Uncle Victor: A Novella

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

I’m back from work, in my home

And though I live alone

I see a man just by the door

He’s tall and thin, just skin and bone

His eyes are wide, his smile wider

And though he says don’t fear

I cannot help but feel afraid

Whenever he is near

The man is old, a hundred, give or take

And he has a witchy nose

And though I’m asleep, curled up in bed

I sense that he is very close

So, if this man came to you at night

I tell you, now, beware

For I am very sure, positive, I’d say

That your Uncle Victor was certainly there.

Kara

In front of the office building was a long road that stretched for miles and led nowhere but gas stations, junkyards, and the odd McDonald’s. On the front lawn was a sign: UPSTATE PSYCHIATRY OF SPARTANBURG.

Besides the sounds of mourning doves and distant, humming cars, there were Kara’s tires kicking up gravel as she pulled into the parking lot. The 2004 Mercedes parked, and Kara got out. Her high heels clicked on the asphalt. Her business casual outfit had not one wrinkle. Fresh steam still came off of her coffee tumbler. Her magenta purse was strapped over her forearm. She slung it over her shoulder and brushed her brown hair aside in the same motion.

Kara inhaled, smelling the summer air. The smell of fresh cut grass and fully bloomed flowers. This was peace, the thing that everyone hoped to attain, somehow, someday. She liked this crisp morning. She smiled, even. But she was unable to enjoy it. Melancholy still hung thick in her mind, as it had for years since the fateful day.

White noise machines droned in the small lobby. A bell’s ring announced Kara’s arrival as she opened the door. She walked past the grandfather clock in the corner, past the waiting room and its coffee table and stack of Southern Home magazines. The receptionist smiled and nodded.

“Morning, Doctor Roma,” she said.

“Good morning,” said Kara with a smile.

Past the lobby, across a few yards of patterned office carpet, was a thin corridor with offices, a white noise machine outside each one. Kara’s was at the very end. She entered.

Kara’s office had a lamp that provided dim, warm lighting. The window blinds were always shut. When the lights were off, the light that seeped through the blinds cast patterns on the opposite wall. Her desk was pushed into the corner so she faced the wall. Opposite the desk was a coat closet, which saw no use in the summer months. At the back wall was a gray sofa. Behind it was a painting of dogs, seated around a table, playing poker. The walls had shelves that were lined with books. Among them were such titles as The Social Animal and Awakening Higher Consciousness. On the top shelf was a small Peanuts figurine; Lucy van Pelt’s kiosk, psychiatric help for five cents. Kara went to her desk. She set her purse down and sat. The desktop hummed and whirred to life.

Kara did housekeeping for half an hour; organizing files, reviewing notes, and bringing herself up to speed on the patient that would arrive at nine o’clock. She took this part of the process very seriously. She wanted her patients to feel comfortable and cared for when they arrived.

Dr. Kara Roma was determined to build this new private practice, to get back to her former glory after her old practice crumbled beneath the weight of personal tragedies. She had done therapy, she took pills, and she meditated. But the nightmares still haunted her, and so now she was dealing with her trauma in the only other way she knew how: throwing herself into her work.

Kara had been doing fairly well so far. She felt like she’d already begun to really help a few people; a single mom dealing with the stress of raising twins, a lonely 30-year-old man who couldn’t get laid, a 6th-grader who could not stop stepping over cracks in the sidewalk. She was on her way to rebirth. She just needed a patient who was, for all intents and purposes, a challenge. A real challenge.

The clock struck 9 AM. Kara stood and went to the door. She walked to the lobby. There sat her new patient, Polly Daniels. The girl was 17. She had dark brown hair and a deep skin tone. She seemed to fold into herself with thin arms pressed to her sides. When she said hello, her voice came out a bit deeper than Kara had expected. It was hoarse, like she’d been screaming. The girl’s hair was messy and tied haphazardly in a bun. Though she had Sicilian olive skin, it was pale, despite it being summertime. Bags hung from the girl’s eyes.

“Hello,” said Polly. It practically came out as a whisper.

“Hi there, Polly,” said Kara. “I’m Doctor Roma, you can just call me Kara if you’d like.”

Polly smiled weakly, letting a silent moment pass before she said, “Thanks.”

“You can come on back,” said Kara with a wave of her hand. She went back down the hall, and Polly followed behind with her purse held close to her midsection.

Kara held the door. Polly entered and halted.

“You can have a seat,” said Kara, pointing to the sofa.

“Thanks,” said Polly. She sat.

Kara shut the door. She grabbed a clipboard and sat in her office chair and wheeled it across from Polly. With a click of her pen, she looked up.

“It’s nice to meet you, Polly,” said Kara.

“Nice to meet you too,” said Polly.

“So, what’s going on with you? How can I help you today?”

Polly shifted. She looked ashamed.

“Take your time,” said Kara. “Whatever you’re comfortable with.”

Polly nodded and said, “I, uh…” She cleared her throat. “I’ve been having a lot of anxiety. Um, it’s been like this for quite a while. And I don’t wanna feel like this anymore.”

“Sorry to hear that.” Kara jotted notes. “And what is it you think you’re anxious about?”

“I feel like…” Polly drifted. Her eyes rolled to the side as she thought. They glanced up at the bookshelves. She smirked.

Kara traced her line of sight.

“I like that,” said Polly.

“What?” asked Kara.

“The Charlie Brown figurine.”

“Well, thanks. A lot of my patients find it comforting.”

Polly looked back at Kara and grew serious.

“So, what are you anxious about?” asked Kara.

“Well,” Polly began, “almost everything. I feel this constant feeling of dread. You know? Like the sky’s gonna fall. Like people that are close to me don’t actually like me, and that they’re waiting for their chance to nix me.”

“Tell me more.”

Polly inhaled. She began to pick at her violet shirt. Her legs were now crossed. Kara hadn’t noticed when Polly crossed them. It made Polly appear even more defensive than before. There was something else, too. Polly’s eyes kept darting in the same direction. Kara just now noticed. She realized it had happened twice before, maybe even three times.

What is she looking at? Kara thought.

As Polly continued, Kara waited for Polly’s next glance. She was curious. She had to know.

“It’s just, like, this cloud over me,” said Polly. “It’s this cloud of anxiety that hangs over me, all the time. And, the weird thing is, it didn’t really start with the…”

Polly trailed off. She gulped.

“With the death of my mother,” she continued.

“I’m sorry,” said Kara. “When did this happen?”

“Almost two years ago.”

“You wanna talk about that?”

“Not yet.”

Kara nodded. “Okay.”

“I still don’t feel… whole,” said Polly.

“Perfectly normal,” Kara replied.

“Do you think people can ever really move on?”

Kara paused a moment. “Yes,” she said finally. “I believe they can.” She shifted uncomfortably as she jotted more notes. “So, on a scale of one to ten, how would you rate your daily anxiety, on average?”

“Hmm. Probably an eight. I genuinely feel anxious every day.” She said genuinely, when she meant to say generally. This girl was nervous and sleepless, for sure.

“An eight,” Kara echoed. “Okay. So, that’s fairly intense. I’m glad you came in to see me. Now, do you –

There’s that glance, again. Acting fast, Kara traced the girl’s eyes. She looked over her shoulder. Polly seemed to be glancing at the closet. Kara looked at the closet, then back at Polly, as if to highlight Polly’s line of sight with her own eyes.

“I’m sorry,” said Kara, “I couldn’t help but notice that you keep looking at the closet.”

Polly gulped, red-faced.

Kara threw up a soothing hand. “It’s okay. It’s just something I noticed. It’s totally normal to feel embarrassed about anxiety.”

“Yeah, I-I understand,” said Polly. She eyeballed the closet. She pointed. “Can I?”

Kara raised her brows for clarification.

“The closet,” said Polly. “Can I… check it?”

Kara shrugged. “Go ahead.”

As Polly walked by, Kara made a sly note. Kara glanced over her shoulder and watched as Polly stood in front of the folding wooden doors.

Polly stood there a long moment, picking nervously at her pant leg. She took a deep breath. She yanked open the doors. The second she did, she took a step back. The black void of the closet confronted her. She stood and stared for a few beats. Then, she closed the doors. She walked back to the sofa.

“Sorry,” she said.

“No worries,” said Kara. “I think we should talk about that, though. What’s that about?”

“Well… I was checking for…”

Kara leaned forward, eager to hear.

“I have this worry, see,” said Polly. “I worry that people can hear my thoughts.”

“I see. Now, out of all the things going on, is this the most distressing for you?”

“Yes. Definitely. I could deal with everything else. But this—and my hands are sweating, right now, just thinking about it—I’m really worried about the person around me, knowing my thoughts.”

“Okay. I mean, one of the things I think we need to do is to try and get some more evidence. Try and find out what’s really going on here.”

“Yeah. I wish we knew.”

“Because,” Kara continued, “there’s something going on, but I’m not quite sure what it is. So, what I’d like to do is conduct an experiment. I want us to test and see if people are actually able to read your thoughts.”

“Hmm…” Polly stewed on this. “Well, Uncle Victor would need to be here.”

“I’m sorry?” said Kara.

“Uncle Victor would need to be here.”

“Oh.” A pause. “So, only one person can hear your thoughts? Your uncle?”

“Far as I know, yeah,” Polly replied.

“And what makes you certain that your uncle can read your thoughts?”

“It’s the things he does. Every time I see him, it seems like he’s… taken inventory on my recent thoughts.”

“An example?” asked Kara.

“Well,” said Polly, “just the other day, he was in the media room with me. He played this song that creeps me out. I never, ever told him this song creeped me out. But he played it on the radio we have in there.”

“What song is it?”

“You’re gonna laugh.”

“Of course I won’t, Polly. Everyone has a song, or two, that freaks ‘em out. Some silly song from their childhood that played during a stressful time.”

“That’s true,” said Polly. “Well, it’s an old country song called ‘Lovesick Blues.’ I don’t like it. I have bad memories of it. I never showed this song to Uncle Victor. I never even told him about it. But he played it. And shit like this happens all the time. That’s just one example.”

“So, you never mentioned this song to your uncle,” Kara said.

“To my…” Polly started. “Well, that’s the thing. Whenever I’d see him, I’d recognize him as my uncle. I knew him. I had memories of him. But then…” She trailed off.

“Then what?”

“People in my family would get confused when I mentioned him. I’d say ‘Uncle Victor’ this, or ‘Uncle Victor’ that. And they’d tell me that I don’t have an uncle named Victor. They had no idea who I was talking about.”

“Interesting. What’d you make of that?”

“At first, I thought it was some joke my dad and brothers were playing on me. But then, I started to have my own suspicions. Suspicions that Uncle Victor isn’t actually my uncle. I just started to… take these long, hard looks at him. I looked back at my memories, and I realized that… he’s not in a lot of them.”

“He’s not in a lot of your memories?”

“Yes. It’s like he just popped up recently.”

Polly snapped her fingers. Kara could almost see the lightbulb above her head.

“It’s like that theory,” said Polly. “I forget what it’s called. But it’s this theory that you could’ve been born yesterday, and you don’t know it. And all the memories you have are just fake. You ever heard of that?”

“Seems like I have,” said Kara. She hadn’t, but she wanted to move this along.

“It’s like that,” Polly continued, “only, it’s like Uncle Victor was born yesterday, so to speak. I tried to remember things about him from my childhood, but I couldn’t. And that was when…”

Polly paused.

Kara waited.

“That was when I arrived on my very first memory of Uncle Victor,” said Polly. “The very first time I saw him. It’s like it was blocked from my mind until I started… digging through it.”

I think I’ve found my challenge,Kara thought.

“And when did you first see Uncle Victor?” asked Kara.

“I’ll tell you.”

Polly

Snowflakes zipped through the headlight beams and past the windshield as Lisa drove down the backroad. The radio static hissed as Polly tuned it, voices coming through in grunts and groans.

“Try 95.7,” said Lisa. “That sometimes comes through, around here.”

Polly scanned stations. She arrived on 95.7, a static-filled broadcast of some Andy Grammer song. She looked at Lisa with a cocked eyebrow.

“Country?” she asked.

“Better than nothing,” said Lisa.

Polly laughed. “I don’t know about that.”

“Hey, this backroad is creepy. I need background music.”

“I get that.”

Lisa was Polly’s cousin. The two could have been sisters. Lisa was essentially a taller, thicker version of Polly with shorter hair. But, to Polly, Lisa had been a sister for the past year. No one had stuck by her side like Lisa. Certainly not her father, who had gone the way of the bottle. Lisa was so much braver than Polly was. Polly had realized it this past year. Perhaps it was because of Polly’s vulnerability, her mother having died almost a year prior to this night. Whatever the reason, Polly saw Lisa as a Wonder Woman of sorts. That was why, when Lisa expressed that this road made her nervous, Polly felt especially so. It was like watching your bodyguard quiver at the sight of a threat.

“Damn,” said Lisa, “I cannot wait for Aunt Lilly’s cooking.”

“That good, huh?” Polly asked.

“Yes. And on Thanksgiving? Oh boy, you’re in for a treat.”

“Sounds great.”

The car fell silent again, save for the low and fuzzy hum of country music on the radio. Another short conversation would start up in a moment, then lead to more silence, and repeat. So went a typical long car ride with two people.

“How’s church ball?” asked Lisa.

“Um…” Polly started. “It’s okay, I guess.”

