Lisa realized she had missed the awful sound of the garage door opening. That would’ve been loud enough to overcome the noise-maker. Or had she just been pre-occupied with her thoughts?
Or worse, the exhaustion was taking hold of her senses.
Lisa dashed into the kitchen and poured her coffee. She drank it hot, searing her tongue and throat. But she wanted to make sure she had something in her as soon as possible. She still had to drive Kimmie to daycare and she feared falling asleep at the wheel.
She waited by the coffeemaker, taking a few more sips as it cooled in her mug. When she’d downed the whole cup, she poured more. She didn’t bother with her usual additions of cream and sugar. All that did was drown the effects of caffeine.
Then, she thought she heard Kimmie giggle.
Crap, she thought. She listened, poised like a deer that had heard a twig snap.
The kitchen clock ticked away, mocking the silence of the rest of the house.
Then the floor back towards the guest room creaked.
“John? Are you still here?”
There was no answer, and so she set her coffee mug down and peered out of the kitchen. The hallway to the guestroom was empty. She remembered what John had told her. Houses creak all the time, it doesn’t matter how old they are, it’s just the wood shrinking and expanding based on temperature and moisture.
The house creaked again, as if to excuse itself for the last one.
Lisa downed the rest of her coffee and started to make a mug for the road. If Kimmie stayed asleep for a few more minutes, she might even had time to curl her hair instead of balling it up in a bun.
Remembering the giggle, she figured she’d better check in on Kimmie before she got too far along with the curling iron and couldn’t hear as Kimmie woke up and fussed for milk and mommy.
Lisa sighed as she spotted the lump in the crib. She was eager to sprint off to the bathroom, but something scratched at her stomach, turned it.
She couldn’t hear Kimmie’s breathing.
A thousand horror stories rushed into her mind. Her hand shook as she used one finger to pull back the blanket that covered her child.
The form was still.
Lisa didn’t fret right away. The lighting was poor in the room, so she let her eyes adapt as she refused to blink and miss the rising and falling of her daughter’s shoulder and ribs.
But they didn’t rise.
They didn’t fall.
Lisa started harder—as if that was the problem.
Then she reached for Kimmie’s body.
“Wake up,” she said. “Time t-t-t-…”
She turned Kimmie. Her arms flopped begrudgingly. No moan. The child’s chest did not rise of fall. Lisa shook as she wished it was all a dream.
Kimmie’s face was pale. Her neck was purple.
Lisa stumbled over a toy. Fell on her behind. She scrambled and shook and then ran out of the room. She couldn’t scream, but it sat inside her like a rabid animal trapped in a cage, poked and prodded, it would tear her apart. She collapsed into the couch, stumbled off the kitchen counter. She broke her coffee mug. Slipped. Busted her knees on a dining chair, then hit the floor and crawled up into a ball.
John had done this. Lisa was sure of it. Terrified of it.
He did it in his sleep—not on purpose, she tried to convince herself.
There was no way he would’ve been able to look at her like he did this morning. He wasn’t capable of murdering their daughter. She meant the world to him.
She thought back to his voice earlier that night. He had said, “Go back to sleep.”
Was that the moment? That’s when he did it, Lisa thought, I heard him do it.
She sobbed.
She forced herself quiet. She had to relax. She might be sleep deprived, she hoped. She would check Kimmie again and this time she would be fine and alive. She spoke her thoughts out loud, hoping to wake her sleeping child.
“She’s fine. John is a good father. They say you go crazy without sleep. John hasn’t been sleeping. He’s been sleeping. I saw him to it the other night. And I haven’t been either. I’m sleepwalking. This is all a dream.”
She couldn’t go into the nursery. She stopped in the doorway.
“Kimmie…? Kimmie, wake up. Wake up now. Wake up.”
Something moved. The lump in Lisa’s throat lifted. She gasped and stepped forward.
More movement, sounded, but it came from across the nursery. Her eyes darted into the corner left untouched by the night light. She could see someone. Her reach was not far from the light switch, she flicked it on.
There wasn’t even a stuffed animal in the corner of the room. It was blank.
Behind her was Kimmie’s crib. Lisa dare not complete he turn and confirm her child’s death. She wanted to back out of the room and pray until God woke her up to the start of a different day.
A door knob turned and was released. Lisa heard it and listened. John, she thought. She’d never heard the garage door open or close. He’d waited. He knew he did it!
Lisa snapped around and braced for John’s attack.
No footsteps followed. No one charged at her, and the more she thought about it, the more she wasn’t sure she’d heard anything at all until she heard something else.
That giggle.
She jerked around to face the corner of the room.
“Dadda! Daddaa!”
Not from the corner, from Kimmie’s crib. Lisa turned further and saw Kimmie standing up in the crib, arms outstretched.
“Want Dadda!”
“Daddy went to work,” Lisa said. Shock owned her body. It did not let her let loose her shoulder or clenched fists. She stood staring at her daughter.
“Noooo,” Kimmie said.
“He’ll be back later. We have to work, Kimmie. That way we can buy you all the toys you love.” Lisa broke through and picked Kimmie up out of the crib.
Kimmie wiggled until Lisa set her down on the floor. Then she took off running.
