The Woman In The Shadows

Part Ten - Hello Again

     With each blow, her head smashing hard against the wooden door of the tool shed, Sheila felt herself drift further and further, the noises and lights of the world replaced with a growing darkness which filled her vision, the image of the enraged and rotting face of the woman holding her disappearing into the shadows as she began to let go.

     The only thing stopping her from completely losing hope were the shrill screams of her youngest daughter on the ground, her hands and knees covered with mud and grass stains as she helplessly watched the demonic woman murder her mother.

     She's mine now the woman hissed through her black teeth as dark fluid spewed from her mouth and on to Sheila's face as each syllable filled the air between them.

     Sheila could hear voices, Jim and Meadow screaming her name, their faint images barely visible as they ran to her aid, the darkness of her vision fading them from sight like the final scene of a movie, disappearing before the audience just before the final credits ran.

     "Run" Sheila managed, her breathing so shallow she could barely speak as the world began to spin, "run away" she tried again, her eyes rolling back in to her skull, her feet vibrating furiously just above the ground as the woman's icy cold hands squeezed tighter around her throat, forcing the air from her lungs as her icy grasp burned the flesh on Sheila's neck.

     It was the flash of light - like that of a small explosion - that snapped Sheila back to the land of the living, the flames warm as they washed over her skin in the cold winter air.

     "Get back!" A voice Sheila had never eard before bellowed before yelling some more, "Release her now!"

     Sheila fell to the ground in an uncollected heap, her body feeling a hundred times heavier as she tried to get up, unable to breathe as the burning sensation around her throat became more pronounced, the smell of her own burning flesh leaving her feeling nauseas.

     "Sheila!" Jim's words filled her ears as she tried to hold on to consciousness, her husband's voice acting like a life preserver tossed out to her at sea, the rushing waves if slumber crashing in to her wrecked vessel.

     Images of something she thought she saw flooded her mind, the likeness of a child crying, struggling to breathe as his head was submerged, again and again under water, the sounds of panic- filled gasps for air filling the air around her slowly beginning to fade in and out like a dream in the early morning.

     "Jim" Sheila whispered before she found herself standing straight, not in control of her own body as she straightened, her head snapping violently from one face to the next as she locked eyes with the five people standing before her in states of mixed panic fear and anger.

     "...Mom?" Meadow asked meekly as she staggered back behind her father, joining Sandra.

     Jim watched in horror as every capillary in Sheila's eyes began to rupture, ne by one. Blood covered her pupils, running down her cheeks and collecting in the corners of her mouth before pooling over, dripping one dark red drop at a time down the front of her shirt.

     "Get back!" the unfamiliar voice said, a piece of wood in her hand as she violently swung it about in the air that separated Sheila from her family and the strangers before her, it's tip on fire - the tiny embers leaving the flame, filling the air like fireflies on a summer's night.

     "That's not your mother, child" the other voice added, standing beside the woman with the torch.

     Alexander and Julia stood side by side, directly in the path between Jim, his daughters, and what used to be Sheila.

     "What the hell is going on!" Jim demanded, ignored by the two strangers blocking his path.

     I told you, silly  Sheila said in a voice not her own - the same voice Jim had heard in the kitchen earlier; the voice he thought he had imagined, the voice he thought was the voice of his own temporary insanity,  I told you what's going on - you will die. Your wife will die. And your children will be mine.