On Emma's Bluff by Sara Elizabeth Rice, edited by davebccanada (audio ebook reader txt) 📕

"No, your weren't wrong Hattie. That is how you helped."

"Helped? Helped by sending that child to die with her friend."   The old woman stiffened. "Get thee behind me." Hattie rose to leave the room. Her mind was now made up. She knew what she had to do.

"Sit down, you old bitch before I put you down." Her weight crashed her back into her chair. "There that's better now," and the lecture began.

Something was moving in the trees ahead of her. Cindy could feel it in every pore of her body. The rustling of the trees had not changed. She heard no footsteps or snapping branches. The tree frogs had not altered their tune. But there was an electric chill running all through her. Straining to hear she stood stark still and dreaded that indeed she might hear something.

Roy was on his way home. His heavy legs did not want to carry him fast enough back up the path. The night had destroyed his vision and only the blackness of the surrounding trees kept him from losing his way off the track. An urgency to get home had come over him. The limb that tripped him did not even break as he tumbled over it and on to his face. Consciousness failed him as his skull cracked.

Cindy did not know how long it had been since she had moved, but her hands felt numb and she was sure her feet would tingle when she started to walk again. The feeling was still upon her that she was being watched, but it was clear no good would come of just standing and waiting. Besides extreme cold was slowly replacing the intensity of her fear. "If I don't more now," she told herself, "I may not be able to move later."

Alerted to every creak around her she forced her legs to move. "Oh no," she protested to the crackling leaves beneath her. There was no way she was going to make it to the house at this speed. There was no way she could allow herself the luxury of freezing in fright any more.

She was almost tempted to whistle as she picked up her pace through the under brush. The tune "There must be some kind of way out of here" kept running through her mind. She had no way to judge how far she had gone and she dared not think she was off course. Straight ahead, straight ahead was all that she knew. "It will appear soon. I know it will." She just kept up her brisk and unfaltering stride. Thoughts of Emma had left her for the time being.   She was just concerned about getting to safety for herself.

Every now and then she thought she saw a patch of moon in a clearing up ahead, but it seemed to be taking an eternity to reach it. She had forgotten all about her purse hanging limply around her, but now she pulled it forward and wore it like a medallion. She stuffed her hands inside for a bit of warmth.

Then at last she did see the clearing right up ahead of her, the moon turning the dead grass silver. "Thank you God," she breathed. It was opening up in front of her the lawn, the house, and then she stopped still. There on the front lawn was someone waiting for her, someone watching her. The over head light of the moon shadowed the features but Cindy could see that the face was small and round. The arms were held out wide and the fingers of the body were stretched out. It could have been Julie Andrews from the sound of music based on the pose. Was it Emma? Cindy almost just stopped and ran the other direction but instead she continued. "I've come this far looking for her. I am not going to stop now."

Once in the clearing Cindy almost started to call out Emma's name. But what the apparition did next stopped her. It's chin turned upward and Cindy could see the skeletal white structure of the ruined features. She saw now why the fingers were so distinct because they were merely bones projecting from rotted flesh.

Cindy could not scream. She could not even run. She watched like in a nightmare mesmerized. It was moving towards her. Taking steps that were long and slow. Her mind was screaming at her body to move but she could not.

Viola Grace was only five feet from her when Cindy finally broke from her trance and ran. She swept toward and then past the aberration like a healthy child at a game of tag. "Home base, home base, Dear God, please let the house be home base," Cindy heard herself crying as she fled for the front porch.

She crashed into the door and fumbled for the knob. From a short glance she could see that the horror had turned and was moving leisurely toward her again. "Oh God, help me," Cindy yelled out as the door flung open at last. She had pushed it back shut while her voice still rang. She spun in a circle around. "How do I keep her out?"

She knew there was no way, at least not on the first floor with too many broken windows. The stairs, she was up them before any further calculation. Two at a time they groaned beneath her. "I have got to get up high and barricade myself in."

Cindy was spinning around to the forth floor landing when she saw the figure standing there the same pose it had assumed earlier in the yard, hands open. A loud scream drove itself from inside of Cindy. She thought she would puke. Then a familiar face smiled at her.

