by Mike Miller
3VIL
volume 2
by MIKE MILLER
Cover and illustrations also by Mike Miller
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All Text and Images ©MMXV Mike Miller
All Rights Reserved
Table of Contents
1 Little Ghost
2 What is in the Woods?
3 The Nightmare You Will Have
About the Author
Also by the Author
“What’s a secret, Mommy?”
I look away from my phone to face my daughter. Her pretty features grow away from baby chubbiness and more into a little girl every day. In the midst of our cramped living room, she has paused her sweeping swath of play carnage to address this pressing thought.
I notice an old bowl of hers that might have been out for a couple days now. I try to remember to fetch it once I’m done here. My little angel always comes first.
After a moment’s contemplation of her question, I tell her, “A secret is something that other people don’t know.” I always enjoy this game of explaining new vocabulary with only the simplest words.
“Okay.” A big grin spreads across her cherub face. “I have a secret,” she giggles. She covers her mouth as her body twists back and forth with excitement.
“Oh?” I smile and lean closer to her. “And what’s that, my dear?”
“I can’t tell you or then people know and it’s not a secret.” The little lawyer shakes her hands to emphasize the conundrum.
“It’s okay. You can always tell a secret to your mom, and it’s still a secret”
She remains skeptical.
“I won’t tell anybody. I promise. Then it’ll be our secret.” I place my finger to my chest and cross my heart. It occurs to me that she does not know the gesture, but the busy little girl does not care to inquire about it.
“Mmm… okay.” She too is happy to have figured out a solution.
“So when you tell a secret, you lean in real close like this.” She is savvy enough to scoot closer to my cupped hands. “And then you whisper in their ear like this, so that nobody else can hear the secret.”
She nods with understand.
“Here. I’ll tell you a secret first.” I hush my voice and say, “I love you.”
When I lean back in my seat, the delight is rupturing her cheeks.
“Mommy,” she snickers.
“Yes, my dear?”
“I have a secret too,” she confesses with mischievous glee.
I lower my ear to her lips. “What’s your secret?”
She whispers softly, “I’m a ghost.”
Confused by the statement, I study her face. She displays no signs of this being a joke or a lie. So I ask aloud with a chuckle, “What?”
Her finger beckons me closer again. I offer my ear to her.
With both hands cupped to connect mouth to ear, her whispered voice strangely bellows, “I am a ghost.”
Content that she has successfully communicated the info, she prances over to her dollhouse. She immediately picks up a small horse and girl figurine to make them bop along with each other, quietly speaking for each as she plays. The move is so swift and efficient, it was as if she had scheduled the play appointment long before our conversation.
I could push the bizarre statement, but I don’t. Instead, I retreat to the solace of my husband.
He is in the kitchen. Seated at the table, he is tinkering with something and does not see me enter.
“Our daughter’s so silly,” I laugh.
He does not look up, and simply grunts his response. The apathy annoys me far more than my girl’s odd statement. But this confrontation is not worth pursuing either. I am in no mood for conflict these days.
As I pass him to leave, I see him look up at the last moment from beneath his scruffy bangs.
When my eyes roll back to meet his, they scurry away back to the safety of the small machine in his hands.
This is a moment where something big could happen. Even if it starts as something little now, it could well explode into a severe schism.
But in our tired, old relationship, it is best for us to let the moment slip into our nothingness.
* * *
“Mommy!” Her yell is tinged with fright.
I stumble out of my bed in the darkness and rush to her room. I stub my toe and bump my shoulder on a doorway, but can easily ignore the pain.
She sits in the corner with her knees pulled up to her chin. Her eyes do not look at me, but stare down at a blank patch of carpet.
“What is it, sweetie?” I ask.
At first she is afraid to speak. I see her tiny body swell with a heavy sigh. Then she softly confesses, “The creepy shadow came back.”
“Oh, no, sweetheart,” I chuckle. “That’s just your imagination.” I pick her up in a bear hug and begin tucking the frightened little thing back under her covers.
With just her head peeking from the blankets as if she were decapitated, her eyes remain wide with frenzied energy. “Remember how you said the shadows don’t move in here? But I saw them, Mommy. The shadows were moving in the corner. It was scary ghosts.”
I am at a loss for words. With every passing day, her growing curiosity challenges my ability to explain the world. The midnight hour makes the task an even heavier burden than normal.
So I resort to a familiar and convenient tactic: nod and smile while emanating warm, comforting love. “Just relax, sweetheart, and you’ll be asleep soon.”
I kiss her on the forehead. Her skin is cool and damp.
“Why do the ghosts want me, Mama?” she says with a mature bluntness.
I try to hide my anger at her stubborn persistence. It helps to remember she gets this annoying trait from her mother. “It’s okay, sweetheart. There are no ghosts. You don’t need to be scared.”
I pet her head, but her hair is cold and wet. Almost a little sticky.
