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returned in a kind of halfway world between awareness and fear. |
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Outside my door, veiled by a cold gray curtain of choking fog, was an indescribable homicidal maniac, a pathological, knife-wielding creature, a marauding, unthinking thing that terrorized. It had returned. I shuddered, closed my eyes and hoped against hope that the frightening images would not return to haunt still more dreams. |
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It was later, in the early hours of the morning, that I felt it. There was the slightest movement next to my bed. I felt the covers pull back as B.C. slid in beside me. She pushed her slender body up close to mine, and I heard her sob softly. Protege of Cosmo Leach or not, I curled her sweatdampened head in the crook of my arm and pulled the sheet over her. She mumbled incoherently and curled her hand into mine. "Sleep tight, little lady," I whispered. "Maybe we'll make it through this night yet." |
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I used to refer to it as the curse of the Wages; my father and his father before him, in fact all of us, were always up at the first light of the new day. |
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It was dawn, I was certain of that. Eventually I would look at my watch to verify it, but for now it was enough to just know that I had made it through another |
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