44
Heather’s scream brought Anna McFarland out of bed and down the hall three steps ahead of her husband. Pushing open the door to Heather’s room, Anna’s hand flicked the wall switch to the on position, momentarily blinded by the brilliance of the illumination.
“What’s wrong?” Gil McFarland’s breathless question echoed the one that had been about to roll from her own lips.
Across the room, sitting upright in the middle of her bed, Heather’s open eyes had rolled back in her head, the look of horror on her young face so intense that both parents whirled to look back down the hallway. It was as empty as it had been a second ago, surreally illuminated in sharp shadows by the light shining out from Heather’s open doorway.
“Baby?” Anna McFarland moved to the bed.
As she reached out to touch her daughter’s face, something made her stop. Heather’s eyes were moving as if she were seeing things move before her, things that only she could see. The way emotions played across Heather’s face as those white eyes moved brought a chill to Anna’s neck, a ripple that ran up over her scalp and down along both arms. Heather didn’t even know she and Gil were there, her daughter’s open-eyed dream-state undisturbed even by the sudden bright light in her bedroom.
Anna reached out, gently cradling Heather’s cheeks between her shaking hands, turning Heather’s head so that she could see into those eyes. At first, there was no reaction, and then, ever so slowly, Heather’s eyes rolled forward, refocusing on Anna’s.
“Mom?”
“I’m right here, baby.”
Anna wrapped her daughter in her arms, letting Heather’s body collapse against her own. Almost immediately, Anna felt Gil’s strong arms wrap around them both.
Searching for anything to lift the dread that filled her, Anna glanced up. But instead of reassurance, what she saw in Gil’s face was a fear as great as her own.