his face beneath the uniform Stetson he wore, she realized she would have recognized that distinctively athletic walk anywhere. Anytime.

She hadn’t expected Cade to show up out here, but she should have. This was his county. His responsibility.

He stopped to speak to one of the firemen. The man pointed toward the van where she and Maddie were sitting. It had been pulled toward the back of the yard, well away from the house.

To express his thanks for the information, Cade touched the brim of his hat. As ridiculous as it might have seemed to outsiders, there was something about the gesture that was touching. Crenshaw had been caught in a time warp as far as the traditional courtesies were concerned, and she liked that.