Hush by Anne Frasier Page A

wouldn't wake
him, she put him down in the bassinet.
    She was changing her top when she heard a
sound, like something falling. Like something getting knocked over
and falling, hitting the floor.
    Her sleep-deprived mind immediately tried to
make sense of the sound. She at first dismissed it, then decided
that perhaps some of the boxes she'd stacked in the closet had
tipped over. Maybe her own footfall, or maybe someone in the
apartment upstairs, had caused the floor to tremble just enough. As
soon as she thought of the apartment above her head, she
immediately dismissed the noise, at last finding a logical place to
put it. The sound hadn't come from her apartment at all. It had
come from upstairs.
    So convinced was she that she didn't even
open the closet door to look inside. So convinced was she that she
crawled into bed, knowing she had to grab what little sleep she
could, glad she'd been able to handle the milk crisis in a calm,
non-hysterical manner. She could do this. She could be a mother.
She could give her baby what he needed.
    Even though sleep deprivation had made all of
the muscles in Claudia's body ache, made her eyes bloodshot, she
had a feeling of semi consciousness even after her breathing became
rhythmic, even after the bed seemed to swallow her, welcome her.
That deep, deep sleep was forever elusive. She was a mother
now.
    Somehow, a corner of her mind had to remain
ever watchful, ever listening for a cry, a whimper that would
indicate her baby needed her.
    As Claudia slept, the sentinel heard a sound
that didn't fit the sounds that a baby would make. The sentinel
listened again, wondering if Claudia needed to be alerted.
    There it was again.
    Something sliding across a wooden floor. A
dragging footstep?
    The sentinel ran through possibilities.
Someone in the hallway, going to another apartment. Someone
upstairs. Someone downstairs.
    There.
    Again.
    In the apartment. In the apartment
    Claudia came awake with a start. A sound
played back in her mind. A scraping. Like a hard-soled shoe sliding
across a gritty wooden floor.
    Had she dreamed the sound?
    But it had seemed so real, as if she'd really
heard it.
    She lay in the darkness, eyes wide, breathing
shallow, not daring to move, ears keen, waiting, waiting, waiting,
for a sound that was real, a sound that wasn't part of a dream.
    As she lay there, she thought about the
Madonna Murderer.
    And remembered that her door had been open
when she came home from getting the baby formula.
    And suddenly she knew there were three people
in her apartment, not two.
    She reached out and turned on the light next
to her bed, hoping it would silence her fears, hoping she would
laugh when she realized how foolish she'd been—hoping that the
sound had been nothing but a vivid dream after all.
    But there in the dim light of a
twenty-five-watt bulb was the form of a dark-hooded man leaning
over her baby's white wicker bassinet, a form as terrifying as
Death.
    She screamed loudly, shrilly, her lungs and
throat burning with the effort. While she screamed, she lunged at
the figure standing above her baby.
    He dropped something and it hit the floor,
shattering.
    Later police would find that it was the snow
globe that was his signature, a gift left for the infants.
    Unmindful of the glass shards cutting into
the soles of her bare feet, Claudia threw the weight of her 120
pounds at the dark figure, continuing to scream as loudly as she
could. Footsteps sounded from above.
    The man shoved her backward on the bed, one
of his arms sweeping the white lamp with its ceramic teddy bear to
the floor, shattering the bulb, drenching the room in darkness.
    He put a hand to her throat, to stop her
screaming, to stop her breathing.
    She struggled for air and he spoke to her,
his voice high and excited.
    "You mustn't raise your hand to me. Have you
no respect? You whore. Whore, whore, whore. Pretending a virgin
birth. But I know you. I know you're a whore."
    Through the lightshow behind her eyes,