“Just okay?”

“I don’t know. It’s like I just don’t want it that much. It’s not like when we were kids, when I was competitive. I’m kind of afraid that’s…”

Gone. That was the word Polly meant to say next, but she couldn’t bring herself to. It was evident, though; Lisa seemed to know that’s what she meant to say.

“I wouldn’t worry about that,” said Lisa. “People never really change.”

“What do you mean?” Polly asked.

“What I mean is that competitive girl is still in there.” Lisa pointed to Polly’s midsection as she said this. “She’s still there.”

“I’m not so sure.”

“I am. A hundred percent.”

Polly smiled. “Thanks, Lisa.”

“Don’t mention it. I mean, lord knows I went through it when my dad died. But I feel like I came out stronger.” A pause, and then Lisa added, “Well, for the most part.”

Polly was not sure how to interpret that last part. Silence fell over the car as Polly stewed on it. She wondered if one could ever truly be free of grief. She hoped so. She wasn’t sure how much longer she could go on.

The clicks of the turn signal preceded another turn down another endless country road. To whom she was signaling, Polly didn’t know. Habit, she supposed. What Polly did know was that she felt a pit in her stomach arise in an instant. At first, she didn’t know what it was from. The crummy feeling came on before her conscious mind even registered what was the matter. Then, she realized it. The radio. The music. That song.

Guitar strums gave way to the yodeling voice on an oldies country song, the type you would hear in a Cracker Barrel. It was “Lovesick Blues,” by Hank Williams. Polly had felt a sense of dread before even realizing it was that song. Now that she recognized it, she felt even worse. She had an urge to slam her hand on the dial, purging that foul song from this car. She was, however, embarrassed. She thought she would look foolish in front of Lisa. She looked up to Lisa. Cowering in the face of some silly old country song… it felt, well, silly. Still, that song horrified her to her core. That rhythm. The singer’s distressed yodels.

“Mind if I change it?” Polly asked.

“I tried every other station,” said Lisa.

“True.”

Dammit,thought Polly. She felt like she was going to crack, and she reckoned that song still had a few minutes left.

“Can I turn it off?” Polly blurted.

“Huh?” said Lisa. “No, no, I like the background music. This road’s creepy.”

“This song is creepy.”

“It’s almost over.”

“I-I can’t. I need it to be over, now!”

Lisa looked at Polly with wide eyes. That was when Polly realized how loud she had said it. But it was true. She did need that song to be over. She no longer sought Lisa’s go-ahead, either. The song needed to be over sooner than yesterday. Polly lurched forward and slammed her hand on the dial, harder than intended.

“Hey!” said Lisa. “What are you doing?”

“I’m sorry,” said Polly. “I-I’m sorry, I just…”

Polly pressed her hands to her brow and began to pant.

Lisa pulled the car over and parked in the snow.

Polly got out of the car and fell to her knees in the snow, and Lisa followed and sat next to Polly and placed a hand on Polly’s shoulder and caressed.

“Hey, hey,” Lisa said. “It’s okay, it’s okay. You’re all right. What’s the matter?”

Poly only managed to say, “I… I… I…”

“Shh, shh. It’s all right. We’re safe. You’re safe. We’re almost to Aunt Lilly’s house. We’re gonna get there, we’re gonna eat some good food. It’s all good, Polly. You’re okay.”

Polly shut her eyes and nodded as her breathing slowed a bit.

“What’s the matter, huh?” asked Lisa. “What’s wrong?”

“That… That…”

Okay, we’re getting somewhere,thought Polly. Come on, idiot. Breathe.

“The what?” asked Lisa. “The song?”

God, so embarrassing.But it was that song. That song that had played at the hoedown, in the barn where folks danced and drank, the barn where Polly’s mom had a massive heart attack.

“Y-Yeah,” said Polly, with a sigh. “It reminds me of… It reminds me of –

“Shhhhhh. It’s okay, Polly. It’s okay. Everything will be okay.”

Polly thought the panic attack was over. But then, her breaths grew shallow and quick. Terror swallowed her up like some great fish in the sea. Her arms and legs shook, but not from the cold. Her chest felt like a car had been placed upon it. Everything spun. She tried to breathe deep, but she could not.

“Lisa,” said Polly, between shallow breaths. “I, I, I –

“Shh, calm down. Try to breathe.”

“Hold my hand. Hold my hand. Hold my hand.”

“Okay, Polly. I got you. It’s all right.”

Lisa held Polly’s hand tight. If Polly could have it her way—or even speak, for that matter—she would have made Lisa hold her hand even tighter. The tighter, the better. It made her feel safe. She rarely felt safe, these days.

A few minutes passed. The snow still fell steadily. A thin white blanket now caked the ground. Polly’s breathing was steady, again, and she lay curled in Lisa’s arms like a baby. Snowflakes stuck to their eyebrows and hair. Lisa caressed Polly’s head and kissed her brow.

“No more country music,” said Lisa. “Country sucks, anyways.”

Polly chuckled as best she could. “Yeah,” she said. “It does.”

Lisa wiped frozen tears from Polly’s face. She helped her up and led her back to the car.

“We’d better get to it,” said Lisa. “Almost eight PM. Aunt Lilly’s an early riser.”

***

The eternal stretch of highway had a dotted yellow line down the middle so that speed demons in large pickups could pass other cars at will. Aunt Lilly’s house was in the midst of a prairie on the side of this highway. A single bedroom light was still on when Polly and Lisa pulled up, turning the house into a small beacon of light in an ocean of countryside darkness.

The snowy land had a deathlike silence when Polly and Lisa hopped out of the car. Aunt Lilly got up from her rocking chair on the front porch and waved. She was a woman in her mid-50’s, pretty face that had aged well, brown hair that fell to her shoulders. She looked comfy in her baby blue nightgown, a steaming tumbler—probably holding tea, Polly guessed—in her hand. Polly had not seen her for almost two years, now. This was because Aunt Lilly got a bit too rowdy at family functions, and other family members began to retract their own presence if Aunt Lilly was to come around. Polly had always liked Aunt Lilly, despite the inklings of narcissism and the quality of someone who got too much attention as a kid.

The three spent an hour in the dining room, telling stories over glasses of red wine, something Aunt Lilly did not mind serving to her underage nieces. She liked being the “cool aunt.” The three then went off to bed. Lisa offered to share a bed with Polly, and Polly took her up on that. She was glad Lisa asked. She did not want to be alone tonight.

***

Aunt Lilly’s guest bedroom was dark. Real dark. The surrounding countryside was absent of streetlights. The blinds were closed, curtains drawn. There was the steady drone of the ceiling fan, which shook as its blades spun like a propeller. As it shook, it made a rhythmic clinking sound. Clink-uh, clink-uh, clink-uh.

When Polly’s eyes opened, she saw black. The black was speckled with those half-asleep dots. Polly remembered reading somewhere that those dots are blood vessels, moving across one’s retina. She wondered where she read that. She wondered if it was really true. It didn’t sound true. It sounded like baloney. It sounded like something you’d read in –

Wait, why did I wake up?

Polly was groggy. She didn’t register the sound of the shaking ceiling fan. Clink-uh, clink-uh, clink-uh. In her half-asleep state, her thoughts were reptilian. Why did she wake up? Did she have to pee? No, her bladder was empty. She had passed on that bedtime glass of water, for fear she would wet the shared bed during the night. God,she thought, how embarrassing would that be? Peeing all over Lisa.

Lisa.

Was that who had woken her? Polly thought she may have heard a faint… whimper. She blinked as if it would let more light into her eyes. At first, it did not. But then, her pupils grabbed hold of some faint light, which came from a bathroom nightlight down the hall. It wasn’t much. But it was enough. Enough to see Lisa, who lay in bed, awake, the sheets pulled up to her chin.

“No,” Lisa whimpered. “No, please, go away.”

That’s what woke me up,Polly thought. She remembered it now.

“Lisa?” said Polly. “You okay?”

“Please, go away,” said Lisa. “You’re not supposed to be here. Go away.”

Lisa was not speaking to Polly.

Polly reckoned that Lisa had a nightmare. “Lisa, it’s okay,” she said. “You just had a bad –

“Oh, go away. Why can’t you just go away?”

What was strange was Lisa’s tone. Whoever she was speaking to, she spoke as if she knew the person well.

“Go away, go away, go away.” Lisa’s voice was a whisper, now. The way she repeated that phrase, it was like a prayer. A chant, even.

Polly caressed Lisa’s shoulder. “It’s okay,” she whispered. “You just had a bad dream.”

Lisa’s voice became a whimper, again. “Oh, please,” she whined. “Go away and leave me alone.”

Polly’s eyes adjusted a bit more. She saw that Lisa’s were opened. They were aimed at the front of the room.

“Please, go away.”

Lisa’s words took on a whole new meaning once Polly turned her attention to the front of the room. There was barely enough light to see it, but she did. She did see it.

There was something in the room with them.

Polly didn’t believe it, at first. She blinked and squinted and did everything she could to try and scrutinize in the dark. The back wall was pure white and had nothing on it, save for an outlet near the bottom, so there was nothing to confuse for a figure; no nightstands, no floor lamps, no wall-mounted items of any kind.

The dark,thought Polly, it’s playing tricks. That was a nice thought. But Polly knew it made no sense. The dark could not play the same trick on two people.

Polly tried to call out to the figure, with naive hope that it was Aunt Lilly. At first, all she could manage was a suffocated chirp, which was drowned out by the ceiling fan’s unbroken clink-uh, clink-uh, clink-uh.

“A-Aunt Lilly?” said Polly. “What are you doing up?”

She asked out of denial. The more her eyes adjusted to the dark, the more she could see it was not Aunt Lilly. It was a tall, thin figure, male, hunched in decrepit fashion.

“Who’s there?” Polly asked.

The only reply was the ceiling fan. Clink-uh, clink-uh, clink-uh, clink-uh.

“Who’s there?” Polly insisted.

Clink-uh, clink-uh, clink-uh, clink-uh.

The two lay there, frozen, for some time. It felt like hours. The figure stood still as stone. Not a sound came from it. It didn’t even breathe.

Polly glanced at Lisa, who was in the same position as before, as still as the figure she feared. Lisa’s eyes were wide. Her blanket was now pulled tight to the bridge of her nose. Though she did not move, she did tremble. She shivered like it was below freezing. It was, again, like she knew this figure well. Like she knew what it could do… would do.

If there were a digital clock in the room, Polly reckoned an hour would have passed by now. She and her cousin had stayed still this whole time. Neither dared leave the bed. Polly realized she hadn’t so much as shifted her position, or even removed the hot blanket from her sweaty body. No, the blanket could not be moved, no matter how hot it got. The blanket made her feel somewhat safe.

The thin figure stayed still. Polly’s eyes had adjusted a bit more. She could now see that the figure was bald on top, with a ring of white hair around the sides of its head. The tuft of hair was full but messy, spiking outward in chaotic fashion. Still hidden by shadow, however, was the figure’s face.

Polly couldn’t stand to lay here any longer. She decided to try something. She brought her arm out from under the blanket. She raised a hand and waved it. She wanted to see if the figure would respond.

It did not. It stayed still.

She waved her hand, again. Still nothing. Not even a sound, save for the fan.

Maybe I can leave,Polly thought. Maybe I can leave and get help.

Polly eyeballed the doorway, a void into the abyssal hallway, a faint glow from the nightlight to guide her. She thought perhaps she could book it to the door.

No,she thought. Bad idea.

And the alternative? How long could she lay here? This had grown unbearable. She had to get out of here. She had to.

Polly lifted the sheets slowly. She brought her knees to her chest and brought her legs out from under the blanket. The wind from the ceiling fan bit her. She felt exposed. Exposed to the thing in the back of the room. It stayed still. Polly, however, felt it would move at any second.

And what will it do if it moves? she wondered.

Polly gulped. She kept her eyes glued to the thing. The thing kept still. Polly’s eyes shifted to the doorway. They went back and forth; figure, doorway, figure, doorway. Her heart pounded, now, in unison with the fan.

Polly began to sit up. She almost yelped when she felt a hand grab her shoulder tight.

The hand was Lisa’s, who said, “Polly, don’t.”

“I wanna get help,” Polly whispered, though the thing could likely still hear her.

“Don’t. He gets mad when you try to leave.”

“What?”

Lisa went back to her state of frozen fear. Her hand stayed on Polly’s shoulder.

Polly was in a sit-up position on the bed, her neck cranked as she stared at the thing across from the bed. Her eyes wandered back to the door. She made a choice. She’d make a run for it.

The second Polly lurched toward the edge of the bed, the thing broke into a run toward her. That is, if you could call it a run. It was more the dance of a crazed clown or witch doctor, the man’s limbs moving spidery and spasmodic.

Polly and Lisa shrieked, both slamming against the headboard as they leapt back in terror. By the time they had collected themselves in a series of pants and whimpers, the thing had stopped. The thing was, again, still as stone. This time, it was right at their bedside. It was frozen, stuck mid-dance as though someone had hit the pause button. Its face was still bathed in shadow. Just like before, the thing stood still, and Polly and Lisa watched.

“What do you want?”

The words left Polly’s lips without invitation. She regretted them immediately. But to her surprise, the thing answered. Its voice was that of a frail old man; high, raspy, and almost deathlike. The voice of someone whose deathbed was a week away, maybe less.

