The Intruders by Michael Marshall

man.
     
    When Alison O’Donnell woke at 2:37, it was the sound of rain she first noticed, but she knew that this had not been what had woken her. She pulled the covers back and swung her legs out of bed. Grabbed her robe from the end and pulled it on. She was foggy with bad sleep and mechanical dreams, but a mother’s feet operate outside her own control. Doesn’t matter how tired you are, how worn, how much your body and brain want to climb into bed again and stay there for a week, a month, maybe even the rest of your life. There are sounds that speak to the back brain and countermand your own desires.

    The discomfort of your young is one of them.
    She padded out of her room and into the hallway. Through the window she glimpsed trees pulled back and forth in high winds, white lines of water speeding across the glass. There was a sudden gust, and rain hit the window like a handful of stones.
    Then she heard the noise again.
    She shuffled down to the door at the end of the hall. It was slightly ajar. She gently opened it a little farther and looked inside.
    Madison was in bed, but the covers had been thrown down to her waist. Alison’s daughter was moving, slowly, her head turning from side to side. Her eyes were closed, but she was making a low, moaning sound.
    Alison walked into the room. She knew this sound well. Her daughter had started having nightmares a little before the age of three, and for a few years they were pretty bad. It got to the point where Maddy had been afraid to go to bed, convinced that whatever she saw there—she could never remember, when she woke up, what it was—would come for her again, that the feeling of constriction and suffocation would descend upon her again. A year or so ago, they had just petered out, become a thing of the past. But now here was that noise again.
    Alison wasn’t sure what to do. They’d never found a successful approach. You could wake her, but often it took a long time for her to find sleep again, and sometimes the nightmare would simply return immediately.
    Suddenly Madison’s back arched, the movement startling Alison. She’d not seen that before. Her daughter let out a long, rasping sound…and then slowly deflated. Her head turned, quickly, but then she sighed. Her lips moved a little, but no sound came out. And then she was still. And not moaning anymore.
    Alison waited a few minutes more, until she was sure her daughter was sleeping soundly. She carefully reached out and pulled the covers back over her. Stood for an additional moment, looking down at Madison’s sleeping face.

    Make the most of it, kiddo, she found herself thinking. A nightmare is just a nightmare. You don’t know anything about real sadness yet.
    As she turned away, she noticed something on the floor, lying on the bare wood just on the other side of the old rug that went under the bed.
    She bent down and discovered that it was a sand dollar. It was small, gray. It had been broken in half.
    She picked up one of the pieces. Where had it come from? Had Madison found it that afternoon? If so, why hadn’t she said? There was a reward….
    Abruptly Alison realized why her daughter hadn’t said anything, and she felt toxically ashamed. The piece Alison held in her hands was firm. Snapping the shell in half must have taken effort and been deliberate.
    She dropped the fragment to the floor and left the room, pulling the door almost closed behind her. Then she went back to her own bed and lay there for a long time, staring up at the ceiling and listening to the rain.

chapter
EIGHT
    I got to the Hotel Malo just before 10:00 A.M. I’d been awake since before 6:00 but realized I could not call Amy’s office for several hours. So I put myself into movement instead. Seven was the earliest I could arrive at the Zimmermans’ and borrow a car without looking too strange. Inspired by Fisher’s visit the day before, I told them I’d gotten a call from an old friend and was heading to the city for