The Haunting of Sunshine Girl

by Paige McKenzie

  Mom tries the doorknob again, pressing her weight against the door.

  “Help me, Sunshine!” she shouts, so I grab my phone, get up, and stand beside her, pressing against the door with all my strength.

  Something presses back and we both jump away.

  Splash. Splash. Splash. And in between the sound of someone coughing, sputtering, gasping for air. A child’s voice saying Please!

  I close my eyes. I don’t want to imagine what’s happening on the other side of that door, to the little girl who just wanted to play. Maybe if I’d just played with her . . .

  I jump when something cold touches my socked feet; I shine my phone’s flashlight on the carpet. Something is seeping out from under the bathroom door. I crouch down to look more closely. I don’t think it’s just water.

  Whatever it is, it’s a reddish sort of brown, darker than the tan of the carpet. I take a deep breath. I hope it’s not blood. I’m not so good with blood.

  “Mom?” I say as I back away from the door. “What is that?”

  Mom doesn’t answer. Instead, she pounds her fists against the door, making me jump all over again.

  “Whoever you are, don’t you dare hurt that little girl!” she shouts.

  “You said there was no little girl.”

  Mom ignores me. “Don’t hurt her!” she shouts again, louder this time. “Do not hurt her!”

  Splash. Splash. Splash. Please!

  I start shouting too. “Don’t hurt her!” I echo. “Don’t hurt that little girl!” I put up my fists and pound against the door with all my might. And in between the pounding of our fists I listen for the sound of splashes. As long as she’s splashing, she hasn’t lost. As long as she’s splashing, she still has enough life in her to put up a fight.

  Please don’t do this again, I hear her beg, her voice thick with effort.

  Again? What does she mean, again? How many times has this happened before?

  Splash. Splash. Splash. More brown water rushes out from under the bathroom door, soaking the carpet, drenching the bottom of my jeans.

  I pound even harder, and Mom does too. Between the two of us we’ll knock the door down before we give up.

  All at once the sound of splashing stops. The bathroom is suddenly horribly silent. Mom and I look at each other in the darkness.

  Just as suddenly the lights come back on. The door swings open. I was in midpunch, so I fall face first into the bathroom, knocking my nose against the tile, face down in a puddle of murky water.

  I start shaking uncontrollably.

  “It’s just rust, Sunshine,” Mom explains breathlessly. She knows I’m kind of phobic about blood.

  “Rust?” I echo.

  “From the pipes,” she says, gesturing to the tub. I nod, struggling to get my bearings and looking up at the room around me. It doesn’t make sense: the water from these pipes has never been rusty before. Maybe this water is different. Older. Rotten. I inhale—the smell of mildew is so strong I can taste it.

  The bathroom is a disaster area. Though the faucet isn’t running, the tub is overflowing with water, like it’s being filled from below. The tiles around the tub are all scratched up, as though someone was gripping both sides, hanging on for dear life.

  I pull myself up to stand. It’s so cold in here that I’m surprised there’s any water at all; you’d think it would be frozen solid.

  My heart is pounding so fast, and I can barely breathe. No one else is in here. It’s just Mom and me—no little girl, no evil man standing over her, forcing her to beg for her life.

  But why would a ghost have to beg for her life anyway?

  Mom reaches into the tub and releases the stopper; water begins to disappear down the drain. The mirror above the sink is broken, cracked right down the center, and it’s all fogged up so that it takes me a second to see my own reflection.

  I’m soaked and shivering. My white T-shirt is stained brown with rust.

  “Mom?” I say, turning around to face her. She just shakes her head. Unlike me, she’s covered in sweat, hot from the effort of pounding on the door.

  “Mom?” I say again, but she still doesn’t answer. Instead, she backs into the hallway, her soaked shoes leaving footprints on the carpet.

  “What the heck happened in there?” she asks finally. She looks at me like she thinks I have an answer, like maybe all my obsessing over ghosts for the past few weeks has given me some insight, some knowledge into what’s going on in this house.