“Alls I wanna do is dance,” the thing said. It stayed frozen for another moment, or two, and then it turned and walked to the nightstand.

A radio sat atop the nightstand. The man waved a hand above it as though he were casting a spell. Then, he brought down a single, bony finger and clicked a button. The radio began to play a song. It was “Lovesick Blues,” by Hank Williams. Polly let out the smallest of whimpers as the thing—still in the shadows—began to do a janky line dance to the song.

The line dance done by the figure was wobbly, yes, but it also had an eerily perfect rhythm. Each beat was accompanied by a perfectly-timed leg raise.

The thing then began to dance its way toward the door. It did one last jazz hand before ending its jig. Then, it did a bow and a wave goodbye. It left, closing the door behind it.

Polly and Lisa held onto each other all night long. Neither slept. In her sleepless daze over the next week, Polly thought it had just been some awful dream. It made sense because Lisa hadn’t spoken a word of it. She had nearly convinced herself of this.

That was, until she began to see Uncle Victor herself.

Kara

The day was almost done. The crickets and cicadas had begun to sing their songs. Kara had not been able to get Polly’s story out of her head. As a clinician, Kara was rational. She knew it had to have been a paranoid delusion on Polly’s part. The girl was unwell. But still, it was a horrifying delusion. This man, Uncle Victor, was someone Kara was glad she would not have to meet.

Kara looked outside. The sun was going down, and that always filled her with dread. The night meant flashbacks. The night meant worries. The night meant nightmares. She hated going home. She never wanted to. She always wanted to stay in the office. Sometimes, she slept there, pulling out the couch and making up the bed. She always kept clean sheets and clothes in the closet, and would shower at the YMCA in the morning.

Tonight was going to be one of those nights. The memories began to return, and she hadn’t even left for home, yet.

***

The winter night is cold and dry. The arid winds of January whistle in Kara’s numbing ears. She is on her way home from a friend’s house, just a few blocks away. She is troubled. She found something before she had gone to her friend’s house. It was a gold wristwatch, blue face, blue stripe down the band. Her husband’s, it seemed. It had a quote engraved on it: “Love is something that can change a person.”

Kara did not get her husband that watch. He’d been asleep when she found it. Careful not to wake him, she’d squirreled it away in her nightstand and went to her friend’s place to talk about it. Her friend had steered her in the right direction. She had to confront him. She had to.

Suddenly, she sees smoke rising to the sky. It looks to be coming from home. Please, no. Please, please, please. No, no, no, please.

Kara rounds the street corner. She looks down her street. It sounds awful, but as she sees the flame-covered house, she hopes it’s Jane’s house, maybe Scott next-door. Anyone’s but hers. But it is hers. The fire trucks are outside. Two stretchers with tiny smoldering corpses. Chris, her husband, seated on the edge of a fire truck, face blackened from smoke, breathing through a tube.

Kara falls to her knees and wails as she realizes she’ll never read her girls a bedtime story again, never take them to the playground again, never sing them songs as they drift off to sleep. “You Must’ve Been a Beautiful Baby,” that’s what she sang to them. The cruel irony of those lyrics have always hung thick in her mind, namely when considering the image of her daughters’ charred corpses.

You must’ve been a beautiful baby…

‘Cause baby, look at you now.

***

Kara’s eyes snapped open. She rubbed her face as she looked over at the digital clock. She hoped it was morning. She sighed when she saw the time. 2:03 AM. To most, this was a happy moment, a sign of more time to sleep. But Kara prayed for the night to end, to be free of her nightmares for the next 18 hours.

The pull-out creaked as Kara sat up. She sipped from the water glass she kept on the nightstand. Light from outside street lamps seeped through the closed window blinds, casting stripe patterns on the wall.

Kara picked up her cellphone. She intended to watch a few funnies on YouTube to relax. But she was stopped when she saw the missed call. The missed call was from NO CALLER ID, and it had occurred just ten minutes ago. Who the hell’s calling me at 2 AM? Kara shrugged to herself.

Then, the hidden number called again.

She picked up. There was silence for a long moment.

“Hello?” said Kara. “Who is this?”

There was breathing on the other end.

“Ah, okay,” said Kara. “That old trick? Listen, I don’t think this is funny.”

“Nothing,” the voice on the other end whispered. “Nothing funny at all. Nothing, nothing, funny, funny.”

Kara froze for a moment. “Who is this?” she asked.

“Trying to warn you,” the voice whispered. It barely sounded lucid. “Look out, look out, look out.”

“Look out for what?”

A sudden bloop-bloop-bloop signaled that the person had hung up.

“What the hell?” said Kara.

Kara set the phone down. With the prospect of another four hours of nightmares, she had all but forgotten the caller as she lay down her head.

Chris

A veil of vapor hung thin in the motel room as Chris puffed an e-cigarette. Pursing his lips, he sputtered perfect smoke rings. Next to him, sheet wrapped around her nude body as though this were a scene in a soap opera, was Scarlett, his second escort of the week. She was his favorite. As her name suggested, she had dark red hair, and she also had snow white skin and cherry lips. Her eyes were large and often expressionless, save for when she gave a forced crocodilian smile. She had all the inner workings of a psychopath. And Chris loved her for it.

Chris blew vapor from his throat. “We should get married.”

Scarlett giggled. “Think so?”

“Why not?”

“You sure you wanna marry an escort?”

Chris regarded her with a frown. He grabbed her wrist firmly and gave a slight smirk.

Scarlett smirked back.

“Well, you can stop escorting,” Chris said.

“Maybe I like it,” said Scarlett. She brought her hand to Chris’ chest and ran her red-painted nails through the hairs. “Gotta be there for my clients.”

Chris leaned in. The two began to kiss. Then, they began round two.

***

Chris entered his home, quiet. He placed his keys on a ring and crept toward the living room. A light was on in there, which was strange. That light was never left on.

When he got to the living room, he saw Shannon, who sat in the armchair. She wore her purple nightgown, and her brown hair was tied up in a bun. She was reading a copy of The Stand. When Chris entered, she looked up.

“Where you been?” Shannon asked innocently.

Chris aimed a thumb back at the front door as he replied, “Just went to fill my car up with gas. Just so I don’t have to, in the morning.”

“Oh, okay.” A pause, and then, “So, if I turned your car on, right now, there’d be a full tank?”

Chris nodded. “Yup.”

“Hmm. Okay.”

“Goodnight.”

“Night.”

Chris walked off and up the stairs. He entered the bedroom and removed his clothes. They still smelled like Scarlett. He pressed his shirt to his face and inhaled deeply. Then, he buried the clothes in his hamper, beneath piles of dirty underwear and sweat-covered gym clothes. He climbed on the bed and lay there and took a puff from his vape.

As he blew clouds of vapor, he recalled how cigarettes used to taste. Real smoke. And that made him recall the black smoke that filled his lungs on that horrid night; the night he and Kara’s house burned down, the remnants of their old life devoured by flames. And there were also the screams. The screams of those two little girls.

He shut his eyes and he could see it. That white, wooden door, in the midst of the burning hallway. The door, shut tight, the bone-chilling screams of his two girls behind it. Wailing, crying, begging for help.

“Daddy! Daddy! Help!”

But Chris did not help. He stood outside that door, in that hallway. He saw his exit, clear as day, a path down the stairs that the flames had practically created for him. The path that led straight to the front door, to fresh air, to freedom, away from the flames that were consuming the pink walls and stuffed animals in his daughters’ bedroom.

And he remembered why he started the fire in the first place.

Chris had done it for Shannon, for the new life they could build. But in Chris’ mind—which was already twisted and demented at birth—he had to get rid of the old life first. This was the way.

Kara always lit candles. She always blew them out, sure. She was religious about blowing them out. But what if, tonight, Kara had simply… forgotten? What if she was sure, absolutely sure, that she had blown it out, but had not? This was the narrative Chris created. He created it in his mind as he watched; watched as the wick mushroomed, the flame grew, and spread to Kara’s shirt, which Chris had conveniently placed next to the candle.

And just like that, the flames began to eat Chris’ old life away, leaving ashes from which his new life would arise. Chris could still remember sitting on the edge of that fire truck, breathing through that tube, as he watched the last of his house crumble to the ground. He had retrieved nothing from the burning home. Nothing, that is, except for the gold wristwatch Shannon had bought him for Christmas. How fitting it was that the only thing he’d retrieved was something from the new life ahead.

Now, Scarlett beckoned for him to begin an even newer life, one with greener grass than before. History had a way of repeating itself. Of course, it couldn’t be another house fire, not this time. A rational mind would tell Chris to simply divorce Shannon. But Chris’ mind was anything but rational. An extensive psychiatric evaluation would show that his brain bore resemblance to a Jeffrey Dahmer or a Ted Bundy. He was unwell, a monster among men. But he was very good at hiding it. After all, his last wife hadbeen a psychologist.

An extensive interview with Chris, however, would yield a far different reality. Though he was a loner in high school—great at sports but shitty with the ladies—Chris would tell you he was incredibly popular, one of the jocks, and that he was a wiz in the classroom (which would also be a lie), and that he had taken a 28-year-old brain surgeon to the prom (though he’d actually taken the chubby girl next-door).

And he had no remorse about the house fire. To his warped brain, the fire was akin to a breakup, a breakup done out of service to himself.

You owe it to yourself,he’d think. Life’s too short to be unhappy.

Kara

Kara had slept in the office, again, and she felt surprisingly rested when she woke. She supposed she still got REM sleep during her nightmares. She lay awake on the pull-out couch for a little while, glad it was morning. The digital clock read 6 AM. She checked her cellphone to see if she got another one of those mysterious phone calls the previous night. No missed calls.

Kara got up and strolled down the hall to the coffeemaker in the lobby. She brewed a pot and poured herself a cup and enjoyed the morning silence of the office. Not even the noise machines made sounds at this hour.

She was about to walk outside for some air, when she noticed Dr. Strauss’ office door was partly open. That door had always been a problem. Kara approached the door.

She was about to close it, when something in the office caught her eye. The office was almost pitch dark, but through the small gap in the doorway, Kara thought she could see the faint outline of someone standing in the corner. It was just barely a silhouette, and it stood absolutely still. Without meaning to, Kara let out a light gasp. She stared through the gap, trying to adjust her eyes. But the office was very dark, and this was the best she would see the silhouette.

Unless, of course, she turned on the light.

She reached through the gap. Her hand blindly traversed the wall on the other side for a long moment, her eyes still fixated on the figure. For a second, she wasn’t sure she would ever find the light switch. After another moment or two, her fingers found the switch. She flipped on the light.

All that stood in the corner was a floor lamp. She scoffed at herself, shut the light off, and closed the door.

***

Polly arrived at ten till nine, and she looked rested, today. She wore her hair down, and it was combed and curled. She had on makeup too. Those bags beneath her eyes were either gone, or hidden by powder.

Kara greeted Polly and the two went back to Kara’s office. They sat down, across from each other.

“So, how was your week?” asked Kara.

“Better,” said Polly. “He left me alone, this week.”

“He?”

Polly nodded as if she expected Kara to know who she spoke of. And Kara did know, but she liked being precise. She wanted to hear everything from the patient’s mouth.

“Uncle Victor,” said Polly. “I… didn’t see him, this week.”

“Well, that’s good,” said Kara. “Right?”

“I guess.”

“You guess?”

“He’s gone away, before. Sometimes for a few weeks. But he always comes back. Always.”

There was silence as Polly picked nervously at her nails. Her eyes wandered down. “You’re not married?” she asked.

Taken aback, Kara looked down at her ringless finger. “Oh, um, no. Why?”

“I don’t know. I guess when I meet a middle-aged woman, I always expect she’ll be married. I mean, no offense.”

“No, none taken.” Kara cleared her throat. “I’m divorced.”

“Oh,” said Polly.

“Let’s go back to you, though,” Kara said. “We were talking about Uncle Victor last week, right?”

“Yes. And how I keep seeing him.”

“You keep seeing him, that’s right. I wanted to ask you: how do you feel when you see him?”

“How do I feel?”

“That’s right.”

“I don’t like it. I don’t like seeing him. I’m never happy to see him.”

“Do you feel frightened, when you see him?”

Polly stirred a bit. “Sometimes. But it’s usually not like that. I’m less often scared, and more often just… uneasy. I feel ill when I see him. Like I’ve got worms in my stomach.”

“I see. And, when you first met Uncle Victor, you say you were going through a rough patch? Still grieving over the loss of your mother?”

“Yes. I was still very sad. I was still having panic attacks too.”

“Right, right,” Kara said. “I wonder if you see any connection, there, between this state of grief, and your first encounters with Uncle Victor?”

“Well, yeah,” Polly said. “I have kind of a theory. I think this thing—Uncle Victor—it’s drawn to grief.”

“It seems that way, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, it does.”

“Does anyone else in your family see Uncle Victor?”

“Not besides Lisa.”

“How often does Lisa see him?”

“Far as I know, just that one time, at Aunt Lilly’s house. But, like I said before, she talked to him like she’d known him for a really long time.”

“Interesting. I wonder if maybe there’s another explanation. One that maybe you haven’t considered. I wanted to float the idea and see what you think.”

Polly nodded.

Kara continued, “Perhaps this idea came to you because you were feeling so bad about your mother’s passing. So, in other words, Uncle Victor is an idea that made you feel as though you had someone to share your grief with, to comfort you. Unsuccessfully, of course. What do you think about that?”

