Darkfall

She unzippered the boot, slipped her hand inside, under her sock, and felt the wound on her ankle. It burned a little. When she brought her hand out of the boot, there was some blood glistening on her fingertips.

Aunt Faye saw it. “What's happened to you, dear?”

“It's okay,” Penny said.

“That's blood.”

“Just a scratch.”

Davey paled at the sight of the blood.

Penny tried to reassure him, although she was afraid that her voice was noticeably shaky and that her face would betray her anxiety: “It's nothing, Davey. I'm all right.”

Aunt Faye insisted on changing places with Davey, so she would be next to Penny and could have a closer look at the injury. She made Penny take off the boot, and she peeled down the sock, revealing a puncture wound and several scratches on the ankle. It was bleeding, but not very much; in a couple of minutes, even unattended, it would stop.

“How'd this happen?” Aunt Faye demanded.

Penny hesitated. More than anything, she wanted to tell Faye all about the creatures with shining eyes. She wanted help, protection. But she knew that she couldn't say a word. They wouldn't believe her. After all, she was The Girl Who Had Needed A Psychiatrist. If she started babbling about goblins with shining eyes, they'd think she was having a relapse; they would say she still hadn't adjusted to her mother's death, and they would make an appointment with a psychiatrist. While she was off seeing the shrink, there wouldn't be anyone around to keep the goblins away from Davey.

“Come on, come on,” Faye said. “Fess up. What were you doing that you shouldn't have been doing?”

“Huh?”

“That's why you're hesitating. What were you doing that you knew you shouldn't be doing?”

“Nothing,” Penny said.

“Then how'd you get this cut?”

“I… I caught my boot on a nail.”

“Nail? Where?”

“On the gate.”

“What gate? ”

“Back at the school, the gate where we were waiting for you. A nail was sticking out of it, and I got caught up on it.”

Faye scowled. Unlike her sister (Penny's mother), Faye was a redhead with sharp features and gray eyes that were almost colorless. In repose, hers was a pretty enough face; however, when she wanted to scowl, she could really do a first-rate job of it. Davey called it her “witch look.”

She said, “Was it rusty?”

Penny said, “What?”

“The nail, of course. Was it rusty?”

“I don't know.”

“Well, you saw it, didn't you? Otherwise, how'd you know it was a nail?”

Penny nodded. “Yeah. I guess it was rusty.”

“Have you had a tetanus shot?”

“Yeah.”

Aunt Faye peered at her with undisguised suspicion. “Do you even know what a tetanus shot is?”

“Sure.”

“When did you get it?”

“First week of October.”

“I wouldn't have imagined that your father would think of things like tetanus shots.”

“They gave it to us at school,” Penny said.

“Is that right?” Faye said, still doubtful.

Davey spoke up: “They make us take all kinds of shots at school. They have a nurse in, and all week we get shots. It's awful. Makes you feel like a pin cushion. Shots for mumps and measles. A flu shot. Other stuff. I hate it.”

Faye seemed to be satisfied. “Okay. Just the same, when we get home, we'll wash that cut out really good, bathe it in alcohol, get some iodine on it, and a proper bandage.”

“It's only a scratch,” Penny said.

“We won't take chances. Now put your boot back on, dear.”

Just as Penny got her foot in the boot and pulled up the zipper, the taxi hit a pothole. They were all bounced up and thrown forward with such suddenness and force that they almost fell off the seat.

“Young man,” Faye said to the driver, even though he was at least forty years old, her own age, “where on earth did you learn to drive a car?”

He glanced in the rearview mirror. “Sorry, lady.”

“Don't you know the streets of this city are a mess?”

Faye demanded. “You've got to keep your eyes open.”

“I try to,” he said.

While Faye lectured the driver on the proper way to handle his cab, Penny leaned back against the seat, closed her eyes, and thought about the ugly little hand that had torn her boot and ankle. She tried to convince herself that it had been the hand of an ordinary animal of some kind; nothing strange; nothing out of the Twilight Zone. But most animals had paws, not hands. Monkeys had hands, of course. But this wasn't a monkey. No way. Squirrels had hands of a sort, didn't they? And raccoons. But this wasn't a squirrel or a raccoon, either. It wasn't anything she had ever seen or read about.

Had it been trying to drag her down and kill her? Right there on the street?

No. In order to kill her, the creature — and others like it, others with the shining silver eyes — would have had to come out from behind the gate, into the open, where Mrs. Shepherd and others would have seen them. And Penny was pretty sure the goblins didn't want to be seen by anyone but her. They were secretive. No, they definitely hadn't meant to kill her back there at the school; they had only meant to give her a good scare, to let her know they were still lurking around, waiting for the right opportunity….

But why?

Why did they want her and, presumably, Davey, instead of some other kids?

What made goblins angry? What did you have to do to make them come after you like this?

She couldn't think of anything she had done that would make anyone terribly angry with her; certainly not goblins.

Confused, miserable, frightened, she opened her eyes and looked out the window. Snow was piling up everywhere. In her heart, she felt as cold as the icy, windscoured street beyond the window.

PART TWO Wednesday, 5:30 P.M.-11:00 P.M.

Darkness devours every shining day.

Darkness demands and always has its way.

Darkness listens, watches, waits.

Darkness claims the day and celebrates.

Sometimes in silence darkness comes.

Sometimes with a gleeful banging of drums.

— THE BOOK OF COUNTED SORROWS