Virgil stared at the dancing flame of a candle on his night stand while he tried to stay awake. He had made plans to sleep in shifts to make sure the candles didn’t start a fire in the room. The kids both slept horizontally across the foot of the bed, and he noted that they were clinging to each other even in their sleep.

He glanced at the clock, though it only confirmed that he had another half hour to sit through before he could be allowed to sleep. He knew that it was more likely that a banshee would show up right after he’d fallen asleep than it would for the creature to arrive while Lucy was enjoying her visit in dream land.

He shook his head at the thought. He’d set himself up for nightmares; no, he’d volunteered for them willingly. He’d even broken a few laws just to go find a few more nightmares to keep him awake. Still, he knew that what he’d learned could possibly make the difference in saving his family and neighbors. He tried to console himself that the safety of his family was worth the nightmares, but it seemed to him that he finally understood the true meaning of the saying “ignorance is bliss”.

A shadow near the door caught his attention, and he stiffened when he saw it flow across the floor near the most dimly lit areas. He leaned over to grab two of the candles from the nights stand and got up before he moved quickly to the door. Lowering the candles down over the shadow, he saw it puff up and away from the carpet before fading, but he suspected the banshee was far from done trying to sneak in past the light.

Somewhere nearby, a screech began  to piece the air. “Virgil, what’s wrong?”

“Stay on the bed,” Virgil said. “Get some of the candles in hand and pull the kids in close.”

“It’s in the house?” Lucy whimpered.

He nodded. “All of you should hold a candle close to you. This thing is able to slip through dim spots, but it turns into smoke under direct light.”

He lowered a candle to send away another tendril of black smoke when the screams began. He grimaced but forced himself not to think how likely it was that the couple screaming was Derrick and his wife Judith. Another tendril crept in at the side of the door and he dispersed it while he tried to remember if Derrick had any kids or not. The screeching faded without any child screaming, and he assumed that they didn’t.

Virgil heard someone knocking on his front door, and he groaned as he shook his head. “Lucy, grab the flashlights from the drawer! Hurry!”

“But it these things drain-“

“We have to try!” Virgil said and moved to clutch both of the candles in one hand while he took one of the flashlights from his wife. He gestured at the door with the light. “All right, I want you to open the door and flick your light on as soon as it’s wide open.”

“All right,” Lucy agreed quietly.

Virgil wasn’t quite surprised to find the figure outside his door. It looked very much like a thin man wrapped in a cloak, but something about the way in which the cloak flowed around the figure seemed unreal. Red eyes opened to watch him, and a low hissing voice spoke. -So nice of you to invite us in.-

Virgil knew he hadn’t really heard the voice, rather he felt it as a sensation inside his head. He took a step back, realizing that Lucy had frozen and was unable to think, let alone operate a complicated device like a flashlight. He shook his head. “I’m not inviting you in, asshole.” He flipped on the switch of his flashlight and gasped at the loud screeching sound that came from the creature before it dissipated.

The pounding on his door became frantic. “Virgil, don’t go out there.” Lucy whined. “It’s still here in the house. I know it.”

“Yeah, I do too, but eventually, it’s going to go for the targets outside.” Virgil turned at the sound of his door being kicked down. There were many footsteps, and well before he saw anyone, he could see a bright light that filled the stairwell.

Tony set eyes on him and sighed the moment he saw Virgil. Grinning with relief, he waved at his kerosene lantern. “I’ve forgotten that I bought this for our camping trips.”

Virgil nodded, waving for him to come closer. Behind him were two other husbands, Brad Mitchell and Richard Maddox, who followed very closely behind Tony. Virgil gestured toward the men and smiled. “This is all that remains of the bravest men?”

“No, everyone else is outside waiting for you. These are the only ones brave enough to still walk into a house where they just heard-” he stopped himself as a screech filled the air, and a moment later it was joined by a chorus of screams from the men outside.

“Damn,” Virgil muttered and looked around at his family with an uncertain expression. He didn’t want to leave them alone even with a room full of burning candles. Yet whoever had survived the attack was still standing in the open.

The screech faded, and the problem was solved for him as four men ran into his house and up the stairs in a full panic. Virgil let them rave for a minute before he whistled to silence them. “How many did you lose outside?”

“Three.”

Virgil turned his flashlight on the man and nodded at recognizing the block’s single  retiree, James Huxley before he dropped it. “Right, so I guess you saw which way the banshee came from.”

“Yeah, it slid right out of your front door. I’d barely had time to point at it when it sprang off of the ground and…”

“What?” Virgil asked.

“I dunno. It was kind of like watching oil being poured over them. They screamed and dropped, and then the- well the banshee just evaporated,” James said.

“Okay, first, we need to move those bodies out of the street. After that, Tony and I will go over to Derrick’s house to check if anyone survived, but I’m not holding out hope,” Virgil said and walked around the other men to descend the stairs. He went to the kitchen and turned on the light, moving to the cabinet under the sink to fetch his wife’s rubber cleaning gloves.