Polly’s face looked like she’d been sucking on a lemon. “I think it’s a nasty idea,” she said. “I mean, I can’t believe that I’ve been telling you all this, all this bad stuff that’s been happening to me, and you could come up with something like that. Like I’m crazy, or something.”

“No one said that,” said Kara. “So, you don’t buy it? You don’t think that could be the case?”

Polly shook her head no. “I’m being stalked. I mean, I’m being haunted. I need help dealing with this.”

“If that’s true, then why’d you come to see a therapist, and not a… paranormal medium, or something like that?”

Polly’s eyes grew large. “I have. I’ve gone to three psychics.”

“And?” asked Kara.

“Two of them told me the same stuff you’re telling me. They didn’t sense a presence, or a spirit, or a… a… a demon, or anything like that. But there is something. There is. I’m telling you, there is.”

“What about the third psychic?”

“Scammer,” Polly said with a wave of her hand. “She took my money, said a few magic spells, and ran off.”

“I see. So, what could I do that a psychic medium can’t?”

Polly sighed. “Look… you want the truth? My grandma made me come to therapy. She thinks the same thing you do. That I’m crazy.”

“I don’t think that, Polly.”

“Okay.”

“So,” Kara continued, “that idea I floated, that’s not a possibility you’re willing to consider, at the moment?”

“No. Not at all.”

“Okay.”

Kara allowed a silence to glaze over the room. She stared at Polly, and Polly stared back.

Polly’s fingers traversed the sofa, her nails digging at the cushions. “Now what?” she asked.

Kara shrugged. “You’ve paid for a full hour,” she said. “But you don’t seem willing to open yourself up to my ideas.”

“Well…” Polly huffed, frustrated, and then whined, “I am not crazy.”

“That’s right, Polly. You’re not. You’re rational. So, let us be rational, and let’s take a look at the problem.”

Polly nodded reluctantly, her face painted with a petulant look.

“Good,” said Kara. “So, you said that no one else in your family sees Uncle Victor? No one else around you?”

“Yeah,” said Polly.

“Don’t you think that’s a bit unusual, that you’re the only one who sees him?”

“Lisa saw him.”

“Did she tell you that?”

“Well, no. But I… observed it.”

“How do you know you’re actually seeing him?”

“I just know. It feels real.”

“It feels real,” Kara echoed. She waited a beat. “Have you ever heard of the Brain in a Vat scenario?”

Polly shook her head no.

“It’s a thought experiment,” Kara continued. “So, imagine there’s a brain, and it’s floating in a jar of water. Since the brain in a jar gives and receives the same impulses as it would inside a skull, and since these are the only ways it interacts with its environment, then it is not possible to tell, from the perspective of that brain, whether it is in a skull or a jar.”

“So, the brain can’t tell whether it’s inside of a skull, or just inside of a bucket of water?”

“Precisely.”

Polly shrugged. “What’s this have to do with me?”

“What I’m driving at, is that you can perceive something, and it can feel absolutely real. And, by all means, it should. That’s what your brain is for, right? But if no one else sees what you’re seeing, and there’s no substantial evidence that what you’re seeing is real…”

Kara waited for Polly to fill the blank.

“Then it might not be real,” Polly finished.

“Might not be,” Kara agreed. “And, I want to stress that I don’t doubt you are experiencing this. I don’t doubt that you’re hearing and seeing Uncle Victor. What I’m suggesting is that this might be a hallucination. And, coupled with your past trauma, it makes sense why you might be seeing or hearing these things.”

“Okay. So, what do we do?”

“Well, now that you’re open to this idea, we’ll talk it out. Sound good?”

“I guess.”

“Good. So, I’m wondering, can you see or hear Uncle Victor right now?”

Polly’s eyes shifted to the closet behind Kara, at the back of the room. “No,” she said. “I told you, I haven’t seen him in over a week.”

“Right. So, it comes and goes?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. And Polly, does Uncle Victor ever tell you to do things? Does he make requests, or maybe even give commands?”

“Yes.”

“How often does he tell you to do things?”

“Not that much. He mostly just… visits. Plays that song for me.”

“The old country song?”

“Yes.”

“Gotcha,” said Kara. “And, when he tells you to do things, what kinds of things are they?”

“He, uh,” Polly started. She gulped, her eyes frequently returning to the closet. “Oh, gosh, I don’t want you to think I’m crazy. I-I don’t wanna get, like, reported or committed, or something.”

“Polly, listen to me. Listen to me. You can tell me anything, okay? I am here for you. You understand me? You can tell me anything.”

Polly nodded and took a deep breath.

“It’s almost like he’s tempting me,” she said. “Kinda like how churches tell kids that the Devil tempts them. He tells me to, like, take revenge on people who’ve wronged me. One time, he told me to put crushed-up glass in my dad’s food. He told me to keep doing this until my dad…” Polly hesitated. “…gets poisoned and dies.”

“Why your dad?”

“He became an alcoholic when my mom died.”

“Okay. So, you feel that he wronged you.”

“Yes. The same goes for kids at school.”

“He wants you to hurt them?”

“Yes. Well, no. Just the ones that are mean to me.”

“Are a lot of kids at school mean to you?”

“Not many,” said Polly. “A few are. It’s not like they target me, though. They’re just jerks.”

“I see,” said Kara. “And Uncle Victor wants you to hurt them?”

“Yes.”

“What’s he tell you to do?”

“He tells me to…” Again, there was hesitation, here. “…stab Johnny through the eye with my pencil.”

“Okay. And how do you respond?”

“Well, I obviously don’t do it,” Polly said with a weak laugh. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here, right now. I try to ignore Victor. Sometimes, I tell him to shut up.”

“What’s he do when you tell him to shut up?” asked Kara.

“Sometimes he gets really angry. He gets mad when you don’t do what he says.”

“I see. And does that frighten you?”

Polly nodded.

“Well,” said Kara, “the good thing is that, now that we’ve talked about the possibility of Uncle Victor not actually being there, then it’s quite likely that he can’t hurt you. Right?”

Polly nodded again and said, “Mhmm.”

“That doesn’t mean it’s not scary,” said Kara. “I understand it must be very scary, for you.”

“Yeah,” said Polly, “it is.”

“What I wanna do now is an exercise. Would you be open to that?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. So what I’m gonna ask is that you –

A gasp from Polly interrupted Kara. Polly’s eyes were wide, her mouth even wider, and her hands were both planted firmly atop the couch cushions, pushing her against the back of the sofa. She was looking at the closet.

Kara looked over her shoulder. The closet door hung slightly open, as if someone had nudged it. She glanced back at Polly with a lighthearted smile.

“The doors in this office,” Kara said, “they tend to not stay closed. Takes some extra oomph to shut ‘em all the way.”

Polly’s expression stayed the same. Her pale skin had gone even whiter. Her eyes were softballs. Her mouth was a black hole.

“Polly, it’s okay,” said Kara. “It’s just the doors, here.” She stood. “Here, I’ll close it, okay?”

Kara went to the closet and placed a hand on the knob. She opened the door a bit more.

“See?” she said. “Nothing’s –

She stopped. She stared into the dark of the closet and, amidst the darkness, saw the outline of a face. No,she thought. It can’t be. She gazed into the closet and her eyes fixated on the face. The face was there, all right. The more she scrutinized—the more she tried to tell herself it was not there—the more clear the face became.

“What is it?” Polly asked, beside herself with fear, looking like she was ready to bolt.

Kara didn’t hear. The face in the closet was mostly covered in darkness, but its main features were apparent. It was a very old man. The head was bald, but even in the darkness of that closet, the ring of messy hair around the sides was visible. The nose was pointed and curved like a witch. The ears were very large, typical of an old man. The eyes were small and beady. But the worst was the mouth, that toothy, skeletal grin that was not unlike the Cheshire Cat.

Kara’s heart thumped against her breastplate. She was a statue, her hand glued to the knob as she studied that horrid face, which she was now quite sure was there.

Stop it Kara,she told herself. You’re gonna scare your patient. Pull yourself together. It’s not there. It’s… oh, god, it is there! It’s really there!

“Doctor Roma?” Polly insisted. “What is it?”

Kara snapped from her trance, though her eyes stayed glued to the face that hovered beyond the doorway. With one hand still gripping the doorknob, her other hand slid up the wall as it probed for the light switch. Her fingers found it. She hesitated. She wasn’t sure if she wanted to illuminate this man. This thing. She took a deep breath. She flicked on the closet light.

The face was gone, and Kara exhaled.

“Thought I saw something,” said Kara. She turned the light off and shut the closet door. She returned to her seat.

“You saw him,” said Polly, who still looked frightened.

“Polly, I –

“No. You saw him! I know you did!”

This was bad. Dammit, Kara. If Polly thought Kara had seen this apparition, it would give Polly’s delusions credibility. Polly was unstable as it was, but it was possible that this might send her over the edge. Kara couldn’t let that happen. No, this was bad. One of her patients had gone mad, before. Another incident like that, and it could cause her new private practice to go under. And if that happened, she would be lucky to find a job as a guidance counselor at Oakview Elementary.

And, of course, there was poor Polly’s sanity to think of. Kara was a bit mad at herself for not thinking of that first. God, I’m an asshole,she thought. Say something to her, you dirty rotten climber.

“Polly,” Kara said as she approached the sofa, “listen to me.”

But Polly was already gathering her things. She shivered as though someone had cranked the thermostat down to 55.

“I have to go,” said Polly.

“Polly, please don’t do that.”

“I don’t think you can help me.” Polly started for the door, and Kara followed.

“Of course I can!” There was more than a hint of desperation in Kara’s voice now. “Of course I can help you! I can make you better.”

“No. No one can.”

Kara continued to chase Polly down the hall and to the door.

“Polly, I didn’t see anything!” she pleaded.

“You did see him,” said Polly. “You saw Victor. I-I’m sorry, I just can’t be here.”

Polly walked out.

Detective Morgan & Detective Adler

“Anyone know what this was all about?”

“Not yet.”

“So, they were scuffling, here, in the living room. The suspect compromised the gun. Boom. One shot through the lower jaw was all it took.”

“Yup. Well, I’m sure Crime Watch Daily’s gonna be doing an episode on this one soon.”

“Yeah, no kidding.”

“And then, there’s the body in the bathroom? How’s that even fit into all this?”

“I’m not sure. Tell you what, though, I did a little digging before I got here. This was a long time coming.”

“Yeah?”

“If I recall, there’s a history, here, and I don’t think it begins with this case.”

“That right?”

“Alls I can say, I think we uncovered a rabbit hole. Lord knows how deep it goes.”

Kara

The room is lit by a purple princess nightlight. Kara sits between the twin beds. Mary and Samantha lie in their respective beds, their little eyelids growing heavy. Mary will earn herself a new doll if she stops sucking her thumb, but tonight, she gives in and places her thumb beneath her two front teeth as she curls up on her side.

Samantha, meanwhile, fights sleep, wanting to hear the rest of the song her mother sings.

Kara sings about a small child going to Kindergarten and drivin’ them little boys wild. A light snore emerges from Samantha’s gaping mouth as she loses her battle with sleep. Kara smiles. She continues the song. The part about a judge handing over a prize and the kid making the cutest bow. She finishes. She stands, kisses both girls on the forehead, and heads for the door.

“Mommy?”

Kara stops and looks back. It’s Mary, thumb now removed from her mouth. She sits up with both hands gripping the edge of her blanket.

“What is it, sweetie?” says Kara.

“Why’d we have to burn?” Mary asks innocently.

Kara’s stomach spins. “W-What?” she stammers.

“You didn’t let us out,” says Mary. “When our room was on fire, you didn’t open the door and come save us.”

“Oh, sweetie, no. No, no, no, I wanted to. Sweetie, I really, really wanted to. I just didn’t get there in time.”

“Are you lying?”

“No! I love you! I love you, I love you, and I miss you so much, sweetie. I miss you so, so much.”

Mary’s face scrunches into sobbing position. “The fire hurt really bad. The fire burned my skin off.”

“I know, sweetie,” says Kara. “I know. I’m so sorry. I can’t stand that that happened to you.”

“The fire burned my skin off. I-It burned my skin, and it made my skin peel away, and I could see my bones underneath.”

Kara closes her eyes and places her hands on the sides of her head. “Honey, please. Please, stop. Your mommy doesn’t wanna hear that.”

“My skin peeled away and then it melted my eyes and I couldn’t see anymore, but I could still feel everything.”

“Honey, please stop!”

Kara opens her eyes, and they grow huge as her two little girls now lie in their beds in the form of living, smoldering corpses, smoke still coming off the surface of their skin.

“Girls, please stop,” Kara begs. “Please, change back! Change back!”

Mary and Samantha’s living corpses now let out shrill shrieks, louder than the wails of two ambulances.

“For Christ’s sake!” screams Kara. “CHANGE BACK!”

***

Kara woke in her office with a small gasp. She saw only pitch black. She rolled off the pull-out couch and fumbled around for the light switch. She flicked on the light. She pulled herself together as best she could. She grabbed her cellphone—which she had accidentally left unplugged—and left her office and went to the lobby. She avoided looking at the clock, as the hour would make her uneasy if it was still early. She held onto the hope that it was 5 AM and that she only had one or two more hours to get through. Her heart rate was elevated, and so she would not try to sleep yet. Instead, she sat down in the lobby and flipped on the TV and skimmed the channels, passing The Boondocks on Adult Swim, a commercial for Joel Bieber’s law firm, and an episode of Ancient Aliens,before landing on CNN. She didn’t care what she watched. She just needed human voices.

