THE LITTLE GIRL

A short story by Dan Jire

Lisa stared at her husband. He was absolutely adamant.

“Where is she? Where did she go?”

“Who, what are you talking about?” Lisa could barely make out her husband John’s shape looming over her on her side of their queen size bed.

“The little girl.”

“No one is in here,” Lisa said wondering if her husband’s talking in his sleep had escalated to sleepwalking.

“You’re right,” John said and walked around the bed, climbing back into bed he sounded calm as he added, “She’s gone now.”

John kissed the side of Lisa’s forehead. His lips were wet and his breath still smelled like minty toothpaste. He was dressed with pep in his step as he navigated through the kitchen and into the pantry where he snagged a breakfast bar. Just as he had so many times before.

“Do you even remember last night?” Lisa said, flipping the switch on the coffeemaker. Lisa looked like hell. Her eyes were heavy and her shoulders lurched forward as if she could fall over at any moment.

“Did you not sleep well?” John asked.

“No. You kept me up all last night.”

John was surprised. “Really? Well, I do remember that I had some very vivid dreams. I woke up at one point, I remember. I kept thinking our Kimmie had crawled into bed with us, and she was choking.”

“That wasn’t all,” Lisa said before recalling his insistence that a small girl was in the room. “You scared the crap out of me. Acting like someone was in our room. You got up and were searching on my side the bed. Then you just said, ‘You’re right, she’s gone now’ and went right back to bed.”

John laughed. “Did I really? Man, that was some dream. I kind of remember that.”

“It’s not funny. How in the hell was I supposed to go back to sleep after you say shit like that?” Lisa asked.

“Sorry, babe. I’m going to be late for work.”

John rounded the kitchen counter and found their daughter, Kimmie, sitting on the floor playing with building blocks. Though playing was a debatable description. She was only a year and a half, but managed her blocks like a college kid trying to study after a night out at a frat party. She looked exhausted as well.

“Bye, bye Kimmie,” John said. He leaned down for a kiss, but his daughter didn’t respond. So he had to complete the bend and merely grazed the top of her head.

“Wait, John,” Lisa said. “Couple of seconds. I need to use the bathroom real bad. If you could just watch her a second?”

John saw his wife’s frazzled expression and agreed.

Lisa promised it’d only be a second, and dashed out of the kitchen.

John knelt down next to Kimmie and moved a block closer.

“Mamma,” she cooed pointing down the hallway where Lisa had just run.

“That’s right, and who am I?”

“Dadda,” Kimmie said, still pointing down the hall.

“No. Dadda is right here.”

“Dadda-dadda.”

The light in the hall flickered, not at the bulb, but as if a shadow had crossed below it. John focused on it. He was sure his eyes were playing tricks on him. A second later he saw Lisa cross the hallway from the laundry room back into the bathroom. He relaxed.

“That’s Mamma,” John told Kimmie. She wrapped her arms around his leg and he patted her on the head.

Lisa emerged from the bathroom a moment later. “Thank you so much, hon. Have a nice day at work.”

John went to walk, but Kimmie had quite the strong grip on his leg.

“Looks like someone doesn’t want you to go to work today,” Lisa said.

“You and me both,” John told Kimmie, pulling her up into his arms. “I’ll be back.” He kissed his daughter on the forehead, then set her back down and left for work.

The garage door roared. It was on its last rope, felt like it was shaking the whole house as it opened. It was another repair they couldn’t afford.

Lisa groaned when it roared shut as John drove off.

“Did that noise scare you?” Lisa asked her little girl. Kimmie’s eyes were wide and glued to the far ceiling. “It’s just our awful garage door. One day, when we are rich we’ll buy a new one.”

Later, Kimmie’s eyes would light up as they did every evening when John returned home, and their rickety old garage door trumpeted his return. It didn’t matter what Kimmie was doing, when she heard the garage she’d perk up and wait for John to come through the door.

Kimmie stared a moment longer and then she returned to playing with her blocks. A deep sigh carried Lisa back into the kitchen, where she poured herself a cup of coffee. It would be too hot to drink right away so she started to set it on the counter.

Kimmie grabbed her leg.

The coffee spilt. Steaming hot liquid splashed down on Kimmie.

She screeched.

