Besides Babbit

Stark against the bark, like drips from a faucet they fall, down, down, down, bleeding in brilliant shades of red. He watches each droplet pool in a grassy ruin, as the late afternoon sun burns his back.

 She’s motionless, still as death. 

Until she’s not. 

Until her head cocks to the side and she lifts it towards him, flashing him a grin. He takes a step back, palms raised. 

You are of sound mind, you act with great virtue. You are here. You are here. You are—

She stands now on shaking legs, the blue bow in her hair slipping down her shoulders. Her forehead is split open, her upper lip torn, and her smile, her god-awful smile, reaches from ear to ear. She points a finger at him, her face contorting from laughter to rage. Her eyes go dark, and her mouth elongates, stretching into a silent scream. 

He sees her pain, can feel her pain, for her pain is his pain. He wants to make it stop, needs to make it stop. 

You are of sound mind, you act with great virtue. You are—

She takes a step towards him—

Charles Matthew, the man with two first names, jolts upright in bed. He clasps a hand over his mouth, drags it down, and breathes. 

He breathes in. And then he breathes out. 

Charles steadies himself, grounds himself, like he had to last October. Like he still has to.

He could have sworn he heard her laughing just now, bright, bubbled, and then muffled. She was so close, maybe even in the other— Charles looks across the room and watches as the branch of a willow tree whips against the window pane, each brush a whisper. 

It was just him and the stilled darkness. 

And Babbit. He mustn’t forget Babbit. 

Charles still took care of the small creature, Adeline’s little pet. He remembers when Adeline couldn’t decide if it was a rabbit or a bunny, so she ended up calling it Babbit. The animal scurries in its cage now, and Charles gets out of bed and walks over to it, his bare feet padding along the floorboards. The bunny rabbit eyes him, his nose twitching twice. 

“Can’t sleep either, huh buddy?” 

Babbit only stares at him, unblinking, unmoving.

“Well, we need to try, ok? For her, we need to try.” Charles slides back into bed and curls over on his side. He pulls the covers up over his head, not because of the cool autumn air, but because he hopes that, for the first time in many months, he can finally hide from himself, from his thoughts, and sleep through the night. 

And so he breathes in. And then he breathes out. 

Charles Matthew closes his eyes. 

And then he sees her again. 

***

Fall unfolds itself like a quilt, first blanketing, then blooming, until all its colorful corners are stretched to the seam. Gold, green, and burgundy leaves paint the hills, stirring ever so wherever the crisp autumn wind blows. The late afternoon sun casts an orangish glow on the sidewalks, the trees, unfurling shadows and secrets, for all things seem to be wrapped in this soft haze. The air smells of candy and cornstalks, and farms flood with pumpkins and passersby. 

It is the season of haunts, of hallowed feels, and for Charles Matthew and his daughter Adeline, it is a day filled with promise.

Charles pulls Adeline in a red wagon along the sidewalk, the leaves crunching under his feet as he walks. He wonders what his wife, Christine, and his younger son, Alex, are up to, if they have finished shopping yet. He decides to shake the thought from his mind, to be fully present, to be here, with Adeline. He loves listening to her laugh, and right now she’s giggling, trying to catch the falling leaves.

The two pass an old cemetery, a lone willow tree, and the neighborhood park. Charles turns towards the park, his eyes on the large grassy hill just up ahead. He smiles, pulling faster now, and little Adeline shrieks with delight. 

She calls to him to go faster, go faster Daddy! And so he does. When they reach the top of the hill, Charles tells Adeline she can go even faster if she wants, she just has to hold on tight and close her eyes. Adeline shuts them right away and Charles turns to face the hill, gripping the wagon. 

He begins running down the hill, pulling the wagon and Adeline close behind him. He flies down, two strides at a time, feeling the wind rush past him. 

Charles never saw the stone, for he never looked down. And so after several paces, his shoe collided with the rock and he tumbled to the ground, losing his hold on the wagon. 

It hurt, hitting the earth hard, but his mind wasn’t on his throbbing shoulder. He lifted his head, searching for his daughter, and had just enough time to watch it happen. 

Adeline was holding the wagon’s edges, her eyes still closed. The little red wagon accelerated down the hill, and then, without any direction to guide it, started drifting to the right, towards the large, lone willow tree. 

Charles got to his feet and started screaming frantically, calling out to Adeline. He remembers she did open her eyes at last, she did, and turned back towards him. She looked so confused to see him so far away, and then, in a single moment, he heard the loud crash as the wagon struck the willow. 

And Adeline flew head-first into the trunk of the tree. 

***

Charles Matthew jolts upright in bed for the second time. He’s drenched in sweat and panting. He knows that no matter how hard he tries, he won’t be sleeping anymore tonight.  

So, Charles slides out of bed and slips on his robe. He opens his bedroom door and makes his way down the long hallway filled with angled, moonlit shadows. 

He passes pictures on the wall, pictures of a smiling family; Christine, Alex, Adeline, and him. What he wouldn’t give to go back to those days, to those happy picture days.

Charles doesn’t blame Christine for taking Alex away. He knows what he is.

He knows the monster that he is. 

