Hide and Seek

still savannas and jungle moonlight. It was there, just around the

corner. An intelligence that was not the same as mine. Measuring

me.

I did something purely instinctive. I think it saved my life. I

doused the light.

And waited. The smell of death in the air, mine or Casey's or perhaps

its own. I would meet it in a matter of seconds now, and then one of

us would see.

I waited. And for a longtime I didn't move at all. I tried to breathe

evenly, quietly, calmly. And still I felt it measuring me, testing the

air for the shrill scent of fear in me. I tried to shepherd the fear

back to some deep place inside where calm could protect and shield me

and maybe breed an uncertainty of its own. Moments passed.

While I waited, Casey could be dying.

There was no choice. I knew what I knew.

I heard it breathing. Shallow, moist and heavy. As though through

clotted blood.

It was possible to imagine anything in there.

In the dark.

For a long while I was only a heartbeat. Then I sensed a change.

I waited to be sure.

Whatever it was, it was gone.

I didn't even bother turning on the light. I backed out the way I'd

come. Fast.

With the flashlight in one hand and her book bag in the other, ran for

the stairs. I sprinted them two at a time.

I remember only silence from this. Not the sounds of my own footsteps

not the sounds of my own heavy breathing. Only silence. My own

strange motion through the hall and up the second flight of stairs.

Down the corridor to Steve.