Lisa screamed, too.

Lisa snatched Kimmie from the ground, pulling her in close. “You’re okay, baby. Mommy has you.”

But Kimmie was near inconsolable. Her eyes were puckered with thick tears wetting her cheeks. Lisa bounced her gently, patted her back. Everything she’d learned in the last year and a half was put to the test. One of those things had to work.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” she repeated over and over again. Her heart raced. She was as alert as the drinking two cups of coffee would’ve made her. She carried Lisa as she searched the freezer for an ice pack, all the while trying to console her daughter. “You’re fine, you’re going to be fine.”

But all Lisa could think about was how terrible of a parent she was. She burned her child with hot coffee.

“Is she okay?” John asked later that night.

Lisa had confessed just before they settled in for bed. “Yes, she was fine by the time I dropped her off at day care. She didn’t have any marks or anything.”

“I’m sorry, babe.”

“It’s my fault. It was so stupid. I was just so tired,” Lisa said. “I spill coffee every morning, I don’t think I ever noticed it before, but there’s drip stains all down the counter, right there.”

John nodded. “I’ve seen those before.”

“Why didn’t you tell me? Or better yet,” she switched tones, “why didn’t you clean it up?”

“I figured it was from the previous owners, it’s been like that since we moved in last year.”

“I really thought we’d be moved in by now,” Lisa said.

“We’ve got a good excuse. We moved right after having a baby. I feel like I didn’t even start sleeping until a week ago,” John said.

“You haven’t been sleeping,” Lisa said. “You wake up as much as Kimmie does.”

“I guess I’m waking you up, too.”

“Don’t take it the wrong way, but if you wake me up tonight, I’m going to start sleeping in the guest bedroom. I’ve got to get a decent night’s sleep.”

“Sorry,” John said. “Maybe I should go sleep there. Would that make it easier. All your stuff is in our bathroom. I could move my toothbrush into the hall bathroom and could probably slink in and out in the morning without you noticing. Then you could sleep in a little.”

“Kimmie isn’t going to let me sleep in. She’s up the same time your alarm goes off.”

John kissed Lisa and slid his legs out from under the sheets and onto the floor. “We’ll try it tonight.”

“I’m not kicking you out,” Lisa said. “I mean we’re not one of those couples who ends up sleeping in separate beds. I love you.”

John smiled. “Sure you do. Wait until Tony hears about this.”

“Oh don’t you dare tell him. He’ll tell Caitlin and then I’ll never hear the end of it. We’re a happy couple. We just need sleep.”

“So you keep telling me,” John said with a wink.

Lisa tried to read her book after John left. But she kept hearing him, bumbling about in the kitchen and what not. She really couldn’t figure out what he had to do other than what she’d seen him do—grab his toothbrush out of the bathroom and snag his pillow off the bed.

But Lisa had gained no more than a sentence all the while.  She read it again, having already forgotten what she was reading.

Something crashed.

She closed her book, set it on the nightstand and turned off her lamp.

Lisa woke in the middle of the night. Moonlight cut shadows on the far bedroom wall. It looked like someone had started to paint the wall a lighter shade and given up. Her mind thought of all the rooms she wanted to repaint. There were plenty of marks on the walls, and quite a few she knew they were responsible for when they moved in. She hoped the house would feel like home once she took the steps to repaint and decorate. But after over a year of living there, it still felt like they were renting a crummy apartment.

The whole reason they had bought the house, was because it had sat on the market too long. Her understanding was that the original owners just stopped paying their mortgage and skipped town. When the housing market crashed, the bank lost interest in staging it for resale. When they viewed the home, the grass was over a foot high, and though the house was unfurnished, dust decorated the walls and counters. It was thick enough that they left footprints. But John was confident that a little tender love and care would return the home to glory, and the money saved could be spent making upgrades that fit their personality.

The most they’d changed was getting the cable guy to reroute the cable to a different wall so that they could hang the TV over the fireplace without a mess of cords.

Ever since, it had been one thing or another. They replaced the garbage disposal. Paid an AC repairman a lot of money to realize they’d just blown a fuse and needed to flip a switch. There was the leaking toilet that just needed a bolt on the tank tightened. And of course, there was the guest bathroom’s tub, which fell apart the first time they tried to use the shower and then the toilet seat that broke as John tried to fix tub himself. The tools and the broken faucet had remained the tub ever since. It’s not like they needed it. Aside from family members who helped them move, they hadn’t had time for guests.

