Touch

Twelfth

"Dad!" Katie called.

"What-what if the hands hear?" Lucas asked.

"They're hands. Hands don't have ears." But she was lowering her voice. Hands didn't come out of faucets either. Or feel like rubber. Weren't solid black. Didn't punch through doors.

Who knew if they had ears too?

Katie was quiet now. She held the gun front and center as they crossed the hallway, searching for any sign of Will Pops. If something impossible moved, she would shoot it.

Lucas might have--should have--held the gun, but in his current state, he'd be amazed if he could aim. Even more amazed if he remembered how to shoot.

"Dad?" Katie whispered, and jimmied the door to one of the guest rooms open. She peered inside with wild, hopeful eyes--only to be disappointed. "He's not here either. Maybe he's downstairs, in his office."

"Or in the living room." A timid pause. Another door was opened, another empty room lay before them. "Do you think that, maybe, the hands got to him?" asked Lucas.

Katie had thought of the possibility of her father's premature death long before Lucas. She dreaded it, in fact. Her mom and her dad, both chocked till they were cold. The image made all kinds of pain flare within her, made her shoulder cry out once more.

Mom's dead.

"I don't know," she answered tightly, doing her best to bury the terrible thought, and her soft face was covered with hard lines. She knew she would soon cry again. Soon, she'd be unable to do anything. Soon, the terrible thought would be undeniable. But she had to find her father before that happened. It took all she had to even out her voice as she told Lucas, "Let's try downstairs."