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Halifax, June 14
11:17 a.m.
The nightmare came, vivid and terrifying. One the medication could no longer keep at bay.
A thump had wrenched Seth from a deep sleep. For a moment, he had lain there in bed, his eyes half-closed, his mind still caught in the fog between sleep and consciousness, dream and thought.
Moonlight spilled through the windows, and shadows of tree branches from outside trembled on the far wall, shifting under the burden of a wind. As his gaze moved around the bedroom, he saw the door ajar. The hallway was dimly lit.
Someone was in the house. He could hear this—muffled voices and sounds of rummaging downstairs.
Fear growing inside him, he moved his hand across the dimpled surface of the mattress to nudge Camille, but he found the space beside him empty. Warm and empty.
Seth turned his head on the pillow. “Honey?”
It was then he became aware of a wet gurgling sound in the room. He rose to his elbows and saw a dark form on the floor by the dresser. Curled on its side, the form was long and slender. Fear crawled across his skin, prickling the hairs at the back of his neck.
“H-honey?”
A floorboard suddenly creaked beside him. He spun, eyes widening with panic. He caught a blur of movement right before a gloved hand clamped over his mouth and nose, cutting off his breath and driving him back into the bed.
In utter horror, Seth watched the hideous face of a scarecrow appear over his. It had a ragged, burlap sack for a head with tiny eyeholes cut out, and a zigzag pattern of twine stitched its mouth shut in a drooping frown. A rope cinched its neck.
Heart thrashing, Seth looked up and into the liquid-black eyes leering down at him. No whites. No pupils. Just a fathomless blackness.
At the edge of his terror and disorientation, Seth became aware of cries and screams from elsewhere in the house. All at once, terrible images burned themselves into his brain, and panic ripped through his body.
No, he thought. Please, God. No.
He had to get away. He had to save—
The scarecrow pounced on top of him with a swift and powerful movement. When Seth tried to fight back, he realized the body of the scarecrow and two layers of blankets had trapped his arms.
Shit.
Muscles straining, he wriggled to get free but couldn’t.
The scarecrow pushed Seth’s head deep into the pillow, crushing his lips painfully around the sharp edges of his teeth.
Seth groaned in agony. He needed to exhale. Feverish heat built up in his face. Pressure bugged out his eyes and made his eardrums feel ready to explode.
Through his blurring vision, he saw the scarecrow raise its other hand and the knife it held. Something dripped from the blade.
The scarecrow drove the knife down. The sharp tip pierced the blankets and plunged its way into Seth’s abdomen.
“You bastard,” Seth yelled. “You fucking bastard.”
His mind screamed for survival, though at this point it wasn’t his own he cared about. He continued to fight, bucking, twisting, trying to free his arms from those goddamned blankets.
The scarecrow raised the knife again.
Then came laughter. Even though the scarecrow’s mouth was stitched shut, Seth could hear it.
Loud, shrilling, maniacal laughter.
He must’ve passed out after that, because when he came to, the scarecrow was no longer on top of him. The bedroom spun around him. Spots floated before his eyes.
Seth freed his arms from the blankets and rolled off the bed. Terrible pain ripped through his left side as he fell to the carpet with a muffled thud. He couldn’t seem to catch his breath. It felt like he was drowning, his lungs filled with liquid.
With great effort, he rose to his knees and began shuffling forward in a doubled-over position, his left arm pressed to his ribs, his right arm on the floor to brace himself.
He reached the foot of the bed and stopped. Camille lay by the dresser, not moving, no longer making a sound. Seth saw the dark stain on the beige carpet beneath her head, the glisten of her open eyes catching the moonlight filtering through the window.
A cry formed in his throat. “Cam?”
Ravaged with panic, he crawled to his wife and saw the gaping wound across her throat. He reached for her cheek. There was still warmth in her skin, but he knew she was gone.
Her jewelry box lay upside down on the floor. The dresser drawers hung open. Clothes strewn about.
Seth made his way to the bedside phone. The handset felt slippery in his bloody hand. He checked for a dial tone. Still there.
He could feel himself growing faint. The numbers on the phone blurred and shifted. He tried to concentrate on pressing the right ones.