But Lisa wanted guests. She wanted a place she could call her own, and her mind circled around a growing to-do-list.

She didn’t sleep at all.

Neither, did John.

She heard him over Kimmie’s monitor.

“Go back to sleep,” he said.

Then a little while later, again, “Go back to sleep.”

A door closed and the floor creaked a little as he wandered through the house. The fridge door puckered as it was opened, and later closed.

Lisa thought she heard John’s stomach growl. It was amazing how sounds travelled. How silence can be so noisy.

“I hate you,” Lisa said as she crossed John’s path.

“Sorry, did I wake you? Kimmie is still asleep,” he said.

“That’s great. I need a gallon of coffee.” Lisa turned on the coffeemaker. “Why do you look so awake?”

“Cause… I’m not bragging…but I slept pretty good last night.”

“Really. I heard you up around 3 or so.”

John scrunched his face and cocked an eyebrow. “No.”

“Were you sleepwalking again?”

John stopped in his tracks, midway to grabbing his breakfast bar. “I hope not. Did I?”

“I swear I heard you get up last night.”

“Well, I don’t remember. Don’t even remember if I dreamed anything. Maybe you just dreamed it.”

Lisa feigned a laugh. “I spent the whole night thinking about all the things I wanted to change and fix in this stupid house. It felt too warm in the room, and I just couldn’t get comfortable. Every time I was tired enough to close my eyes, I heard some noise.”

“Sorry, babe. I hope your day goes better.”

John wasn’t being rude. It was time for him to leave. Lisa knew that and didn’t bother. He was probably late the day before and she had no desire to hold him up again that morning. Especially since Kimmie was gifting her a few extra minutes of peace by sleeping in for a change.

She wandered into the room that they’d designated as the nursery—one day it would be John’s office. The door was open, a night light shone on the far side of the room and the hum of a white noise-maker had kept Kimmie from hearing John or Lisa as they prepared for the day. She was so grateful that her child slept soundly. She looked forward to more mornings like this.  She stared into the room a moment and then looked back down the hallway.

Lisa realized she had missed the awful sound of the garage door opening.  That would’ve been loud enough to overcome the noisemaker. Or had she just been pre-occupied with her thoughts?

Or worse, the exhaustion was taking hold of her senses.

Lisa dashed into the kitchen and poured her coffee. She drank it hot, searing her tongue and throat. But she wanted to make sure she had something in her as soon as possible. She still had to drive Kimmie to daycare and she feared falling asleep at the wheel.

She waited by the coffeemaker, taking a few more sips as it cooled in her mug. When she’d downed the whole cup, she poured more. She didn’t bother with her usual additions of cream and sugar. All that did was drown the effects of caffeine.

Then, she thought she heard Kimmie giggle.

Crap, she thought. She listened, poised like a deer that had heard a twig snap.

The kitchen clock ticked away, mocking the silence of the rest of the house.

Then the floor back towards the guest room creaked.

“John? Are you still here?”

There was no answer, and so she set her coffee mug down and peered out of the kitchen. The hallway to the guestroom was empty. She remembered what John had told her. Houses creak all the time, it doesn’t matter how old they are, it’s just the wood shrinking and expanding based on temperature and moisture.

The house creaked again, as if to excuse itself for the last one.

Lisa downed the rest of her coffee and started to make a mug for the road. If Kimmie stayed asleep for a few more minutes, she might even have time to curl her hair instead of balling it up in a bun.

Remembering the giggle, she figured she’d better check in on Kimmie before she got too far along with the curling iron and couldn’t hear as Kimmie woke up and fussed for milk and mommy.

Lisa sighed as she spotted the lump in the crib. She was eager to sprint off to the bathroom, but something scratched at her stomach, turned it.

She couldn’t hear Kimmie’s breathing.

A thousand horror stories rushed into her mind. Her hand shook as she used one finger to pull back the blanket that covered her child.

The form was still.

Lisa didn’t fret right away. The lighting was poor in the room, so she let her eyes adapt as she refused to blink and miss the rising and falling of her daughter’s shoulder and ribs.