I perform an instant checkup of my patient. Her appearance is fine, and so is her forehead’s temperature. But her color seems a little pale. Perhaps it is an illusion from the dimness of the nightlight.
“But, honey,” I say, turning her head to mine. The precious hue of her topaz eyes never fails to give me pause. “I thought you were a ghost too.”
My happy little girl returns. “I am a ghost,” she playfully announces aloud. I guess the secret is out.
I tickle her a little to enhance her laughter. “So if you’re a ghost, silly-billy, then you can’t be scared of yourself.”
Her pudgy hands shove mine away with surprising force. She quickly worms her torso out from the sheets. Her face is now stern and serious. “No, no, no,” she admonishes me. “I’m a good ghost, Mommy. I’m only afraid of the bad ghosts.”
“Oh,” I say speechlessly. I work on masking my frustration.
Without asking, she proceeds to further illustrate the difference. “When I say ‘boo,’ it’s not very scary. But these ghosts do not say boo. They say:” She groans a long “ohhhh” that rises and falls in tone. Her voice creaks like an old toad. “And it is scary.”
My face is blank, but she continues her performance.
“And they have hands like this:” She raises her hands chest-high, then claws her fingers like an imitation of a pouncing feline.
“Okay, dear,” I say, my skin crawling at her morbid description. “That’s enough.”
My daughter cares not about my horrified reaction. “And they have black skin and long heads and spooky faces like this:” She whips her head side to side quickly likely a vigorously nodded “no.” Her flapping hair and blurred features make her head resemble a smear of paint.
&nb
sp; The description gives me the chills as it is both eerie and specific. Goosebumps crawl down my flesh causing me to shiver. My trembling makes my daughter giggle.
“What--?” I begin to talk without knowing what else I want to say. “That sounds like a very silly ghost to me,” I conclude.
I shove her back under the blankets. Though she does not resist, she does not cooperate. I stuff the comforter tightly under her sides if it will help trap her in bed.
I flick the light off as I head to the door. Though the room is near dark now, the nightlight twinkles off her open, emotionless eyes.
I close the bedroom door and feel something off to my side, like the softest silk passing by my arm.
My eyes dart over to the corner of the room. A pile of clothes and toys sit at the base of an open closet door. I cannot recall if the door was open before or not. Its recesses are hidden inside a dark black void.
“It’s okay, Mommy,” says my daughter. “The ghosts aren’t here anymore. They already left.”
* * *
“We need to talk,” I tell my husband.
He sits at the dining table with a magazine in one hand, cup of coffee in the other. I know a fight might be coming and am already prepared. So he sighs heavily when ambushed by my request. He slowly rests the magazine on the table to buy some time to gather himself. “Of course,” he says politely. I recognize his dread.
“There’s something wrong with our daughter. All she talks about now is just really horrible, weird stuff.”
His eyes grow wider with a mix of concern and fear, as if he is only now waking up. He scoffs awkwardly, then rubs his hand over his dry mouth.
“What? Don’t you have anything to say?” I demand angrily.
His gaze darts back and forth from mine, attracted and repelled by my attention.
His head teeters on his neck like a dish sliding off a waiter’s tray. I feel like throwing something at him, but then he finally speaks. “Our daughter is dead.”
First my daughter, and now my husband. Everyone in this family is going insane.
“What are you saying?” I gasp. “How could you say such a thing?”
I find a dirty dish nearby and fling it at his head. The throw is wide, but he still ducks under it.
As I go for another projectile, he rises from his seat and rushes over to me. He places both hands on my shoulders as if I might fly away. His speech is halting but earnest. “She’s gone, dear. And she’s not coming back. You know that.”
Something inside of me knows he speaks the truth. But his words are too outlandish and horrible to be real.
“You must know that,” he says again.
I wrench myself from his grip. From a safe distance, we both inspect each other like a pair of strangers.
“Honey,” he says, beckoning me with his hand. “It’s okay.”
That same topaz twinkles in his gaze. The face I fell in love with is the same given to my little girl.
His eyes do not lie.
“No.”
I rush to my daughter’s bedroom. “Sweetie!” I call ahead to her.
When I open the door, the room is in its usual shambles. Blocks and dolls scattered across the floor almost as if they were trying to distance themselves from each other. Clothes hang from the drawer, caught in mid-escape. Books are flung about from the bed to the floor.
My little girl is nowhere to be found.
“Honey, where are you?” I call.
Silence.
I check under the bed sheets, under the bed. “This isn’t funny, dear. No hiding from Mommy.”
I start flinging the clothes and toys around, but it is impossible for even her small frame to be concealed amongst these items.
I see the gaping closet door and slowly approach it. Even in the midday light, its recesses are hidden in shadow.
I place my hand on the knob and pull it open.
I am grabbed from behind.
I scream in terror.
“Please, just--” My husband starts to say, but I pull myself away.
