White Walker (19 page)

Though threadbare and beaten there as no doubt
Puddles served a very important purpose. Simply put he was
Christine’s security blanket. To anyone else he was a worn out old
toy ready from the garbage. But to Christine he breathed with a
life that mirrored her own. He was her protector. Her confidant.
Her sole playmate in many of the games she thought up on the spur
of the moment.

A present from her Daddy before he left them. The
day he gave him to her he told her Puddles was a special bunny.
That Puddles had Daddy’s love for her locked up in his heart, and
that as long as he was by her side, her Daddy would always be with
her. She couldn’t understand why her Daddy had left. Only that he
had to go help some people in a place called Iraq, and that he
wouldn’t be coming back.

Mommy said he was in Heaven now where he could watch
over them and the thought of never seeing her Daddy again filled
her heart with sadness. But knowing that Puddles was a part of him
provided some measure of comfort. There had been several times when
her fear of the night, and the unknown, had gotten the best of her
and she snuggled so close to Puddles in her search for the safety
her Daddy once provided she was certain she could hear the faint
but steady beat of her daddy’s heart deep in his fuzzy chest.

He would protect her, she was certain of it, as only
a child could be confident in the promises of another.

“She takes all the bad little boys and girls,”
Marjorie whispered in her mind. Marjorie was one of her friends at
Brenda’s, the woman that watched her while her mother worked. The
words stoked the fear nourished by the shadows around her. They had
only recently moved to Porter Mines, she and her mother, searching
for a new beginning to an old life, so neither of them was familiar
with the legend of the Witch.

With Marjorie’s words in mind her gaze settled on
the stack of boxes sitting drunkenly in the corner. Wrapped in
shadows they had become a crouching beast. A thing of fangs and
claws ready to leap out and devour her the moment she looked away,
she wasn’t entirely confident Puddles could protect her from such a
thing. To the left stood her Little Princess table where she served
tea to her collection of stuffed animals. The shadows had
transformed it into a frighteningly alien object whose long shadows
er little reached out for her like the searching fingers of some
nameless thing.

Wind whistled along the eaves beyond her window and
in that mournful voice she imagined she heard her name. Soft
footsteps moved across the ceiling above her head. She did not like
this new house, not one little bit, and she wiggled deeper into the
blankets as the moonlight pouring through her curtained window was
broken by dark clouds that slithered across the moon’s impassive
face, casting shadows that danced across the far wall.

Her gaze remained fixed on the stack of boxes as the
room darkened around her. She was watching for the slightest
movement, ready to pull the blanket up over he head at a moment’s
notice.

“So fast it’ll make your head swim.” Mommy would
always say, and Christine smiled at the idea of anyone’s head
swimming.

From the corner of her eye she thought she saw
movement, and swiveled her head in that direction, instinctively
pulling Puddles closer to her. It was just the trees outside her
window.

The light of the moon illuminated the tops of the
bare trees behind the house. Ghostly fingers reaching for the night
sky as the wind set them to dancing with a hypnotic regularity. The
wind whispered beyond her window, seeking entry as the walls around
her creaked under its touch.

The she heard it. Calling to her softly in the
night. A child’s voice whispering, not from outside, nor even from
within the room around her. This voice came from within her
mind.

“I have a secret.” The voice promised with a
sinister whisper and Christine’s gaze was drawn to the window. To
the band of emptiness that stood as a barrier between her bed and
the window. Throwing back her blankets, with Puddles clasped
tightly under one arm, she darted across her room to the window
that looked down from the second floor upon the back yard.

The pale light of the full moon illuminated the
forest behind the house. The shadow of the house itself lay like an
ebony ocean across the back yard, reaching into the trees whose
slender trunks glowed with a silvery radiance in the effervescent
light. Something moved among the trees. A white spot that winked in
and out of sight among the tree trunks as it slowly approached the
deeper shadows crouched in the back yard. As the object stepped
into view Christine realized it was a young girl dressed in a white
nightgown. Behind her lay a pulsing cloud of emptiness, like a
flowing train of deepest night, throbbing with a life of its own.
She understood that the shadow was as much a part of the girl, as
the girl was a part of it, and a cold chill of fear slowly
slithered down her spine.

