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"Josh! I'm sorry, Mrs. Watts. It's just that, well, we're not too accustomed to missing children around here, and I'm afraid my partner's patience is a little strained."

"That's quite understandable, Officer Corrigan. I'm rather tense myself. Shelly, could you"

"Oh, I knew you wouldn't believe me. It's just too weird. But I think I can show you," Shelly said.

"Show us? You mean, take us to the park?" Corrigan asked.

Shelly stood up and shook her head. "I don't know how, but I can show you. They were standing there." Shelly motioned to the center of the circle. "I twirled in on them, and then they just weren't there. That's what happened to your file box, Mom. And to Jeffery too. I'm sorry about Jeff."

"Jeffery?" Corrigan asked.

"That's the cat," Shelly's mother said. "And apparently, my daughter's done something to him."

Grown-ups. "Just watch," Shelly said. Shelly started chugging around the rug again, a train once more. None of the grown-ups spoke. The only sounds were the scuffing of Shelly's shoes, and the burr of the kitchen alarm clock. Shelly looked up once, to see her mom gnawing a knuckle. When Shelly got near the center of the rug, she stopped.

"There," she said. "That's what I did. That's where they were standing. And then they were gone."

"Uh. Huh," Jefferson said. "They just vanished, right? Just like that?"

"Well, it looked more like they were sinking. And sort of stretching."

"So if I stood there," Jefferson said, "I'd sink and 'sort of stretch' too?"

"Stop! Yes, I think so. But be careful. I can't tell where it is just by looking. I guess we'll have to try it again."

"Here," the standing cop said, contempt in his voice, "use my hat."

In two steps he was beside Shelly. He dropped his hat where she was pointing. The rug sank several feet. It's getting faster, Shelly thought. A lot faster. The hat vanished, and the rug returned to its flatness.

"Son of a bitch!" Jefferson said, his hand going to his gun.

"God. Damn. God damn indeed," Corrigan said as he got to his feet. He turned and gave a bobbing nod. "Mrs. Watts, I apologize for doubting your daughter."

"I wonder…" Jefferson said. He took another step forward, just to the edge of the section of the rug that had dimpled, and slid his foot across the center. He dug his heel around, but met resistance everywhere.

"Oh, I don't think it works that way," Shelly said shyly. "Before, only one thing would go through at a time. But we could try it again."

"Son of a bitch," Jefferson said again. "No, don't try it yet. Let's see if we can get my hat back first. He crouched to peer more closely at the rug. "Damn, that's a nasty smell."

"That always happens too. Pretty icky."

"Yes it surely is, girl," Jefferson said. "And it always happens?"

"Always today, yes."

"Does it." He stared a minute longer, then stood up. "Tell you what, Miss Watts. Let's see what happens when you start where you are and 'show us what happened,' only backwards. Go the other way. I want to see if we can get my hat back."

Shelly felt the chili move in her stomach. "I don't like that idea much."

"Just do what they say, Shelly," her mother said.

Shelly sighed and turned around. She began to trudge her train in the other directly, a quarter speed. Grown-ups. This wasn't fun anymore. From behind her she heard "Hey, there's my hat."

Shelly paused where she was and looked over one shoulder. Officer Jefferson's hat hung from the end of his pistol barrel. A foul yellow sludge dripped from it, and Shelly fought the idea to tell him to get it off his gun. He reached the same conclusion on his own, though. He shook his hat loose, and frowned at the barrel's discoloration. He sniffed his gun and winced, then said, "Go on, girl. Let's see what else there is to see."

Shelly trudged on. She made one reluctant circle of the room, then another. She stopped when her mother screamed.

Shelly looked over her shoulder again. Jeffery lay on the rug. At least, the front part of him lay on the rug. His smooth gray fur was caked a dark red, except where it was covered with more of that yellow sludge. His back half was very wet, and looked like he'd been turned inside out. Both of the policemen had drawn their guns.