I am afforded a good view inside the closet now. Save for some clothes, it is completely barren.
“Stop it,” I cry as I run from the room. “Just stop!”
The bathroom. The guest bedroom. The hallway closet. “Where are you, baby?” I tearfully plead.
I rearrange the living room furniture but find nothing.
My search leads me outside. The neighborhood is quiet, and our flat lawn offers little space to hide. But still she is nowhere.
I go to cry her name, but only a long, primal howl emerges instead.
I melt to my knees and begin to sob. Through the suffocating tears, I manage to whisper my girl’s name once more.
She does not answer.
I am grabbed again.
But this time, I grab back. Clutching my husband’s hands in my own, I turn to shrink into his embrace.
“There, there,” he whispers. His hand petting my hair has never felt better. His words and touch begin to soothe my buzzing headache. “It’ll be okay.”
I do not accept his words, but I let him guide me back into our house.
* * *
I am not sure what hour it is, nor how long I have been sitting at the dining room table. It is dark outside, and the covered parlor light above is the only one on in the entire house. There is no moon, and the distant street lights do not dare reach inside our dark home. My cold cup of tea and hands are ablaze brilliantly from the focused table light, but its narrow scope leaves my face shrouded in darkness.
I sniffle back some snot and let out a long shuddering sigh. The tears have dried on my cheeks hours ago, but my vision is still blurred from misery and sorrow.
My hands begin to crush the ceramic mug. I do not actively will this destruction, but I do not try to stop it either. Tendons pop from the impossible strain. Beneath the skin, my hands turn red, then purple.
Finally, I surrender. While I pant from the exhaustion, the cup remains defiantly intact.
So I hurl it onto the floor like a player joyfully spiking a football. The cup smashes into a million bits of shards and dust.
“Don’t be sad, Mommy.”
My daughter appears on the periphery of the light. I cannot see her face, but her eyes twinkle through the blackness.
“I’m not sad,” I lie. I cannot dam the tears which begin to trickle again down my face again.
When she reaches the table, I see her body is full and strong, not like the sick patient she had been.
“I was sad too before, but now I’m not.” Her tiny will is amazingly powerful. “The ghosts are spooky, but I found out they are good ghosts too. Like me.”
Her bright smile causes one of my own. It is the first I have had all day.
“They are taking me away to a good place, Mommy.”
My breath stops. An icy pain grips my sore heart. “What? No. You can’t!” I bluster.
“It’s okay, Mama. They’re already here.”
I rise so quickly from my seat that the legs screech away from the table. “Where?”
She lifts her arm and points past me. “There.”
I feel their presence again now. An odd sensation like a low current of electricity washes through my body. I slowly turn to face these beings.
Our kitchen remains empty, though the darkness around the lone lamp does not light the shadowy corners of the room. I see nothing out of the ordinary, no other shapes or things besides the two of us.
“See? There’s nothing there, honey.” I sweep my arm across the empty space like a game-show hostess presenting a prize. “There’s nothing to be scared of.”
The door at the rear silently opens of its own accord.
“I’m not scared, Mama.”
Aghast at the invisible forces, I cautiously creep backwards, sliding around the table to shield my daughter.
Though I cannot see a thing, I can feel an invisible entity approaching.
Soon a sour smell fills the air. Th
en a cooling breeze rustles in the room. A soft shuffle like cloth sliding over the floor is heard.
Something is indeed drawing nearer to us.
“I have another secret for you, Mommy,” my daughter says playfully.
“What’s that?” My voice quivers with fear.
She stands on her tippy-toes. “Come closer,” she beckons.
My eyes remain busy watching the room while I lean over.
The chair in which I was just sitting slides a little to the side.
“I love you, Mommy,” whispers my little girl.
She is ripped from my grasp. Floating up and away, she begins to drift back towards the far door. Her form becomes less corporeal as the scenery behind her becomes visible through her vanishing form.
“Goodbye, Mommy!” She cheerfully waves to me.
I rush forward to grab her outstretched arm. My hand passes through hers. My skin freezes as it wafts through her ether.
“No!” I scream defiantly.
Unfazed, my daughter continues her procession from our home.
I do not think upon my next instinctive actions. My body’s movements are now fueled by a new source other than my own will.
I watch my hand rush down to the floor and snatch up the largest shard of the broken cup.
Then my hand stabs me, plunging the jagged point deep into my throat.
After a jolt of pain, I become numb. Not just my slashed neck, but soon my entire body.
I fall dead to the floor.
But then I rise again.
I resume my chase of my departing daughter. My body feels as if it was drifting underwater, but still I make gains in our chase.
My daughter’s phantasmal form has become solid again, her shape no longer transparent.
Engulfing her lower body is a nebulous mass of dark shadows, not unlike a thick, bumpy cloud. They vibrate and move as if they were a legion of smaller pieces working together to steal my girl.