“I have a secret.” A young girl’s voice whispered in
her mind. Though it sounded like a young girl the voice was
ancient, as old as the earth itself, carrying with it a primitive
terror that reached back to the days of the caveman who dared not
stray far from their fires at night for fear of what lay in the
shadows beyond.

The young girl passed into the deeper shadows of the
back yard. A spot of white surrounded by an ebony emptiness. From
the black depths of the room behind her came the sound of a door
slowly swinging open on squealing hinges. She turned from the
window as a black shape materialized from the closet. A pulsing
emptiness much darker than the shadows through which it moved.

Christine ran from the window, crossing her room as
she sought to escape into the hallway. At the door she twisted the
handle in her hand as something old, carrying the chill of the
grave, clamped down on her shoulder.

She screamed.

***

Susan moaned as John’s calloused hand slid across
her bare belly and dropped into the narrow dip between her thigh
and stomach. His fingers followed the slight crease to that dark
region nestled between the vee of her thighs. She shuddered with
expectation as his fingers caressed her gently and his warm lips
closed over her erect nipple. She moaned as the heat of his body
radiated with a warmth that enveloped her in its loving
embrace.

She reached out so she could guide him into her. But
her fingers found only the cold empty sheets.

“No,” she whispered as she struggled to recapture
the warmth that had enveloped her. A cold chill slithered along her
side and she recoiled from its icy caress. For a brief moment she
teetered on the narrow boundary between deep sleep and
semi-consciousness before slipping over into a nighted abyss.

Images flashed through her mind, snapshots of her
past frozen forever in time. John at the lake, a devilish smile on
his face with a vast expanse of water spread out behind him. John
in the hospital holding the tiny bundle that was his daughter,
Christine, in his arms as he gazed at her with rapt wonder.

With each image, she felt a deep sense of longing
tinged by an even deeper sorrow. The images took on a more somber
form.

A copper colored casket it’s surface gleaming in the
bright sunlight. An American flag folded and presented to her by a
soldier who looked too young to be involved in such serious
matters. A row of soldiers in full dress uniform standing at
attention as the distant notes of a single trumpet echoed with a
forlorn voice.

Susan awoke with a start, panting to catch her
breath as her head swiveled first one way then the next.

A child’s scream sliced across her consciousness and
she was driven fully awake as the last vestiges of her dream faded
into the darkness of the night around her.

The scream came again. She threw back the covers,
swung her feet over to the floor, and raced for the door only to
trip over several boxes she had yet to put away. She fell to the
floor the fibers of the Berber carpet rubbing coarsely against her
bare flesh. It was then that she realized she was wearing only a
pair of panties. Slipping on a robe she hurried from her room as
Christine cried out again.

Susan stepped through the door into Christine’s room
and flipped on the wall switch. Light filled the room and she found
Christine curled up in a corner with Puddles clasped close to her
chest. She was staring at the closet door with an expression of
utter terror.

Susan crossed the room and knelt down in front of
Christine. Touching her shoulder she found her shivering beneath
her sweat drenched nightgown.

“It’s okay, Sweetie, mommy’s here.”

Christine glanced from the closet to Susan then back
again, and Susan was struck by the look of hopeless dread on her
face.

“Mommy?” Christine said in a quavering voice.

“It’s okay, I’m here now.” Susan wrapped her in her
arms and Christine clung to her neck as she lifted her from the
floor. Puddles slipped from between them and fell to the floor.

“Don’t forget Puddles.”

Susan knelt down as best she could and retrieved the
stuffed rabbit.

“Let’s get you back into bed.”

