The Funhouse

skin, and the pain prevented Ellen from putting all of her strength into the frantic attempt to strangle the thing.
        It rolled its eyes, then refocused on her with even more evident hatred than before.
        A silvery stream of thick drool oozed out of one corner of its mouth and down its pebbled chin.
        The twisted mouth opened wide, the dark, leathery lips writhed. A snaky, pale, pointed tongue curled and uncurled obscenely.
        The child pulled Ellen toward it with improbable strength. She could not keep it safely at arm's length as she wanted. It drew her relentlessly down toward the bassinet, and at the same time it pulled itself up.
         Die, damn you! Die!
        She was bent over the bassinet now. Leaning into it. Her grip on the child's throat was weakened by her new position. Her face was only eight or ten inches from the creature's repugnant countenance. Its rank breath washed over her. It spat in her face again.
        Something brushed her belly.
        She gasped, jerked.
        Fabric ripped. Her blouse.
        The child was kicking out with its long-toed, clawed feet. It was trying to gouge her breasts and stomach. She attempted to draw back, but the thing held her close, held her with demonic power and perseverance.
        Ellen felt dizzy, fuzzy, whiskey-sick, terror-sick, and her vision blurred, and her ears were filled with the roaring suction of her own breath, but she couldn't seem to breathe fast enough, she was light-headed. Sweat flew off her brow and spattered the child as she wrestled with it.
        The thing grinned as if it sensed triumph.
        I'm losing, she thought desperately. How can that be? My God, it's going to kill me.
        Thunder pounded the sky, and lightning burst from the broken night. A mallet of wind struck the trailer broadside.
        The lights went out.
        And stayed out.
        The child fought with renewed fury.
        It was not weak like a human infant. It had weighed almost eleven pounds at birth, and it had gained, phenomenally, more than twelve pounds in the past six weeks. Almost twenty-three pounds now. And no fat. Just muscle. A hard, sinewy, gristly infant, like a young gorilla. It was as strong and energetic as the six-month-old chimpanzee that performed in one of the carnival's more popular sideshows.
        The bassinet toppled with a crash, and Ellen stumbled over it. She fell. With the child. It was close against her now. No longer safely at arm's reach. It was on top of her. Gurgling. Snarling. Its taloned feet found purchase on her hips, and it tried to tear through the heavy denim jeans she was wearing.
        “No!” she shouted.
        A thought snapped through her mind: I've got to wake up!
        But she knew she was already awake.
        The thing continued to hold her right arm, its nails hooked in her flesh, but it let go of her left arm. In the blackness she sensed the hooked claw reaching for her throat, her vulnerable jugular vein. She turned her head aside. The small yet incredibly long-fingered, deadly hand brushed past her throat, barely missing her.
        She rolled, and then the child-thing was on the bottom. Whimpering, teetering on the wire of hysteria, she tore her right arm loose of the creature's steely grip, at the expense of new pain, and she felt for its arms in the darkness, found its wrists, held its hands away from her face. The thing kicked at her stomach again, but she avoided its short, powerful legs. She managed to put one of her knees on its chest, pinning it. She bore down on it with all of her weight, the creature's ribs and breastbone gave way beneath her. She heard something crack inside the thing. It wailed like a banshee. Ellen knew, at last, that she had a chance to survive. There was a sickening crunch, a wet sound, a horrible mashing, squashing, and all the fight went out of her adversary. Its arms went slack and stopped trying to resist her. The creature abruptly fell silent, limp.
        Ellen was afraid to take her knee off its chest. She was certain that it was faking death. If she shifted her weight, if she gave it the slightest opening, the thing would move as fast as a snake, strike at her throat, and then disembowel her with its spiky feet.
        Seconds passed.
        Then minutes.
        In the darkness she began an urgent, whispered prayer: “Jesus, help me.
        Saint Elena, my patron saint, plead for me. Mary,