The gloves were too small for him and threatened to break when he pulled them on. Still he had no intention of touching any of the bodies directly. Fearing that the gloves could break, he grabbed a set of used plastic grocery bags and tucked them into his pocket. He turned around to look at the anxious expressions of the other men and knelt down again to start passing out bags. No explanation for their use was needed, and before he had finished, most of the men were tying the bags over their hands.

No one spoke as they worked to move the bodies into Derrick’s garage. Virgil knew the police wouldn’t be happy to have both of the crime scenes altered, but he was beyond the point of caring. He suspected that when police showed up, they wouldn’t need to bother with gathering clues anyway.

Virgil took off the gloves carefully and folded one over the other to throw them away in Derrick’s trash can. He glanced at Tony, who only nodded a confirmation that he was ready before they went into the house.

Both bodies were peeled, but Judith was still breathing. Virgil watched her moving weakly to drag herself out of the bedroom, and he raised his eyes to regard Tony with a sickened look on his face. “If you want to stay clean, you’d better leave now.”

“What? Hey, you aren’t going-”

“If we call the hospital, they’ll hold her body for the two days it takes this thing to gestate, and then there will be another banshee coming back here to finish us off.”

“Virgil... damn.” Tony looked down at Judith’s body and took a deep breath. “How will we do it?”

Virgil thought about it for a moment before he grimaced. “We’ll have to burn her.”

“No, man, that’s-”

“Tony, she’s already dead. The only thing moving her is the monster in her womb. I know for a fact that exposure to light doesn’t kill these things. It just makes them lose their form. If we want to kill this thing, we have to burn her.”

“How?”

“We’ll put her in the tub and find something flammable. If there’s nothing into the house or the garage, we’ll siphon their car and use gas,” Virgil said and looked down while he tugged a pair of grocery bags from his pocket. He finished covering his hands and still got no response. Casting a frustrated glance at his neighbor, he leaned over to grab the ankles and roll the body over.

He had already accepted that Judith was dead and didn’t bother with being gentle. Stepping backwards towards the bathroom, he checked behind himself often to avoid  having to watch the arms of the body flailing around as the monster inside tried to get away. Every time he looked up, he found Tony glaring at him as though he were somehow failing to respect Judith. But to him, there was no point in arguing, and he remained silent while he moved into the bathroom and flipped the body into the tub. It landed hard, splattering blood all over the inside of the tub and eliciting a sickened groan from Tony.

Their search for fuel ended in the garage with a can of pain thinner. Virgil sent Tony outside and returned to the bathroom. He took a deep breath and held it before he started to pour the thinner over the body. It writhed weakly while the mouth opened in a series of panting whimpers, and he tried not to think about how convincing the monster’s act  was as he walked out of the bathroom. He moved to the kitchen and tore a paper towel down from the roll mounted above the sink. Lighting the paper on the stove, he returned quickly to the bathroom to drop his mini torch onto Judith’s body.

Even though he stepped back, the rising fumes of the thinner blasted a fireball up and out of the tub. He fell back and shut his eyes and crying out in pain while his hand flew to where his face and neck were singed. He tried to stand up before the creature in the tub shrieked loud enough to pop both of his eardrums and drive him back down onto his knees.

Clamping his hands to the sides of his head, he got up and ran out of the bathroom with his head down. Just outside the door he collided with Tony, who took hold of his arms and stopped him. Virgil looked up at his neighbor, but for the longest time, he heard nothing of what Tony said. He muttered that he’d been deafened and sat down on the steps of the front porch.

Minutes passed before he heard Tony ask “hey, Virgil?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you okay?”

“No, I really don’t think so.” Virgil hooked a thumb over his shoulder toward the front door. “The guy who called me a prima donna is dead, and I had to set his wife on fire. I’m pretty sure that I killed the banshee inside her, because that screech was much louder than…” Virgil looked around at the door then glanced down at the lantern. “Tony, get everybody over to my house now. Tell them to bring every last candle with them.”

“Why, what are you thinking?”

“Think hard, okay? What would you do as a parent if you’d just heard one of your children put to death?”

Tony didn’t say a word before he dashed away from the porch. Virgil nodded to himself and got up to run back to his house. Within minutes, the living room and kitchen were full of people.

“What’s going on now?” Lucy asked.

“Just get ready for the worst,” Virgil whispered to her before he stepped up onto his coffee table and clapped his hands. “Okay, this may just be a false alarm. I’m praying to God it is, but I’ve just killed an infant banshee, and I’m sure you all heard it scream before it died. It screamed loud enough to deafen me, so I suspect its parent will be bringing some help here for revenge.”

“Wait, then why are we all here with you?” Richard asked. “Maybe you ought to go sit alone in a room with a lot of candles.”

Virgil stared at him. “Have you missed the body count today, Richard? You think tossing me outside is going to appease the banshees and make them go away? Look, everyone blaze a candle, and start picking out rooms. We’ll have this place full, but we’ll also have it full of light.”

“And what if that doesn’t work?” Richard challenged angrily.