Night of terror

Although I felt someone watching me, the last thing you should do at a market was meet the gaze of whoever kept staring at you. Take me, for example. The day before yesterday, I had made eye contact with a produce seller, heard his enthusiastic calls, and seen his burning gaze.

Then, somehow, I had been talked into buying that absurdly huge pumpkin-I once again asked the question I had asked countless times over the past three days: how could a pumpkin get that big?

So dinner that day consisted of pumpkin porridge simmered until soft, pumpkin pie with cream and maple syrup, and pumpkin stew with meat.

Sounded pretty good, right? But we had been eating like this for four days straight, pumpkin at every meal, and even then, we had not finished so much as a tenth of it... Even Ms. Nova, who rarely got picky, had started protesting the boiled, slightly sweet, yellow chunks added to her bowl. She had clearly liked pumpkin before.

In the end, I decided...

Piece after piece of pumpkin was wrapped in plastic wrap, packed into paper bags, and handed out to the residents of the entire street.

I even knocked on the door of Edward's house next door and handed his adoptive mother a paper bag containing a piece of pumpkin, meeting her puzzled, evasive gaze.

The weather was getting colder, and darkness fell earlier and earlier. The fireplace blazed away as the two of us curled up in blankets and watched a movie. On the table sat the pizza we had ordered in advance, chilled cola, and warm milk. The surroundings were warm and the food delicious, but this time, the movie clearly was not such a good choice. Psycho was a good film, but it clearly was not suitable for a sixteen-year-old teenager and an eleven-year-old child.

But why was Freddy watching it with such relish? Once again, I could not help glancing at his intent face. In the end, I put it down to children perhaps liking exciting things.

Anyway, we finished the movie.

That left me having some trouble sleeping. Shadows occasionally flashed past the curtains, and faint noises came from who knew where, though most of it actually came from the jumble of thoughts in my head. At around midnight... I took my pillow and planned to make do in Freddy's room for the night.

He would welcome me, right?

I carefully climbed out of bed, and the moment I opened the door, I found myself face-to-face with someone.

Martin Gray was a registered male patient at the state psychiatric hospital on the outskirts of town, diagnosed with pedophilia accompanied by paranoid personality disorder. Since his condition had not manifested in violent attacks, only an abnormal interest in children and tentative attempts to approach them, the hospital had classified him as a "mild case presenting no immediate danger to society." That was what his discharge notice said.

In truth, it was mainly because funding was tight and the beds were over capacity, so room had to be made for psychiatric patients who could afford hospitalization and treatment-his course of treatment remained incomplete, and he was merely required to return for regular follow-up appointments. With that one ineffectual medical instruction, he had been discharged.

But someone like him would find no acceptance in society once even a little of his reputation got out. After his discharge, Martin had neither a job nor a place to live. He could only wander crowded areas, hoping to take enough money from someone's coat or trouser pocket to buy some black bread or spend a night at the cheapest inn.

Of course, he was not the only one released. There had been a whole group. Among them was a man named Roy Cole, a registered male patient at the state psychiatric hospital on the outskirts of town. He had previously caused minor injuries through intentional assault and had been diagnosed with intermittent explosive disorder accompanied by antisocial tendencies.

But the suspicion that he was feigning illness to evade responsibility far outweighed the likelihood that he was genuinely ill-after all, with psychiatric medicine as backward as it was at the time, there were neither precise testing methods nor rigorous diagnostic criteria, leaving no way to investigate whether his condition was real.

A man who had been normal for over thirty years had followed a vulnerable woman one night and attempted to beat and rape her, only to be beaten up by the family members who had come to take her home and brought before a court. Had his condition not appeared a little too conveniently, allowing him to escape legal punishment? There was no way to know.

Anyway, these two things that fell rather short of human moral standards were birds of a feather. They hit it off immediately and became a duo.

With just a little asking around town, they found two defenseless children who happened to be exactly what they wanted.

They staked out the house for two days, making sure that only one child came and went, with no other adults around. Martin also happened to know a little lock-picking, so the two slipped in through the back door in the dead of night.

They turned the living room upside down and did find a few valuable things, such as the black-and-white television on the first floor, the little silver spoons in the dining room cabinet, and the solid copper tongs used to tend the fire.

They certainly could not take the television, but the other two things would certainly not be enough to let them both live comfortably through the winter.

So Roy, who had initially only wanted some spending money, eventually agreed to Martin's suggestion. The master bedroom was bound to hold the most valuables. The two of them went upstairs, and I happened to come face-to-face with the impatient Martin.

