It was alive!
Tracy screamed. She tore into the kitchen, slamming the door behind her.
When she stopped shaking, she forced herself to think. She did not understand about the witch's pet coming alive, but she knew she had to deal with it. If she could just think of that wretched monster as a dreadful kind of cat, she could manage it.
Armed with a broom and the strongest carton she could find, Tracy quietly sidled out of the kitchen, sneaked down the long dark hall past the basement door, and slipped into the living room.
Grimly she advanced on the easy chair corner, but she found it empty. Wedging the box at one end of the space behind the nearby sofa, Tracy shoved the broom down along the wall toward it. She met with nothing.
Something snuffled behind her.
The creature, a yard tall, was standing on hind legs in the doorway to the dining room. Tracy felt her insides dissolve into ice water.
The monster took a step toward her, hissing.
Tracy panicked. Stifling her sobs, she sped upstairs to her room, locked herself in, and cowered behind the door.
The hideous thing was growing. Something—maybe light—had started it, and now it was getting bigger.
She went to her window and looked down to the concrete walk two stories below. There was no way down, nothing to climb on. She could not jump without risking broken bones. The only way out of the house was to go downstairs. She would try to leave through the kitchen.
Tracy listened a long while, but if the monster were prowling downstairs, she could not hear it.
One fast dash—
Tracy reached the downstairs hall at running speed. At the bottom she leaped toward the kitchen.
Suddenly the creature reared up in front of her, tall and dreadful, arms poised as if to catch her. Shocked, Tracy sagged against the basement door. Then quickly she jerked it open and all but fell down the steps.
She blundered into shadowed dead ends and sections of wall, for this old basement was divided into many odd rooms. At last, in a far corner, she thrust open a door, stumbled through, and slammed it behind her. Her fingers encountered a snap lock, and she clicked it shut.
Tracy blinked in the gloom, for the dusty window set high in the wall was on the shady side of the house. She made out some old mason jars on gritty shelves. One of the long boards was loose, and she managed to wedge it behind some big bent nails on either side of the door, barring it against the monster, whose strength must be growing as its size increased.
It was not long before Tracy heard the creature moving around in the basement. The monster snuffled through the different sections, came to the fruit cellar door and scratched, then went away to search elsewhere.
The sun had nearly set. Surely her parents would soon come home! Then she remembered that as they left that morning her mother had said, "Since this is our last trip back and we have so much to do, Tracy, you're not to worry if we don't return before night/' Not to worry! All Tracy had done was let loose a horror in their home.
A strong weight thudded against the door, and the crack of splintering wood was like a knife of fear through her heart. Somehow, by sound or smell or increased sharpening of its growing senses, the monster had found her!
Tracy scrambled up the shelves under the window, but the frame was nailed shut. Then her fingers gripped a piece of old pipe. Though she smashed the glass, the sound was lost under the crashing of the door. Pounding out the jagged
edges, Tracy squeezed through, sobbing as the glass scratched through her clothing. But she was free!
She hurtled through the dark underbrush separating the house from the Cranshaw place, and she warded off small branches that raked her as she plunged past. Then she fell with a painful thump into a dark hollow.
Tracy lay, waiting for her breath to come back. Bushes crackled above the hollow, and she heard the unmistakable snuffling of the dreadful beast. She closed her eyes, frozen with fear, waiting.
The crackling and the snuffling slowly went away.
Tracy squeezed her eyes tighter and concentrated on listening. At last she was convinced that the monster was really gone.
Tracy crawled up to the lip of the hollow. Not far from her a light from the Cranshaw place shone down a smooth woods path. Tracy sprang up and ran down the path, throwing herself at the door. Pounding on it, she cried, "Miss Cranshaw! Let me in!"
The door opened and she fell into Miss Cranshaw's arms. Tracy sobbed out her confession. "I opened the box, Miss Cranshaw, and the thing inside, the monster—"
"Hush, child! Come in." The old lady, surprisingly strong, pulled Tracy inside and turned the key. "So, you let loose something you did not know how to control."
"It's after me, Miss Cranshaw," Tracy babbled. "You can stop it. You're a witch. Save me!"
Miss Cranshaw grinned her dreadful knowing grin, and shook her head. "It's too late, Miss Tracy Ann Stuart. An hour after light falls upon it—"
"It's not too late, Miss Cranshaw!" Tracy's arm hurt where the old lady clutched it. "The monster's alive. It's growing bigger all the time!"
"That's right," Miss Cranshaw said firmly, pulling Tracy to a door in the wall. "While small, it did not matter. But now it's too late, my dear, because it is a full-sized monster—and you know." She thrust Tracy into a dimly lighted room and locked the door.
Tracy hammered on the door. "Miss Cranshaw, don't lock me up! I didn't mean—"
A dreadful snuffling stopped her in midsentence.
She turned, and there it was, the nightmare from the box, hideous head nearly touching the ceiling. The evil red eyes gleamed and a harsh voice came from the dreadful mouth. "Hello, Tracy," the monster said, reaching out for her.
Norton, Andre - Anthology Page 10
