Year's End: 14 Tales of Holiday Horror by J. Alan Hartman

even an old house wouldn’t crack like this. For a moment she was overwhelmed with the unfairness of it all. Seth was in his house with his white, dog-free carpet and new sofas, and she was left in a falling apart bungalow. He didn’t deal with spraying for roaches or repairing the peeling wallpaper.
    The rat’s foot twitched and disappeared, sucked back into the wall. Lynn pushed Wobbles back with her foot, sliding back along the edge of the counter. In the rat’s place, moving the tail aside, the tip of something slipped out of the crack. Not a tail; it moved with careful deliberation, examining the crack and floor, rat tail and Wobbles’ food dish. Like the antennae of a roach, but infinitely longer, and slender. Whispers followed, something in the wall muttering unintelligibly. And from within the crack, a circle that reflected light and shone back at her, watching.
    That was enough. Jack hesitated in the doorway of the living room, illuminated from behind by the snow of the television. She had his hand in hers and, without thinking, half dragged him to the garage. “Mom, Mom, what was it? Where are we going?”
    She pulled him down the steps and pushed him toward the car, running around to the driver’s side, throwing herself down in the seat as Wobbles went up and over her into the back. She jammed her fingers against the ignition as she fumbled with the keys, but the car roared to life and she backed down the driveway into the street, pausing to look through the lit kitchen window. The house looked so sane from here. “Something in the wall,” she managed, struggling for breath.
    “What?”
    Nothing happening. She took a moment to take a shaky breath. She hadn’t had that much champagne. She looked back at Wobbles, who was still growling softly. “I don’t know. An antenna, or a feeler. Big.”
    The lights in the house went out. Lynn peeled off into the night, bringing startled cries from the partygoers in the street. “Find a radio station,” she said. Jack scanned the radio. Wave after wave of static. “Try the AM.”
    “How come there’s nothing on?” Jack asked, his voice faltering.
    “I don’t know. Maybe a solar flare or something.”
    “But it’s nighttime.”
    “It doesn’t matter. It can happen anytime.”
    She pulled the car over to a stop for moment to scan the channels herself.
    “Mom?”
    “Yeah?”
    “I saw this one show on TV, about this group of people who thought the world would end tonight. Do you think they mean that?”
    “Baby, someone thinks that every new year’s. But midnight already happened all over the world.” Her clock read 11:23. Theirs was on the way. She looked back at him, sitting wide-eyed and pale in the streetlight. All those horror movies, and it was a news broadcast that got him. She smiled a little in spite of herself. “Jack, it’s okay. I don’t know what that was, and I don’t know about the radio or TV, but we’ll figure it all out, okay?” She pulled him close for a hug. “In the meantime, we’ll go to a hotel. And everything will look better tomorrow.” She certainly didn’t feel that way, but she had said things like that so many times. Jack nodded a little and pressed against her, then pulled back.
    This neighborhood was quieter. Through the window, she saw a man fiddling with his television. “See, Jack, it’s not just us.”
    “Mom.”
    “Hang on, I need to decide where to go.”
    “But, Mom !” She looked at where he was pointing. In the house across the street, a silhouette of another man walked by the window, carrying a rifle. There was a flash and Lynn ducked at the roar of the gun, pulling Jack down under her. It went off twice more, and in the house a woman screamed. The neighbors peered out of their houses. The street went dark. Lynn looked up at the dark streetlights, and checked on Jack. The only light now was the dim blue glow of the clock and the lights from the dashboard.
    “Mom, just go, just go!”
    She did.