finger?”
The hands sprang open and the head
jerked up to glare at me with dark, dark eyes, eyes that looked, in
the midnight gloom, more like holes than like eyes.
Go away! You hateful evil
man, go away! I
love Jack.
“ You
call me evil? You’re the one who ate your friend’s flesh!”
Hungry, I was so hungry!
He did it for love, and I love him for it. Go away!
“ I don’t think...” I
began.
Then it stood up, like a marionette
unfolding out of its box, rising up on bone-white, bone-thin legs,
and pointed at me with one of those long, white fingers.
Go. Away.
It didn’t just use words, either; a
wave of revulsion swept over me, and again I stepped back without
meaning to.
The thing took a step toward me, then
paused, and then took another step, its gaze fixed on me, its
finger pointing.
I hadn’t been sure it could move away
from the tree, but it did. It was advancing toward me, obviously
furious. I didn’t know what it was capable of, but it had bitten
off a boy’s finger, so I knew it wasn’t completely
harmless.
“ I’m going,” I said, “but
I’ll be back. You stay away from Jack, and from the other kids on
this street.”
Go!
I went; I got back in my car, being
careful to never turn my back on the creature, and closed the door.
I fumbled the key into the lock, started the engine, and flicked on
the lights.
The thing flung up its hands to shield
its eyes, but it didn’t retreat.
I turned the car around and drove
away, heading nowhere in particular.
I didn’t know where I was going. I
didn’t know what I was going to do. At least now, though, I had
some idea what I was up against.
Not that I was happy about it.
Child-eating monsters – what sort of sense does that make? I hate
the supernatural. It isn’t logical. You can’t figure out how it
works.
Or at least, I can’t.
I looked at the hunched
old woman on the sidewalk, and a fluttering thing in the trees, and
a dozen other creatures as I drove, hating them. They were, so far
as I knew, completely harmless, but why were they there ?
And why was that bony woman lurking at
the end of that street?
I didn’t really know where that ghost,
if that’s what she was, came from, or how long it had been around,
or why it was under that particular tree instead of somewhere else,
but I didn’t think it mattered. All I wanted was to make sure it
didn’t hurt anyone else.
I had no idea how to do that. Somehow,
I didn’t think a stern talking-to was going to cut it. My warning
to stay away from Jack didn’t seem to impress it.
Going by what it had said,
it had been a woman once, or thought it had – a woman who blamed
herself for her children’s deaths. Why did that result in something
that wanted to eat children? Shouldn’t it want to protect them, to make up for failing
to protect its own?
And plenty of people
blamed themselves for unwanted deaths; why did this one wind up a sort of
ghoul?
Maybe I should have tried harder to
find out what its last name had been when it was human – assuming
it really had been; for all I knew, it had eaten the original Jenny
and absorbed her memories, and it hadn’t ever been human at all.
Still, with a last name I could have poked around online, maybe
found out what happened to her kids, maybe found some way to use
that.
I turned left, and considered going
around the block and heading back to talk to it again.
What the hell, why not?
I drove back to the end of the street
and killed the lights. I leaned out the window and called softly,
“Jenny?”
No answer. I waited for my eyes to
adjust to the darkness, then looked under the big tulip
poplar.
Nothing there.
I scanned to either side, but I didn’t
see that white dress anywhere.
In fact, I realized I
didn’t see anything unnatural there. I looked up in the trees, as well as along
the ground.
Nothing. Nothing flittering,
fluttering, or flapping, nothing slinking or slithering. For a
moment I wondered if I’d lost my... my special
The hands sprang open and the head
jerked up to glare at me with dark, dark eyes, eyes that looked, in
the midnight gloom, more like holes than like eyes.
Go away! You hateful evil
man, go away! I
love Jack.
“ You
call me evil? You’re the one who ate your friend’s flesh!”
Hungry, I was so hungry!
He did it for love, and I love him for it. Go away!
“ I don’t think...” I
began.
Then it stood up, like a marionette
unfolding out of its box, rising up on bone-white, bone-thin legs,
and pointed at me with one of those long, white fingers.
Go. Away.
It didn’t just use words, either; a
wave of revulsion swept over me, and again I stepped back without
meaning to.
The thing took a step toward me, then
paused, and then took another step, its gaze fixed on me, its
finger pointing.
I hadn’t been sure it could move away
from the tree, but it did. It was advancing toward me, obviously
furious. I didn’t know what it was capable of, but it had bitten
off a boy’s finger, so I knew it wasn’t completely
harmless.
“ I’m going,” I said, “but
I’ll be back. You stay away from Jack, and from the other kids on
this street.”
Go!
I went; I got back in my car, being
careful to never turn my back on the creature, and closed the door.
I fumbled the key into the lock, started the engine, and flicked on
the lights.
The thing flung up its hands to shield
its eyes, but it didn’t retreat.
I turned the car around and drove
away, heading nowhere in particular.
I didn’t know where I was going. I
didn’t know what I was going to do. At least now, though, I had
some idea what I was up against.
Not that I was happy about it.
Child-eating monsters – what sort of sense does that make? I hate
the supernatural. It isn’t logical. You can’t figure out how it
works.
Or at least, I can’t.
I looked at the hunched
old woman on the sidewalk, and a fluttering thing in the trees, and
a dozen other creatures as I drove, hating them. They were, so far
as I knew, completely harmless, but why were they there ?
And why was that bony woman lurking at
the end of that street?
I didn’t really know where that ghost,
if that’s what she was, came from, or how long it had been around,
or why it was under that particular tree instead of somewhere else,
but I didn’t think it mattered. All I wanted was to make sure it
didn’t hurt anyone else.
I had no idea how to do that. Somehow,
I didn’t think a stern talking-to was going to cut it. My warning
to stay away from Jack didn’t seem to impress it.
Going by what it had said,
it had been a woman once, or thought it had – a woman who blamed
herself for her children’s deaths. Why did that result in something
that wanted to eat children? Shouldn’t it want to protect them, to make up for failing
to protect its own?
And plenty of people
blamed themselves for unwanted deaths; why did this one wind up a sort of
ghoul?
Maybe I should have tried harder to
find out what its last name had been when it was human – assuming
it really had been; for all I knew, it had eaten the original Jenny
and absorbed her memories, and it hadn’t ever been human at all.
Still, with a last name I could have poked around online, maybe
found out what happened to her kids, maybe found some way to use
that.
I turned left, and considered going
around the block and heading back to talk to it again.
What the hell, why not?
I drove back to the end of the street
and killed the lights. I leaned out the window and called softly,
“Jenny?”
No answer. I waited for my eyes to
adjust to the darkness, then looked under the big tulip
poplar.
Nothing there.
I scanned to either side, but I didn’t
see that white dress anywhere.
In fact, I realized I
didn’t see anything unnatural there. I looked up in the trees, as well as along
the ground.
Nothing. Nothing flittering,
fluttering, or flapping, nothing slinking or slithering. For a
moment I wondered if I’d lost my... my special
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