We stared at each other, then froze. I immediately slammed the door shut, but before I could lock it, the thin wooden inner door was kicked open. I stumbled, but there was nothing in my bedroom I could use to defend myself. After thinking it over, all I had was the rusty dagger I kept in a drawer.

I immediately pulled open the drawer and grabbed the dagger. Rust covered its blade, and its brass handle had been worn smooth. Even its reflection looked dull, but I gripped it tightly anyway, my fingertips digging into the rusty cracks as I forced myself to raise my voice, even though I could not stop it from trembling at the end.

"Stay back!"

Roy gave the room a quick glance. A wardrobe, a bed, and a desk with a bookshelf-almost everything was visible at a glance.

He kicked the wooden cabinet beside the doorway apart, spat, and said, "I won't make things difficult for you. Hand over the valuables, and I'll leave you both alone. There's another kid here, right? It's so late. Let's let the little one sleep, how about that?"

I stepped back, struggling to stop shaking. "The valuables are all in the bedside cabinet. Take them yourself."

After saying that, I slowly backed toward the other side of the bed. Roy opened the bedside cabinet almost impatiently and searched through it, drawer by drawer. I seized my chance and tried to run for the door, but Martin grabbed my arm and flung me against the wall beside the doorway. I let out a short, muffled cry.

Roy's hand reached the bedside cabinet. Even though a door had struck his forehead, leaving a red mark at his temple, he paid it no mind, merely bending over to scan the objects inside the cabinet. With a clatter, a wooden drawer fell straight to the floor. It was already the end of the month, and I had not yet had time to take my bankbook to withdraw money. There were only a few dollars and some coins in the drawer.

"Just this worthless crap?"

Roy spat and reached down to rake through the scattered odds and ends, searching for coins. But he found only a few pennies and nickels, and his expression darkened even further.

I swallowed and said,

"I'm the only child in this family. My parents aren't home. They only leave me a little money every month, and it's the end of the month now. Most of it's already spent."

Neither of them seemed to have considered that. They seemed somewhat annoyed, but did not show much of it. There was hardly any money left, much less any jewelry.

But neither of them was evidently willing to leave just like that. Roy took a knife from his pocket and pointed it at me.

"There must be something else worth money. Tell us, or else..."

Even with one arm tightly held, I could only retreat as they forced me back. My spine pressed against the cold wardrobe door, making it creak. The two closed in from either side. Martin's rough, greasy hand roamed over my face, and Roy's hand had almost reached my wrist when a very faint sound suddenly came from the hallway-

It was the sound of bare feet on wooden floorboards, as soft as a cat's paws touching down, yet exceptionally clear in the deathly quiet master bedroom.

All three of us froze at once and turned toward the doorway.

Freddy stood in the dim yellow glow of the hallway wall lamp, wearing loose cotton pajamas, his sleep-tousled hair plastered against his temples. He gripped the doorframe, his eyes wide as he stared straight at the two strangers in the room. He had clearly been woken by the door being kicked in and the swearing earlier.

But there was none of the panic a child should have shown on his face, only a trace of bewilderment. Deep in his eyes, however, lurked a cold glimmer, like thin ice forming on a winter night.

The instant Martin's gaze landed on Freddy, it changed-the irritation of rummaging through things, the viciousness when I got in his way, all vanished in an instant, replaced by a cloying, almost greedy eagerness. His eyes shone so brightly it was unnerving, and even the corners of his mouth lifted involuntarily, like a starving beast stumbling upon tender prey. He murmured, his voice softening, yet carrying a sickening intimacy.

"I remember you, my dear Freddy..."

Roy paused too, apparently finding the name familiar as well.

"Freddy? I remember now... The one that crazy nun gave birth to."

I wrenched my arm free of Martin's grip, then held the dagger in both hands and drove it hard into Roy's arm.

"Aah!"

Roy screamed. I seized the chance to slam into the rather thin Martin, grabbed Freddy, and ran.

But clearly, two children could not outrun two adults. We had only made it halfway down the stairs when someone slammed into me. I tumbled to the bottom, splitting open a large patch of skin on my head.

Freddy took a bad fall too, but luckily he had been farther ahead and quickly scrambled to his feet.

"Freddy! Run!"

He was usually very obedient, but now he grew stubborn, insisting on trying to help me up. After all, we were less than three meters from the door. If we could just run another couple of steps, we could be saved.

But the two men were closer to us than the door was. I gave Freddy a hard shove and shouted with all my strength, "Go!" Freddy looked at me, then turned and ran into the kitchen.