Emily shut the door, locked it, and waved at Mr. and Mrs. Becker from the window. They pulled out of the driveway in Mr. Becker’s midlife crisis car, a sporty-looking burnt orange coupe that didn’t fit the kids and was even a little uncomfortable for adults. Emily’s legs had folded strangely in it, knocking the gear shift and the door and the dash. If Emily had a car like that, she’d never choose that color, like fruit left to rot. No. She’d go red. Dark, the color of cranberries and garnets and lipstick left on collars.
Grayson and Tara were in the living room, each set up on a tablet with noise-cancelling headphones. Emily’d been the Beckers’ weekend sitter since Grayson was only a few weeks old. The Beckers went out often enough that Emily was able to cover what was left of her spring tuition after scholarships and grants kicked in. Dodging student loans was worth the sacrifice of the Friday and Saturday nights. Something her boyfriend—ex-boyfriend—hadn’t been able to understand.
“What about us?” Trevor had said, one too many times.
“What about me?” she said. His lower lip protruded in a pout. She remembered when that face made her insides quiver, made it impossible not to catch his lip in her teeth. If she did that now, she’d rip it off. “Are you going to start compensating me for my time?”
“You’re not some whore.”
“Sex worker,” she said. She hoped her voice was as cold as she was trying to make it. “They’re called sex workers now.”
She’d thought that fighting with Trevor would bring the passion out of her, that the screaming until their neighbors knocked on the walls would translate into hours making up with the same heat. Indifference doused whatever flames had been there. The more they fought, the less she cared.
“Do you guys want pizza?” Emily asked, after she got the kids’ attention.
Tara—much too old for five—made a face. “Doesn’t that have gluten in it?”
Grayson popped his thumb out of his mouth. “I wike gwuten.”
“Mommy says gluten is ruining her life,” Tara said.
Emily rolled her eyes. “Is pepperoni okay?”
Tara thought for a moment. “No tomatoes. Mommy says night shadows are bad for my digestions.”
“Nightshades.”
“Those are bad, too.”
“What about pesto?” Emily tried to keep the irritation from her face.
“That’s the green one?”
“Gween!” Grayson said.
“Okay,” Tara said, like she was accepting defeat. “I’ll eat pesto.”
Emily shook her head and punched in her order on the app. Cheese and pepperoni on one half, artichoke and olives on the other, pesto instead of marinara on the whole thing. She ordered the large, enough that she could take home leftovers and still pocket some of the pizza change. The kids were quiet on the couch. She probably should have put away their tablets and played a game with them or something, but she was tired and the appeal of silence was too great. Instead she went upstairs and pulled out their pajamas and laid them on the beds. It was all part of the routine. Dinner, bath, PJs, bedtime. She usually put the kids to sleep thirty minutes early to allow a little extra time to herself. She would rifle through the medicine cabinets, drink whatever was open at the wet bar, slip on Mrs. Becker’s coats with nothing underneath and wonder who would come through the door. Who would find her and unwrap her like a present.
No one, Emily remembered. Throat tight and stomach sore. There would be no one, after all.
There had been no absence of passion, no cold indifference. It had been molten from start to finish. Mr. Becker had come home early one evening, Mrs. Becker off on an emergency C-section. The kids were asleep upstairs. He’d offered her a drink, said she’d might as well round out the hour. He’d been charming and clever. They’d sat at either ends of the couch, but after a few tumblers of gin and tonic, she was tracing patterns with her toes on his off-white linen pants and he was brushing his fingers against her calves. When they collided, Emily was sure they would melt the couch or set the whole house on fire.
She hadn’t been attracted to him when she first started sitting for them. And, of course, she had Trevor, she wasn’t looking. She hadn’t dared to glance at all. But there’d been a shift in her and Trevor’s relationship, something she couldn’t quite place. She felt tangled up in him, like a feral animal about to be caught up in a trap. Mr. Becker felt like freedom. He felt like a mistake she needed to make. She’d gone home that first night and slept in the curve of Trevor’s body, trying not to think of Mr. Becker’s mouth and hands and heat. Making promises to herself that it was the last time, it was the only time.
Empty promises.
The doorbell rang. Tara shouted for her to come down. Emily put the toothbrushes and toothpaste on the counter and came downstairs. She grabbed the cash stuck to the fridge, pocketed one of the twenties, and opened the door.
“That will be seventeen fifty-three.”
Emily looked up sharply.
It was Trevor. Black hat, “Pizza Palace” embroidered on it in white letters. Insulated zippered pouch, half open. He stared at her for a minute, his eyes adjusting to the light.
“Is this his house?” His voice was low, venomous. Trevor was never one for screaming. It always hurt most when he was quiet.
The truth bunched on Emily’s tongue and rattled against her teeth. She pushed the door open wider, so he could see the kids. Relief battled with disdain for control of his features. “How long have you been—,” she said, gesturing to the hat, to the car.
“Since I had to cover the rent on my own.”
Emily took a breath, counted to five. She wasn’t going to have this fight again. Instead she took a twenty and a five and put it on top of the box. She thought about the other twenty buried in her pocket. If things were bad enough that Trevor needed to deliver pizzas to cover the rent, on top of his research job and school, twenty dollars might be the difference between a decent meal or someone’s left over crusts for dinner. She slid her hand into her back pocket, felt the crisp edge. She left it there.
The last time she’d looked at Trevor like this she’d been sealing up the last of her boxes. His eyes were red-rimmed, with either emotion or exhaustion. She could have gotten away with it. But she’d seen his earnest smile and felt his fingers tighten around hers and she couldn’t keep it in. The worst part? He’d forgiven her. He’d asked her to stay.
“Keep the change.” She reached for the pizza box.