As the reporters discussed the President’s latest tweets, Kara sat in an armchair and dialed Marco’s Pizza and pressed the phone to her ear.

“Hi,” she said, “I’d like to place an order for delivery. Can I get a medium cheese pizza with a side of dipping…”

Her phone beeped. She pulled it from her ear. She was getting another call. No caller ID. She suspected it was the same crank caller from a few nights previous.

“Ma’am?”

“Uh, one second,” said Kara. “I’ll call back.” She answered the caller. “Hello?”

Just like last time, there was breathing. Then, the whispery voice spoke; never, ever above a whisper.

“Watch out,” the voice said. “He’s on his way.”

“Who is this?” asked Kara, impatient. “Why do you keep calling?”

“To warn you. Nothing else. Can do nothing else for you.”

“Warn me of what?”

“Of him. He’s coming.”

“Who?!”

The voice took a deep breath, and then whispered, “Uncle Victor.”

Kara felt all her insides turn, all at once. Her stomach boiled and her intestines coiled. She was silent for a long moment, but she couldn’t have said how long that moment was.

“Did you hear me?” whispered the person on the other end, their actual voice peeping through for a split second.

Kara stood and turned to face the front window, hunched like a child who tells secrets, her eyes shifting from side-to-side. “Who told you that?” she asked. “That’s private information. What’d you do? Hack our servers?”

“I did nothing.”

“How else could you know that?”

There was a pause.

“Because I’ve seen him too,” said the voice. “He told me your name. He’s coming… He’s coming… He’s coming.”

As Kara gazed out the front window, she noticed movement. In the midst of the small isles of orange light from street lamps, someone moseyed up the road. The person was hardly visible, save for the silhouette. Kara assumed it was just one of Spartanburg’s late-night junkies who wandered the town in search of dope. Still, her eyes tailed this unidentified figure. As she watched, she noticed that the figure’s trajectory was slowly changing. The figure seemed to wander off the sidewalk and toward the side of Kara’s building, albeit very slow and very indirect, like a predator flanking its prey.

What are you doing?

Kara thought about making her presence known, an effort to dissuade the person from robbing the place. But she couldn’t muster up the guts. Soon, the figure disappeared from view. Kara was sure the person now lurked somewhere near the side of the building.

“He’s coming…”

The voice on the other end startled Kara, who had forgotten she was still on the phone. She put the phone on speaker as she tiptoed through the lobby and peeked around the corner and gazed down the hallway. The hall was dark and empty, save for the inactive noise machines and a fern atop a small table.

The voice on the phone continued to whisper, “He’s coming… He’s coming… He’s coming…”

Kara crept back through the lobby, grabbed the remote, and muted the TV. She listened. She heard nothing but the ticking of the lobby’s grandfather clock. She stole to the receptionist office, where there was a window at the back. The blinds had been left open. Kara tiptoed to the window.

“He’s coming… He’s coming… He’s coming…”

Kara inched her face toward the window. She didn’t notice that she hadn’t been breathing. She peered through the open blinds, trying to see as far around the corner of as she could. The building’s back lawn was lit faintly by those street lamps. It was enough to see him. She could see the tall figure that skulked outside the building. The figure was a man. His movements were slow, catlike.

“He’s coming… He’s coming… He’s coming…”

Kara continued to hold her breath as she watched. The man continued to creep through the lawn. Then, he stopped.

What’s he doing? Is he looking at?…

The man seemed to have spotted Kara, who let out a gasp as she lurched back and away from the window, knocking over a lamp in the process.

“Shit!” she exclaimed.

“He’s coming… He’s coming… He’s coming…”

“What do I do?”

The caller ignored her. “He’s coming… He’s coming… He’s coming…”

Kara broke into a run. She ran down the hall and into her office and shut the door and locked it. She approached the window and pulled up one of the blinds and peeked outside. Her eyes must have looked so spooky and paranoid all at once as they peered through the gap.

“He’s coming… He’s coming… He’s coming…”

Kara went back to the door. She grabbed the knob, twisted, and pulled to make sure it was locked. Then, like a scared dog during a thunderstorm, she hopped in bed. She sat with her knees pulled up to her chest, her eyes locked onto the door.

“He’s coming… He’s coming…”

She brought the cellphone to her face and was about to hang up and dial 9-1-1. The moment just before her thumb hit the red button, the caller changed his tune with one final phrase:

“He’s here.”

Kara hung up.

“Come on,” she said to herself. “Come on, come on, come on. Nine, one, one. Nine, one, one.”

She went to dial the number. The phone’s screen then went black, nothing on it but the spinning pinwheel. Dead.

“Oh, fuck,” Kara said. “No, no, no.”

The office phone,she thought. And she was about to leap out of bed and make a break for the landline phone atop her desk. But something stopped her. It was almost automatic, the way she froze. It was because of a sound. The sound was a light whistling, faint as the chitters of a raccoon in the nighttime distance. And the sound, it seemed to come from…

The closet?

As Kara listened, she began to piece together a melody. It was a melody she knew very well. It was the melody of “You Must’ve Been a Beautiful Baby,” the lullaby turned song of her nightmares.

“What the fuck?” Kara hissed. It came out in an almost frustrated tone, combined with her perpetual fright.

The whistles continued, whistling the song’s chorus, then a verse, then back to the chorus, and then the bridge found in Bing Crosby’s 1938 recording. Kara stayed in bed, knees pressed to her chest, fingernails scratching anxiously at her kneecaps, her breaths coming out shallow and through clenched teeth.

She eyeballed her purse, which sat on the chair at her desk. Inside was her revolver, which she carried concealed wherever she went. She now wished she’d kept it within reach, perhaps atop the nearby coffee table.

“This isn’t real,” she told herself. “It’s not real, it’s not real.” She repeated the words over and over until they didn’t sound like words at all, just a jumbled phrase in a made-up language.

The thing behind the closed closet door began to whistle the final chorus. That frightened Kara the most, because she didn’t know what would happen once the song ended. But the whistling thing blew out the last two lines of the chorus. Then, there was silence. The silence lasted for quite some time. It lasted so long that Kara’s ears rang. They rang until she was almost certain that someone nearby was playing some sort of high-pitched frequency.

Those folding closet doors stood there so ominously in the darkness. The closet was right in the middle of Kara’s vision, a menacing centerpiece. The silence, the room’s static state, it was maddening. Kara did not know what to think or what to do. She almost wanted something to happen, even if it was something awful. She couldn’t take this any longer.

She got her wish. A creeeak preceded the slow opening of the closet doors. The familiar void of the closet was revealed. And within that void was a familiar face. It was the same face Kara had seen when Polly was here. Now, she knew it was real.

No,she told herself, still denying it. This is shared psychosis. You need help, that’s all. Valium. Yes, valium, that’s what you need.

Kara’s eyes settled on the face in the darkness. The body was veiled in shadow, and so it almost seemed that the head floated. The face’s main features were visible; beady eyes, curved nose, messy ring of hair, toothy grin.

“This isn’t real,” Kara repeated. She hadn’t meant to say it aloud. Now that she had, she almost felt like she’d transgressed. Like she had angered the thing in the closet.

The thing spoke back. “Of course I’m real,” it said. “It’s me. It’s your Uncle Victor.”

Kara’s stomach did a somersault, once again, churning what little was inside of it.

“What do you want?” she asked.

Uncle Victor was silent for a beat before he whispered, “I just wanna dance and be happy.”

Kara let out a whimper as her eyes zeroed in on the door. The door. The knob. The lock. No, no, the door was locked. Why did she lock it? Why, why, why? And how fast was this thing in the closet? Her eyes locked onto the knob. They zeroed in even further, onto the lock. That was her target. It was not the kind of lock that pops upon turning the knob. No, it was the kind that had to be turned.

“I do hope you decide to stay,” Uncle Victor whispered. “For your sake, of course.”

A chill went down Kara’s spine. Uncle Victor had said it in such a friendly way. So kind. So matter-of-fact. Her eyes snapped back to look at him. He still had that toothy grin that never left his face.

“I wanna leave,” Kara said. “Please, let me go.”

Silence.

Uncle Victor’s face beamed at her from the darkness.

Kara looked back at the door, then back at the closet. And this time, it was just the closet. No Victor. He was gone.

See? Kara thought. You’re just going a little mad. A little mad… what movie is that line from? Yes, just a little mad, a little crazy. You need help. Meds, probably. No, definitely meds.

Tense as a wound-up jack in the box, Kara stood and stole toward the door. She placed a hand on the knob. Her other hand joggled the lock. She had the shakes, and so she struggled. And that left her time enough to see something, something in the corner of her eye. The top corner. The top corner of the room. She looked up.

In the ceiling corner was Uncle Victor. His arms and legs were outstretched as he clung to the wall like a spider. He looked down on Kara, his face fully lit by the moonlight that seeped into the room. And this time, he was not smiling. A scowl painted his hundred-year-old face.

Kara unlocked the door. She twisted the knob, yanked it open, and ran into the hall without looking back.

Uncle Victor followed. He always followed.

Chris

Scarlett’s head surfaced from under the bedsheets, just above Chris’ lap. She smacked her red lips and ran her tongue across them slowly.

“How was that?” she asked.

“Just amazing,” Chris replied before he gasped for more air. He placed a hand on her head and ran his fingers through her hair.

Scarlett curled up next to Chris. Their nude bodies were glued together by a thin layer of sex sweat.

Chris grabbed his vape from the nightstand. He took a series of big puffs.

Scarlett caressed his chest.

The ceiling fan spun slowly above them. Even in this shabby motel room, with a slow ceiling fan, magic marker messages on the bathroom wall, and yellow blotches on the ceiling, this felt real. This felt like love, only it was real, real because it was fresh and new and exciting. There was passion and lust and no room for irritation by each other’s repetitive quirks.

And Chris didn’t want it just on his lunch break. He did not want it just on days where Shannon thought he was at the bars for happy hour. He did not want it just when he went out for “work meetings,” or when he was going to “physical therapy for his knee.” No, Chris wanted this all the time. He wanted it always. He wanted it forever.

“We should get married,” Chris said, just like last time.

“Yes,” said Scarlett. “We should.”

They looked at each other. Scarlett, with her big eyes and full lips. Chris, with his sexy goatee and suave half smile. They kissed. The kissing led to lip-biting and exchanging tongues. That led to petting. And that was about to lead to more sex.

Then, a knock at the door.

The two froze.

Chris sat up. He was about to check the peephole. But then, the door flew wide open.

Shannon charged inside the room with fire in her eyes. Her face was sleepless. Her hair was disheveled and tied back, and she wore a tank top with no bra. Her movements were crazed and unbalanced as she marched toward Chris.

“You son of a bitch,” she said. “You son of a bitch!”

Chris stood up and met Shannon in the middle of the room. He took a punch to the chin. “Shannon!” he yelled.

“You motherfucker!”

Shannon went berserk. She flailed and cried as she hit Chris with slap after slap, backhand after backhand, punch after punch. Every few swings, she would lose her balance and spin out. She’d soon regain it and go to town again.

Chris did his best to dodge and block. He mostly failed.

Scarlett, meanwhile, sat on the bed. The sheets were pulled over her chest. She watched. Her eyes were glazed over like a daydreaming child. Her face showed no more emotion than a lizard’s. Her body, too, had no reaction. Not even a twitch or an uneasy shift.

Shannon ceased her attack. She backed to the wall, cupped both hands over her mouth, and started to wail.

“How can you do this to me?” she cried. “I can’t believe this is happening.”

“Shan,” said Chris, “I thought you were at Lauren’s. I didn’t want you to see this.”

“I can’t believe this. I can’t… I can’t…”

Shannon fell to her hands and knees, and she began to huff and puff.

Chris knelt in front of her. He began to caress her shoulder to comfort her, but she shoved him away with a growl.

“Don’t you fucking touch me!” she shouted.

Chris tumbled to the floor. He sat up and watched as his wife stood on her hands and knees, panting like a dog, letting out sickened sounds. She dry heaved over and over. Every time Chris thought she would finally vomit something up, finally relieve herself, she spewed nothing but spit and stomach bile. In this moment, Chris barely recognized his wife. That was because, in this moment, she was no longer his wife. In her agony, she had reduced herself to nothing more than a wounded animal. She was broken, at least for now. Chris felt her pain. But, like always, his version of a solution was twisted, perverted by his unsound mind.

Have to put her down,he thought.

Yes, he had to put her out of her misery. He already thought up a plan. A suicide, that’s what it would look like. A suicide…

Because I was having an affair! Chris thought.

All the pieces were in place. It would make so much sense. He would come clean and admit his affair. He’d look like an honest guy, racked by guilt, tortured by regret. And, best of all, Chris would be able to start a life with the redheaded vixen that still lay in the bed, nearby. Shannon, too, would be in a better place. Well, hopefully she would. If there was a Hell, then her sleeping with Chris while he was married to Kara would certainly qualify her for the Second Circle.

Don’t muse on the afterlife, Chris thought. Not your place. Only worry about what you can control.

