Phantom Nights by John Farris

squinted her eyes.
    Alex looked blankly at her, and again at the wastebasket. Standing there with the fridge door open, milk bottle in his hand, little smear of chocolate bar bought at the picture show in one corner of his mouth.
    The phone rang.
    Bobby , she thought. His presence, although at the other end of a telephone wire, still distant from the house, gave her courage.
    "Put that milk back and get out of here," Cecily said, taking a step toward Alex. "That's Bobby calling. And when I tell him what you've done . . . Get out . Now. I don't care where you go. I never want to see you again!"
    His flaky lips parted in astonishment. He started to shake his head, then shrugged, confused and defensive.
    Now Cecily, urged on by the ringing phone, continued through the kitchen as if stalking him, and Alex backed up, staring in consternation at her overheated face. Upstairs, Brendan let out a wail, probably disturbed in a dream. He usually slept through wet pants. But Cecily jumped to another conclusion.
    "Were you in the nursery? What did you do to Brendan? "
    Alex found this new accusation—although the other one was a mystery to him—unnerving, and Cecily's own nerves, her show of incoherence, panicked him. He turned to the message board on the wall beside the fridge and the pencil hanging there on a string and began to scrawl on the notepad fixed to the board. In his haste he lost his grip on the bottle of milk. Some of it splashed across Cecily's bare feet. Cecily kept moving toward the telephone in the hall. She had cleared the doorway when Alex caught up and pulled her back into the kitchen. He wanted her to read the note he had ripped from the pad, but Cecily rounded on him in a panic equal to his and slapped him hard across the mouth, splitting his lower lip. Blood flew, but still he wouldn't let go until she screamed in his face.
    "If you ever hurt my mother or my child, I WILL KILLYOU!"
    Her fury staggered him, and his grip slackened. Cecily tore free of Alex and stumbled into the hall, stubbing a big toe on the doorjamb. She hopped twice and fell to her knees by the hope chest, lifted the receiver from the hook of the upright telephone.
    "Cecily?"
    "Bobbbbbbyyyyy."
    "What's wrong?"
    Crouched beside the chest, she looked in terror over her shoulder, thinking the worst: Alex now with knife or cleaver in his hand instead of a pencil, intent on shutting her up. But she didn't see him in the kitchen. The back door stood open. She heard her mother in the hall upstairs. Cecily's head was exploding, and she sobbed.
    "Bobby, it's Alex. He went crazy tonight. Tried to kill my mother. And he . . . put his hands on me. Bobby, Alex put his hands on me!"
    Â 
    F or the early part of the evening on that Saturday night, Mally Shaw had had company: a middle-aged man (late fifties probably was more accurate) who had notions of courting her. His given name was Herschel, but he had been called "Poke Chop" all of his life. They were related in some vague way Mally had never troubled to sort out. In the colored community Poke Chop had status: he was a 'cumulating man. Until recently he had been a letter carrier earning good Federal wages until fallen arches prompted his retirement. Among his accumulations were farmland, thirty beehives, fruit trees, a good well, a sound house filled with Sears Roebuck furniture and a late-model Oldsmobile. His most recent wife had gone to her rest two years ago; adult children had migrated to the big cities and he was lonely. Poke Chop had a wide rubbery face like a deflated inner tube and a picket-fence grin. He brought Mally treats such as pickled pigs feet or comb honey when he came to call, and played his banjo for her. Mally recopied in a good hand the letters he wrote to his scattered brood with a carpenter's pencil and served him spice cake.
    There was no chance she was going to marry him, should he get around to popping the question, or marry anyone else, but following his visits Mally