Freewebs http://aruminatingghost.webs.com/fiction.htm Slapslap ... slap ... slap. On the edge of dreams, the night noises turned the wife's chaotic thoughts to her baby daughter, asleep in the next room. Too tired to wake, but too awake to settle, she tossed and turned and whimpered in her state of half-sleep.

For a time, she dreamt of savage dogs. They purused her relentlessly across across a sunlit field, thier barks loud and coarse in her ears. When she looked behind, they appeared as dark blurs bounding over the green, hilly landscape. She ran, but the sensation of standing still overtook her she woke gasping  as one of the blurs leapt at her.

Beside her, her husband lay awake. He had been listening to the trees, at what he supposed was the way they amplified the sound of the wind, making it seem more violent and destructive than it actually was. Without warning, the wind would pick up and send itself screaming through the old eucalypts, tearing leaves of branches and whipping them into a furious whirlwind that raced up the driveway and battered against the fences, where the leaves would be deposited for a short while before being scattered again. By morning, they would lie brown and dying in great mounds, but for the moment they were a swarm of angry imps that kept the husband awake and his wife unsettled.

Seeing she had woken, the husband turned over and wrapped an arm around his wife's middle. Comforted, her mind eventually turned again to their baby daughter, who slept contentedly in her cot, unfazed by the imps' frantic carnival taking place outside her window. The wife's thoughts were never far from her child, even in her fitful sleep; always hoping for the best, protecting against the worst.

Outisde, the sounds of the carnival had died down. In the quiet space between whirlwinds, the husband had finally fallen asleep. Exhaustion kept his mind free from the same menagerie of disturbing imagery that plagued his wife's sleep, and would have kept him at rest if it weren't for the sudden piercing crash that burst into his subconscious.

Next to him, his wife sprang from the bed. In a fit of the purest panic, she shrieked and dashed out of the room, thinking something had happened to her daughter. He leapt across the bed to follow her, fully awakened by the terror he heard in his wife's voice. Through the windows, the imps laughed callously at the sight. They tore at the glass and shook the roof tiles. When they found the laundry window inadvertently left open, they threw their might against the flimsy flywire, sending cans of insect repellent and fabric softener tumbling from the ledge, adding to the noise.

The light was on in the hallway, and the husband reached for his wife's arm and held on to her, turning her round to face him, hoping to calm her. She could hear her own heavy breathing, but couldn't stop it. She looked down the hall towards the laundry, then back to her daughter's bedroom door. As one, husband and wife opened the door and entered the room. Sitting up in her cot, a smile poking around the edges of her dummy, the small child waved happily to her mother and, not understandin the relief it gave her, said, 'Hi, Mamma.'

In that moment, the imps retreated to their eucalypts, realising their efforts would amount to little tonight.
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These stories haven't gone through any kind of rigorous editing process, and probably won't since it's always difficult to edit your own work. I will, as always, endeavour to post the most professional, complete work I can, but I apologise in advance for any mistakes in grammar, punctuation or spelling.
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