“We have move away from him.”

  Kelli reluctantly turned her gaze from the boy to the old man. Her throat was dry and when she swallowed it made a clicking sound.

  “He’s…he’s bleeding,” she said.

  “I know—now stay back from him!” Gerald replied and he seemed to have suddenly become concerned for her wellbeing rather than his own.

  Kelli felt the crawl of confusion begin to mingle with the fear which had already seeded in her mind. The nurse in her demanded she go to the boy’s aid, but common sense screamed at her to do as Gerald commanded. She looked at him; there was still terror in his creased features, but she could tell this was a terror all too familiar.

  “Who is he?” she asked him.

  Gerald shook his head. Kelli turned from him and faced the boy.

  “Who are you?”

  The boy’s dull eyes shifted to her almost instantly.

  “Don’t talk to him!” Gerald cried, gripping her by the shoulder.

  Kelli ignored the old man and watched a long string of sticky blood ooze from his nose and down his chin.

  “Do you… realize you’re bleeding?”

  The Franken-child stared at her and smiled once more, blood turned his tiny yellow teeth pink. The boy stuck out his tongue and lapped at it. It was the only part of him that moved; no blinking, no turn of the head. He was a bleeding statue that was anything but miraculous.

  “Do you live around here?” Kelli said, lifting herself into a crouch. “Do your parents know you’re here?”

  “For god’s sake stop it woman!” Gerald implored.

  Kelli watched his smile vanish and his eyes flick to the old man. There was a definite glint of ferocity in those vacant eyes. More blood flowed out too, as if in response to the old man’s voice. Kelli turned to the old man.

  “You know who this boy is, don’t you?”

  “Don’t!” Tears pooled in his eyes.

  “I need to know who he is—I have to help him.”

  “There’s nothing you can do for him!”

  A noise emanated from behind her and Kelli turned back to see the boy’s mouth was wide open. The guttural echo re­sounded from deep within the boy’s throat; a prolonged moan that resembled a child in a choir chanting—chanting from inside a cave. As she tried to comprehend the sound, the boy took a step towards them and hissed, a spray of bloody saliva pluming in the air.

  “Get up!” Gerald ordered, pulling Kelli away.

  “What is he doing?”

  “Move back!”

  The boy took another step and Kelli noticed that it was more a shamble, as if he was in fact a miniature version of Mary Shelley’s famous monstrosity. Kelli wondered if the boy was simply putting on an act; that somewhere under his costume there were bags of fake blood with tubes connected to his nose. Could this boy conceive of such a cruel prank?

  Kelli felt a significant amount of strength in Gerald’s grip as he twisted her around and thrust her towards the kitchen. She staggered forward, but looked back over her shoulder to see her would-be rescuer rising out of his chair to his feet. He blocked the boy’s path with outstretched hands.

  “Stop!” he told the boy.

  The child stopped and cocked his head at the old man like a dog trying to compute a master’s command. Kelli saw Gerald shudder, as he struggled to stay upright. A combination of muscle weakness and fear, she imagined. She was paralyzed as well, both in mind and body. What was occurring in Gerald Forsyth’s home should have been a joke, a child’s idea of giving an old man a scare on Halloween, but the blood looked so real and the boy looked as if he was—

  “Is he—?”

  Gerald’s hands became fists. “Shut up! Shut up you stupid woman or you’ll attract his attention!”

  Kelli swallowed and watched the two of them. There was history between the old man and the boy; something dark and terrible. For a moment she wondered if Gerald had done some­thing to this boy, that maybe the old man’s gruff exterior covered a past, unthinkable sin.

  “You tell me who he is!” Kelli said.

  This time Gerald whirled on her. “Listen to me! Just shut up and listen!”

  Kelli flinched, but the boy simply watched and listened.

  “You have to get out of here!” the old man said.

  “How?”

  “The back door, it’s off the kitchen! Go now goddamn it!”