“No,” Christine moaned as she tightened her grip
around Susan’s neck.

“But, sweetie, you have to go back to bed.”

“She’ll get me if I do.”

“No one’s going to get you.”

“She said she was coming to get me.”

“Who said that?”

“The witch.”

Susan pried Christine’s arms from around her neck
and looked about the room.

“I don’t see a witch.”

“She’s in the closet,” Christine whispered as she
pointed at the closet door.

Susan approached the closet. Christine slipped down
from her bed and followed. Susan opened the door and Christine
stepped behind her leg as she flipped on the light. Susan leaned
into the closet and looked first one way then the other.

“Nope, no Witches in here,” Susan said.

“Are you sure, Mommy?” Christine asked.

Susan moved around the clothes hanging from the rod.
She looked up, down, and in every corner.

“Absolutely, you’re closet is Witch free,
guaranteed.”

Susan turned from the closet and got down on her
hands and knees next to the bed. She pulled back the sheets hanging
to the floor and peered into the darkness beneath Christine’s bed.
A cold chill washed over her and she shuddered as the sheets fell
back into place.

“No Witches under your bed.”

“Are you sure, Mommy?” Christine asked.

“Absolutely, I pronounce your room Witch free.”

Susan pulled herself to her feet and lifted
Christine back into her bed. She then sat on the edge of the bed as
Christine slipped under the comforter.

“You know sometimes when you’re in a new place you
might think you see things that aren’t really there?”

Christine shook her head.

“But I saw her, Mommy.” Christine whispered. “She
was standing right next to my bed.”

The conviction in Christine’s eyes sent a chill down
Susan’s spine. She had the unmistakable sensation that someone, or
something, was watching her from the shadows. She looked around the
small room. From the pile of boxes stacked in one corner to the
stuffed animals occupying the child sized tables and chairs in the
opposite corner.

In the light from the ceiling fixture they were
harmless inanimate objects. But in the dark with only the light
from a night-light they could take on a more sinister appearance to
a child trying to sleep in an unfamiliar room. Susan pointed at the
pile of boxes.

“I bet you thought that was the Witch.” Susan
said.

Christine seemed to be considering this and shook
her head.

“She was on the other side of the bed, Mommy. Can I
please spend the night with you?”

Susan stroked Christine’s hair.

“We’ve talked about this before. If I let you spend
one night, you’ll want to spend another, then another. And before
you know it I will have to find a different bedroom.”

“I promise, it will just be one night.”

Susan shook her head.

“Remember what we talked about before we moved
here?”

Christine scrunched up her face and shook her
head.

“Yes you do. We talked about how a new house will
feel strange at first. There will be scary sounds and we might see
things that aren’t really there.”

“But she was real, Mommy.”

“Are you sure?”

Christine looked from the hallway to her closet door
which stood ajar.

“Please, Mommy, just one night, I promise.”

It nearly broke Susan’s heart to see Christine so
frightened, but at the same time she realized this was one of those
moments when she had to be the parent instead of her child’s best
friend. Letting Christine sleep with her would not solve the
problem of her getting acclimated to the new house.

“I’m sorry.” Susan, said, “I’ll leave the hall light
on for you, but you can’t sleep with me.”

“But the witch will get me.”

“We’ve talked about this before. Witches are made up
by people just to scare other people.”

“But Marjorie said.”

Susan held up her hand and stopped Christine.

“I don’t care what Marjorie said.”

Susan was becoming exasperated and she could hear
the edge slipping into her voice. She didn’t want this to become an
argument. But Christine’s refusal to listen was pushing her to the
point where she would simply put her foot down. Of course, once she
did that Christine would sulk for a few days, and Susan would
become the bad guy. She wanted them to have a strong relationship,
but at the same time she knew for Christine’s sake she had to be
the parent.

Slipping off the side of the bed Susan got down on
her knees. She was now level with Christine and she looked her in
the eye.