In death, Shannon would be free of this horrible pain, this agony that Chris could see her in right now. Chris would have a new life, Shannon would be free of her pain, and Scarlett would have a new life too.

Everyone wins, thought Chris. Hold on, Shan. Just a little longer. Soon you’ll be free of this pain.

Kara

“Can you take a look at this?” Kara placed her cellphone on Dr. Strauss’ desk.

Dr. Strauss looked down at it. The Voice Recorder app was open. “A recording?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Kara, a bit impatient as she rubbed her bloodshot eyes.

“What’s it of?”

“Me, sleeping last night.”

Dr. Strauss cocked an eyebrow. “Um…”

“You can skip through all the snoring. If anything happened, there’ll be sound wave spikes. Just look for the spikes and tell me what you hear.”

“Uh, okay… why me?”

“Because, I don’t know if I’m going crazy.”

“Have you listened to it?”

“No. I don’t trust my judgement right now.”

Dr. Strauss stared at Kara for a moment. “Doctor Roma –

“Please,” said Kara, “it would help me out, a lot.”

Dr. Strauss shrugged. “Okay, fine.”

“Okay. I’m gonna leave. Let me know.”

Kara walked out. She went to her office and waited. After about 15 minutes, she circled back. Dr. Strauss was gone. Kara went to the receptionist desk.

“Hey, where’s Doctor Strauss?” asked Kara.

“I was gonna ask you,” the receptionist replied.

“Huh?”

“He left about five minutes ago.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know, but he looked sick.”

Kara’s brow scrunched with confusion. She went back toward Strauss’ office. The door hung open. She entered. She gazed at her cellphone, which still sat in the same spot on the desk. The recording was paused in the middle of a huge, continuous spike in audio.

Kara brought the cellphone back to her office, rewound the recording to just before the audio spiked, and pressed play.

***

2 AM, and the audio begins. There is the room tone of Kara’s office, and the occasional sound of Kara’s breathing as she sleeps. More silence.

Then, a whistle. It is a light chirp, made by someone who has just wet his lips and wants to test the sound.

The silence persists.

And then, the whistling begins. It is the melody of “You Must’ve Been a Beautiful Baby,” whistled at a much slower tempo than the typical version.

This continues on through the first verse and the chorus of the song.

It continues.

It does not stop.

Another sound soon makes itself known: the distant screams of a woman, as if she screams from the bottom of some deep ravine, while the listener stands at the top. It starts out quiet, then gradually increases in volume.

Soon, the screams are loud, but not loud enough to drown out the whistling.

No.

The whistles persist.

The screams are loud, raspy, guttural. They are the kinds of screams that many will never hear in their lifetime, but an unlucky few will.

The whistling goes on, repeating the song over and over.

The screams go on, too. They go on for minutes on end, stopping only to inhale and begin again. They go on impossibly long; anyone would have blown out their vocal cords by now. But the screams keep erupting horribly from the woman’s throat. The whistling drones on in the background and never misses a beat.

The screams just get more horrible as the recording goes on.

And they persist for the next four hours.

They, along with the whistling, persist up until the second Kara’s alarm goes off.

Then, both the screams and the whistling cease.

Silence.

Kara ruffles the sheets, gets up, and shuts off the alarm.

The worst is not the horridness of the screams, nor is it the whistling. It’s not that Kara remembers hearing none of it while she slept.

The worst is that the screams are Kara’s.

Detective Morgan & Detective Adler

“You wanna know what I think?” Morgan asked the suspect. “I think you’re bullshitting us.”

“I’m not, I –

“Shh. So, we found bruises on the arms and one on the chin, okay? Fresh bruises. How’d they get there?”

“I don’t know.”

“We found the cellphone on the floor. The number nine and the number one had already been dialed. Okay? So, they were ready to give us a call. It’s not looking good for you. I mean, you see how this looks, right?”

“I know. I know how it looks.”

“Okay. Well, you wanna know what I think? I think we’re almost at the truth, but we’re not quite there yet. But I think we can get there. ’Cause I think you’re a truth teller. Okay?”

“Yes. I am.”

“Okay. Listen, everything’s gonna be fine. If you work with us, now, things can go a lot better for you. How ‘bout it?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“I wanna confess.”

Kara

The mental hospital stood ominous against the pink sky as the sun went down behind it. Kara’s feet crunched dead leaves as she walked up the path toward the place. Her head was on a perpetual swivel. Her eyes darted. She kept thinking she saw shapes in the sunset gloom. Maybe there really were shapes. It had become hard to tell what was Uncle Victor, and what was a sleepless hallucination. Over the past two months, Kara was never truly awake, yet never really asleep. It was a sort of limbo. She couldn’t work. She was on a leave of absence, her dreams of growing her private practice on hold. With Dr. Strauss gone—having gone mad, himself, after listening to Kara’s tape recording—rent for the office building was overdue.

Uncle Victor gave Kara no rest. He made himself known at random, and never stayed away for more than a week. He would show up in Kara’s office, oftentimes during a session.

That was the worst; breaking out in a screaming fit in front of a client. Kara had begun to make her patients uneasy. No one showed up to their sessions, anymore.

Victor would show up other places, too: in the closet, under the bed, on the television, and sometimes, even in the bathroom while Kara showered.

Recently, Kara had gotten another phone call from that same unknown caller.

This time, however, he had forgotten to hide his caller ID. The mystery man whispered his usual warnings of Uncle Victor before hanging up.

Later on, Kara redialed the number. Someone else picked up. It was a man. He sounded normal enough, some blue-collar type. Kara explained the situation, that someone had been calling her from his number.

The man, in turn, explained to Kara that he worked at The Carolina Mental Health Center. That made Kara remember Robert, a former patient of hers who was now committed. Could he be this mystery caller?

Kara entered the lobby. She combed her wild hair with her fingers as she tried to look halfway spruce. She approached the front desk.

“Here to see Robert Gallows,” she said.

***

Robert Gallows was 17 when he first came to Kara for treatment. He experienced hallucinations and paranoid delusions. He was an armchair philosopher of sorts. According to an IQ test, his was in excess of 150. Kara thought it was such a shame. He could have done great things if it weren’t for his illness.

One day, Robert tried to kill himself. He’d swiped his mom’s sleeping pills that she kept in her purse. His dad, up for a late night snack, found him lying on the back porch. Against medical odds, he survived. But his schizophrenia was still there. And so, when he was physically well, Robert was committed to the mental hospital. Kara had always felt awful about it, even when burdened by her own traumas.

Kara followed the staffer down the hall. They passed a nurse station, where a young, overweight girl pointed to several stitches on her forearm as she spoke to a nurse.

“They’ve been in for eight days,” said the girl. “They’re only supposed to be in for a week.”

Further down the hall was a cafeteria. Several patients sat at a table and ate dessert foods messily, licking at their chocolate-covered fingers. One man loitered in the back corner, complaining to a nurse that no one here wanted to be his friend.

Kara followed the staffer to a door at the end of the dorm hall.

The staffer unwound the blinds on the door’s window.

Kara peered through.

Inside was a padded cell. It was not the kind folks see in the movies. The pads on the wall were more like gymnastic mats. They were various colors; blue, yellow, red. Contrary to the way most might picture a padded cell, the room was quite vibrant.

Robert sat on his bed and played with a Rubik’s Cube. He was two squares from solving the green side, and same for the red side too. His head rose, his eyes staying fixed on the cube for a few seconds longer before they followed suit. His expression remained blank as Kara entered.

“Thanks,” Kara said to the staffer.

“I’ll be down the hall,” said the staffer, before leaving.

Kara stood across from Robert’s bed. He looked different from when she’d last seen him. He had gained some weight and his cheeks were puffy. His brown hair was now longer and messier. But those bright blue eyes hadn’t changed.

“It’s good to see you again, Robert,” said Kara.

“I bet it is,” Robert said. “Wanna sit?”

“Thanks.” Kara sat on the edge of Robert’s bed.

Robert propped his back up against the wall pads. “You haven’t aged a day, doc,” he said.

Kara let out a weak chuckle. “You mean that?”

Robert smirked and said, “Not really.”

The two chuckled as best they could.

“You know,” said Robert, “I’ve just realized how much I missed this. You and I, talking, person-to-person. You really are a good therapist.”

“Thanks, Robert,” said Kara.

“We always had a good rapport, you and I. Remember the time we celebrated a reduction in my symptoms?”

“And we had cake and ice cream in my office? Yes, I remember.”

“Good times. If only, right?”

“If only what?”

“If only I’d actually gotten better.”

A silence followed. Kara lowered her head. “How have you been doing?” she asked.

In response, Robert used his eyes to motion to the padded cell.

Kara nodded understandingly. “Robert, I have some questions for you, and I’m not sure how you’ll take them.”

“Why’s it matter how I take them?”

“Well… because I value your opinion.”

Robert snorted out a laugh. “Now that’s a lie.”

“It’s not,” Kara said. “I might need your help on this one.”

“This should be good,” Robert said. “Lay it on me, doc.”

Kara hesitated.

“Come on, come on,” said Robert. “Lay it on me. I won’t judge. I’m the one in a padded cell, locked up like an animal, on a steady diet of pills and thorazine.”

“Does the name…” Again, Kara hesitated.

Robert sighed with impatience.

“Does the name Uncle Victor mean anything to you?” asked Kara.

Robert tensed up and said, “Jesus,” as he glanced around the cell. It was the reaction of someone whose friend had just snorted a line of coke while a cop loitered nearby.

“Does it?” Kara insisted.

“Yes.”

“So you know who –

“Yes, just keep it down, doc. Christ. I feel like he’s gonna hear you, or something.”

Kara’s eyes widened knowingly. “It was you.”

“What was?”

“The caller. It was you. You were trying to warn me.”

“Yeah, it was me,” said Robert. “What about it?”

“How’d you know?” asked Kara. “How’d you even make the call?”

“Barry’s phone. The night shift guy. He’s always leaving that thing lying around. I’d swipe it any chance I could. I googled your number. Then, I’d call you and do my best to warn you. I’d never be able to speak above a whisper. Or very lucidly, for that matter. That’s what happens when the nurses are always jamming thorazine in your ass. Anyway, I’d delete the call history after the fact. He never knew the difference.”

“How’d you know to call me? I’ve been seeing Uncle –

Robert gave Kara a wide-eyed glare.

Kara retracted. “I’ve been seeing him,” she said.

“Yeah, no shit. He talks about you.”

“What?”

“Yeah. He told me you were onto him. Told me you started seeing him.”

“One of my patients saw him too,” said Kara. “A girl, he was haunting her.”

“And he probably still is,” Robert said. “That bastard’s like a piece of gum on the bottom of your shoe.”

“What is he? A phantom, or something?”

Robert snickered. “You ever heard of a phantom like that? One that follows people like a bloodhound?”

“Well, no. So, what, a demon?”

Robert shook his head and said, “No. Demons… that stuff’s hooey. No, he’s something else. Something cosmic, something we don’t understand. Something we’ll never understand, here to drive primordial beings, like us, to absolute lunacy.”

“Why?”

“Don’t know. Probably because he can.”

“Okay, but there’s gotta be a way to get rid of him, right?”

Robert fiddled with the cube, his attention waning as he said, “Uh, does it look like there is?” He twisted the cube a bit and chuckled. He looked up and saw that Kara did not smile.

“What are you saying?” asked Kara.

“What am I saying? I’m saying this thing never goes away. Not for me, at least.”

“No. No, no, that can’t be right.”

“Why not?”

Kara cupped her hands over her mouth as her breathing began to escalate.

Robert went back to solving the cube while he spoke. “This thing, this Victor guy, he’s like the world’s worst cold. He gets passed from person-to-person just by speaking. Least that’s what I’ve gathered. Thing is, though, it’s people like you and I who are susceptible. People with a history of trauma, like you. People with a history of insanity, like me. For us, there’s no immunity. He gets right in.”

Kara did her best to catch her breath. She brought her hands away from her mouth. There was still a small hope, within her, that there was a cure. A way to beat the curse, just like in the movies.

“So, wait,” said Kara. “Had you been seeing him when you were in therapy, with me?”

“Yes,” said Robert. “That was before I knew who… what… he was. I learned slowly. I think I’ve passed him on to a few people, here. A few patients who ended up getting transferred, or got put on suicide watch… I heard ‘em mumbling his name.” Robert lowered his voice to a whisper. “‘Uncle Victor, Uncle Victor, I see him,’ they’d say. A few of the staffers, too. I think I passed him to them. They went mad and quit with no explanation. One of ‘em is actually a patient here, now. Can you believe that?”

“Then how did you not pass the curse on to me? I hadn’t started seeing him until I met Polly.I’d never seen him before that.”

Robert smirked and raised a taught finger. “That don’t mean he wasn’t there, doc.” There was a slight pause as Robert observed the cube. “See, you-know-who has this way of getting in your head. For a while, I thought he was a family member. He makes you think… that you know him. I guess that’s why he calls himself ‘Uncle.’”

Kara’s face sunk as she stood up slowly and backed up toward the door. “I have to go,” she said.

“Take care, doc,” said Robert. “Oh, and doc?”

Kara stopped halfway out the door. “Yes?”

“If you find a way to stop the curse, do let me know.” Robert followed this with a smile and wink.