  Kelli looked to her right and she saw, past the kitchen bench, was the back door. She looked back to Gerry, uncertainty fest­ering in the pit of her stomach. She looked into Gerald’s eyes and saw the sadness and guilt residing there and she realized he was trying to save her. For the first time she felt truly sorry for him, but her sympathy was short-lived when the bleeding boy suddenly reached out to grab Gerald’s wrists.

  She shrieked as the two of them struggled. Despite the constant flow of blood, and his deathly appearance, the boy was impossibly strong. Gerald dropped to his knees and the boy shifted his hands to grip his throat. The boy smiled in delight as his captive began to suffocate. It was at this moment something inside Kelli snapped.

  It happened so quickly that she couldn’t remember herself moving. She simply found herself standing beside the boy and with one hand, shoving him off her patient. As the boy toppled into the TV table, Kelli reached down and lifted the gasping Gerry to his feet, placed him in the wheelchair and wheeled him out of the kitchen. The rubber tread left black marks on the floorboards.

  “Is the back door unlocked?” she cried at Gerald, but the old man was hunched over.

  Kelli steered past the kitchen bench, past the 1980s Formica cup­boards and small sink towards the door. Panting with exertion she glanced over her shoulder—no sign of the boy. She reached down and tried to turn the handle as fear burned in her throat.

  “It’s locked!”

  She scanned the wall beside the door for a key hook, but there was none.

  Even if there was a key, Kelli, was it Gerald who locked the door or had it been the boy? How could he lock the entire house if he hadn’t been in the house before, stupid!

  She gently shook Gerald’s shoulder and pressed her fingers to his throat to feel the steady thrum of his pulse.

  “Mr. Forsyth—wake up!”

  Gerald stirred and coughed, gasping for air; Kelli quickly put the oxygen mask over his face.

  “Gerald—is there a key for the back door?”

  Fear filled the old man with alertness and he began to fish around frantically in his pockets. Kelli watched him stare at the edge of the wall separating the kitchen from the living room as he searched; she looked to the same spot, dreading what might emerge there. The old man almost jumped up from his wheelchair when he finally found the key. He pushed it into Kelli’s palm and she tried it in the keyhole.

  “It won’t turn!” she said.

  “No, that’s impossible.” Gerald turned in his chair to reach back and turn the key with his gnarled hands. He grunted and strained to unlock the door, but it wouldn’t budge.

  “Goddamn it!” he said.

  Kelli wrapped her own hands around his and twisted, but not even their combined strength could unlock the door.

  “It’s no good,” she said.

  They looked at each other, tears in each other’s eyes; an equal sense of hopelessness. The moment was lost, however, when they both realized neither of them had been watching the wall. A shuffling noise wrenched their gazes back to that awful spot.

  The boy staggered into the kitchen area from the other side of the wall. His nose still trickled blood and his entire front was now covered in a thick red tar. Droplets fell to the floor like deformed rubies, exploding on the linoleum floor to be smeared beneath the child’s lethargic footsteps.

  Kelli screamed; there was simply no reason for what she was seeing. The boy was coming for them and intended to kill them both. The reason why hardly mattered anymore. She just needed to escape.

  “What are we going to do?” her voice broke in fear.

  Gerald had again been left paralyzed by the boy’s horrifying march, so she reached down and shook his shoulders.

  “Mr. Forsyth!”

  He shuddered and blinked, his eyes locked on hers. A moment passed, until his eyes widened in recognition. He reached past her and pointed to the hallway just off the kitchen.

  “The bathroom!” he said. “Go!”

  Kelli followed his pointing finger and nodded in acknowled­gement. Quickly, she pushed him through it just as the bleeding boy came within a few feet of them. The child hissed as they made their escape. Despite Kelli’s speed, the boy was relentless and immediately gave chase, one shambling footstep at a time.

  “Hurry!” Gerald cried, and his pleas pushed Kelli into a panic. In her haste to get them across the hall into the bathroom, the wheels of the old man’s chair twisted and almost toppled the chair over. Kelli summoned one last ounce of strength and managed to keep the chair upright and pushed it through the door.

