Demon Child

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    1
        
        The sky was low and gray as masses of thick clouds scudded southward, pulling cold air down from the north as they went. Jenny huddled against the chill as she entered the quiet graveyard where it seemed ten degrees colder yet. That was her imagination, of course. Still, she hunched her shoulders and walked faster.
        She stopped before three similar tombstones, one of which had only recently been set before an unsodded grave. In the entire cemetery, she was the only mourner. She was thankful for that, for she preferred to be alone. Turning her eyes to the stones, she read the names cut in them: Lee Brighton, Sandra Brighton and Leona Pitt Brighton. Her father, mother and paternal grandmother. As always, reading the names together, she found it difficult to believe they were all gone and that she was alone without even a brother or sister to share the burdens she carried. She wiped at the tears in her eyes.
        Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw someone. When she turned to look, there was no one there. But when she directed her gaze back to the stones, she saw him again, a large man, gray and indistinct, approaching her. She turned to stare at him.
        He was gone. The cemetery was empty, but for the fog and the tombstones.
        Suddenly, she could hear ghostly footsteps on the flagstone walk.
         Run, Jenny! the voices of her dead loved ones cried. Run, run! Look how suddenly and unexpectedly we died.
         A drunken driver ran a red light, killing Lee and Sandra in an instant. Grandmother Brighton died in seconds of a stroke.
         Now you must run or the unexpected, the unknown, will catch you too!
        She looked all around but still could not see anyone. Softly, the echo of footsteps grew closer.
        “Who is it?” she asked.
        The dead voices only answered, Run!
        The footsteps were almost on top of her now. Any moment, a hand would reach out and touch her, a cold, wet hand.
        “Who's there?” she asked again.
         Its the unknown, the dead told her. You can never anticipate what it will do, when it will take you. All you can do is run, Jenny. Hurry!
        She turned away from the stones and ran, her heels clicking on the walk. Despite the sounds of her own flight, the heavy panic in her harsh breathing, she could hear the gentle footsteps following her. She ran faster, dashed through the iron gates of the cemetery entrance.
        To her right, a car horn blared. She looked up in time to see the automobile rushing the last few feet toward her! Behind the windshield, the driver's face was a mask of terror. She threw up her hand for what little protection that would bring her, and-
        
        There was a screech of brakes and a loud rattling noise which woke her from her troubled sleep.
        She looked out of the bus window at the terminal, at the concrete veranda and the old wooden benches. For a moment, she was not able to remember where she was. The nightmare had seemed so real that the real world now seemed like a dream by comparison.
        Around her, people struggled to their feet, took bags down from the overhead luggage racks and made their way up the aisle toward the door, joking with one another about the incredible heat.
        Even as she got a better grasp on things, her fear remained. Just as in the dream, she was running, though not from some invisible, faceless force. At least she didn't think she was running from anything but loneliness. Her nerves quieted somewhat by the time the bus was nearly deserted; she picked up her purse and went outside.
        The bus driver, seeing she had no one to handle her two large suitcases for her, took them just inside the terminal door. In moments, everyone had been picked up by friends and relatives, leaving the terminal in a sleepy malaise again. Richard Brucker should have been waiting for her. She hoped that nothing was wrong. She waited for him inside the air-conditioned old terminal, by a front window where she could command a complete view of the parking lot.
        Dark clouds were shoving across the bright sky, as black as onyx, low and rain-filled. Such severe heat and humidity all day could only result in thunderstorms by evening. At least that was the general feeling on the bus where the air-conditioning had malfunctioned and the passengers had grown talkative hi order to make the leaden minutes pass more