Continued
The door was open, bed tousled, slept in but with no sleeper. Joe made his way through the darkness to the adjoining bathroom, empty as well. A sob escaped from wrenched lips.
Then, for a moment, the gray fog lifted from his mind for a moment of pure clarity. The sense of danger left him entirely and he nearly sank to the floor. He ran a trembling hand over the four-day growth of whiskers that covered his face. The frown that had been on his face, since the moment the old woman appeared, lifted.
And he paused, stock still, very much like the deer had aeons ago this morning. A small noise. Repeated again. The creak of bed springs. His limbs trembled and his bladder threatened to give loose. A child’s choked cry of fear shattered the silence and whatever shred of sanity Joe clutched to his breast.
Joe sprinted from the master suite and ran to the hallway that led to his small daughter’s bedroom. The door to her room was half closed, and it banged powerfully, as Joe crashed through it with enough force to drive the doorknob deeply into the plaster of the adjacent wall. His fears were met.
A dark robed figure clutched his daughter, pinning her to the bed, strangling the small child, smothering her beautiful little face with it’s body. The figure made startled, harsh gasping noises upon his approach. His daughter flailed wildly under its grip. He cried out her name.
Joe took hold of the robed figure and heaved it away from his daughter with all his crazed might. The figure crashed into the bi-fold closet doors and fell, limp and unconscious, to the floor. Joe called out for his daughter. She began to whimper, alive but very seriously frightened. He reached out to her, grabbing frantically for her so he could remove her from harm.
The set of events happened so very quickly. Later it would all seemed like a blur to him. He cried, “Baby, come to Daddy. Baby, it’s your Daddy, take Daddy’s hand, take Daddy’s hand, quickly.” He frantically grasped for her. She fought against his touch, struggling to push herself further away. At the same moment, the robed figure stirred, moaning. It rose to its feet, wavering unsteadily. Horrific, strangled, garbled shouts came from its mouth as it lunged toward Joe.
The rifle came up, point blank. Joe fired, lodging a bullet into the chest of the assailant with so much force that the body was thrown a distance across the room. Joe’s little girl began to scream, shrieking, shrieking in long piercing cries that tore his damaged mind. Joe grabbed her up in his strong arms and cried, rocking her, repeating softly, “It’s okay, baby, it’s okay, baby, Daddy’s here.”
Murphy entered Joe’s house. It was pitch black. The only sound that could be heard was the repeated shrieks coming from deep within the interior. Murphy ran straight for the sound. When he found the child’s room, the dim light of the moon shining in a window revealed a grisly scene. Blood seeped into the walls and carpet, shining blankly like tar.
“Oh fuck, Joe. Joe.” Murphy sobbed. He flicked on the light.
Joe blinked rapidly at the brilliant light, still rocking his child in his arms, trying to comfort her with his terrible mantra. “Daddy’s here, baby, daddy’s here.” The child continued shrieking. Murphy vomited when his eyes fell on the damaged corpse that lay on the floor, surrounded by a pool of flesh and blood.
Hours away, the old woman smiled in her sleep. In her mind’s eye, she saw the coroner remove the mangled body of Joe’s wife. Joe’s wife, who, stricken with severe laryngitis that had started as a sore throat, had gotten up in the middle of the night to comfort her daughter after a nightmare. Joe’s own wife, whom he thought was strangling their child.
Deep in the woods there sat an old oak tree adorned with a red ribbon, where a sign was staked into the earth that read, “Zero trespass.”