  “Close the door!” Gerald said. Kelli left the safety of the chair and hurried to the door. As she pulled it closed, she saw the terrifying child advancing. She slammed the door closed in the boy’s bleeding face.

  “Now put something against it—we need to keep him out,” he told her.

  Kelli grabbed the fortunately overflowing cane laundry basket and thrust it in front of the door. A moment later the door shook under the weight of a great pounding.

  “Don’t let it in!”

  Kelli leant her back into the door. Her body jerked and rocked under the impossible power of the boy’s urgent thrusting. How the boy had so much strength, yet little movement, Kelli had no inkling. From the terror in Gerald’s eyes, she knew there was a little a door could do against such a horror. She watched the old man run his hands through the few strands of hair left on his pate.

  “Oh, God, please—make it go away!” he sobbed.

  The door boomed again and almost came open. Kelli shrieked and slammed her shoulder into it. The boy’s cold, alabaster fingers crept through the gap and clawed at the air, as if tasting the fear in the room.

  “No—get out!” Kelli said.

  “Move out of the way!” When the nurse looked to Gerald, she saw him frenetically wheel his chair backwards in the direction of the door. She moved out of the way as the chair crashed into the door and forced it closed.

  “Lock the wheels!” he said.

  Kelli bent and clicked the wheel locks firmly into place. The boy, now unable to exert any pressure on the door, went into a frenzy of kicking and hissing, his fists like hammers on the wood. The door rattled with the resonance of a jackhammer on the back of Gerald’s wheelchair, rocking the old man forward and back. Kelli saw tears roll down his weathered cheeks. He covered his ears to block out the child’s wailing and it was several minutes before the tirade ceased. Eventually, a grave silence overwhelmed everything.

  “He’s stopped…gone!” Kelli said, smiling; she couldn’t hide the relief on her face, but Gerald hadn’t lost his somber expression.

  “No, he’s still there…” he muttered.

  He gazed up at her then and Kelli could tell by his gaunt face and sorrowful eyes, that he was speaking the truth.

  “…and he’ll never leave without me.”

  4

  Gerald wanted it all to disappear: the boy, Kelli, his emphy­sema, the whole goddamned world. But he knew that wish, his one hope, would never be fulfilled. Not without one significant sacrifice.

  He wasn’t certain how long he’d been crying, sitting in a miserable heap in his wheelchair. He didn’t know how long Kelli had been trying to talk to him. He only focused on the silence coming from the other side of the bathroom door; from the ever-patient demon he knew all too well.

  Yet, this time was different; the boy was, for the very first time, inside his house. Gerald had never allowed that to happen before. It was the damned nurse’s fault, he told himself. If only she’d never opened the door; if only his regular nurse Doreen, who was much better, quieter—and efficient—at her job, hadn’t been sick, then none of this would ever have happened.

  If only…if only he’d never decided to go trick-or-treating in a blizzard all those years ago.

  Kelli’s voice, taut with desperation, brought him out of his reverie.

  “Mr. Forsyth—can you hear me? What are we going to do now?”

  Gerald lifted his head to look at Kelli. Her eyes were wide and white, pupils dilated with terror and a glaze of sweat on her brow. The old man knew this experience would age her ten years.

  “What is going on?” Kelli said, her voice quivering. “You know something about that boy—don’t deny it.”

  He wiped the sweat from his top lip with the back of his hand. “We need…” he began, “…to be very quiet.”

  “Who is he?” Kelli cried, pointing an accusing finger at the door.

  Gerald took a deep calming breath, but instead of providing life-giving oxygen, his chest pressed in on him like a giant vice. He squeezed his eyes closed and tried to ignore the fact that soon his need for oxygen would overwhelm everything.

  “Just…just a kid.”

  “‘Just a kid’—what sort of kid walks through your house, bleeds…pint after pint…of blood all over your floor and tries to choke you to death?”