But they didn’t rise.

They didn’t fall.

Lisa stared harder—as if that was the problem.

Then she reached for Kimmie’s body.

“Wake up,” she said. “Time t-t-t-…”

She turned Kimmie. Her arms flopped begrudgingly. No moan. The child’s chest did not rise of fall. Lisa shook as she wished it was all a dream.

Kimmie’s face was pale. Her neck was purple.

Lisa stumbled over a toy. Fell on her behind. She scrambled and shook and then ran out of the room. She couldn’t scream, but it sat inside her like a rabid animal trapped in a cage, poked and prodded, it would tear her apart. She collapsed into the couch, stumbled off the kitchen counter. She broke her coffee mug. Slipped. Busted her knees on a dining chair, then hit the floor and crawled up into a ball.

John had done this. Lisa was sure of it. Terrified of it.

He did it in his sleep—not on purpose, she tried to convince herself.

There was no way he would’ve been able to look at her like he did this morning. He wasn’t capable of murdering their daughter. She meant the world to him.

She thought back to his voice earlier that night. He had said, “Go back to sleep.”

Was that the moment? That’s when he did it, Lisa thought, I heard him do it.

She sobbed.

She forced herself quiet. She had to relax. She might be sleep deprived, she hoped. She would check Kimmie again and this time she would be fine and alive. She spoke her thoughts out loud, hoping to wake her sleeping child.

“She’s fine. John is a good father. They say you go crazy without sleep. John hasn’t been sleeping. He’s been sleeping. I saw him do it the other night. And I haven’t been either. I’m sleepwalking. This is all a dream.”

She couldn’t go into the nursery. She stopped in the doorway.

“Kimmie…? Kimmie, wake up. Wake up now. Wake up.”

Something moved. The lump in Lisa’s throat lifted. She gasped and stepped forward.

More movement, sounded, but it came from across the nursery. Her eyes darted into the corner left untouched by the night-light. She could see someone. Even standing just outside the room, her reach was not far from the light switch, she flicked it on.

There wasn’t even a stuffed animal in the corner of the room. It was blank.

Behind her was Kimmie’s crib. Lisa dared not to complete the turn and confirm her child’s death. She wanted to back out of the room and pray until God woke her up to the start of a different day.

A doorknob turned and was released. Lisa heard it and listened. John, she thought. She’d never heard the garage door open or close. He’d waited. He knew he did it!

Lisa snapped around and braced for John’s attack.

No footsteps followed. No one charged at her, and the more she thought about it, the more she wasn’t sure she’d heard anything at all until she heard something else.

That giggle.

She jerked around to face the corner of the room.

“Dadda! Daddaa!”

Not from the corner, from Kimmie’s crib. Lisa turned further and saw Kimmie standing up in the crib, arms outstretched.

“Want Dadda!”

“Daddy went to work,” Lisa said. Shock owned her body. It did not let her let loose her shoulders or clenched fists. She stood gazing at her daughter.

“Noooo,” Kimmie said.

“He’ll be back later. We have to work, Kimmie. That way we can buy you all the toys you love.” Lisa broke through and picked Kimmie up out of the crib.

Kimmie wiggled until Lisa set her down on the floor. Then she took off running.

Lisa instinctively tried to stop her, but wasn’t quick enough. All her reflexes were drained from the horror she’d imagined.  She wanted to hug Kimmie. Squeeze her and kiss her. But all she did was collapse onto the floor.

Kimmie’s pitter-patter continued through the house as she called for her daddy. Then Kimmie pounded on the guest bedroom’s door.

Lisa got back to her feet and wandered into the hallway.

The pounding stopped before Lisa viewed the hall. It was empty.

The guest bedroom door was open halfway.

“D-D-Daddy went to work,” Lisa said as she pushed through the door.

Kimmie stood silently next to the twin size bed that John had slept on. She looked at Lisa and asked, “Where’d she go?”

“Daddy went to wor—” Lisa almost repeated herself. “Wait, who?”

“Where girl go?”

“Did you see a little girl?”

Kimmie nodded, mouth agape.

“In this room?”

Kimmie nodded…then shook her head and pointed at Lisa.

