The Haunting of Sunshine Girl (8 page)

“Do you hear that?” she whispers, and I nod.

It's the most terrible sound I've ever heard. Not laughter. Not
Night-night.
Not the sound of my things being arranged in the
room above us. Not even the sound of water running. Instead, it's the sound of crying. But it's like no crying I've ever heard before.

She's not crying, I realize with a start. She's
begging.
And suddenly, she screams.

Mom turns from the kitchen and makes a dash for the stairs.

“There's a little girl up there!” she shouts, and I follow. “We have to help her!”

Mom opens the door to my room first. Because of the tree blocking my window, only the smallest sliver of light streams in from the moon outside. Actually, wait, not the moon. I walk to the window and peer out through the branches: our neighbors' lights are on.

“Mom,” I say softly, “I don't think it's a blackout—”

But she just turns around and runs into her own room.

“Where is she?” Mom shouts desperately. “She's not in either of our rooms.”

The crying is louder, and louder still.
Please. Please. Please!

As the cries get louder, it becomes clear: the sounds are coming from the bathroom.

Mom and I crouch down onto the floor and crawl to the bathroom door. Mom reaches for the knob and starts to turn it. I brace myself for what we're going to see on the other side.

Maybe it won't be that bad. Maybe it will be like
Alice in Wonderland.
Maybe the ghost is crying so hard that she's drowning in her own tears, flooding the floor beneath her.

Can ghosts even cry?

“It's locked.” Mom drops her hand.

“What?” I reach up and try the knob for myself. The metal is cold and slick with condensation. “How can it be locked?”

“Whoever's inside must have locked it,” Mom says, pulling
herself up to stand. She presses her body against the door like she thinks she can knock it down.

I shake my head. “That lock is broken, remember? You were going to call the landlord and ask him to fix it?”

I shine the light from my phone on her face. Her skin is about three shades paler than usual, practically blue.

A sound makes me drop the phone, plunging us into darkness.

Splashing. But not the sound of a little kid splashing around in the bathtub having fun.

On the other side of the bathroom door someone is trying to keep her head above water. Trying and failing.

Splash. Splash. Splash.

Mom tries the doorknob again, pressing her weight against the door.

“Help me, Sunshine!” she shouts, so I grab my phone, get up, and stand beside her, pressing against the door with all my strength.

Something presses back and we both jump away.

Splash. Splash. Splash.
And in between the sound of someone coughing, sputtering, gasping for air. A child's voice saying
Please!

I close my eyes. I don't want to imagine what's happening on the other side of that door, to the little girl who just wanted to play. Maybe if I'd just played with her . . .

I jump when something cold touches my socked feet; I shine my phone's flashlight on the carpet. Something is seeping out from under the bathroom door. I crouch down to look more closely. I don't think it's just water.

Whatever it is, it's a reddish sort of brown, darker than the tan of the carpet. I take a deep breath. I hope it's not blood. I'm not so good with blood.

“Mom?” I say as I back away from the door. “What is that?”

Mom doesn't answer. Instead, she pounds her fists against the door, making me jump all over again.

“Whoever you are, don't you dare hurt that little girl!” she shouts.

“You said there was no little girl.”

Mom ignores me. “Don't hurt her!” she shouts again, louder this time. “Do
not
hurt her!”

Splash. Splash. Splash. Please!

I start shouting too. “Don't hurt her!” I echo. “Don't hurt that little girl!” I put up my fists and pound against the door with all my might. And in between the pounding of our fists I listen for the sound of splashes. As long as she's splashing, she hasn't lost. As long as she's splashing, she still has enough life in her to put up a fight.

Please don't do this again,
I hear her beg, her voice thick with effort.

Again?
What does she mean,
again?
How many times has this happened before?

Splash. Splash. Splash.
More brown water rushes out from under the bathroom door, soaking the carpet, drenching the bottom of my jeans.

I pound even harder, and Mom does too. Between the two of us we'll knock the door down before we give up.

All at once the sound of splashing stops. The bathroom is suddenly horribly silent. Mom and I look at each other in the darkness.

Just as suddenly the lights come back on. The door swings open. I was in midpunch, so I fall face first into the bathroom, knocking my nose against the tile, face down in a puddle of murky water.

I start shaking uncontrollably.

“It's just rust, Sunshine,” Mom explains breathlessly. She knows I'm kind of phobic about blood.

“Rust?” I echo.

“From the pipes,” she says, gesturing to the tub. I nod, struggling to get my bearings and looking up at the room around me. It doesn't make sense: the water from these pipes has never been rusty before. Maybe this water is different. Older. Rotten. I inhale—the smell of mildew is so strong I can taste it.

The bathroom is a disaster area. Though the faucet isn't running, the tub is overflowing with water, like it's being filled from below. The tiles around the tub are all scratched up, as though someone was gripping both sides, hanging on for dear life.

I pull myself up to stand. It's so cold in here that I'm surprised there's any water at all; you'd think it would be frozen solid.

My heart is pounding so fast, and I can barely breathe. No one else is in here. It's just Mom and me—no little girl, no evil man standing over her, forcing her to beg for her life.

But why would a ghost have to beg for her life anyway?

Mom reaches into the tub and releases the stopper; water begins to disappear down the drain. The mirror above the sink is broken, cracked right down the center, and it's all fogged up so that it takes me a second to see my own reflection.

I'm soaked and shivering. My white T-shirt is stained brown with rust.

