Buster’s Warning in the Small Hours

My palm clamped over my mouth, holding back the sound rising in my throat. On the screen, the figure moved on all fours, but nothing about its crawl belonged to a human child.

Its arms and legs jerked forward in quick, insectile bursts. Its belly skimmed the carpet, while its chin tilted up and hair veiled its face.

It crossed the living room straight toward Buster. He stayed frozen on his bed, trembling so hard I could see it even through the camera’s grainy image.

He made no sound and didn’t try to flee. He only flattened himself against the cushion, shaking with fear.

The figure halted beside him. Slowly, it raised one hand and rested it on his head.

Buster remained rigid beneath its touch, terror holding him still. I could hardly bear to watch.

Then the figure bent close to his ear. It kept its face there, whispering, while the seconds crawled by.

Nearly a minute passed with the creature and the dog motionless except for the faint movement of its mouth.

“What is it doing?” Mark murmured. His hands had locked around the kitchen island’s edge.

“I can’t tell,” I cried, struggling to draw breath.

At last, the figure lifted its head and rose to its feet. Its strange, skittering posture vanished as it straightened.

It stood stiffly in the room, then turned to face the camera mounted high in the corner.

The infrared image had drained the color from everything, but its eyes still looked utterly black.

It lifted one hand toward the lens. Something dark dangled from its little fingers.

A ribbon. The same black strip that had been wrapped around my mother’s letters inside the silver box.

“It’s got the ribbon,” I managed, my breath catching as the words came out.

“What ribbon?” Mark said sharply. “Sarah, what are you saying?”

Before I could explain, the iPad flashed and shuddered in my hands.

Mark glanced at it. “What’s happening?”

Green and gray patches burst across the display. Then the security program disappeared, leaving the tablet’s home screen in its place.

I pressed the app’s icon. It failed to launch, closing itself before it could open.

“The whole thing’s gone,” I said, stabbing at the screen again. “I can’t get back to the cameras.”

Without the app, we had no way to see the footage. The image of that ribbon stayed in my mind instead.

A cold breath of air passed through the kitchen, raising chills on the damp skin at my neck.

Then my phone began ringing on the counter beside the sink.

Its bright marimba tune cracked through the quiet. Mark and I both jolted at the sound.

I made my way toward it, my legs heavy, and looked at the number on the display.

No contact name appeared, only ten digits from a Connecticut area code.

I knew the number. It belonged to the landline at my mother’s former home.

We had sold the property four years earlier. The people who bought it had since had the house demolished for a new development.

That telephone line should have been gone. The number should have led nowhere.

My fingers hovered above the phone as it rang again, then once more.

“Who’s calling?” Mark asked from behind me.

“It’s the number from my mother’s old house,” I whispered.

He stared at the screen. “That can’t be right. Sarah, don’t pick up.”

I couldn’t make myself leave it unanswered. When the call came again, my thumb slid across the green symbol, and I lifted the phone to my ear.

“Hello?” I said under my breath.

At first, all I heard was rough, steady static, like wind scraping across a microphone.

Then a child’s voice came through: soft, high, unmistakably familiar.

“Mommy?” Lily said.

I turned around. There was no one else in the kitchen. From the living room, the television continued to play.

“Lily?” I gasped. “Where are you?”

“It’s dark in here, Mommy,” she said, her words distant and muffled, as though buried beneath layers of earth. “I’m so cold. Please come get me.”

“I’m right here in the kitchen!” I cried, tears spilling down my face. “Come to me!”

“The girl in the living room isn’t me,” Lily’s voice sobbed. “Please don’t let her stay. Please, Mommy.”

The connection cut off.

I lowered my phone and stared at its dark display, unable to move.

The cartoon music stopped in the other room. Silence filled the house, sudden and complete.

Then came the sound of little bare feet, pattering and scuttling over the hardwood toward the kitchen.

The steps halted just beyond the archway.

Mark moved in front of me, one arm raised across my chest. We stared toward the empty opening, waiting for the thing from the living room to appear.

The quiet stretched. The refrigerator’s low hum seemed impossibly loud.

A small hand curled around the wall’s edge.

Lily came into view, walking straight and upright. There was no trace of that awful crawling motion.

She had a granola bar in one hand, already half eaten, and her sleepy eyes rose to meet ours.

“Daddy, the TV stopped,” she said, her voice a child’s mild complaint.

Mark released a huge breath. His shoulders sank as relief took hold, and he grasped at the ordinary explanation in front of him.

“It’s all right, bug,” he told her, bending down. “The internet’s probably acting up.”

He stroked her blonde hair, and she leaned into his hand, looking every bit like our seven-year-old daughter.

Mark saw his little girl and let himself believe she had come back to normal. I had just heard the real Lily begging me from the dark.