Demon Child by Dean Koontz

went out while I was in a coma-and I killed Holly-cross.”
        “No,” Walt said. “And I'll show you you're wrong.” He did not speak hostilely, but with warmth and Mend-ship.
        “You can't show me that,” Freya said. “Because it's true. I really did tear out Hollycross' throat.”
        She said it dryly, coolly, matter-of-factly. Her tone made Jenny unconsciously hug herself against the chill that had invaded the library hi the last few minutes.
        “You wait,” Walt said. “I'll show you that you're wrong.” He paused a moment, collecting thoughts. “What day is today?” he asked Freya.
        “Monday.”
        “Let's go backwards through time,” Hobarth said. “Let's just melt back and back through the hours. See, it's Monday morning now, and you're just getting up. What color pajamas are you wearing?”
        “Yellow,” Freya said. “With blue buttons.”
        “You're yawning and stretching,” Walt said, putting a yawn into his voice. “You rub your eyes and get out of bed. You look at the clock. What time does the clock say?”
        Freya's voice had grown sleepy, as if she indeed had just climbed out of bed. “Ten minutes until nine.”
        Hobarth continued swiftly. “That reminds you of when you went to bed Sunday night, doesn't it? You were really tired, weren't you? What time is it Sunday night when you go to bed?”
        “Aunt Cora puts us to bed at eight-fifteen.”
        “How do the covers feel?”
        “Warm. The middle cover is scratchy, though. It's made of wool, and I don't like it.”
        “You're talking to Frank in the dark, aren't you.”
        “Yes.”
        “What are you saying to him?”
        And that easily, he had taken her back to the previous night. With great care, he worked her back to supper time Friday evening, to the point where she passed out on the upstairs hallway floor.
        “What was it like?” he asked.
        “Dark,” she said.
        “You were asleep?”
        “Yes. Waiting.”
        Walt frowned. “Waiting for what?”
        “For the spirit to congeal inside me.”
        “What spirit?” he asked.
        “The demon.”
        “There is no demon,” he said softly.
        “The wolf demon.”
        Hobarth looked at Jenny, shook his head. It seemed that he had not been expecting this either. He pulled at his nose with the fingers of his left hand, trying to think. A few moments later, he said, “There wasn't any such thing. You were asleep. There was nothing more than darkness, was there? Don't fib to me, Freya? There wasn't any wolf spirit, was there?”
        “Yes, “Freya said.
        Again, he collected his thoughts, decided to play along with the child to see where she was taking him. “Tell me about this wolf spirit, Freya. What was it like?”
        “It was inside me,” she said. “It was all wound up in me. But when I was sleeping, it unwound. It crawled out of me. You couldn't see it if you were there. It went out of the house, and part of me went with it.”
        “Where did you go?”
        “The woods. In the woods, in the darkness, it grew a coat and a face and feet to run on.”
        “Grew them? Out of what?”
        “Out of the fog,” Freya said. Her voice was tiny, desperate, echoing from deep inside her.
        “That's silly, isn't it?” Walt asked. He chuckled to set the mood he wanted.
        Jenny thought he was positively marvelous. He was able to handle anything, no matter how eerie and unexplainable it appeared. She wished she were sitting closer to him. She would not have felt so cold and frightened then.
        “It isn't silly,” Freya said.
        “But how could it make flesh and blood out of fog?”
        “It's a demon,” Freya replied. She seemed utterly certain of herself. Her eyes were closed, but her eyeballs jerked in agitation behind her thin, white lids.
        “What does it do now?” he asked.
        “It runs through