"Go on," Officer Jefferson said. Mr. Corrigan had been the talker when they first started, Shelly thought, but now it was like Jefferson was in charge of everything. Or trying to be.

Shelly walked on. This really isn't fun anymore. I don't want to see any of this, and I don't think the grown-ups know as much as they think they do. Shelly heard a choking sound, and once again she stopped. It was her mother, trying not to get sick. Sicker. Shelly glanced at the center of the room. Both parts of Jeffery were now fully visible, jumbled together with the shredded file box and a bunch of papers. At the bottom were some matted leaves, and the tip of something that looked like a kid's tennis shoe.

"Go on."

"I-I don't want to."

"Go on." It was a toss up if Shelly was more afraid of what was going on behind her, or of what was being exposed on Officer Jefferson's face, but in the end, a grown-up was a grown-up, and Shelly was used to obeying. Slowly, slowly, she took another turn around the rug.

"Stop! Not another step!"

Shelly stopped where she was, one foot suspended in the air. She didn't want to look back, but eventually she had to. Too weird, she thought. It was so weird that she forgot to be scared. The pile of, well, stuff, was about knee high. Shelly could see Angie and Jonathan, all blended together. The whole pile was dripping yellow goo. It's like the dumpster back of the Chinese restaurant that mom hates but dad sometimes takes us to, Shelly thought, only even that never smells this bad, even when they dump the old grease. But weirdest of all was the rug. It bulged up around the pile, like a blanket with air under it. It was moving. Something underneath it was moving quickly, scuttling in irregular spurts like a crab, but it was big. Bigger than the Henderson's Saint Bernard, Shelly thought. One foot still hanging in the air, her leg starting to tremble, Shelly looked at her mom, then at the policemen. Both of them had their guns ready.

"What should I do now?" Shelley asked. For once none of the adults had anything to say. Then a strange look came over Officer Corrigan's face. "Isn't there another family living in the lower half of the house?"

Shelly's mom started to answer him, but before she could finish there was a shout from the kitchen. "Hi everybody, I'm home!"

"Daddy," Shelly squealed. He'd know what to do. Shelly ran to hug him. In the process, of course, she put her foot down.

One of the cops yelled, "No!" By then it was too late. Behind her, Shelly heard a wet tearing sound, a scream from her mother, two gunshots, and then a scream from one of the cops.

"Daddy, it wasn't my fault. I didn't want to walk around the rug, but Mom and the police said I had to and--"

"Slooow down, punkin. Just what are you running on about? And what was all that noise?"

"Dad, I think we should get out of here," Shelly said. But by that time it was too late. Shelly heard a moist scuttling sound on the linoleum, and saw her father's eyes widen with fear. Then an oversized claw snipped his head from his shoulders. But it won't kill me, Shelly thought. She stood very still while it chewed on her dad's body, pausing occasionally to belch yellow goo over the body. Her dad's body steamed and softened where the goo hit. Shelly tried not to choke at the smell, or stare too hard at the blood and goo mixing on the thing's outer shell.

Shelly managed very well. She didn't start to choke, or to scream, until the thing from under the rug turned its dark and faceted eyes towards her, bobbed its jaws once, as if nodding, and began to scuttle around her in an ever-tightening spiral. Then, then Shelley screamed.

The End

Bio

"I attended Clarion West in the summer of 2000. After finishing graduate school in English at the University of Iowa, I moved cross country to Bellingham Washington, and turned my attention seriously to writing fiction. Since September 2001 I've had stories accepted by 3SF, Would That It Were, Ideomancer.com, Palace of Reason, deathlings.com, the Mammoth Book of Road Stories, and the Why I Hate Aliens anthology. My non-fiction appears regularly in Strange Horizons, New York Review of Science Fiction, and Tangent Online. In my spare time, I practice Shintaido (a hybrid Japanese martial art), and spend time with my girlfriend Kathleen. "