Again! Tap... Shuffle... Tap... Shuffle... Always after one in the morning, the man with the wooden leg passes by outside my bedroom window. Why does he walk there where there's nothing only my bungalow, the hedgerow and the field? There's no moon tonight. Never when there's a moon, always when it's pitch black. There's nothing to see there, and no one to see him. Maybe he's ashamed of his appearance.

God there's a sound like a baby howling in terrible pain. It might be a cat. I wish it would stop, but it's getting worse and worse. I must look in the garden to make sure it's not a baby. I can't hear the one-legged man any more. Has he gone now, or did he stop to hear the baby crying? Who would abandon a baby, or what could be causing it such agony to scream like that? I'm a coward, afraid to go and look in case the one-legged man is there.

He must have gone by now. He wouldn't stand for so long to listen to the baby crying. (Probably a cat, after all.) Maybe he has something to do with the howling. He might be torturing a poor little baby. But why would he torture a baby, and skulk about in the dead of night with his slow tapping and shuffling? Can nobody else hear? Surely the next house must be awake! Are they deaf! It might be in their garden.

At least I must go to the window and peep through the curtains. That should be safe. But I don't want to make a sound. Now if I stay too quiet he'll know that I'm lying here, unnaturally quietly. There has to be a continuum of natural sound, but now I've frozen. That's sure to draw attention to me. It's too late to make small noises to sound natural now, the damage is done. He'll come to the window to wait for me to peep through, knowing that I'm keeping too quiet.

A sound in the hallway. Not the creaking of the building, I know that well enough. Not a knock on the door, more like a football dropped. Forget it, things fall over all the time--no point in going to see what it was. It won't fall any further, as the teacher used to say. No way could the one-legged man have come in. How ludicrous.

Was that a tap in the hallway? I thought I heard a tap and a shuffle. Stupidly, I've become so quiet that I can hardly breathe. I think I might choke, because I can't swallow. Dear God, let me just swallow. A terrible cramp in my neck. I will surely die. But at last - I can swallow. My throat was paralyzed. I want to get up and turn on the light but my legs refuse to obey me. The one-legged man might be there in my hallway, right outside the door.

Another baby has started howling. There are two now. I don't care anymore, I must turn my eyes now to look at the door, and ignore the babies howling. There is every reason to be afraid after all. The doorknob is turning.

I can't move. A swarm of bees is inside my head, buzzing louder and louder. Their sound drowns out the howling babies, as the bedroom door opens slowly revealing a black space. I'm trying to shout but the sound is compressed in my unworkable throat, into a rising wolf howl. My limbs are numb. A figure made of shadow approaches. A hand made of shadow reaches for my face.

It's true. There is such a thing as cold sweat.

^