Free The Kimota Anthology by Steve Lockley, Stephen Gallagher, Neal Asher, Stephen Laws, Mark Chadbourn, Mark Morris, Paul Finch, William Meikle, Peter Crowther, Graeme Hurry

and reedy and it set her teeth on edge. Those spindly arms folded around its knees, and then it rocked backwards and forwards, the laugh slowly subsiding into a perverted giggle. She could feel the waves of black emotion radiating out from the thing hunched on the floor - the loathing, the malice, the perverse glee in suffering.
    Her legs felt like lead as she stumbled across the room. Inside her there was a little voice questioning whether she could do it, but somewhere she found that little bit of strength she needed to keep going. The cold enveloped her like a dip in a winter sea.
    “You can’t have my son,” she said, almost to herself.
    The giggling increased a notch.
    By the time she had reached the cot, Gill felt as if she had trekked across Antarctica. Her skin felt leeched of warmth, red and raw, and she could barely stand as she leaned over the edge and looked in. Christopher was still alive. Despite the cold, he looked almost normal. Gill leaned in and pulled him out, the effort almost bringing her to her knees.
    She was so cold.
    It giggled.
    The dreamlike quality became more intense. The edges of her vision were blurring and her breathing had become laboured; she felt detached from herself like her spirit was drifting away from her body. Though her back was towards it, she could feel the heavy weight of its stare upon her. It was waiting hungrily for her to drop.
    It was so cold.
    As she pulled Christopher close to her to give him some of her rapidly fading warmth, Gill knew she would not get out of the nursery alive. Briefly, her son’s eyes flickered open and locked onto hers, big, dark pools of innocence, and she felt an overwhelming burst of love. With trembling hands, she hugged him tightly to her breast.
    Her legs were frozen, her fingers dead wood. When she looked around, the dark, misshapen thing was no longer where it had been, but she could still sense its presence in the room. A thing that sucked the life from children and thrived in a bleak emotional wasteland.
    Her eyesight was fading; flashes danced across her vision. Her body would no longer respond, but she could feel that voracious, black spirit drawing closer. It was moving across the room behind her, slow yet unstoppable like an ice floe. She waited to feel its cold touch on her neck.
    “Mrs Robson?”
    Gill opened her eyes. She was on the floor of the nursery. A young policeman was bending over her, rubbing life into her left hand; his palms felt fiery hot. Stiffly, she levered herself up on to her elbows and looked around.
    “Christopher?”
    “He’s fine, Mrs Robson. WPC Flowers has taken him downstairs. She’s called an ambulance, but he’ll be okay.”
    Gill still felt cold, but it was no longer a razored arctic chill. The nursery was as it always had been; no gleaming frost covered the walls and floor. With an incredible feeling of relief, she realised that dark, wintry presence was no longer there too. It had left a vacuum in its passing that she could feel, waiting to be filled again.
    “Your husband called us from the hospital,” the policeman continued. “He was convinced there was something wrong with you and your son. He was getting hysterical so we agreed to call round.” He helped her to her feet and then stepped back formally. “Are you okay?”
    She nodded. Her skin was tingling where the warmth was slowly returning to her frozen limbs.
    “You must have fainted when you were getting your son out of the cot.” He pointed to the window which Gill saw was open to the icy night. “With that open, your temperature dropped quickly. It’s a good job we got here when we did. You shouldn’t really have had a window open on a night like this. It’s minus seven outside.”
    “I didn’t open it.”
    He shrugged. “Maybe it blew open.”
    Gill didn’t argue.
    In the lounge downstairs, she snatched Christopher from the policewoman and hugged him tightly, thinking of John, of them all, as a family. The tears in her eyes