Polly

Polly put the podcast on pause. The funnier episodes always helped her relax before bed. She set her phone on the nightstand. She was about to turn off her lamp, but she thought otherwise when her closet caught her eye. She had already checked it twice this evening. Then again, once more couldn’t hurt.

Polly climbed out of bed and approached the closet. She placed a hand on the doorknob and winced. She took a deep breath. She opened the door.

An empty closet stood beyond. Well, it wasn’t exactly empty. There were clothes and bins and all of the things that should be in a closet. But, these days, empty had taken on a different meaning.

***

It was just past 1 AM when Polly realized it wasn’t her bladder that had woken her. Her room was dark and silent. She did not like ceiling fans because of that night at Aunt Lilly’s, and she liked her room…

Lit by a nightlight. Not dark, as it currently was. She scrutinized the darkness, in the direction of her nightlight. She squinted and let her eyes adjust. Her nightlight was unplugged, albeit only slightly, the plug hanging a bit more than halfway out from the outlet.

“Dad?” Polly called out.

The man was likely knocked out after a night of drowning in drink. Polly could picture him facedown on his bed, his fat face buried in the pillow with drool drizzling from a corner of his mouth, his boxers all bunched up and crooked, his white tank top halfway up his belly.

Polly wanted to get out of bed and fix the nightlight. But she was scared. She didn’t know what lurked in the dark. Well, she knew what did; it was more of a question of if, if he was there tonight, or not. She hated this. She hated him. Any normal person could get up to fix their nightlight or use the bathroom or grab a glass of water. But not Polly. Not when Uncle Victor could be lurking in her closet or under the bed or –

Or in her doorway, as he currently was.

Polly gasped and brought her blanket to her nose. She shut her eyes and prayed he would go away.

“Psst,” he whispered. “You asleep?”

He can’t see me, Polly thought. I won’t answer. Maybe he’ll go away if he thinks I’m asleep.

“Psst.”

Polly stayed still. She kept her eyes shut. She didn’t dare move. She was tense as a plank. Any itch she developed or restlessness in her legs, she ignored. After a moment, she heard footsteps. It sounded like Victor was walking. Through squinted eyes, Polly peered at the doorway. Empty. Was he gone?

Polly nearly left her skin when she realized that Uncle Victor now stood at the side of her bed. And he was not still. Rather, he had begun to climb in bed next to her.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Uncle Victor climbed into bed, pulled the sheets over himself, lay down, and rolled over so that his back was turned to Polly. He shifted a bit, then seemed to get comfortable. He began to snore lightly.

Polly lay there, horrified, her eyes wide and her lips tucked into her teeth so that they let no sound escape. She kept both eyes trained on the thing, which lay just 12 inches away from her. She could not bear the thought of waking him. She didn’t know what would happen if she did. She thought of her feet, and how they might be too close to his. She slowly, very slowly, retracted them toward her side of the bed. As she did, she scuffed the bed with her heels, producing a small sound.

Uncle Victor’s snoring stopped abruptly.

Polly winced. It took some strength on her part to not utter a scared mewl. Please, she thought. Please, go back to sleep.

Slight relief—but not much—filled her as Victor’s snores started up again. A few minutes passed. Polly did not know what to do. If Victor could hear her heel brush the bedsheet, he’d surely hear her try to leave the room.

But she had to leave. She could not stand to be here any longer. Here, with this thing in her own bed. She couldn’t think of a much worse bed-invader. She’d rather have bedbugs, fleas, hell even roaches were preferable to this fiend.

Uncle Victor’s snores were somewhat encouraging. They were louder, now, the snores of someone who dreamt vivid dreams. This was her chance to get away.

Polly started with her hand. Just one hand. She brought it slowly—so slowly—up from her waist, under the edge of the blanket, and out from under it. It was like a game of operation as she tried not to brush against the sheet. Okay, my hand is out. Now, she brought out her other hand. She then peeled the blanket away. She started with her shoulder. Then, she peeled the blanket past her elbow, past her hip, and down to her upper thigh. Now, it was time to move her legs out from under the sheets. Inch by inch, she brought her knees toward her midsection. As she did, she brushed against the blankets. She winced.

Uncle Victor’s snores stopped.

Polly held her breath. Her face imploded. Her eyes were ready to spout scared tears. She tried her hardest not to utter a squeak or a whimper or even a simple exhale.

Relief, as Uncle Victor’s snores began again. Polly waited a while to try again. She almost didn’t want to. She almost wanted to brave her bed, which had now been taken over by this creeper.

No, I can’t do it,she thought. Gotta get out of here.

She took a deep and quiet breath as she began to try again.

Without brushing the sheet, she brought her feet out from under. Now all she had to do was climb out of bed. She wasn’t sure what would be harder; that, or getting to the door.

Polly held her breath as she did the slowest roll possible to exit her bed. She started with her feet, bringing them over the edge. Then, she began to sit up. Halfway up, Uncle Victor uttered a guttural snore, which made Polly’s heart stop as she went still as stone.

Uncle Victor’s snores then continued steady.

Polly waited a moment, then rotated her hips and brought her feet to the floor. She stood and was out of bed. Without even a glance over her shoulder, she headed for the door.

“Where you going?”

Polly’s blood froze. And, without realizing, she did too. Ahead of her was the doorway. Behind her was the old man, curled up in her bed with his back turned to her. She looked at the doorway, then back at the bed, then back at the doorway.

“Get back in the fucking bed,” Uncle Victor whispered, still curled beneath the sheets.

There was no way Polly was getting back in that bed. She seized her chance. She went for the door.

Uncle Victor threw off the sheets, sprang out of bed, and shouted, “Get back in the fucking bed!”

Polly screamed and ran out the door, but had seen enough to know that Uncle Victor had already broken into a janky run after her. She flew into the hallway and ran down the stairs, skipping steps and nearly falling a few times.

Don’t fall, don’t fall. He’ll get you.

She got to the bottom step. Her eyes fixed themselves on the front door. She sprinted toward it. She flew into the door and grabbed the knob and pulled. Locked. She turned the deadbolt, feeling that, at any moment, a hand would grasp her shoulder. She yanked the door open and ran into the front yard.

Polly ran across the grass. She looked over her shoulder. She saw that no one was there. She stopped and stood in the yard.

Straight ahead was her house, the front door hanging open, the doorway looking like the home’s mouth. It was empty.

She scrutinized it for quite some time. She expected to see him. Maybe a hand, maybe a foot, maybe his head peeping out from behind the corner. But she saw none of that.

An hour must have passed as Polly stood in the front yard, beneath the black sky, staring at that doorway. The more she stood in the yard, the more she thought of how she did not want to go back in. This was her house, the place she slept in, but it was not a home. Nowhere was home, not while Uncle Victor was around. She knew what waited for her if she went back inside. She didn’t want to face him, not again. Not tonight.

Behind Polly was the countryside highway that cut through the land. She heard the rumble of a truck engine, which sounded to be on its way up the road, soon to emerge from over the hill. She looked and could already see its headlights peeking over the incline. She looked back at the house, back at the void-like doorway that surely led back to Victor.

A choice now seemed to present itself: doorway, or truck? Those words repeated in her mind, over and over.

Doorway, truck. Doorway, truck. Truck, doorway.

Her heels were just at the edge of the road, where the truck would soon be passing at 50 miles per hour. The question hung in her mind and, as far as she was now concerned, was perfectly reasonable.

Doorway, or truck?

The doorway may as well have been Uncle Victor’s open arms, at that point. She squinted at it. She could almost see him standing there with his arms spread out.

Doorway, or truck?

She turned her head. The 18-wheeler was now at the top of the hill and was on its way down. Its engine bellowed as its trailer shook and made noises like thunder.

Doorway, or truck?

The doorway itself looked evil to Polly. She wasn’t sure she could do it. She thought maybe she could sleep in the yard. But for how long? And to what end?

Doorway, or truck?

The truck thundered the asphalt as it sped down the highway. It was dark out. The driver wouldn’t see her in time.

Truck, thought Polly.

Kara

Kara pulled into her driveway, overshooting so that her tires scuffed the grass. She shut off the car and stumbled out of the passenger seat. Her house sat silent beneath the harvest moon, which shined its orange light down on the Spartanburg countryside. She headed for the door. The world spun. She was delirious from sleeplessness and fear and madness. She burst inside the house, slammed the door, and locked it, though she knew it wouldn’t keep him out. Kara couldn’t stop thinking about what Robert had said. His words hung in her mind, propagating like mold.

That don’t mean he wasn’t there, doc.

He makes you think that, well… that you know him.

I guess that’s why he calls himself ‘Uncle.’

Kara pressed on through the dark house, through the living room and then the kitchen. Each shadowy corner was sinister, containing within it the possibility of Uncle Victor. No sightings thus far. She threw down her purse, removed her shoes, and ran up the stairs. She got to the top and gazed down the dark hallway. At the end was her home office. The prospect of crossing this hallway made that office seem a mile away. She took a deep breath. She ran.

Kara entered the office and grabbed her laptop. She sat at her desk, keeping the doorway in her periphery. She opened her laptop. She had a hunch, a horrible one. She almost didn’t want to take the next step. The next step was to open up her photos.

The photos app opened. Kara scrolled through the pictures. There were old photos of her and her late daughters; baking a cake in the kitchen, playing with a waterslide in the backyard, jumping on the trampoline, dancing at a wedding. All was normal, thus far. There were pictures of her and Chris; hiking at Paris Mountain, going to Greenville Drive baseball games, hosting a dinner party.

Kara scrolled further. Both Chris and her daughters were soon subtracted from the pictures. There weren’t many after that. But the ones present made her heart go kaput.

After a certain date, Uncle Victor was present in every photo. Every single one. There was an image of Kara standing by the railing of a mountain lookout, hands in her coat pockets, smiling as her friend took the picture. Next to her was Uncle Victor, his arm around her, grinning at the camera.

“No,” Kara murmured. “This can’t be right.”

Kara thought she was seeing things. She had seen Uncle Victor on screens before, usually when she stayed up watching late night television. He would move around and dance and then walk off-screen. But this time, he didn’t. That was because these photos were not tricks. They were real, actual images of Uncle Victor, who had been there all along.

Kara scrolled further. Uncle Victor was in all of them:

A photo picturing Kara and her friend posing at a bar. Uncle Victor stood next to them, hands in his pockets, smiling at the camera.

A photo of Kara sitting on a couch, holding her friend’s baby. Uncle Victor stood behind the couch, crouched, leering down at the infant.

In another, Kara sat at an outdoor barbecue and sipped a milkshake through a straw. Next to her was you-know-who, sipping her milkshake through a straw of his own.

Kara scrolled and scrolled, and she could not find a single photo without Uncle Victor in it; church fellowships, dinners, Easter with the family, Thanksgiving with her niece, the office Christmas party.

Uncle Victor had been there all along. Long before Kara had ever met Polly, Robert had passed him on like a virus. Kara remembered now. The memories flooded back.

Of course,she thought. Uncle Victor. He’s always been there. Uncle Victor, who does silly dances, who plays silly tricks on me, who always laughs at my jokes… Uncle Victor, who helped me through my pain, my grief.

This was insane. Kara’s eyes hadn’t blinked for minutes, now, wide at the sight of dozens and dozens of images in which Uncle Victor was present. She turned away from the laptop and gazed into the darkness of the doorway. She panted like a dog as everything spun. This realization had broken her. Up was down, down was up, and her mind may as well have been mush, as it was totally unreliable. That much was clear.

I should kill myself, she thought. I have to end this. Who knows who else I’ve passed him to? Who else will I pass him to in the future?

Kara’s revolver was in her purse. It was loaded, ready for use. This could all be over quick. She’d never have to see Victor again, and she wouldn’t pass him on to anyone else. God forbid she already had. This was madness and it had to end.

Just as Kara was about to stand up and head for her gun, she saw movement past the doorway.

It was him.

A ghostly drone filled the air as he stepped halfway into the light, standing still in the doorway.

Kara stared at him hatefully. “Get away from me,” she said. “Get the hell away from me.”

Uncle Victor smirked and let out a low snicker.

“Get the hell away from me,” Kara repeated. “Get the fuck out of here.”

Again, Victor responded with a smirk and a chuckle.

“I’ll do it,” said Kara. “I’ll shoot myself. Then, the fun’s over. You can’t haunt me anymore.”

Kara suddenly felt a presence behind her. She turned around.

Standing behind her chair was Uncle Victor.

She gasped. She sat still as he reached past her shoulders and placed a hand on her laptop. He hovered a single bony finger over the keyboard. He began to type.

f-a-c-e

Kara sat still. Her whole body was tense as Victor’s arm hovered above her shoulder. She watched the screen as he pulled up Chris’ social media.

What is this about? she thought.

Uncle Victor then pulled up a photo on Chris’ profile, which pictured Chris and his new wife, Shannon, standing together at Chimney Rock. Victor allowed the photo to stay.

Kara stared at it, confused. “Okay?” she said. “What’s your point, you son of a bitch?”

Uncle Victor raised his hand and pointed at the photo. Like the instigator he was, he pointed in such a way that suggested Kara needed to have a closer look. He continued to point for a long moment, and then, he vanished.

Kara sat and stared at the photo. She did so for quite some time. Then, she saw it too.

On Chris’ wrist was the gold wristwatch. It was the watch that Kara had found on that awful night. The watch that was so obviously a gift from his mistress. The gold watch that had a blue face and a blue stripe down the middle of the band. The watch that she’d hidden away in her night stand, just a few hours before the house fire. How did Chris find it? How could he retrieve it during the fire?

