Blinking away tired eyes, he rolled over to see what the time was. 3:43. What had possessed his body to make him wake up at this ungodly hour? He had a feeling, however, it was a noise that had ripped him away from his unusually peaceful dream. Exhaling loudly, he rolled back over to where he was and waited for the noise to happen again.If there had been one. Seconds went on, but they felt like minutes. Time dragged on too slowly for his taste. All he wanted to know was if there had been a damn noise in his house so he could go back to sleep without worrying about imaginary monsters or animals breaking-
Oh.
He started regretting the fact that he had drunk so much before bed. That was the only possible, realistic reason why that noise was even happening in this house. Frowning he made himself even more still.
There. There was it again; it just came quicker. More loud. It sounded like a high pitched, drawn out word that was barely understandable. And this time, he was able to pinpoint where it could be coming from.
Throwing his plaid covered legs over the bedside, he hesitated before getting up. This was how people in horror movies always got killed, that was common knowledge. Everyone has at least once yelled at the tv screen, questioning why you would be so dumb to go investigate a weird noise at night, but human curiosity was way too much, the human race's version of the achilles's heel. Plus, he just wanted to get some damn sleep.
Running his shaky hand through his hair, the male stumbled out of his bedroom just as the noise happened again. It was much louder now, and he was even more sure of the source..
The office door creaked as he slowly pushed the door open. He noticed right away that his closed laptop had light coming out of it.
He had turned it off before he went to bed.
“Ah, freaking god,” he muttered, his hands starting to shake even more. Releasing a deep breath, he gathered up the courage to open the screen and shut off the computer. “You are going to open up the laptop, and you will just see the regular log-in screen. Then you will shut off the computer and go back to bed. In the morning you will laugh at yourself for being stupid.”
He opened up his laptop, then screamed.
His screen was blank, save the toddler standing in it waving up at him. She waved up at him, droplets of blood falling off her hand as she did, and giggled.
“Dadddyyyyy.”
She was the source of the noise. Of the constant word ‘Daddy’ being heard over and over again.
“Daddddyyyy what are you doing?”
“No, no, no, this is not…” His bottom lip trembled as he stared at the girl, his baby girl, on his screen. “What… how?”
Her bloodstained hair fell from behind her ears as she jumped up and down. “Dadddyyy, play with me.” He stared at the screen before springing up and closing the lid.
The laptop light subsided and he collapsed on the ground in shock and relief. At least the light was gone… but man, he definitely drank too much. When drinking gave you hallucinations about your dead daughter instead of forgetting about your misery, it was useless. Reality was so much better.
“Daddy?”
He turned and froze - the child stood before him. His daughter was dead, but now she looked so unbelievably alive and real. She gave him a toothy smile and raised a hand. “Pretty please can we play? Then have ice cream?” Her eyes glinted black before fading back to blue.
It only took a moment for him to run out of the room and head down the stairs. This can’t be real. This can’t be real. It was impossible.
Running into the kitchen, he grabbed a chef knife and held it tightly. He heard the patter of feet going down the stairs. Heart racing, he breathed in and out quickly, backing up to the wall. The knife shook in his head as she turned the corner and looked at him.
“Daddy, why are you playing with the knife? You can hurt yourself.” He only held up the weapon higher as she made her way towards him slowly.
“G-Get away, I’m warning you!” He licked his lips as the child stopped before him, only four feet away.
Bottom lip trembling, she looked up at him with teary, wide eyes. “Please don’t hurt me, Daddy, don’t you love me?” For moment, he didn’t even see the blood stains and the damaged skin. All he saw was his three-year-old daughter, wearing the face she would have when she was asking him for ice cream. The knife lowered a little and shook even more.
“But you don’t love me…. don’t you?” she whispered softly, the fear dissipating from her face. “You did this to me.”
“NO!” He did not do this, it was the driver, not him, the driver was drunk. It was not….. But it was. He had been the one texting when he was supposed to be paying attention to the road. He had thought it would be ok. All he was going to do was send a two word text. He had known the danger of texting and driving, but he still did it, even when his kid was sitting in the backseat. It didn’t matter if it was the drunk driver who had hit them. If he had been paying attention to the road, he could have avoided the collision.
“I’m so sorry… Ohmygod, I’m so sorry,” he weeped, the knife falling to the floor as he went to wipe his eyes.
His daughter looked at him with a hateful look now. “You don’t love me. You lied to me Daddy, you told me you loved me. WHY DID YOU DO THIS TO ME DADDY!?” He only wept harder. Was this karma? Was he going to get killed by his own dead daughter, that he had killed?
But he didn’t want to die, even though he knew he deserved it. He wanted to use his nightmare to teach others to not make the mistake he did. He wanted to suffer knowing that he lived and his daughter didn’t, when she should be the one living.
He started running to the front door. He was going to get out of this house, and never come back. It didn’t matter where he was going to go after that. He just needed to get out of this damn house and-
The door was locked. It was freaking locked. Not wasting a spare moment, he ran to the back of the house to escape through the back door. But that was locked, too. Cursing, he grabbed the nearest heavy object and launched it at the window. It only bounced back and he had to dive to the floor to avoid it.
His daughter ran into the room and leaped on his chest before he could get up. He tried pushing her off, but it was like trying to push a truck that was stuck on park.
“If we play a game, I will forgive you Daddy,” she told him, nodding as she did. He shook his head and pushed against her hips, trying in vain to push her off.
She frowned and smacked his hands. “Daddy stop it, “ she whined. “That is not the game.” The smack felt like somebody had cut off his hand and he couldn’t help but let out a scream.
“Daddy, if you scream you can’t listen to the rules.” She sounded like she was scolding him, as if he had been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “We are going to see who can hold their breath the longest, and you can’t fight, daddy.”
And before he could blink, her hands were around his throat, clenching tight.

*




*





*


“35-year-old male, white, found in the back porch of his home. No sign of breaking and entry, but the doors were unlocked. No signs of struggle either,” The woman read off the paper, her eyebrows furrowed as she did. “Are we just going to call this a suicide and be done with it?”

The cop just shrugged and knelt by the body. “I wouldn’t be surprised if this was a suicide,” He said after a few moments, as he took his the man’s unusual posture. “I knew him, distantly,” He hurriedly added seeing the woman’s raised eyebrows. “I was called to the scene when he got into a car crash with a drunk driver. His daughter was killed- his only surviving family member left. What did the medical examiner say about cause of death again?”

“Choked to death… she also said there were signs of him being intoxicated.”

He nodded slowly at this, stood up and brushed off his knees. “There isn’t much else we can do here. Other cops are on the job of investigating the house just in case, and there isn’t anything odd here besides the doll laying by him.” He waved his wands towards the blonde haired doll that had a bright red smile. “Whats up with that anyways?”

The female cop frowned, and chewed at the end of her pen. “Don’t know, maybe something of his daughters?”

“Perhaps.” He then gave her a questioning look. “Come on, I want to get some pizza. Do you want to come with?”

She grinned at him and handed a nearby cop her papers. “Why not? I had to miss my breakfast for this- and I was going to have a good one too.” He let out a loud chuckle and flicked his partners head.

“Come on. Pizza’s on you though.”