That’s when the lights went out.
Not just in the house, but on the street. On Trevor’s car. On the tablets. On Emily’s phone. Tara screamed. Grayson let out mewling whimpers. Emily dropped the pizza onto the floor. She settled between the kids, put her arms around them, whispering reassuring things. Tara took shuddering breaths. Grayson sucked his thumb vigorously.
“What the hell?” Trevor pulled a flashlight—always the boy scout—from his pocket and flicked it on and off, to no avail. “Do you have any candles?”
“Door on the left, in the bathroom. There are matches in the top drawer.”
Trevor shuffled in that direction. She heard him bump against the side table and swear. Her eyes were starting to adjust to the light. The stars looked so bright in the blanket of darkness, like they’d been waiting for all the lights to go out so they could let themselves be known.
She hummed softly, stroking Tara’s head. She heard the strike of a match, and waited for the light.
That’s not what she saw.
In the still open doorway, a shape blocked out the starlight. It growled low, like the rumble of an engine. Emily wasn’t even sure she was seeing anything until Trevor stepped out of the bathroom and the candlelight reflected in its big eyes. They weren’t that dark, rich red, like the stories promised. They were blue, blue, blue like a sunny sky and Mr. Becker’s eyes in the half-light and flight-sized bottles of Bombay Sapphire lined up on the night stand.
Trevor was quick. He grabbed Tara from beneath her arm and tore up the stairs. Emily didn’t have time to shout and stop him. There was nothing she could do, except to clutch Grayson and follow. Trevor shut the door to the master bedroom behind them. Locked the door with a quick flick—so like Mr. Becker—and started sliding furniture in front of the door. Tara sat on the bed and held the candle, too scared to cry. Emily didn’t know how to quantify what was happening. Grayson quivered in Emily’s arms. Put his head down on her shoulder. She flinched. She’d forgotten he was there. She put him down on the bed next to his sister. He whined in protest. She silenced him with a sharp look.
“What the hell is that?” Trevor said.
“I don’t know.”
“Do you think this will be enough?”
Emily looked at the shapes of the furniture they had arranged in front of the door, Trevor wide eyed and eager for her approval. She never expected him to be in this bedroom, of all places. The room in which she’d diffused their relationship like a bomb, cutting all the wires with tongue and teeth and someone else’s husband.
“No,” she said.
She moved to the window. She’d climbed down the trellis before, but it wasn’t easy. It would be impossible with the kids, too loud, too slow. They wouldn’t be able to do it without catching the shadow’s attention. Even if they managed it, then what? How far could she and Trevor run holding the children, before it caught up to them?
The second step from the top creaked. The shadow moved without weight, without consequence, save for the scrape of nails against the wood floors. A metallic timbre that sent shivers up Emily’s spine.
“It’s here,” Emily whispered.
Trevor blew out the candle. Tara started to cry. Emily silenced her with the palm of her hand, but it was too late.
The door cracked down the center. Wood fragments clattered on the floor. Grayson climbed up her torso, buried his face in her neck. He didn’t have that sweet baby smell anymore, but she knew the pattern of his breathing and the way he fit into the curve of her hip. It’s what started the affair, after all. Those late nights when Mrs. Becker had come home from date night and gone straight to bed and Mr. Becker had seen Emily lay the baby down in the crib with such tenderness. It was instinctual, he’d said later, to want the woman who cared for his children. There was a time when she thought it could be more than that. But it was just wanting. Just bodies, no hearts or heads involved.
Trevor reached for her hand.
The shadow moved slowly, with enough force that the furniture squealed out of the way. Trevor tried to lead her into the bathroom, but what good would that do? It was here. It had seen them. It was too late for any of that.
It reached a claw out into the moonlight. Long and notched and sharp. Pointed at her, pointed at Grayson. Its growl was low and mechanical, like a spoon caught in a disposal.
Emily held her breath.
She had to be selfish, but maybe selfish was all she had. She’d spent so much time looking after herself and piecing together scraps to make herself whole. She had to be selfish to survive. She had to be selfish to live. And maybe that’s what it had all been about. Being selfish when it came to love or lust. It wasn’t at all about the little velvet box she’d found indiscriminately tucked inside a lonely sock in Trevor’s drawer. It wasn’t about the fact that she didn’t know the function of love or commitment or how two people made themselves into the shape of forever. All she knew of forever was empty bottles of Jameson and her mother’s teeth on the floor. Broken and bloody and unfixable.
She threw Grayson into the shadow. Whatever Trevor said to her then was lost to the screams, to that wet ripping sound. She dropped down the trellis and onto the grass, running and running until she was bathed in a warm circle of electric lights a block or so away. Far enough that the sounds of the street overwhelmed the cries. Only then did she spare a glance back, to the trail of red that lead out the door and away. She harbored a moment of hope. Maybe the shadow had stepped into the pizza on its way out and smeared marinara down its path. She remembered, then, that they’d ordered pesto.
Later, when Emily saw the sun rise from a dive bar on some distant shoreline—so far that she couldn’t be found, but not far enough to avoid the headlines—she caught the segment on the morning news. Rolling blackouts. A brutal murder. No mention of the shadow, except to say: the babysitter slaughtered the children and the pizza delivery man. Monster, they said. Let us count her teeth.
The End
Megan Eccles writes dark, speculative fiction for young adults. She holds a BA in Music from the University of San Diego and an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of California Riverside—Palm Desert. She lives in the foothills of San Diego with her husband, four sons, dogs, and various farm animals. When she’s not writing or rehoming rattlesnakes, she pairs lipstick to her favorite books on instagram and plays Dungeons & Dragons with her boys. She has been accused of owning too many books, but it simply isn't true.
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