They’re in the house.
No more than a moment or two passes before the door to the bedroom starts shuddering. The things I piled against it are holding, for now, but I know, realistically, that they’re going to manage to come through.
I keep rocking my little girl, humming a lullaby in her ear to calm her as she cries. The pounding grows in force and volume, the frame starting to crack.
I put my little girl on my lap, her back to my chest, and I stroke her head with both hands, from the top of her scalp, down across her ears, just as I’ve done. Just the way she loves it.
The effect is instantaneous. Her desperate crying calms to a series of sobs and hiccoughs, her small body shuddering against mine in fear. I keep humming to her, soothing her hair, acting for all the world as if nothing is out of place, not a single thing amiss. Agonisingly slowly, in a reverse cadence of the sound of splintering wood, she calms down. I can feel it when she stops tensing, as I keep stroking her down the sides of her head. A final hiccough of a sob, and she falls quiet, her body relaxed.
She doesn’t even have time to realise what’s happening as I twist her neck with a violent jerk, accompanied by a dry snap of a sound. She’s dead before she can even slump down into my lap.
The door is giving way, the furniture pushed back. I may be torn limb from limb while I scream, but at least my baby angel’s safe from harm.
8 YEARS AGO