“Mom?” I say, turning around to face her. She just shakes her head. Unlike me, she's covered in sweat, hot from the effort of pounding on the door.

“Mom?” I say again, but she still doesn't answer. Instead, she backs into the hallway, her soaked shoes leaving footprints on the carpet.

“What the heck happened in there?” she asks finally. She looks at me like she thinks I have an answer, like maybe all my obsessing over ghosts for the past few weeks has given me some insight, some knowledge into what's going on in this house.

I can't believe I ever complained over a few gusts of wind and a messy floor. What was all of that? Just a warm-up for what happened tonight, the grand finale?

“Sunshine?” Mom prompts. “Was that your ghost?”

I Am Watching

Sunshine has no idea that I am watching. This is a first for me—normally I observe spirits, and spirits always sense when they are being watched. In fact, it's nearly impossible to hide from a spirit, though the ability would come in handy from time to time.

But it is easy to hide from a girl, even a girl like her. To her I am just another car in the school parking lot; perhaps my windows are tinted a bit more than her classmates', but not enough to draw attention. I am a stranger in the aisle of the supermarket, searching for the ripest avocado. And right now I am the man taking an early morning walk in her neighborhood, enjoying a brief respite from the rain.

I perceived the creature's arrival last night, even from across town. It was even more powerful now than it had been before, stealing strength from the rain and the damp, a long wet trail of misery in its wake. I left my motel and drove to the house, parked right outside. I wasn't worried that Sunshine or Katherine would see me. They were too troubled by what was going on inside to notice the stranger in the black car staring at their front door, straining to hear the sounds of their screams.

It tried to touch Sunshine first. I wonder if she even noticed, preoccupied as she was with the suffering of the little girl on the other side of the door.
She hasn't honed her skills yet, doesn't know how to perceive a demon's touch. The creature pulled away as though Sunshine's flesh burned it.

It latched on to Katherine easily, wrapping itself around her, soaking into her skin. Did she notice the layer of moisture that sprang up on her flesh? Probably not. Most don't. Like her adopted daughter, she reserved her focus for the cries on the other side of the door. It will take hours for the shift to occur in her body and mind, days for her eyes to dim almost imperceptibly, weeks for her hair to lose its luster and her skin to grow pale. The creature isn't in a rush. It knows exactly how much time it has.

I drove away not long after midnight, but now, just a few hours later, I am back. There is other work I could be attending to, but I tell myself that none of my work is more important than this. Than her.

And so I am watching.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The Morning After

Mom and I sleep
in the living room. Well,
sleep
might not be the right word for what we do. First, I scrub my face and hands clean, using the kitchen sink because I can't stand being in that bathroom a second longer, wondering what kind of monster could hold a little girl under water even as she struggled so hard that there are scratch marks in the tile. We debate over whether to call the police. “And report what?” I ask. “A flooded bathroom with a malfunctioning lock?” Then we collapse onto the couch in the living room. We don't turn off the lights; I don't particularly feel like being plunged into darkness again anyway. We just sit there, holding hands, staring at the wall across from us. At some point I guess I must have fallen asleep because the next thing I know, it's morning, and the scent of Mom's coffee is wafting in from the kitchen, and I'm stretching my arms above my head, blissful in that brief moment between being asleep and being fully awake when I don't yet remember that the scariest thing that ever happened to anyone happened to us last night.

Okay, maybe not the scariest thing that ever happened to anyone. But it's gotta be up there on that list somewhere. It's certainly the scariest thing that ever happened to
me.

“Mom?” I say, padding into the kitchen.

“Morning, sweetie,” Mom says as she pours herself coffee. “My goodness, what a night.”

“Understatement of the year.”

“My neck is killing me,” she says, tilting her head back and forth. “Maybe after work tonight you can rub it for me?”

I shrug.

“That's the last time I sleep on the couch,” Mom says with a sigh.

I shake my head. “I'm not heading up those stairs anytime soon.”

“Planning on going to school in the clothes you slept in? Very glamorous.”

“I don't care.” Who cares what I go to school wearing? I notice that she's fully dressed, her hair drying down her back. “Did you take a
shower
?” I shudder, trying not to imagine her having to step over a puddle of dirty water in order to get to the tub.

“Of course I showered,” she replies. “I shower every day. And you should really get a move on if you're planning on taking a shower before school. I can give you a ride today if you hurry.”

I shake my head and reach for a mug and pour in some coffee. I add a ton of sugar—I don't exactly feel like filling my mouth with bitterness this morning; I can still taste some of last night's mildew—and make my way toward the stairs. I close my eyes, and a flash of what happened last night fills my imagination. I shake my head. Mom's right. I can't wear these clothes to school
today. I look down and see that my shirt is filthy: stained brown with the rusty water.

I remember the fear I felt when I fell into it, terrified that it might be blood. I've never been good with blood. When I was six and lost my first tooth while biting into an apple, my mouth filled with blood and I actually fainted. Mom loves telling people that story.
A nurse's daughter, scared of the sight of a little blood,
she'd laugh.

Apparently I'm not so good with rust either. Did I really sleep like this?

Slowly, clutching my coffee mug to keep warm, I walk up the stairs, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other. I have to walk past the bathroom to get to my room, and Mom has left the door open, the lights on. I want to walk right past it without looking in, but I can't help myself; before I know what I'm doing I've turned my head and looked inside. I brace myself for rusty brown stains on the floor, the broken mirror, the scratches on the tile.