The Hollower by Mary Sangiovanni Page B

believe it meant to make me think it would. It meant to scare me into thinking it would kill me.”
    “Have you ever seen this figure before?”
    And there it was.
Seen it? No, ma’am. But sometimes, at night
. . .
    “It knows my name.” This she said very softly, and the currents of talking and telephone rings and shuffled papers carried it away before DeMarco could catch it.
    The detective leaned in. “Pardon, ma’am?”
    “I hear it. In my house. Just like I heard it in the bar. It knows my name.”
    DeMarco paused, and Cheryl got the impression the detective was trying very hard not to dismiss her outright as a schizophrenic.
    “A bar regular—someone following you, maybe?”
    “It isn’t a regular. It knows my name and I’ve never seen its face before in my life, because for Chrissakes, Detective,
it didn’t have a face
.” Her voice grew high and strained but never rose in volume.
    DeMarco stopped tapping. She no longer appearedto be sizing up Cheryl’s possible mental disorder. Something in her expression had changed—a surprised arch of the eyebrows, a bright flash of the eyes, and a silent “uh” that parted her lips. Cheryl thought she saw recognition.
    It was then that two officers walked into the room. The shorter of the two, a young, wiry, sandy-haired man, laughed loudly as he crossed the threshold. The taller came in behind, deep lines carved by annoyance into the features of his weathered face.
    Panning the room, the officers spotted Detective DeMarco and made their way across to her, elbowing a cop here, cracking a joke with another there. The younger nodded at Cheryl as he approached, his eyes sweeping her up and down with subtle interest.
    “Ms. Duffy, Officers Penn and Jenkins, our patrolmen. They’ll be heading over to the bar to check things out.” DeMarco gestured vaguely in their direction. “I think we have enough for now, Ms. Duffy. If you’d like, Penn and Jenkins can escort you home and give your house a once-over.” The detective scribbled something on the report that Cheryl couldn’t read from her angle, then closed the file.
    “We’ll get back to you and your employer with any findings. Not to worry, Ms. Duffy. We’ll search the place from top to bottom.” She leaned in and added in a low voice, “We’ll find it.”
    For a moment, it seemed the detective wanted to ask her something, thought better of it, and offered a smile instead. Handing her a business card, DeMarco accompanied Cheryl back out to reception, with Penn and Jenkins in tow.
    She waved the officers away, already feeling somewhat better in just having gotten the incidentoff her chest. She went home alone and did a careful search of her own, room by room. And naturally, she found nothing. The birds chirped outside and she could think of nothing she’d rather do more than take a nap. After she’d climbed into bed, though, sleep did not come quickly, in spite of the drain she felt and the weightiness in her limbs. Instead, she stared at the ceiling until the fuzzy patterns her tired eyes made on the surface expanded and melded into one black blanket of sleep.
    She dreamed of alleyways, and a high-pitched skittering like nails scraping over glass.
    The deserted street stretched a block before and behind Dave, lined to either side with basically the same design of house—bi-level, cold in the shadows of sunset, uninviting with their closed doors, inky windows, and smokeless chimneys. A shallow high-pitched wind skittered to the other end of the block.
    Dave’s car rolled to a gravel-crunching stop outside 68 River Falls Road, and he cut the ignition. Part of him couldn’t believe he was even there. Another part fought to keep in check a vague fear that gnawed at the edges of his thoughts. Whatever was in that house, waiting for him, he wasn’t too sure he wanted to find it.
    In the blue twilight, splotches of gray clouds hung above the severe slate-colored roof. To either side, trees flanked the lawn,