Perfect Nightmare

A noise. A squeak and a bang. Something loose in the wind?

Or something downstairs?

Disentangling herself from the sheets, and careful not to awaken Emily, who was still sound asleep beside her, Ellen pulled back the blanket.

She felt the cold wood of the floor beneath her bare feet but ignored the chill as she slipped quietly out of the bedroom.

She silently pulled the bedroom door closed behind her.

At the top of the stairs, Ellen paused, listening again. The wind outside had risen, and now she heard rain pattering on the roof.

Was that all she’d heard? Wind and rain?

The sound came again, and it wasn’t from the roof at all.

It was from somewhere downstairs.

The kitchen?

She moved down the staircase like a wraith, slipped through the darkened living room and paused again, listening.

Nothing.

Reaching through the kitchen door, she turned on the light.

The peanut butter was still on the counter. The butter knife — with jelly still on it — was in the sink, exactly where she’d left it. The paring knife was also in the sink, the raw potatoes still in the cold frying pan on the stove. Milk glasses hadn’t even been rinsed; by the time they’d finished their sandwiches, she’d been too exhausted to deal with dirty dishes.

Maybe she’d do them now.

She started toward the sink, then froze.

The noise!

It was coming from the basement. But hadn’t O'Reilly or Murphy said that everything was all right down there?

She hesitated, part of her wanting to go back upstairs, get Emily, and get out of the house again right now. They could go back to the Sanchezes’ and take Ramon up on his offer.

Except that it was almost two in the morning, and Ramon would insist they call the police again, and then she’d look like a fool once more.

Maybe she should just go back to bed.

Thunk!

She jumped at the sound, and now the urge to get Emily and flee the house was almost irresistible. She turned and took a half step toward the door to the living room when she heard it again.

Thunk!

And now she knew what it was! One of the little windows that opened into the three light wells that were spaced around the perimeter of the cellar! That was it — that had to be it.

She opened the door to the basement, felt the draft, and silently cursed O'Reilly and Murphy.

The basement’s okay, my ass! A window was open, and they hadn’t even noticed it.

Now she could hear it. Squeak, bang — squeak, bang! The wind was blowing it open and closed, open and closed.

She was about to go down and close it, then hesitated.

She had never opened a basement window, not as long as she’d lived in the house.

Could the cops have opened it?

Why?

Maybe they’d opened it while checking it, and just forgotten to latch it again.

The stairs were dark. A string hung from the lightbulb, but when she pulled it, nothing happened.

Damn. Was she going to have to go down there in the dark? She had no idea where her flashlight was. Packed away somewhere, probably, along with every spare lightbulb, which meant she couldn’t even change the burned-out one.

She should just go back to bed and forget it. But there were boxes in the basement, too, and the last thing she needed was for rain to come in and ruin them.

Taking a deep breath, she started down the stairs. The dim shaft of light from the kitchen door illuminated nothing more than a narrow area at the bottom of the stairs, and barely lit even that. Still, it was better than operating in total darkness.

She went down one stair at a time, slowly, almost lost in her own shadow, careful not to lose her footing. A broken leg or twisted ankle was something she needed even less than a bunch of rain-soaked boxes. She tried to visualize where everything was on the floor so she wouldn’t step on or trip over something. But no visualization came to mind — all she could remember was that she’d stacked boxes everywhere.

The concrete floor was far colder on her bare feet than the wood floor of the bedroom had been, but she ignored the chill and followed the sound to the far corner. Sure enough, barely visible in the faint light leaking from the top of the stairs, she saw a window flapping loose.

She closed it and locked the handle down securely.

Then she turned and made her way back through the maze of boxes in less than a quarter of the time it had taken her to get to the window.

She ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time, and firmly closed the basement door behind her.

And it was over.

The banging was silenced and she could go back to bed.

She took a deep breath, crossed the kitchen and turned out the light.

Then, in the darkness of the living room, she heard another sound.

And heard it a second too late.

The arm snaked around her neck from behind, and before she could make a sound, a hand clamped something over her nose and mouth.

Something soft, and wet.

Something with a scent that made her want to vomit.

She struggled now, struggled for breath, struggled to yell for Emily, struggled to run, to kick, to rip the hands away from her face.

But like hearing the sound itself, it was all too late. She was already out of breath, and against her own will she inhaled the fumes deeply into her lungs.

She felt her knees weaken, and with a last thought of her baby sleeping so peacefully upstairs in her bed, Ellen began to drop away into the darkness.

A way out!

There had to be a way out.

Kara’s breath rasped in her throat as she raced barefoot through the tunnel.

A tunnel so dark she couldn’t see its walls. But she could feel them, feel them surrounding her, closing in on her. And where was the tunnel’s end?

Maybe it had no end! Maybe she was going to race on forever through the blackness but never get anywhere. Nor could she turn around, or even stop, because the man was behind her. The man in black, who was chasing her. So she had to keep going, keep going forward, forward through the tunnel that had no light at its end.

She could only hope—pray—that it did end, and that there would be a way out when she finally got there.

Suddenly — impossibly — the tunnel narrowed. It was getting smaller, colder. Now she was running crouched over, her head brushing the ceiling, her back burning with pain, every muscle in her body screaming in agony.

Out, she told herself. Have to get out… please get me out…

The tunnel narrowed still further, and now her shoulders scraped against its cold walls as she dragged herself onward.

Then she heard him behind her — close behind her. “Angel,” he whispered, his voice a gentle, almost