Janey swallowed down the great lump swelling in her throat. She moistened her lips and swallowed again. The hinge whined softly and she heard the muted click of the catch as the door closed. Her legs were frozen, gripped in an awful paralysis as the blackness crept tighter and closer around her, suffocating her in its relentless cold invisibility. She drew herself sharply up and clenched her fists. “No! I’m crazy! There’s no one there. I’m just hearing things. The power’s gone off. All over town. The power’s gone off!” She jerked her head around toward her room and stiffened rigidly again. The power was not off. She could see the faint greenish glow change to red, sifting from the street through the closed slats of the Venetian blind at the front window. Her mouth and throat turned dry again as she turned quickly back, her eyes straining down into the inky blackness of the stair well. Perhaps it was just their power that had gone off— Then she heard the loose board in the pantry in front of the dining-room door.