"Emma." Cindy went to her and pulling, grasping at her as she made her way up the last few steps. "Emma, here." She pulled her to the room at the end of the hall where they had all once sat and observed the strange séance.   She pushed Emma in and followed forcing the door shut behind her. There was a chair there she used to wedge against the door.

"Oh my God," Cindy sobbed as she threw herself around her friend.

Harvey Johnson had not gotten out of the station before the call came from the Bassett's. Their daughter had now been missing for over eight hours. This was becoming an epidemic of disappearances. He scrounged for another report form on his jumbled desk.

"Yes, I remember your daughter. She was at the Wilson's this morning."   He paused to listen.

"And she promised to come straight home after just checking one place," Mrs. Bassett's voice cracked.

"Is Mr. Basset on the line as well?"

"Yes sir" came the immediate reply.

"Well as you two know I legally am not suppose to be looking for any of these kids yet, but under the circumstances I would be a fool not to. So if you and your wife..." and Harvey droned on the now well-versed instructions.

After Harvey had gotten a list of all the places where Cindy Basset might be, he issued a bulletin describing the girl and the locations and alerted his already alerted men. The delay with the Bassett's had kept Harvey away from the Wilson's where he had been headed. He radioed a patrol car to proceed to the Wilson's and wait for him there. He wondered just what they would find when they arrived.

Cindy could hardly contain herself. The blood pounding in her ears and her gasping lungs augmented her fear and weariness. Emma stood behind her as silent as the room. Cindy realized that Emma had not spoken at all.

"Emma," was all that she could get out between gasps. She wondered if she were hyperventilating. "Shhhhhh," she hissed unnecessarily to Emma. Emma stared at her unflinching. Cindy noticed her bare feet and shivering limbs. She led Emma to the cot in the furthermost corner of the room. Gently she crawled on to the cot beside Emma and curled herself around her friend. "Oh Emma, what is happening?"

Emma did not reply but merely leaned in toward her friend.

"It's been too much for you hasn't it?" Cindy persisted. She wrapped her arms around the narrow shoulders and rested her chin on the top of Emma's head. "I have got to get us out of here." Then the impossibleness of the situation overwhelmed her. Slowly she began to rock the listless body that was her best friend back and forth.

"You can't have that girl!" Hattie hollered at the top of her lungs. She fought against the coils of unseen powers that tried to encircle her. She grappled with the muscles in her own body as she tried to flee the fiendish thoughts punishing her mind. Then suddenly there was a let up. Hattie could actually fall forward when the grip that held her back loosened. For a moment she braced herself for another attack. But when none came she rose and was amazed at her own strength and vigor. She felt almost youthful. But she knew immediately that it was not her own strength that had freed her. She had been lost, too wrong for too long to fight such an evil. But why wasn't the old witch spirit still fighting her?

"Where had she gone? Where had Viola Grace gone?" But Hattie already knew. "She done gone after them girls full force."

Cindy sat and listened but heard no sounds in the house. She could not remember if she had heard that monstrous thing follow her into the house. "Maybe I am just in shock from all of this," she told herself. Had she imagined the figure on the lawn? It all seemed so unreal.

"Emma," she whispered to her friend, "Emma we have got to figure some way to get out of here."

When Emma finally turned her face toward Cindy the expression caused Cindy to falter. Emma looked at Cindy as if she had never seen her in her life. Cindy was tempted to shake her.

"Emma can you understand what I am saying?"

A nod up and down came from Emma.

"There is somebody, something out there. I don't really understand it, but we are not safe."

"Yes we are," Emma sounded giddy.

"No, Emma, something has happened. I don't know what, but we can not give up now." Cindy let her fingers encircle the pliant wrists of her friend and she pulled the hands forward holding them as one would when trying to teach an infant to play patty cake. "Whatever… We have got to make it home. And then we can figure this thing out."

Emma smiled brightly at her. "Cindy." She said the name with much pleasure.

"Yes?"

"Cindy?" Emma reached toward her.

At the same moment they both heard the crash as the door was knocked off its hinges on the first floor.