Nightstruck - Jenna Black Page 0,3

arm, then reached for the fold of blanket that covered its face. Maybe when I looked into the baby’s innocent eyes, I’d finally stop feeling so … weird.

There was a pin sticking out of the section of blanket over the baby’s face. Thanks to the pressing darkness, I didn’t see it until I pricked my finger on it. I cursed as a drop of blood welled on the tip of my finger. I still couldn’t see the baby’s face, though I had a vague notion of eyes watching me from the blanket’s interior. I reached for the edge of the blanket again, this time being careful to avoid the pin, and brushed it away from the baby’s face.

There was a face in there somewhere—I could see a pair of green eyes staring out at me—but I couldn’t make out a single feature. It was if the baby had somehow absorbed all the light, leaving nothing but a black hole where its face should have been.

My chest tightened, making it hard to breathe, and the air around me suddenly seemed even colder. Once again, I was struck by the sense that something was very, very wrong, though my conscious mind couldn’t seem to figure out what.

Maybe it was the expression in those eyes. I’d never seen a baby stare at anyone with such intensity, especially not a baby who’d recently been bawling.

I froze, my hand still hovering near the baby’s face, unable to look away, unable to move, as I tried to focus my gaze enough to pick out a nose or lips or chin. The drop of blood on the tip of my finger dripped down onto the baby’s face—or at least onto where the baby’s face should be.

Something flared in those green eyes, and the baby smiled at me. I let out a little scream and dropped it, scrambling back away from it on my butt. I didn’t know what it was, but it was not human. That smile had revealed double rows of razor-sharp teeth.

My heart was pounding, and my body was suddenly drenched in sweat. I could hear Bob barking and snarling in the distance, and the dispatcher’s voice was an indecipherable hum from my phone on the steps.

The baby—or whatever it was—moved out of the shadow, the black-wrapped bundle undulating like an inchworm. It rose up and looked at me, showing me those malevolent green eyes and the neat little rows of fangs around its smile.

And then the whole thing, baby, blanket, and all, broke apart like it was made of ash, crumbling and then being caught on a sudden burst of wind. The wind carried a cloud of what looked like dust toward me. I ducked and held my breath, but not fast enough to totally avoid the cloud. The wind swirled, then gusted again, blowing the cloud away and dispersing it into the night.

* * *

I was still shaking when I finally got home, and though I was freezing, my case of the shakes had nothing to do with the cold. I wrapped myself up in a blanket and curled up on the couch, trying to process what had just happened. Bob seemed as freaked out as I felt, jumping onto the couch beside me and putting his head in my lap. He wasn’t allowed on the couch, but house rules were the least of my concerns. Besides, he was a warm body, and he made me feel safe. Well, safer, at least.

What the hell had happened out there?

I shuddered and clutched the blanket more tightly around me. I heard again that first sound, the inhuman wail that had triggered some primal instinct to run. And then the cry of an innocent baby, terrified and alone in the cold.

Had either one of them been real? Had I somehow imagined the whole thing? Because what I thought I saw was impossible.

If I’d been even a little less freaked out, I wouldn’t have been surprised when the police showed up on my doorstep. I’d made that 9-1-1 call, and I’d identified myself quite clearly. There was no way telling the dispatcher to “forget it” was going to work.

The patrolmen who stopped by to talk to me were perfectly nice, going out of their way to be polite, no doubt because they knew who I was. I was glad I couldn’t read minds, because I don’t think I would have liked what I saw in theirs.

Naturally, I couldn’t tell them the truth about what had happened. They’d