Chapter 2

Susan's face had gone white with fear. She braced herself against the wall, her voice shaking. "Frank... Frank... is it... is it what that blind man said..."

"Don't talk nonsense!" Frank cut her off sharply, but his own voice carried a faint tremor that was hard to catch.

Matt said nothing. His sharp gaze swept every corner of the yard. Just now, in the instant the hens went mad, he thought he had caught a black shape flashing past behind the chicken coop out of the corner of his eye. It had moved shockingly fast.

His heart sank. The old black cat again.

He walked around behind the coop and crouched down. In the damp mud was a trail of small paw prints, each shaped like a tiny flower.

The prints ran all the way to the foot of the wall, then vanished.

Matt stood up and brushed the dirt from his hands, his expression grave. He didn't tell anyone what he had seen, because he knew it would only frighten his family more.

But in his heart, he no longer took the blind man's words for the ravings of a madman.

Some kind of shadow, unseen and untouchable yet completely real, had already fallen over this house.

On the second night after the hens were frightened to death, trouble came to the Lawson house.

At nightfall, the family locked the yard gate and the house doors early. Frank even dug out a thick wooden beam and wedged it hard against the front door. A single dim kerosene lamp burned in the room, its flickering light throwing their shadows onto the walls, where they writhed and clawed.

No one could sleep.

Grandma lay on the bed, tossing and turning. Susan and Frank sat on the edge of it, ears straining for any sound outside. Matt leaned by the window, watching the yard warily through a small hole in the window screen.

After midnight, dark clouds swallowed the moon, and the yard went so black you couldn't see your hand in front of your face.

Just when everyone was at their most exhausted, a sound began.

Scritch... scritch... scritch...

It was soft and slow, with a strange rhythm to it, like fingernails scraping lightly across the wooden door, over and over again.

Frank and Susan sat bolt upright, cold sweat breaking out at once.

"Who's there?!" Frank kept his voice low as he grabbed the shovel beside the bed.

No answer came from outside. Only that scritch... scritch... went on. It was unhurried and patient, one stroke and then another, as if it could scrape straight into a person's heart.

"Is it... is it a tree branch in the wind?" Susan's voice was shaking badly.

"Like hell! There aren't any trees in the yard!" Frank swore, his eyes locked on the door.

Matt's heart was in his throat too. He crept over to the door and pressed his ear close.

That was no wind. It was the sound of something alive. He could even sense that something was right outside, pressed flat against the door.

The scratching stopped.

Just as the family thought it had gone and were about to let out a breath, an even more bloodcurdling sound rose up.

"Mrrrowww..."

It was no ordinary cat's cry.

The sound was thin and shrill, drawn out impossibly long, carrying an indescribable venom and misery, like a small baby wailing in despair in the dark.

Grandma gave a violent shudder on the bed and let out a stifled moan.

Every hair on Matt's body stood on end!

It was the black cat!

He pressed close to the crack in the door and squinted out with one eye.

The yard was still pitch black. He couldn't see a thing. But just as he was about to look away, he saw it.

Less than a foot from the door, two points of green light glowed faintly in the darkness, like two tiny will-o'-the-wisps.

A cat's eyes!

That cat was crouched right on their doorstep!

"Dad!" Matt stumbled back a step in fright, his voice cracking.

Frank realized what it was too. Blood rushed to his head, and he roared, "I'll kill you, you damn beast!"

He yanked back the bolt, ready to charge out.

"Don't open the door!" Grandma cried out shrilly from the bed.

But it was too late.

Frank flung the door open and charged into the black yard with the shovel raised.

"You beast! Come out!"

The yard was empty. There was nothing but the wind. The cat seemed to have vanished into thin air.

Frank stood in the yard for a long time and found nothing. In the end he could only go back inside, cursing under his breath, and wedge the door shut again.

No one dared close their eyes for the rest of that night.

The whole family sat back to back under the flickering lamplight, eyes open, enduring it until dawn.

Only when the first rays of morning light reached the yard did everyone feel that bone-deep chill ease a little.

Matt went to the door and crouched down.

On the thick wooden door were five deep, parallel claw marks. They were long and thin, as if raked there with an iron hook, cut as deep as a wound that reaches the bone.