The woman was fanatically dialling police.
Bent over the little decorative wooden table upon which the phone sat, she watched her fingers tap randomly at the phone, shaking so uncontrollably, it was as if the buttons were swimming randomly in the white plastic sea of their casing. She let out a short, quiet, panicked cry and spluttered a little. The man upstairs, his voice muffled, sounded calm, he was talking to her daughter, what was he doing? Why was he here? Then, footsteps, on the stairs, she watched, paralysed as the boy, walked slowly, almost apathetically out through her front door. Why was there a child with this man? She blinked to clear her vision, but the blackness was eating at the corner of her eyes. The throbbing in her head throbbed, unsurprising, and, almost thankfully, the blackness that had been nibbling its way through her vision, took her.

"Mrs Pranderguast?! Is that Mrs Pranderguast?!!" The voice sounded shocked, Mrs Pranderguast forced her eyes open and felt the light of the room beat into head.
"Urghs" She ejected. It was a girl, another stranger in her house, she pulled herself up onto her elbows and stared at her, eye to eye.
"Mrs Pranderguast, we need to get you to a hospital." The half formed image of a girl instructed.
"Your not here for her" murmured a bored voice from the back of the room, every syllable sounding like an effort, "We'll deal with her, you go upstairs and talk to Mary."
"Are you crazy?!" Stammered the girl. Mrs Pranderguast could not make out the owner of the other voice, he was standing in the light, but the voice sounded young, a young boy perhaps, the boy the man was with no doubt.
"Get out of my house!" She managed to half shout between dilating effort.
"Believe me, the child's in a worse state." Drowned the bored boy.
"Mary? Mary's here" The girl said.
"Upstairsssssss" groaned the boy, bored senseless. There was a shuffling of feet and the girl was gone, then the sound of someone ascending the stairs. There was silence for a moment. Mrs Pranderguast could hear her short, sharp, intakes of breath, almost echoing in the emptiness of the room. Then the boy's face swam into view, their noses now almost touching. Then, the face spoke,
"Well well well, Mrs Pranderguast" It paused, then continued, "what shall we do with then?"