The ringing became a female voice on the other end. “Nine-one-one. What is the emergency?”
Seth found it hard to speak. “H-help.”
“Where’s your location?”
A sudden wave of dizziness struck him and he fell against the windowsill, dropping the phone. He feared he would soon lose consciousness or go into shock.
Lily. He had to make sure she was safe.
The tinny voice of the 9-1-1 dispatcher drifted from the phone. “Sir. Hello?”
Seth gripped the ledge of the windowsill, pulling himself to his knees. His forehead touched the cold pane of glass, and he looked out at the November night. There was a car in the driveway. It reminded him of one of those pimped-out Hondas. He couldn’t make out the color—too dark—but he could see big chrome rims and the shape of an oversized spoiler.
The scarecrow and whomever he’d come with were still in the house. Seth remembered his shotgun locked away in the hidden safe in the spare bedroom closet. Could he get to it in time? Blow the fuckers away.
The dispatcher spoke again. “Sir. Are you there?”
Seth knew she’d send someone. By now, his address would be on the computer screen in front of her. Lily was his main concern right now. He had to get to her before he collapsed.
As he struggled to his feet, the room wavered around him. His toes and fingers were getting numb. His legs felt leaden as he stumbled across the room to the hallway. He heard a noise downstairs, and he froze, listening.
Someone said, “I’m taking this.”
Seth couldn’t hear sirens yet. Was help coming?
Blood filled his throat, and he could taste the metal in it. Coldness spread through his hands and feet.
He crept along the wall, unsure of what would happen, what he would see. The front door was wide open. Wintry air billowed in. As his gaze dropped into the living room, Seth found the devil there, illuminated by the glow of a single table lamp. His arms were wrapped around the family’s plasma TV.
He stopped when he noticed Seth at the top of the stairs. For a tense moment, the two of them stared at each other.
The devil said, “What the fuck?”
At the corner of his vision, Seth caught something moving up slowly behind him. He spun around, hitting the light switch and finding himself face to face with a corpse wearing a black coat and gloves.
Seth lunged at him, and the two of them tumbled to the floor. The corpse ended up on top. Immediately, it began throwing punches. With the last of his dying strength, Seth reached up through the rain of blows and tore the face off the corpse. The punches stopped, and Seth saw a new face hovering over him, one with a stunned expression and pure-white eyes.
“C’mon,” someone yelled up the stairs. “Let’s go.”
A crescent of light swiped down. Seth felt a hot lick through the flesh of his cheek. Felt the corpse face being wrenched from his fingers. Footsteps hurried down the stairs, fading away.
Rolling over on the hardwood floor, he wanted to sleep now. A kind of lassitude was settling into his body. It took everything he had to lift his head and focus his eyes down the hallway to Lily’s bedroom. The door was open. He could barely make out the shape of a small body lying on the floor inside.
“No,” he choked.
Then his world went black.
“Oh, Jesus.” Seth awoke in a cold sweat.
His heart pounded. A cold panic gripped his nerves.
He realized he’d fallen asleep on the sofa. He sat up and ran a trembling hand over his face. Then he looked around the living room for Lily. She wasn’t there.
“Lily,” he called out.
No answer.
“Honey, where are you?”
When Seth stood up, his legs felt weak, rubbery. The residue of the nightmare still clung to his brain. He could feel it there, a living thing, creeping its way across his thoughts.
“Lily,” he called again.
He went into the kitchen. Not there either.
Her bedroom.
He hurried up the stairs and down the hallway. When he opened the bedroom door, a flood of relief washed through him. Lily was sitting at her easel desk, coloring in a book.
“Oh, there you are, honey.”
Lily glanced over at him and smiled.
“I just wanted to make sure you were safe,” Seth told her.
“You and Mommy keep me safe, Daddy.”
Seth tensed. “What? Mommy?”
“Yes, Daddy. You and Mommy.”
The hairs stood up on the back of Seth’s neck. His eyes swept the room, searching, finding no one else there.
“Do you see Mommy?”
Lily giggled. “You’re silly, Daddy. Mommy lives here too.”
Seth stared at his daughter, feeling his blood chill to ice.