Before Lisa could look, she felt it. The temperature had changed, as if someone had left the door open and the summer heat cut through the air-conditioned space. But there was nothing behind or beside her—nothing that she could see.

“I want Dadda,” Kimmie said.

“It’s time to go,” Lisa said. “We’ll go see Miss Frankie and your friends.”

“I. Want. Dadda.”

Lisa grabbed Kimmie and yanked her. She tucked Kimmie under her arm and pinned her to her hip. The child kicked and fussed. Lisa had to get out of the house. She’d never felt surer that something was in there with them. It was the same feeling she felt when she saw John looming next to her nightstand the night before last.

As silly as Lisa wanted to believe it was, she couldn’t wrap her mind around any better idea. She marched Kimmie into the garage, with the intent of putting her in the car seat while she finished getting ready for work. Then they’d leave, Lisa would wake up more and feel stupid about her paranoia.

That’s what she told herself until she opened the door to the garage and saw John’s car still sitting there.

“J-J-John?”

She couldn’t see the driver seat from the obstruction of her own vehicle.

Kimmie scratched her with the nails that Lisa had kept meaning to try and cut.

“Stop it!” Lisa said.

“I want Dadda.”

“You’re about to get a spanking.”

Lisa went further into the garage, rounding her car until she could see the driver seat of John’s car.

She dropped Kimmie.

John’s head lay against the headrest, his neck, folded back and bruised.

“No!” She screamed and screamed.

“Hey! Hey!” John said.

Lisa blinked. She watched as John did not move in his seat.

“Hey!” John said again. His mouth didn’t move.

“Dadda!’ Kimmie said.  Lisa went for her daughter, but saw John—not in his car.

John stood at the door to the garage.

“Lisa?” he said.

Lisa double checked the car. John’s lifeless corpse sat there.

“Are you okay?” John asked from the doorway.

“I don’t think so.”

Kimmie had run around the vehicles to her father. He picked her up, but his eyes and concern remained for his wife.

Lisa cracked a smile. “I think I’m sleep deprived.” She gave a chuckle as if that was going to make up for all the things the thought she had imagined.

“Yeah. Maybe you should take the day off. Come back inside and just sleep. I’ll take Kimmie to daycare.”

Lisa nodded. She didn’t look back into John’s car. She followed her husband and daughter back inside.

“You’re going to laugh at me, when I tell you about everything,” Lisa said.

“I’m sure I will,” John said as he stepped aside and directed Lisa back into their bedroom. “Sleep first.”

“Thank you,” Lisa said as she went into the bedroom. “I love you.”

John closed the door to the bedroom, still holding Kimmie in his arms.

Lisa’s body was in a state of falling. Flat footsteps kept her upright until he was close enough to their queen size bed and then she let go.

Something hindered her embrace of the mattress.

Something bony and firm. A body.

Lisa reared back and saw herself.

She was wrenched back, hands paralyzed around her neck. The darkened flesh below her hands was broken. Dried blood stained her fingers.

Lisa ran out of the bedroom. She ignored the cartoons playing on the television above their fireplace. She went straight into the nursery. She slammed her fists into the crib.

“No! No! No!”

Kimmie’s strangled body lay there. Her eyes rolled back, but staring. Staring right through Lisa’s violent rage.

Lisa shook the crib, not strong enough to break it. She screamed and screamed.

“John! John!”

She ran back into the garage. John’s corpse still sat in the driver seat.

She punched the side of his car again and again.

“Mommma!” Kimmie yelled from the doorway. “You too loud. Go back to sleep.”

“Kimmie….” Lisa ran to her daughter, snatched her up in her arms and hugged and kissed her.

Then someone cleared their throat inside the house.

A little girl stood there with her eyes pinched and lips snarled.

“Go back to sleep,” the little girl said.

The little girl in the house, turned and walked away towards the living room.

Lisa followed, holding Kimmie as tight as ever.

The flickering cartoons illuminated John’s blank expression. Kimmie and another girl sat beside him.

Lisa was not holding Kimmie after all. She held the little girl. Lisa dropped her. The little girl hit the ground running and took a seat on the couch next to everyone else.

“Stay with us,” the little girl said. “We don’t have to kill you again.”

THE END.

© 2022 COPYRIGHT DAN JIRE. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED