A woman is missing. There is no
evidence of foul play, but certain small, disturbing signs indicate the young mother
didn't leave of her own volition. The only answer to the mystery lies locked in the
mind of her terrified, silent child. When the police bring little Jace Johansen to
psychiatrist Kerri Whitaker for assessment, she knows that her own troubled past should
prevent her from taking on Jace as a patient. But the child's anguish is a wordless
plea for help that instantly moves her. Then she coaxes him to speak and his story
seems a nightmare impossible to believe. But as the people around them start to die,
Kerri realizes that if she doesn't act soon, she and Jace will be the next to
disappear...forever.
Jace Johansen awoke with a suddenness that made him gasp
for air. The way his heart bounced inside his chest, he thought he’d had another bad
dream. Except he couldn’t remember one.
Puzzled, he rolled his head to the side to look for
bogeymen who might be hiding in the corners. The movement made him wince as he felt a
throbbing ache in his neck. His head hurt, too, and he wondered if he was sick. A few of
the kids at school had something called chicken pox, and his mom had said he might get it.
He didn’t know what chicken pox was exactly, and as he stared into the shifting
shadows of his room, he tried to imagine a bunch of huge monster chickens silently
creeping up to his bed.
But even in the dark monster chickens seemed silly, and
Jace managed a sleepy smile. He thought about calling out to his mother, but hesitated.
She kept telling him he was a big boy now that he was in the first grade, and he really
wanted that to be true. This time I’ll be brave, he thought. Which wasn’t
terribly difficult, seeing as how he wasn’t all that scared in the first place.
He heard a noise—a soft rustling kind of thump.
Mommy.
If she was up anyway, he might as well join her. She
would probably just send him back to bed, but maybe she would tuck him in. Or better yet,
snuggle up beside him. He loved it when she did that, her breath warm on his hair, her arm
soft beneath his shoulders. Sometimes she sang to him, or told him stories.
It was the possibility of a story that convinced him. He
threw the covers aside, climbed out of bed and padded across the room, his gait shuffling
and sleepy. In the doorway he paused, gazing bleary-eyed down the hall toward his
parents’ room and steadying himself with one hand on the doorframe.
A strange light shone from the other end of the hall and,
puzzled, Jace rubbed one fist in his eye before looking again. He blinked slowly, heavily,
tilting his head to one side to ease the ache in his neck, his brow furrowing in
puzzlement. Then a shadow moved across the light and Jace’s head snapped up, his eyes
growing wide. Instinctively, he backed up a step.
Hugging the door jamb, he peeked around its edge and
watched.
There were three of them, and as he thought this the
fingers on his right hand ticked off the numbers: one, two, three. The intruders
hovered around his parents’ bed, and Jace could see his mother lying on her back,
almost naked, her nightgown pushed up around her neck. He wondered why she didn’t
yell at the intruders and tell them to go away. Or why his father didn’t. But they
both lay still and quiet, sleeping while the intruders moved about the room.
Wake up, Jace pleaded silently. Please, wake up.
He thought about yelling to his parents, but
didn’t—in part because he was scared, but also because his brain felt so
sluggish and fuzzy, he wondered if this might not be a bad dream after all.
Then one of the intruders leaned over his mother’s
chest and did something so awful, Jace took a tentative step forward, thinking he should
try to stop them. But as his foot swept across the floor, it connected with a small toy
truck, knocking it into the baseboard with a clatter. He pulled back from the door,
holding his breath and feeling a shiver of fear race down his spine. Convinced the
intruders had heard him and would now come after him, he darted across the room, leaping
into his bed. Pulling the covers up over his head, he curled himself into a tight ball and
closed his eyes in the naive belief that if he couldn't see the bogeymen, they couldn't
see him.
Frightened and trembling, he huddled beneath the covers,
listening to the sounds down the hall. He fought the drowsiness that pulled at him,
knowing if he went to sleep the monsters would come and get him for sure. When the sounds
finally stopped, he still stayed hidden, fearful the bogeymen were only trying to trick
him. It was half an hour before he finally summoned up the courage to peek beyond the
covers.
No bogeymen.
The house was deathly quiet. Slowly, and with as little
noise as possible, Jace slid out of bed and tiptoed over to the door, peeking around the
edge. With relief he saw that both the strange light and the intruders were gone.
EYES OF NIGHT
