Heil by Randy Brown Bob woke up and listened.

He turned to his wife, Carol, but she was still breathing heavily into her pillow. He swung his feet out of bed and walked over to the window. There, standing on the porch below, illuminated by the backdoor light, was a man. He was beckoning to him. Bob bent over and stared. The man seemed to know he was there, for he beckoned even more insistently. Carol? said Bob. She rolled over and raised her head. Theres someone out there, , someones standing on the porch. Carol lifted herself up on her hands. What does he want? she said. I dont know. He seems to be waving at me. Carol came over beside him. Oh my God! Whats the matter? Look at him, replied Carol. Then Bob realized. The man wore only a bathrobe over his pajamas and was in his bare feet. Six inches of snow lay on the ground. Carol clutched his arm. Dont let him in. Bob hesitated. It seemed incongruous. Where could he have come from? Their farmhouse was half a mile from the road and a mile from the next house. They spent only occasional weekends there during the winter so it didnt seem possible that a neighbour would come that way for help[. Yet a half-dressed man was standing on their porch, freezing to death, beckoning. Ive cot to let him in, Carol, he blurted. No, no dont. He looks too strange. Call the police. Ive got to let him in. Hed be dead by the time the police got here. Anyway, hes alone. I can handle one man. I wont let you! I wont let you! Call the police, oh please, call the police! You stay here, he ordered and started out of the room. No! Dont leave me here alone! Ill come with you. Okay. Suit yourself, but come on.

Bob turned on the hall lights and headed downstairs to the kitchen with Carol right behind. They could hear the man pounding on the door, a loud, almost panic-stricken sound. Okay, okay, Im coming! Wait! called Carol. She pulled open the utensil drawer and lifted out the carving knife. Bob turned. Her hands shook so that she nearly dropped it on the floor. Just leave that on the table, he said. The pounding on the door was deafening. Bob hesitated. He could not understand the situation. They led such an ordered life. He had never come across anything that so defied an explanation. Carol had retreated into the far corner of the kitchen, her eyes fixed on him, shiny and ominous. He knew he could never use it. Shaking his head, he crossed to the door and pulled back the latch. The door burst open and the man was on him, pinning his arms to his sides. They crashed to the floor and Bob struggled for his breath amidst the shock of the impact and Carols piercing scream He kicked out and the kitchen table went crashing over. Carols screams faded into the background of his own rasping breath as he struggled to beat the man off. The knife was on the floor only a foot away. He lunged to grasp it and stabbed it into the mans back again and again. Bob rolled from under the body. Its all right, he gasped, staggering up, Its all right, Carol kept screaming. Following the line of the gaze, he turned around. The back door was crowded with a dozen more of the same men, all in pajamas and bare feet, all babbling and shoving their way into the house. Bob swung the knife at the figures that seemed only a blur to him. Carol was lifted up bodily and thrown down, her screams stifled. The press of the men forced Bob back into the corner. He could not advance against them. One large figure came out of the blur and Bob stabbed the knife deep into the mans chest. The figure toppled over onto him and he threw it back into the arms grasping at him. Directly behind him was the open cellar door. He darted through and slammed it, then quickly jammed several timbers against it so that it was immovable. The men tried to knock it down, but they could not, and they finally left it alone. For several hours, Bob crouched alone in his sanctuary, listening. He could hear Carol. She tried to scream quite often. Bob thought she couldnt scream because she couldnt get her breath. Mostly, she groaned. At the first she managed to scream about once every five minutes, but after about an hour she moaned. There were other noises too, of furniture being pulled over and general destruction going on, but he barely registered those noises. It was Carol he was listening for, and when they threw her around, he knew, because the sound of her body was softer than that of the furniture. He prayed that she would die. He began to curse her, screaming at her to die. Several times he

caught himself screaming at the top of his lungs, Die, die, die, die! In the morning, when the search parties arrived, they found Carols naked, frozen body by the front steps. The madmen were still roaming about the house. The police loaded them into several paddy wagons. They broke down the cellar door. Bob was sitting on the top step, babbling gently to himself and playing with the drawstring of his pajamas. I dont know how this one got down here, said the officer, but take him and throw him in the wagon with the others.