  I can’t believe I ever complained over a few gusts of wind and a messy floor. What was all of that? Just a warm-up for what happened tonight, the grand finale?

  “Sunshine?” Mom prompts. “Was that your ghost?”

  I Am Watching

  Sunshine has no idea that I am watching. This is a first for me—normally I observe spirits, and spirits always sense when they are being watched. In fact, it’s nearly impossible to hide from a spirit, though the ability would come in handy from time to time.

  But it is easy to hide from a girl, even a girl like her. To her I am just another car in the school parking lot; perhaps my windows are tinted a bit more than her classmates’, but not enough to draw attention. I am a stranger in the aisle of the supermarket, searching for the ripest avocado. And right now I am the man taking an early morning walk in her neighborhood, enjoying a brief respite from the rain.

  I perceived the creature’s arrival last night, even from across town. It was even more powerful now than it had been before, stealing strength from the rain and the damp, a long wet trail of misery in its wake. I left my motel and drove to the house, parked right outside. I wasn’t worried that Sunshine or Katherine would see me. They were too troubled by what was going on inside to notice the stranger in the black car staring at their front door, straining to hear the sounds of their screams.

  It tried to touch Sunshine first. I wonder if she even noticed, preoccupied as she was with the suffering of the little girl on the other side of the door. She hasn’t honed her skills yet, doesn’t know how to perceive a demon’s touch. The creature pulled away as though Sunshine’s flesh burned it.

  It latched on to Katherine easily, wrapping itself around her, soaking into her skin. Did she notice the layer of moisture that sprang up on her flesh? Probably not. Most don’t. Like her adopted daughter, she reserved her focus for the cries on the other side of the door. It will take hours for the shift to occur in her body and mind, days for her eyes to dim almost imperceptibly, weeks for her hair to lose its luster and her skin to grow pale. The creature isn’t in a rush. It knows exactly how much time it has.

  I drove away not long after midnight, but now, just a few hours later, I am back. There is other work I could be attending to, but I tell myself that none of my work is more important than this. Than her.

  And so I am watching.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The Morning After

  Mom and I sleep in the living room. Well, sleep might not be the right word for what we do. First, I scrub my face and hands clean, using the kitchen sink because I can’t stand being in that bathroom a second longer, wondering what kind of monster could hold a little girl under water even as she struggled so hard that there are scratch marks in the tile. We debate over whether to call the police. “And report what?” I ask. “A flooded bathroom with a malfunctioning lock?” Then we collapse onto the couch in the living room. We don’t turn off the lights; I don’t particularly feel like being plunged into darkness again anyway. We just sit there, holding hands, staring at the wall across from us. At some point I guess I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I know, it’s morning, and the scent of Mom’s coffee is wafting in from the kitchen, and I’m stretching my arms above my head, blissful in that brief moment between being asleep and being fully awake when I don’t yet remember that the scariest thing that ever happened to anyone happened to us last night.

  Okay, maybe not the scariest thing that ever happened to anyone. But it’s gotta be up there on t
hat list somewhere. It’s certainly the scariest thing that ever happened to me.

  “Mom?” I say, padding into the kitchen.

  “Morning, sweetie,” Mom says as she pours herself coffee. “My goodness, what a night.”

  “Understatement of the year.”

  “My neck is killing me,” she says, tilting her head back and forth. “Maybe after work tonight you can rub it for me?”

  I shrug.

  “That’s the last time I sleep on the couch,” Mom says with a sigh.

  I shake my head. “I’m not heading up those stairs anytime soon.”

  “Planning on going to school in the clothes you slept in? Very glamorous.”

  “I don’t care.” Who cares what I go to school wearing? I notice that she’s fully dressed, her hair drying down her back. “Did you take a shower?” I shudder, trying not to imagine her having to step over a puddle of dirty water in order to get to the tub.

  “Of course I showered,” she replies. “I shower every day. And you should really get a move on if you’re planning on taking a shower before school. I can give you a ride today if you hurry.”

