Husk

“Voodooman came back,” the boy cried.

She took hold of his hand and pulled him to her, having no time to explain that ghosts and goblins exist, but the prowler outside did. It had to be a prowler.

“We’re going to go to your daddy’s office and use the phone,” she said. “I’ll call the police and everything will be—”

“No,” he shrieked, jerking out of her grasp.

“BJ, what—”

“I don’t want to go with you,” he bawled, shrinking away.

“BJ, it’s okay—”

“Stay away from me. Lori, make him stay away.”

Suddenly, she realized he wasn’t speaking to her at all. His tear-glazed eyes had locked on something over her left shoulder, something behind her, but when she whirled around to face it, she didn’t see anything.

“I won’t go,” he cried. “I want to stay with Mallory and my dad.”

Fear pulled at the corners of his mouth and squeezed tears from his eyes. He turned his head, seeming to track someone’s movement across the far side of the room.

“BJ, are you all right?” she implored, unable to hide the tremble in her voice. His gaze had fallen on the bed now, and he scrambled away from it, edging along the dresser with his back to the drawers.

She looked to him, to the bed, to him again. What’s happening?

BJ’s sobbing halted and a new degree of terror entered his expression. He shook his head in violent denial, begging to the nothingness over his empty bed, wailing, “No, no, no. Don’t kill Lori! She’s my friend, please don’t hurt her!”

She spun to face the bed again. “BJ, you’re scaring me.”

Suddenly, the bedspread shot off the mattress, its edges spread wide. The soft material engulfed her head and body. It tightened around her throat and pressed against her mouth, hugging her in a smothering embrace. She tried to scream but only managed a muffled groan. She stumbled backward from the impact, pushed by a bulk that couldn’t have solely belonged to the bedcover.

Propelled backward, her spine rammed into the edge of BJ’s dresser, and the back of her head shattered the dresser’s mirror.

She crumpled over. Fell to the floor.

Clawing at the fabric, she fought to free herself. She clutched handfuls of the material, pulled until her fingernails threaten to tear away from the flesh. Then she heard the blessed sound of ripped stitching, and the grip loosened. Soft stuffing spilled out the hole like dry innards.

The spread went slack, and she yanked it off her.

She gasped. Coughed. Gasped again

BJ ran to her side and grabbed an arm, begging her to stand.

The room appeared far darker than she remembered it. After a second, she realized that the backyard lights had gone out. But not just the backyard lights. BJ’s digital alarm clock had gone dark, and the lights from downstairs no longer cast a weak sheen across the wall near the stairs. All the power was out.

A new commotion boomed inside the closet, and she reeled around at the sound of metal instruments falling to the floor behind the walls. She didn’t have more than half a second to ponder the source of the noise when she heard the attic door crash open inside the closet.

“He’s coming,” BJ said, tugging at her tortured hands.

Heavy footsteps clumped across the carpeted floor within the walk-in closet.

“We gotta run away,” he pleaded.

The kid was right.

In a split-second action that surprised both BJ and herself, Lori leapt up from where she’d fallen and lunged at the door even as the brass knob began to turn. She plunged in an uncoordinated dive toward the closet, striking out at a child-safety latch near the top of the door— Snap!—sealing it shut.

She dropped to her stomach.

The door shuddered but remained closed.

“Come on!” she exclaimed, getting up. “Run!”

She clutched BJ’s hand in hers, leading him out of the room with the closet door thundering it its frame. She heard the wood crack behind them.

They ran. Down the hall, through the darkness, racing faster with each footfall.

They got to the steps overlooking the foyer, where the light of the street lamps outlined the front door with a buttery glow. They descended the stairs and ran for the exit.

Lori seized the front door’s knob with both hands but couldn’t get it to turn.

“Shit,” she groaned through gritted teeth.

Something scurried down the back of her neck, and she clapped a hand to it, finding her hair slick with blood.

Upstairs, the brittle splintering of wood erupted from BJ’s room, and the forceful stomp of boot heels resounded through the floor.

Lori looked up.

The shape appeared at the second floor railing, revealed by the light coming through the segmented windows by the door. Her breath caught at the sight. The intruder had donned the snowmobile outfit she’d seen earlier in the attic. Its puffy outer material matched the blackness in which it stood, but where there should’ve been a head, Lori saw nothing more than a dark hole rimmed by the suit’s collar.

The headless horror paused to hover over them, making sure they both caught a glimpse of the long carving knife it gripped in one hand. Apparently there had been a set of holiday cutlery in the storage space, and now the monster was showing them what it had found. It turned the instrument from one side to the other, so the wan light caught its silvery blade.

Lori shivered. The knife looked large enough to cleave whole turkeys in two with one swipe.

Got to call the cops, get help. The alarm panel!

But when she turned to it, the bulbs of its indicator lights appeared blacker than the empty eye sockets of a skull.

The living nightmare on the second floor didn’t bother with the stairs; it vaulted the railing and dropped into the foyer with the loud slap of rubber soles hitting tile. Lori screamed. She dodged to the left of the landing with BJ in hand, retreating into the forward living room where she turned right and ran for the back of the house.

The thing shot after them. The nylon snowmobile suit made swish, swish noises at their backs, sounding like the panting wheeze of a hungry beast.

They crossed the threshold that separated the living room from the family room, guided only by what weak light from outside made it in through the windows. Ahead lay the TV and fireplace seating area, where she and BJ had spent most of the night. More importantly, however, farther to the right waited the dinette area and sliding glass door, their passage to freedom.

In an attempt to stall their pursuer, Lori turned and flung shut the double French doors that divided the two rooms, hoping against hope it would give them enough time to make it outside.

The unearthly assailant crashed into the twin doors the second they locked together, blasting through them like a battering ram. She twisted away. Glass and wood flew in all directions, pummeling her back. The knife’s blade flashed within the storm of debris, and she fled between the couch and TV, where the sharp corners of a hundred scattered Lego blocks bit into her stocking-covered feet. She collapsed to the carpet, dodging the blade by mere inches. It sliced through one of the couch cushions instead of her flesh.

She stumbled as the aching soles of her feet gave less support with each step, and a second later she smashed her left foot into the brick mantel of the fireplace, pitching her forward. In the darkness, she collided with the hearth’s stand-up rack of tools on her way to the floor.

Across the room, BJ screamed for her. She swiveled around, trying to push away the throb in her foot and the wetness spreading over her scalp. The headless monster closed in on BJ, the carving knife held forward.

“Stay away,” he cried. “Lori, don’t let him take me.”

Empowered by his pleas for help, she clawed through the mess of fireplace tools until her hands closed