18-The Curse of Yig(25)

“Y’aaaah! Y’aaaah! Go away! Go away! Go away, snake-devil! Go ’way, Yig! I didn’t mean to kill ’em—I was feared he’d be scairt of ’em. Don’t, Yig, don’t! I didn’t go for to hurt yore chillen—don’t come nigh me—don’t change me into no spotted snake!”
But the half-formless head and shoulders only lurched onward toward the bed, very silently.
Everything snapped at once inside Audrey’s head, and in a second she had turned from a cowering child to a raging madwoman. She knew where the axe was—hung against the wall on those pegs near the lantern. It was within easy reach, and she could find it in the dark. Before she was conscious of anything further it was in her hands, and she was creeping toward the foot of the bed—toward the monstrous head and shoulders that every moment groped their way nearer. Had there been any light, the look on her face would not have been pleasant to see.
“Take that, you! And that, and that, and that!”
She was laughing shrilly now, and her cackles mounted higher as she saw that the starlight beyond the window was yielding to the dim prophetic pallor of coming dawn.
Dr. McNeill wiped the perspiration from his forehead and put on his glasses again. I waited for him to resume, and as he kept silent I spoke softly.