"She ignored the endless ringing of the phone..."
by Alan Nicoll
"I've got to get out of here," she thought. "Whoever killed these people may come back." She stepped over a dead body to the front door. A third dead body, a woman, naked and skinny, was leaning against the door. Her eyes were gone from their sockets. Just like the baby. Just like all the half dozen corpses in the house. Not daring to touch the body, Alma pushed its shoulder with the sole of her shoe. The body slowly leaned sideways, then toppled stiffly to the floor.
Alma turned the doorknob and the door opened a crack, but it caught on the dead woman's buttocks. Alma tugged harder but the body was too heavy. She put down the pillow case and pulled at the edge of the door with both hands, forcing the dead body out of the way and opening the door. She bent down to pick up the pillow case and saw that there was a stain of blood, almost black, seeping through the fabric. She picked it up and stepped outside.
The mob was still there, murmuring, milling around in the street, staring sightlessly at the windows of the houses. None of them looked at Alma. None of them had eyes. She hurried down the driveway towards her car at the curb.
A man, his eyes gone, his eye sockets dark and bleeding, staggered across her path. He stopped, sniffing the air. His head turned towards her as though he were trying to see her. "Here!" he said loudly. "Here's one!" he yelled, reaching towards her. Alma recoiled from him but he came towards her, not staggering now. The crowd, attracted by his voice, began closing in on her.
"Let me go!" she yelled, dodging around his groping arms towards her car. If she could just get inside she'd be safe.
"Over here!" yelled a second man, following her. "She's heading for the street, get her!"
The angry mob closed in around Alma, hands reaching for her. The second man caught her hair and pulled her head backwards. Alma dropped the baby. The man's thick fingers closed around her throat, tightening. Alma, clawing at his hands, saw that this man had one eye and one empty socket. "In the country of the blind," he said as he strangled her, "the one-eyed man is king."