  I shake my head and reach for a mug and pour in some coffee. I add a ton of sugar—I don’t exactly feel like filling my mouth with bitterness this morning; I can still taste some of last night’s mildew—and make my way toward the stairs. I close my eyes, and a flash of what happened last night fills my imagination. I shake my head. Mom’s right. I can’t wear these clothes to school today. I look down and see that my shirt is filthy: stained brown with the rusty water.

  I remember the fear I felt when I fell into it, terrified that it might be blood. I’ve never been good with blood. When I was six and lost my first tooth while biting into an apple, my mouth filled with blood and I actually fainted. Mom loves telling people that story. A nurse’s daughter, scared of the sight of a little blood, she’d laugh.

  Apparently I’m not so good with rust either. Did I really sleep like this?

  Slowly, clutching my coffee mug to keep warm, I walk up the stairs, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other. I have to walk past the bathroom to get to my room, and Mom has left the door open, the lights on. I want to walk right past it without looking in, but I can’t help myself; before I know what I’m doing I’ve turned my head and looked inside. I brace myself for rusty brown stains on the floor, the broken mirror, the scratches on the tile.

  But what I see is even scarier. “Mom!” I shout, my voice is so loud that it startles me.

  “What?” she shouts back, running up the stairs. “Are you okay?”

  I shake my head. “Of course I’m not okay,” I answer. My hands are shaking so hard that coffee is splattering out the sides of my cup. She takes it from me, then looks me over like she’s trying to find a cut or a broken bone, trying to figure out what could have made me shout for her the way I did.

  “You’re spilling this everywhere.”

  “Did you . . . did you clean it all up?” I ask, but then I shake my head. She could have wiped up the water, but you can’t scrub away scratch marks. You can’t replace a broken mirror at seven in the morning. Beneath my feet the carpet that was damp just a few hours ago is dry. The scent of mildew hangs in the air, but then again, this house always smells damp.

  “I’m going to try to, but seriously, Sunshine, coffee leaves a stain. It’s a good thing this carpet is tan . . .”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You splashed coffee all over the carpet,” Mom says, pointing to the floor just outside the bathroom door. I haven’t actually stepped inside yet.

  I shake my head. “No, I mean . . . how did the bathroom get like this?”

  She sighs. “Get like what? Listen, honey, I know I said I could give you a ride to school, but you really have to get going or else I’ll be late. The way you shouted—my gosh, I thought you must have been dying or something. Don’t scare me like that.”

  “No,” I say slowly. “I’m not the one who was dying.”

  “What are you talking about? Is the dog hurt?”

  My skin prickles, making me want to scratch myself. “What are you talking about?” Mom doesn’t answer. Instead, she crouches down and starts blotting the fresh stains on the carpet with a paper towel. A cold chill makes goose bumps blossom on my arms and legs. “What do you remember about last night?”

  Without looking up at me, she answers, “We had roast chicken and mashed potatoes with too many lumps in them. We made ice cream sundaes, and you spilled chocolate syrup on your shirt, and we fell asleep on the couch watching The Tonight Show, and now I’ve woken up with a crick in my neck so bad that I think I might have to find a chiropractor.”

  I take a step backward, away from the bathroom, away from her.

  “That’s all you remember?” I ask, my voice shaking. “Nothing else? Nothing at all?”

  “Is there something you think I’m forgetting?”

  Yes.

  A scream so bloodcurdling I can still hear it echoing in my ears.

  A little girl’s voice begging for mercy.

  A darkness so black, it felt like I’d never see the sun again.

  Mom stops blotting, sits on her heels, and looks up at me. “Did you have another bad dream or something?”

  Did I have a bad dream? No. It was real. I have the ruined shirt to prove it. But she says the stain on my shirt is chocolate syrup. One of us is going crazy. One of our minds has invented memories of what happened last night.

  I close my eyes, willing myself to keep calm. Take a deep breath, Sunshine. The answer is right in front of you.