Unless…

No, thought Kara. It’s not possible.

But then, she thought some more. Even if he’d found it after she’d hidden it away, why would he have it after the house fire? He wasn’t wearing it outside while sitting on the edge of the ambulance, breathing oxygen through a tube as their daughters were wheeled off. That would mean it was hidden away in his pocket. And that was only possible if he knew. If he knew that the house fire would…

“Oh my god,” said Kara.

Chris

Chris bent in front of the sink and washed the blood from his face, hands, and arms. He scrubbed it all off and made sure it was all rinsed from the sink. He then removed the rain coverall from his body, folded it, and placed it in a trash bag. He would soon dial 911 and report that his wife had slit her wrists in the bathtub.

The bathwater was pure red, now, as Shannon’s corpse floated within. Her eyes were closed, her skin pale as paper, her lips a purplish blue. The razor that Chris had done the deed with floated somewhere in the tub, lost in the bloodbath.

Chris knelt in front of the tub and gazed at Shannon. He caressed the top of her head with one hand.

“Sweet girl,” he said. “I’m sorry this had to happen.”

Chris drove to a dumpster a mile away and tossed the trash bag inside. He then drove home and went back in. Now, he needed to work up those crocodile tears. He was walking toward the stairs when he noticed something in his living room. The lights were all off, but it was unmistakable. Someone was sitting on his couch. He froze, not knowing what else to do.

“Sit down, Chris.”

Chris knew the voice. “Kara?” he said.

“Sit down,” the voice said.

Chris’ eyes adjusted to the darkness and he saw that it was, indeed, Kara. He then glanced at the stairs.

“Don’t,” Kara said. She raised what seemed to be a gun. Yes, it was a gun. A revolver, the kind a southern woman might keep in her purse, often with some sort of pink handle.

Chris raised his hands. “Kara,” he said, “I don’t know what this is about.”

“Sit.” She pulled back the hammer with a click.“That’s not a request.”

“Okay, okay.”

Chris sat down in the armchair across from Kara.

Kara held the gun in front of her midsection, keeping it aimed at Chris.

Chris’ eyes had now fully adjusted to the dark, and he could see her face. She looked horrible. Her hair was disheveled, skin blemished and wrinkly, bags beneath her eyes. Her voice was hoarse and shaky and sounded unhinged. She looked like someone who had been in the madhouse for years and years, and had, tonight, snuck out to terrorize the people of Spartanburg.

“I saw what was in your tub,” Kara said.

“I was about to call the police,” Chris replied.

“Right after getting rid of evidence?”

“Kara, it’s not –

“Save it. I know what you are.”

“I didn’t do this.”

Kara slammed her free hand down on the coffee table by the couch, her eyes wide with anger and insanity.

Chris was antsy, now. He didn’t like the look in Kara’s eyes. He didn’t like the way she aimed that gun at him and flicked it around wildly from time to time. One accidental pull of the trigger, and he’d be shot.

“Listen to me,” Chris said. “Yes, okay. I killed Shannon. But I was… I was afraid of her.”

Kara’s face curled with disgust.

“I was afraid of her,” Chris continued. “She was constantly threatening to kill me, to mutilate me, to… to… to chop my dick off while I slept. Okay? She’s a crazy person. I-I-I had to. I had to do it.”

“You’re a liar.”

“It’s the truth, Kara.”

A long silence passed. Chris sat there, doing his best impression of a kid who just got caught with a hand in the cookie jar.

Kara’s face was frozen in a perpetual state of repulsion.

“Listen,” Chris said. “I… I love you, Kara. I hate how things ended between us. I wanna… I wanna be with you, again. We can be together, again, just like it was before.”

Kara hemmed with disgust. “Oh, please.”

“It can be just like it was. But first, I need your help. I need you to help me clean this up. To make it look right for when the cops get here.”

Kara’s visible disgust had only increased. Her face then did a transition. The disgust faded. She now looked sad, heartbroken.

“Chris,” she said.

“Yes?”

“Did you burn our house down?”

Chris feigned bafflement. “What?”

Kara extended her arm, aiming the gun further forward, her hand shaking wildly. “Did. You. Do it?” she insisted.

“Of course I didn’t.”

Kara now seemed angry. She pressed the gun to her own head.

“What are you doing?” Chris asked.

“I’ll do it,” Kara said. “I’ll blow my brains all over your fucking wall. Did you do it?”

Chris searched his mind frantically. One dead woman in his bathtub, he could explain. Another in his living room? No way. He could never explain this. He had to give her what she wanted. He had to give her the truth.

But will she kill me?

That thought repeated over and over, again. He was in a corner. His only choice, it seemed, was to hope that Kara would trust him when given the truth. That he and Kara could live happily ever after; batshit crazy princess, and a child-murdering prince charming.

“I did it,” said Chris.

Kara’s lips quivered as her face faded from anger into sadness, once again.

“Those candles you always used to light,” Chris continued. “I used one of those.”

Tears fell from Kara’s eyes as she kept the gun pressed to her temple.

“The girls,” Chris continued, “they didn’t suffer. They were asleep. Smoke inhalation, that’s what killed them.” These, of course, were lies. Chris still remembered their screams.

“Why?” Kara cried.

“I just… I wanted a new life. I felt like I had to erase the old one. Burn it away.”

Kara was a mess of tears, now. “So you kill our little girls?” she sobbed. “You’re a sick fuck.”

“I know, Kara. I know. I’m sick, okay? I’m disgusting.” Chris’ face saddened. He began to give Kara puppy dog eyes, now, trying to make it seem like he was the victim in all this.

Kara kept the gun to her temple. Her eyes gushed tears. Her face was imploding with grief, and her whole body shook each time she let out a sob.

“I am the worst psychologist in the world,” she said. “You were my husband. How could I not see this?”

“Kara… ”

“I could’ve stopped you. I could’ve saved my girls.”

“It’s not your fault.”

Kara continued to sob, gun to her head. When it seemed as though her face couldn’t become more distraught, it did, and it began to resemble a Greek tragedy mask.

Chris was less tense, now. Seeing her like this, it gave him some hope that she was now too broken to shoot him. Maybe too distraught to even pull the trigger on herself, either. She looked weak and vulnerable. He ogled the gun in her hand. He measured the distance from himself to her. Eight feet, maybe. Less, perhaps. Chris remembered his football days. How he, as the all-star running back, would sprint across the yard lines with that ball in hand. It was the same thing here. He imagined that he had the ball, and that Kara’s gun was the 1st and Ten. He placed his hands on the arms of the chair. His arms were loaded springs, ready to rocket him off the chair toward Kara.

This plan washed away when Kara brought the gun away from her head. Her eyes opened and were furious. She aimed at Chris and shot twice.Kara

Chris clutched the two bullet holes in his midsection. He fell to the floor, eyes wide, groans leaving his lips.

Kara stood. Her hands shook. The anger left her face, which now had a look of shock and fear. Fear of herself.

What have I done? I’m not a murderer.

But if Chris bled out on the floor, right now, that’s exactly what she was. A murderer. She’d sleep behind bars and wear orange the rest of her life.

Shut up, shut up, she told herself.

Her mind went back to the heartbreak she had felt as she’d pulled the trigger. That grief returned to her face. Gun in her shaky hand, she approached Chris.

“How could you do this to me?” she asked.

Chris groaned in response, the light leaving his eyes. His eyelids fluttered. Blood trickled from his mouth.

Kara stood over him, gun aimed down at his head. “How could you do it?” she asked. “How could you do it?”

Chris coughed. Blood from his throat followed.

Kara, meanwhile, thought about what to do. She could halt this, now. Call the cops. Have Chris thrown away in a cell. Somehow, it didn’t seem like it was enough. She wanted to end him. She wanted to put a bullet in that fucked-up head.

No, she thought. Too easy. He won’t do well in prison when the other inmates find out what he’s done. Yes, prison. Prison for murdering women and children. Three life sentences. I’ll have the last laugh. A bullet would be a kind –

Kara yelped as Chris’ hand shot up and gripped her wrist. Horror washed over her as her gun was forcefully tilted to the side. She pulled the trigger. The bullet hit the ceiling. Chris was strong. Always had been. Kara tried to yank her wrist away, but it was no use. It was like fighting a gorilla. Her gun tilted further as Chris climbed to his feet, his grip like a vice.

Holding Kara’s wrist in one hand, Chris clamped his other hand onto her inner elbow. He began to forcefully bend her arm.

Kara’s eyes went wide as she watched the gun’s muzzle rotate backward. It kept on rotating until she stared down the barrel. She let out one last shriek, a shriek filled with so many things: fury, grief, hate.

The gunshot was the last thing she heard.

Chris

The melon makes a thunk as Chris knocks on it with one finger. This one is ripe. He puts it in his cart. The produce section of a grocery store is always wide open, a great place to check out the local babes. The best-looking women are, naturally, the ones that frequented the produce section the most, keeping their fit bodies far away from those aisles of chips and sugary cereals.

He pushes his small cart past the organic section. He grabs a bag of romaine lettuce hearts, checks the expiration date, and throws it in the cart. He chugs along. He stops. He looks ahead and sees a woman, standing at the counter where the produce people chop fruits and vegetables and brew fresh juice. She’s asking the man at the counter about leeks, and if they are still in stock. Chris is immediately mesmerized by the woman. She’s of average height, blonde hair just above her shoulders. She wears glasses. Her skin is fair, but not too pale. Her lipstick is bright red, and that makes Chris think of Scarlett.

Hey, you, he thinks. He approaches, preparing that charm and wit.

She looks at him.

He smiles. “Hi. I’m Chris.”

She says nothing. That’s when Chris realizes she has no face. It’s like a mannequin in a clothing store. He had just seen all her features, and now they’re gone.

Dammit, he thinks.

Chris blinks. He’s back in his cell. Solitary confinement. Back in the real world, a world in which he’s been sentenced to five life sentences without parole. He didn’t even have a lawyer, at the beginning. Detective Morgan and Detective Adler broke him. He confessed to everything. To burning his daughters. To Shannon’s murder. To shooting Kara. A prison was no place for a child-murderer. But solitary was perfect, as far as the warden was concerned.

Chris has been in solitary for eight months, now. He thought the cap in South Carolina was 60 days, but there are so many ways around this. In reality, the cap is as long as the prison guards fucking feel like it.

After a while, Chris began to create a world inside that cell. A world in which he worked, paid taxes, bought groceries, went to bars and restaurants and movie theaters, and hooked up with women. Lots of women. All different, all beautiful. Every now and then, though, this world would fall apart, similar to a computer crash. And Chris would be back in his solitary cell, with its concrete walls, barred window, stone counter, twin bed in the corner, steel toilet in the opposite corner. He would then have to rebuild his virtual reality, once again, and go on living in it until it crashed.

Chris sits up in bed. The sun seems to be setting now. Time doesn’t exist in this cell. At least, not until his reality crashes. Then, it does. Each time his fake reality breaks, he gets worried. He worries that he won’t be able to rebuild it. Every time, his fears of this are stronger.

This time, it’s true, he thinks. This time, I really won’t be able to return to wonderland. I’ll be stuck in this room for years.

As he thinks this, the deafening, ringing silence is broken.

What was that?

It sounds like a whistle. Just a quick chirp after the wetting of the lips.

Chris scoffs at himself.

Then, it happens again.

Chris jerks his head to the side. He looks around the cell. He peers through the window on the door. There’s no one in the hall. Again, he scoffs. He shakes his head.

Then, the whistle returns.

This time, it doesn’t stop. It’s a melody. Chris recognizes it.

Chris scoffs and shakes his head, again, but the whistles continue.

He listens closely.

The whistling grows a bit louder, but Chris still can’t pinpoint the source.

Whoever the whistler is, they aren’t visible. They’re definitely in the room, but can’t be seen.

Chris knows that melody.

Where have I heard that?

He thinks he’s got the answer.

Kara used to sing it to the girls.

“You Must’ve Been a Beautiful Baby.”

Did you enjoy my book?

If so, would you mind giving it a review?

Reviews are super important to me for a number of reasons:

Reviews increase my visibility as an author, as well as the chance of being found by more readers.
Reviews help establish my book’s audience.
Reviews decrease risks for readers who might be unsure that my book is for them.

If you’re so inclined, click here to leave a review. Read more by the author.

My favorite thing about writing is, well, my readers! I love building relationships with my readers and geeking out over the stories we love. Join my Subscribers-Only Clubfor information on new books, plus a ton of free content.

You can get your free content by signing up at my website.

Just visit www.jakewiklacz.com/newsletter.

About the Author

Jake Wiklacz is an award-winning novelist and comic book writer with a passion for writing suspense, horror, and dark fantasy. From a young age, Jake knew he wanted to be a creative writer, growing up on a steady diet of horror & fantasy novels, comic books, and monster movies. In 2015, he won the award for Best Student Screenplay at the Eerie Horror Film Festival for his very first screenplay, Where the Children Go.

Jake graduated from the University of North Carolina School of the Arts in 2020 with a BFA in Filmmaking, concentrating in the study of screenwriting. His stories have appeared in Terror House Magazine and in the form of audiobook readings on the “Mr. CreepyPasta” YouTube channel, as well as the “Ghostly Tales Podcast.”