Lisa instinctively tried to stop her, but wasn’t quick enough. All her reflexes were drained from the horror she’d imagined. She wanted to hug Kimmie. Squeeze her and kiss her. But all she did was collapse onto the floor.
Kimmie’s pitter-patter continued through the house as she called for her daddy. Then Kimmie pounded on the guest bedroom’s door.
Lisa got back to her feet and wandered into the hallway.
The pounding stopped before Lisa viewed the hall. It was empty.
The guest bedroom door was open halfway.
“D-D-Daddy went to work,” Lisa said as she pushed through the door.
Kimmie stood silently next to the twin size bed that John had slept on. She looked at Lisa and asked, “Where’d she go?”
“Daddy went to wor—” Lisa almost repeated herself. “Wait, who?”
“Where girl go?”
“Did you see a little girl?”
Kimmie nodded, mouth agape.
“In this room?”
Kimmie nodded…then shook her head and pointed at Lisa.
Before Lisa could look, she felt it. The temperature had changed, as if someone had left the door open and the summer heat cut through the air conditioned space. But there was nothing behind or beside her. Nothing that she could see.
“I want Dadda,” Kimmie said.
“It’s time to go,” Lisa said. “We’ll go see Miss Frankie and your friends.”
“I. Want. Dadda.”
Lisa grabbed Kimmie and yanked her. She tucked Kimmie under her arm and pinned her to her hip. The child kicked and fussed. Lisa had to get out of the house. She’d never felt more sure that something was in there with them. It was the same feeling she felt when she saw John looming next to her nightstand the night before last.
As silly as Lisa wanted to believe it was, she couldn’t wrap her mind around any better idea. She marked Kimmie into the garage, with the intent of putting her in the car seat while she finished getting ready for work. Then they
’d leave, Lisa would wake up more and feel stupid about her paranoia.
That’s what she told herself until she opened the door to the garage and saw John’s car still sitting there.
“J-J-John?”
She couldn’t see the driver seat from the obstruction of her own vehicle.
Kimmie scratched her with the nails that Lisa had kept meaning to try and cut.
“Stop it!” Lisa said.
“I want Dadda.”
“You’re about to get a spanking.”
Lisa went further into the garage, rounding her car until she could see the driver seat of John’s car.
She dropped Kimmie.
John’s head lay against the headrest, his neck, folded back and bruised.
“No!” She screamed and screamed.
“Hey! Hey!” John said.
Lisa blinked. She watched as John did not move in his seat.
“Hey!” John said again. His mouth didn’t move.
“Dadda!’ Kimmie said. Lisa went for her daughter, but saw John—not in his car.
John stood at the door to the garage.
“Lisa?” he said.
Lisa double checked the car. John’s lifeless corpse sat there.
“Are you okay?” John asked from the doorway.
“I don’t think so.”
Kimmie had run around the vehicles to her father. He picked her up, but his eyes and concern remained for his wife.
Lisa cracked a smile. “I think I’m sleep deprived.” She gave a chuckle as if that was going to make up for all the things the thought she had imagined.
“Yeah. Maybe you should take the day off. Come back inside and just sleep. I’ll take Kimmie to daycare.”
Lisa nodded. She didn’t look back into John’s car. She followed her husband and daughter back inside.
“You’re going to laugh at me, when I tell you about everything,” Lisa said.
“I’m sure I will,” John said as he stepped aside and directed Lisa back into their bedroom. “Sleep first.”
“Thank you,” Lisa said as she went into the bedroom. “I love you.”
John closed the door to the bedroom, still holding Kimmie in his arms. Kimmie’s body was in a state of falling. Flat footsteps kept her upright until he was close enough to their queen size bed, then she let go.
Something hindered her embrace of the mattress.
Something bony and firm. A body.
Lisa reared back and saw herself.
She was wrenched back, hands paralyzed around her neck. The darkened flesh below her hands was broken. Dried blood stained her fingers.
Lisa ran out of the bedroom. She ignored the cartoons playing on the television above their fireplace. She went straight into the nursery. She slammed her fists into the crib.
“No! No! No!”
Kimmie’s strangled body lay there. Her eyes rolled back, but staring. Staring right through Lisa’s violent rage.
Lisa shook the crib, not strong enough to break it. She screamed and screamed.
“John! John!”
She ran back into the garage. John’s corpse still sat in the driver seat.
She punched the side of his car again and again.
“Mommma!” Kimmie yelled from the doorway. “You too loud. Go back to sleep.”
“Kimmie….” Lisa ran to her daughter, snatched her up in her arms and hugged and kissed her.
Then someone cleared their throat inside the house.
A little girl stood there with her eyes pinched and lips snarled.
“Go back to sleep,” the little girl said.
She wasn’t the only one. Another stood beside Lisa, close enough that her head was cocked all the way back as she stared up at Lisa.
The little girl in the house, turned and walked away towards the living room.
Lisa followed, holding Kimmie as tight as ever.
The flickering cartoons illuminated John’s blank expression. Kimmie and another girl sat beside him.
Lisa was not holding Kimmie after all. She held another little girl. Lisa dropped her. The little girl hit the ground running and took a seat on the couch next to everyone else.
“Stay with us,” the little girl said. “We don’t have to kill you again.”
THE END
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