  Or on you, I think, looking down at my shirt. I hate chocolate syrup. I never, ever, ever put it on my ice cream. I like plain vanilla. Boring, just like Ashley says. Mom knows that. So there’s no way the stain on my shirt is syrup. It doesn’t even look like syrup; it looks like exactly what it is: a dried-out patch of rusty water.

  She’s the one with the made-up memories, not me.

  But now what? I can’t make her believe me. All my proof is gone: the scratches on the floor, the shards of glass in the sink from the mirror above. I should have gotten my camera last night, should have taken pictures. In my terror I guess it never occurred to me that I might need more evidence. I thought she finally believed me; that was the one part of the night that wasn’t scary. I actually felt better, even with everything going on, knowing she was finally on my side.

  I need some time to think. To figure this out. Alone.

  So I say, “You’re right. I’m just moving too slowly this morning. You should get going without me. I can walk to school.”

  “You’re sure?”

  I nod.

  “All right,” she says, pressing her hands against her thighs, pushing herself up to stand. She leans over and kisses the top of my head. “I know you’re having a tough time adjusting, Sunshine. Maybe . . . I don’t know. Maybe if things aren’t better for you in a few months, we should consider moving back to Austin.”

  Her voice sounds so sad when she says it that I shake my head. “I’ll be all right,” I say, and I don’t watch her walk down the stairs. Instead, I turn around and head for my room, closing the door shut behind me before I collapse onto the floor in a little ball, hugging my knees to the chest.

  That’s the first time I’ve ever lied to my mother.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  A Good Old-Fashioned Haunting

  I take my time getting dressed, even though it means I’m missing first period, the first time I’ve ever cut a class. It’s turning into a day full of firsts. Ashley would be so proud of me, doing normal teenage things like lying to my mom and ditching. That is, she would be proud of me if she knew, but she doesn’t know because she hasn’t answered any of my texts. I didn’t go so far as to say it was an emergency, because then she might have called my mom, and that wouldn’t do me any good. So I just said I really, really, really, really needed to talk. I was kind of hoping she’d think it was ab
out that hot guy (how she refers to Nolan) and call back right away, but so far, no such luck.

  Before I walk out the door I check my phone to find out the outside temperature: it’s in the fifties, supposedly going up to the sixties. There’s a chance of rain this afternoon, but what else is new? “I’m going to need a scarf,” I say out loud, wondering who is left in this house to hear me. Is the little girl gone? She couldn’t have been killed last night, not if she was already dead, but maybe she was . . . I don’t know, destroyed or something? Just the thought makes me shudder.

  I run up the stairs and into my room, searching for my favorite blue-owl scarf. That’s when I notice the checkerboard, right where it was when I got home from school yesterday, on the bed I didn’t sleep in last night.

  “I guess there’s one way to figure out if you’re still here,” I say sadly. I lean down over the board and slide one of the black checkers forward. I should be hoping that when I get back home later the checkers won’t have moved. If they’re just as I left them, then maybe ghost girl is gone. But part of me hopes I’ll come home to a countermove instead.

  “Freak,” I mutter to myself as I close my bedroom door behind me.

  I walk to school slowly, going over the events of the past twenty-four hours in my head.

  Splash, splash.

  When we were nine Ashley’s mom took us to the pool at the local rec center. There was a nasty kid there, a bully, and Ashley and I knew enough to stay out of his way. But some little kid accidentally cut him in line for the bathroom, and the bully was so angry that he picked the kid up and tossed him into the deep end of the pool before anyone could move quickly enough to stop him. The lifeguard dove in and saved him, but before she could get to him, the little boy splashed around desperately, trying to keep his head above water, gasping for air. I never forgot the sound of it. I hoped I would never hear it again. And I never did.

  Until last night.

  Splash, splash.

  I get to school just in time for visual arts, second period on Fridays. I sit down across from Nolan, particularly grateful when the warmth of being near him washes over me.