Snippet #1754266

With her father departed, Rachel diligently went to work on barricading the house as instructed. She hated the long hours alone, but the work gave her something to keep her mind off what lay beyond these rooms. Kept her mind off whether or not her father would return. Or at least that was Mark's intentions.

However, as the passage of time droned on, the dull thud of the hammer seemed to echo so very loudly in her ears - a steady repetitive noise that at last she could bear no longer. The faint sounds of movement and scraping from the distant streets seemed to brush her senses and inflame her imagination.

Dropping the hammer she turned and fled upstairs to the very same room her father had departed from. Closing the door and sliding a chair in front of it she huddled down in a corner behind the bed hugging her knees.

And there she sat in silence as the seconds turned into minutes and each minute seeming to linger for an eternity. Every trickle of fear dripped into a growing pool of terror that left her heart racing and her eyes squeezed shut against the thoughts that filled her head. Her father would return and things would be fine again. He would come back for her. He always came for her. Just like he did that first night...

"RACHEL!" The bellow came from the upstairs bedroom where Mark and Julia Santos spent a third of their lives - or, more specifically, just outside of it - and was loud and startling in the relative silence of the Santos family home.

The sharp tone roused Rachel from her sleep down the hall as she sat up and rubbed at her eyes. Perhaps it was a child's intuition, or simply instinct, but something was wrong, very wrong.

“Dad?” Rachel called hesitantly. She was confused and disoriented.

The slamming of the door was her initial answer, followed by several smaller bangs, and a woman's voice grunting against the door. Her father swore under his breath, barely audible over the cracking of the doorframe, rocking on its hinges. Suddenly, a howl split the night air, feminine and animalistic, and the door closed again.

The thumping of booted feet, and suddenly, her father was standing in the door of her bedroom, panting, tears shining bright in his eyes. In his hand was his nightstick, with a sheen of blood.

"Rachel, baby. We have to go. Pack some things." He started to move into her room, opening up her closet as he spoke.

The howl from down the hall had Rachel half out of bed, her covers thrown back as her father came into the room. “What's going on? Dad what's wrong?” she asked fearfully.

“Where's mom?” she suddenly blurted out and made a run for the doorway.

He whirled, grabbing her arm. "Rachel, No!" He yelled, forcing her to face him. "Rachel, honey, we're going away for a while. Mom has to stay here, she's... she's not... oh God."

He ducked his head, his tears falling to the carpet, heaving silently.

Tears sprang into Rachel's eyes at her father's tone. Something was terribly not right and she threw her arms around his waist in a hug. “I'm scared dad, what's going on?”

Her father took a breath, deep and rattling, before facing her once more. "Mom's sick, Rachel. We need to leave for a while. Like when we went camping with Grandma. You remember that, right?"

Rachel nodded obediently and wiped at her eyes. “Are Buster and Cinnamon coming?”

Mark shook his head, slowly, keeping his eyes on his daughter. So young. "No, Mom's going to take care of them. But we have to pack now, okay?"

“Okay...”

The sounds of movement downstairs drew Rachel out of her memories and back to the present. Scarcely breathing she pulled her knees tighter to her chest and simply hid behind the bed.