Free Silent Children by Ramsey Campbell

"Where is she?" she complained.
    "She can't come to the door. I said she was special."
    "What's wrong with her?" said Crystal, her mouth on the way to drooping, one sandal digging at the path. "Can't she walk?"
    "She's just asleep. You've got to wake her."
    "Why can't you?"
    "She doesn't like boys to," Ian said, and saw his ingenuity impressing his friends. As soon as Crystal ventured forward, almost leaving the sandal with its toe stuck in a jagged crack of the path, he said "Come on and I'll show you her room."
    Crystal hesitated with one foot over the threshold. He saw Stu think of pushing her into the house, and looked at him hard enough to prevent it. "Why did the woman in the car say the little girl made a fuss?" Crystal said.
    "About coming in a house she didn't know, just like you. She's used to me and my mum now. She likes it here just like you will."
    When Crystal stepped forward he felt as though his friends' admiration for his technique had given her a stealthy shove. The moment she was past the door the boys crowded after her, and Shaun shut it while Ian blocked the way upstairs. "Want a drink before you see her?"
    "You made me thirsty walking so quick."
    Her using an accusation as a demand lost her any sympathy he might have had to suppress. She followed him to the kitchen and sat where he pointed, on the bench at the far side of the table from the hall. The back door was locked, and the key wasn't in it. He watched the floor, where the shadows of her thin bare impatient legs made the concrete or something beneath it appear restless, until Shaun and the others filled the doorway. "What am I supposed to give her?" he asked Shaun.
    "Something with water in."
    The door of the refrigerator cast a shadow like a trapdoor creeping open in the concrete. "Want some red stuff?" Ian said.
    "What is it?" Crystal said, so suspiciously that the boys in the doorway covered their mouths.
    "See what it says on it," Ian told her, and laid the bottle on the floor.
    He watched her grip the edge of the table to lean down. Her little finger touched the concrete as she took hold of the bottle by its neck and dragged it to her with a scraping of plastic that seemed to grow louder in his ears once it had stopped. She hauled herself into a sitting position and stood the bottle in front of her, but gave the label no more than a grimace for being unfamiliar. "Is it sweet?"
    "Try it and see," Ian advised, and carried the raspberry juice to the sink, where he filled a glass almost to the brim with juice before adding a splash of water. There must still be some of the little girl under the floor close to the pipes, he thought, however much of her the police had cleared away. The notion sent a shiver of excitement through him as he stooped to place the glass on the floor.
    "Stop putting it down there," Crystal protested, but leaned off the bench to reach for it, her bunches swaying on either side of her intent face. The shape of a little girl's hand swelled up out of the concrete beside the glass, then vanished as her closing hand met its shadow. Ian saw her fingers tremble as they gripped the table while she concentrated on raising the glass. He saw Baz and Stu itching to speed up the game, and Shaun scowling at them. Then Crystal had the glass and lifted it to her mouth, not spilling a drop. She continued to grasp the edge of the table as she tilted the drink into her mouth.
    Ian saw an inch of unsweetened juice vanish at a gulp, and held his breath. He watched her suck her lips in and her eyes start to water. Her head jerked up, and she tried to stand the glass on the table fast enough to give her time to reach the sink, but she was only in the process of swinging her legs off the bench when the contents of her mouth proved uncontainable, hitting the floor with a loud flat splash.
    There was a silence that emphasised how the stain was seeping into the concrete. Not until Crystal glanced up, looking ready for an argument, did Baz say "You've