He was struggling to breathe and was feeling light-headed as the memory of Jake’s terrible laughter returned. He grimaced and rubbed the rain from his face.

“What kind of faces?”

Jake frowned, not sure how to answer. “Like the ones you do,” he said.

Frank closed his eyes. He grabbed Jake’s hand, more for support than anything else, and he felt the boy recoil.

“Daddy, you’re hurting me.”

Cindy placed a hand on Frank’s arm. “You’re scaring him,” she said. “Let’s not make it worse than it is, okay?”

Frank released Jake’s arm and turned his attention to his wife. “Excuse me?”

“He’s five years old, Frank. He doesn’t understand. A nice man just gave him a toy. Right, Jake?”

The boy nodded, staring at his father. “I got Joey,” he said to Frank, as if his father had misunderstood. “See?” He held up the action figure in the rain.

Frank exchanged another look with Cindy and she nodded encouragement. “Let’s leave it at that, shall we?”

Frank felt as though he were the only one whose stomach was still tied up in knots. His heartbeat was racing and he felt physically sick. Hadn’t Cindy seen that hideous arm uncoiling from behind the tree?

“I understand what you’re saying,” he said, glancing down at Jake, “but I think we should report it.”

Cindy knelt down and gave Jake a kiss. “Absolutely. But later. When we’ve had more time to think things through.”

Frank didn’t like the sound of that. When Cindy said they needed to “think things through,” it usually meant he listened while Cindy decided what course of action they should take.

“Look,” she said. “We’re getting drenched. Let’s go back to the car and talk about it later. Agreed?”

Frank nodded and looked down at his son. Jake was whispering something to Joey, and Frank felt another unpleasant wave of nausea. There was a pause as the boy considered something. Then he held the doll up to his ear and listened as Joey whispered back.

* * *

The journey home was tense, the air in the narrow interior of the Volvo squeezed between the three of them until Frank found it almost impossible to breathe. The rain had started to fall heavily now and was spraying off the windshield like pellets. The countryside beyond the glass looked blurry, even slightly distorted, like a Polaroid trembling on the edge of being developed. Frank was having to peer hard through the windshield, his eyes fixed on the road. He was conscious of Jake in the backseat, fiddling with the action figure; he was also aware of Cindy seated upright beside him, her shoulders taut, her face unmoving in the dull light.

They stayed that way for much of the journey home, though as they left the countryside behind, the rain stayed with it. The familiarity of the dry city streets was like a gentle reminder never to leave them behind again.