Ginny Aiken - Mixed Up with the Mob

Her words trailed off when she felt the wetness soak through where his legs wrapped around her waist. Uh-oh!

Mark hadn’t wet the bed in years. “Oh, sweetheart…let’s get you cleaned up.”

She went to put him down, but his arms tightened in a stranglehold around her neck and he burrowed deeper into her embrace.

“No!” he screamed, his warm, sturdy body shaking. “The lights…they’re coming, Aunt Lauren! They’re coming….”

Sobs overtook him again, and nothing could have budged his hold on her. Not that she really wanted to let go of him, but the night was cold, and by now, they both were soaked. Still, something far worse than wet nightclothes and linens had gone wrong here. And it didn’t take a psychiatrist to figure it out.

“Mark, honey. The lights—the car—didn’t hurt us. Mr. Latham’s car blocked the other one, and it only gave me a little bump. But I’m all right, and you didn’t get hurt one bit. It’s okay. We’re home, and no one’s going to hurt us.”

She hoped.

He shook his head—hard. “No! No-no-no-no-no-no-no!”

Tears flew from his eyes, cheeks, and struck her. His misery was so deep, his fear so intense that her own eyes welled up in sympathy. She perched on the edge of the bed, aware of the soaked middle.

“It’s okay,” she murmured yet again, her voice little more than a croon. “I’m here, and I won’t let the car hit you. You know Aunt Lauren always takes care of you, right?”

Her gentle rocking motion must have helped. His muscles no longer felt like short steel ropes in her arms, and his sobs didn’t sound as though ripped right from his soul. But he didn’t answer her. Evidently, he still couldn’t.

She began to sing. “Jesus loves me, this I know…”

Lauren sang her entire repertoire of children’s tunes, praise and worship songs, and even a hymn or ten, before Mark’s tears ran dry. Finally, even though he’d stopped crying, she knew he hadn’t fallen back asleep. His eyes glowed their clear green in the dark of the quiet room.

“Think you might want some clean pj’s now, kiddo?”

His fingers fisted in her robe.

“I’m not going anywhere,” she said, a hint of humor in her voice. “At least, I’m not going anywhere without you—you got that?”

His lips took on a slight upward curve. “Promise?”

“Absotively, posilutely, babe. You and me…we’re a team.”

He giggled. “You got it wrong again, Aunt Lauren. It’s abos-No, no! Not abos. Absolittle, pos…posilately!”

“So, tell me, Mark. Are you ready for those clean jammies now?”

Even by the dim glow of the night-light, she saw his cheeks turn red. He lowered his gaze, and whispered, “I’m sorry. I dinn’nt mean to…to—”

“I know, honey. It was an accident, and I bet it happened during that bad dream. Right?”

He nodded.

“So…when an accident happens, we clean up the mess, fix whatever’s broken, and ask God to help us go on. What do you think?”

“Mmm-hmm.” He turned his face into her chest, rubbed his nose against her robe and nodded. “Smells good, Aunt Lauren.”

She chuckled. “Tell you what, pal. Let’s get some water in the tub, clean you up and put you into pajamas that smell exactly like my robe.”

“It’s that soften stuff, isn’t it?”

“Fabric softener. A true modern marvel, my friend.”

Lauren eased him off her lap, turned on the bedside lamp, and then rummaged through his dresser for clean clothes. She stripped the bed, redid it with fabric-softener-scented sheets, and then piled the mess outside his bedroom door.

“Here we go, into the deep blue yonder…” she warbled.

Holding hands, they marched into the adjoining red-and-white bathroom. She ran the water, Mark stripped, hopped into the tub and she ran the pajamas and linens down to the laundry room. As she went through the kitchen, she thought she heard a scratch at the back door.

Ooooh, that cat!

“Go away, Adolf! I have no fish bones for you.”

She felt sorry for the neighbors’ ratty-looking tomcat. The Scharffenbergers let the poor animal run wild most of the time, and Philly’s winters were notoriously cold and mean. Still, the critter had outstayed his never-warm welcome in her yard. She’d had to rig up an Adolf-proof system for trash can storage, otherwise, the half-eared thing would knock them over and strew garbage all down the drive.

Still, as much of a trial as he was, Lauren couldn’t make herself rat on the neighbors. She figured the ugly cat’s lot would worsen at the pound. No normal child would beg a mother to take the big, fat, mean-as-a-snake thing home. So she never failed to bungee-cord the trash cans shut and set the brakes on the wheeled, aluminum-rail-sided cart where she kept them.

Evidently, her yell sent her nocturnal visitor elsewhere. By the time she dumped the stinky bedclothes into the washer, poured a capful of detergent and one of softener into the appropriate dispensers, all she could hear was Mark’s happy splashing directly overhead.

She closed the washer, turned the knob to the right setting and started the cycle. One of the songs she’d sung to Mark just a while earlier came back to her, and she hummed a few bars on the way back to the front of the house.

Then she heard it again.

The scratching sound.

At the front door.

Her heartbeat sped up. Her breath caught in her throat. The fear she’d felt as the car rushed at her returned. Her muscles felt frozen, but she knew she had to act.

Mark!

“Lord Jesus,” she whispered on the first step up, “guide me, protect Mark, and keep me safe so I can care for him….”

Screetch! Scratch-scrape-scrape, screeeeeeetch!

Whoever was out there meant to pick that lock.

Lauren gave up on stealth and ran the rest of the way up to her room. She picked up the phone, but all she heard when she put the receiver to her ear was deafening silence.

He’d cut the line.

She ran for her purse. “Thank you, Father, for cell phones!”

On the way to the bathroom, she hit 911. In bursts of whispers, she relayed her plight to the dispatcher. The kind woman assured her she’d sent for help, then kept her on the line, her warm voice a comfort within the swirl of danger around her.

Lauren knew better than to expect a siren; the dispatcher had told her the officers wouldn’t want to alert the intruder.

Still, she kept listening for…something, she didn’t know what, but a signal that would tell her she and Mark were safe, that help had arrived.

Mark was still in the water, splashing his rubber toys in complete oblivion—just the way Lauren wanted it. The last thing the child needed, right on the heels of that terrible nightmare, was another fright. And an intruder in the wee hours of the night was nothing but frightening.

Then pandemonium broke out.

A car drove by at normal speed.

At the front door, a man shouted a curse.

Blazing lights strobed into the house despite the curtains on the windows. She heard scrambling, more voices, more cars. Brakes squealed, doors slammed shut.

“Stop!” someone hollered.

Another car sped up, this one’s tires crunching ice and snow and finally shrieking against the pavement. Others followed, and did the same. A heartbeat later, someone pounded on her front door.

“Open up!” a familiar voice shouted.

Lauren looked at Mark, whose eyes were again wide-open, round, frightened. His mouth formed an O, and his naked limbs shook with fear.

The pounding downstairs never let up.

He yelled again. “Lauren! Let me in! It’s David—David Latham.”

“The monster,” Mark sobbed. “No, Aunt Lauren! Don’t let him in. He’s gonna…he’s gonna eat us up!”