  The old man scowled. “You let it in.”

  Kelli recoiled and looked away from him. He watched her swallow down the guilt. Yet she didn’t avert her gaze from him for long, her inquisitive green eyes burrowing into his.

  “Why do you refer to the boy as ‘it’ or ‘a kid’ when you know very well who he is?”

  “Please…be quiet.”

  She grabbed him by his shoulders and shook him. “No—you need to tell me who that boy is and what he wants with you!”

  The old man slapped his hand down on the arm of his wheelchair. “Shut up! Just shut up!” Your stupidity allowed him to get into my house and now I have no idea how to get him out!”

  Kelli winced, feeling the sting of the stupid comment again, yet in his rage, Gerald had also begun to open up about his knowledge of the boy.

  “You said ‘him’.”

  “For god’s sake, will you be quiet?”

  Kelli sighed and reached into her coat to retrieve her cell phone.

  “Wait—what are you doing?” Gerald said.

  “I’m calling the police!” She began to dial 9-1-1.

  “No! You can’t!” He reached for her, but Kelli turned her back and put the phone to her ear.

  “Please, don’t call the police!” he said behind her, his voice cracking.

  Kelli turned back to face him and pulled the phone away from her ear. “Then tell me why! We need to get the police here to help us.”

  The bathroom door shuddered with a terrifying jolt and the pair froze. The thing—the boy—on the other side was still there. Gerald knew it was listening in, biding its time; savoring the fear escalating between him and the nurse. This was what it wanted —to induce terror in their hearts.

  The old man looked at Kelli holding the phone in her hand; she was shaking. From where he sat, he could hear the 9-1-1 dispatcher calling out for someone to respond.

  “9-1-1—what’s your emergency?”

  “Hang up the phone Kelli,” Gerald told her as gently as possible.

  Kelli looked at the phone in her palm and suddenly realized what she’d been doing. She raised the phone to her ear.

  “Don’t!” he begged.

  Kelli’s eyes flared at him with disdain as she spoke to the dispatcher.

  “Hello? This is Kelli Pritchard. I need help.”

  “Hang up the damn phone!”

  BOOM. The door rocked against the old man’s chair.

  “I’m a nurse…from St Stephen’s Hospice Care,” Kelli said. “I’m at a patient’s house …at Gerald Forsyth’s house…and someone is trying to hurt us.”

  “What’s your address, ma’am?” the dispatcher’s voice came back.

  “116 Bla—”

  Gerald strained his arm to grab the phone from Kelli’s hand, but he didn’t hold onto it for long. Before the nurse could object—and finish telling the dispatcher his address—he threw the phone hard into the bathtub where it smashed into half a dozen pieces, the back cover, battery and plastic screen sliding around the inside of the tub to settle near the plughole.

  “Why the hell did you do that!?” Kelli said.

  Gerald watched her try to salvage the phone from the tub and wondered the same thing. Had all these years of terror finally sent him mad? Even if he were, he couldn’t risk having the police come to his aid. Who knows what it might do if it were cornered. Its…capabilities were essentially limitless. If he could just keep it at bay until dawn then it would be gone…at least for one more year. He checked his watch. It was almost 8pm.

  “What is wrong with you?” Kelli said, and when she looked at him her eyes were reddened with hot tears.

  “You need to listen to me now,” Gerald said, trying not to look her directly in the eyes.

  “Listen to you! What are you going to say that will be of any use to me? Unless you’re willing to tell me who that boy is and what the hell he wants, then I don’t want to hear a single word from you. You got that, old man?!”

  Silence filled the room for several moments as Gerald battled with guilt and fear. Kelli chose to sit on the floor and lean against the bathtub, exhausted no doubt from the adrenaline rushing around her blood. Gerald studied her and found himself admiring her courage and determination—perhaps not so much her disrespect for her elders, but her “take-no-crap” attitude was, he admitted, endearing. He wanted to trust her with his secret, but he didn’t know where to begin.