Something terrifying that brought with it the recollection of another childhood terror that had once consumed her. The old woman wanted to turn and run from it just as she had wanted to turn and run so long ago...

...That fall evening she had been peering vainly through the kitchen window looking for any sign of her parents' return. They had gone out for, “Just a few minutes,” and left her alone and in charge of herself.

She had begged them not to go without her but they had told her she was 8 years old and most certainly a big enough girl not to need a baby sitter for the few minutes it would take them to visit a recently widowed parishioner.

It had been only a few minutes but to her it had seemed a lifetime especially when the creaks and whoo's of the autumn evening's winds made their old parsonage feel more like like a mausoleum.

She knew what a mausoleum was because she had attended many funeral services over which her father had presided in such places of the dead.

She began to whimper as she heard something outside, something just beyond the window pane. The sound was a scary combination of a growl and a voice. It was not a familiar sound to her and definitely not one that left her feeling safe.

“Dear Jesus,” she prayed, her eyes tightly shut against whatever had made the sound, “please make my Mommy and Daddy come back right now!”

The sound came again, only louder. She snapped her eyes open and looked out the window once more. At first she only focused well past her own reflection scanning the lights of occasionally passing cars. Cars that at once gave her hope and then snatched it back as they headed on down the road away from where she lived.

But as the wind brought with it the sound of the growling voice again she was unable to prevent her eyes from focusing on the space closer to the window; just a few inches past the pane.

It was then that she saw two black eyes staring back at her. Not her own reflected eyes but the eyes of something out there; something looking in at her; something that could see that she was all alone.

She tried to turn and run but when she turned her back on the horror she froze. She shivered. She could feel it reaching for her back. Tears were streaming down her cheeks. She screamed.

She was still screaming when her father scooped her up in his arms and held her close, “Hush Baby, it's OK. Mommy and Daddy are here. You're OK. Hush now, nothing is wrong. You're safe.”

Her fathers' words brought her back to the kitchen and the warmth of his embrace turned her screams to gulping sobs.

Her mother wrapped a blanket around her and took her from her fathers' arms to rock her in the big living room chair.

“Loo rah loo rah loo,” her mothers' voice lulled her to stillness with one of the old lullabies of her babyhood.

“I am so sorry we left you alone for so long,” her father was saying as he knelt beside the chair, “we didn't expect to be out past dark but Mrs. Machen was so upset that we just couldn't get away.”

Then he asked what she'd hoped he would not, “Sweetheart, why were you screaming? What scared you so?”

She began to tremble and her mother shook her head admonishing her father, “Not now Dear, whatever it was will keep until morning.”

“Everything will look much better in the light of a new day won't it Baby,” Mommy said stroking the wisps of her chestnut hair away from her sweaty forehead, “Let's get you ready for bed, OK?”

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