Christine hadn’t divorced him yet, and that was something, he supposed. He just hopes that, one day, he can get his shit together and see Christine and Alex again. Make it right, somehow. But he doesn’t know how any world can be right without Adeline in it. 

Charles stands just outside Adeline’s door now. He wanders into her room on phantom memories and will often sit on her bed for hours at a time, remembering, remembering, remembering. 

He pushes open the door and is about to make his way to her bed when his eyes catch something in the corner of her room, something out of place. 

Her closet door. It’s open. 

That’s strange, he thinks, and he walks over to close it shut. 

Charles is very sure he didn’t leave the closet door open, mainly because he comes into Adeline’s room every day and always leaves it just how she left it, the day she died. He doesn’t know how else the door could have opened. 

Besides Babbit, Charles was the only one living in the house. 

Charles turns to walk over to the bed when he hears it, the slow, moaned creak of the door opening behind him. He freezes, not wanting to turn around, not wanting to face the closet. 

And then, he feels it. 

The room growing colder, an iced chill wrapping around him. His arms break out in gooseflesh, and then, he feels something there, something standing there, behind him. Watching him. 

You are of sound mind, you act with great virtue. You are here. You are here. You are here.

Charles sucks in a breath and knows he must turn around. And so, ever slowly, Charles begins to turn towards the closet again, and once he does he sees—

Nothing. The closet door is shut. 

Charles lets out a laugh and shakes his head, then goes over to sit on Adeline’s bed. “You’re going crazy” he whispers to himself. 

He sits in the stilled darkness again, for moments, or minutes, or maybe even hours. He drops his face in his hands and begins nodding off. He’s about to fall asleep when he hears it. 

The unmistakable, undeniable sound of a loud crash. 

Charles jumps, turning towards the noise. It sounded like it came from— And then again, another loud crash. It was coming from downstairs, in the kitchen maybe? 

Charles reaches under Adeline's bed and pulls out a wooden bat. He remembers wanting to give this to her on her next birthday, wanting to teach her the game he loved most.  

Charles lifts the bat, and it feels good in his hands. He grips it tighter, then tiptoes out from Adeline’s bedroom and into the hallway. The crashing sound is constant, a loud thud almost every five seconds now. 

As Charles rounds the hallway, the staircase leading downstairs comes into view. He approaches it, one quiet step at a time, and all the while those crashing thuds get louder and louder by the second. 

Charles breathes in. And then he breathes out. 

You are of sound mind, you act with great virtue. You are here. You are here. You are—

From the top of the staircase, Charles peers down into the darkness and can barely make it out, but yes, right there, the silhouette of something at the bottom of the staircase. 

The small, slim figure stands upright with its back turned, facing the wall. Charles watches as the figure leans back far, then swings forward, smashing its head against the wall. A loud, crashing thud follows, and Charles freezes, not quite believing what he’s seeing.

The figure repeats this over and over again, banging its head against the wall in an even, monotonous fury. 

Charles can feel his heart beating quicker with each thud, and without even thinking, he takes a few hurried steps backwards. In his haste, the floorboards creak under his weight, releasing a low moan. 

The figure at the bottom of the staircase stops moving at once. 

Charles raises his bat and stares down the stairwell. The figure begins to turn towards him, slowly. When it finally faces Charles, when he finally sees it, sees her, the wind gets knocked out of him. 

It’s Adeline. It’s his baby girl. 

And she’s alright, really, she’s alright. She’s still wearing her blue dress Christine made for her, and her little blue bow is fixed atop her head, holding in her curls. 

It’s Adeline standing there at the foot of the staircase, and Charles can’t take it a moment more. He flies down the stairs, two steps at a time, racing towards his daughter. 

He almost reaches her when he stops all of a sudden. 

Adeline steps out of the shadows, takes one step up the staircase, and now stands in a spot illuminated by moonlight. And there, in that moment, Charles truly sees her. 

Adeline’s brown curls are matted in blood, her blue bow gone. The frilled dress Christine made for her clings at her sides, soaked in a deep maroon. Her skin peels in places, bone glistening against moonlight. And her eyes, which are bloodshot and bulging, narrow to a point, fixating on him. 

Charles takes a step back but can’t stop looking at her forehead, which has a large gash in it, right down the middle. Blood oozes from the ripped flesh, and like drips from a faucet they fall, down, down, down, into her eyes, along her cheeks, and finally pooling on the staircase. 

Adeline places one hand on the stairwell and takes another step forward, her torn lips pulling upward in a forced grin. 

Charles turns and starts running.

Behind him, he can hear Adeline crawling up the stairs, clawing and scratching at the steps as she ascends. Her low gurgled, grunts are closer now, she must only be a few steps behind—

Cold, stiff fingers wrap around his ankle, their nails digging into his skin, and Charles falls forward. With one hand outstretched to brace himself and the other still holding the bat, Charles hits the steps hard, knocking his shoulder on the wood. On instinct, Charles kicks with his free leg at the creature, for that thing surely isn’t his daughter. He beats at it with all his might, but her grip only tightens. 

He feels it then, the weight of his greatest fear manifested. His greatest fear, holding him down. 

And then Charles stares at the creature, the creature that’s trying to look like his daughter, like his Adeline. How dare it mock her memory. How dare it fester within him, day in and day out. 

The creature is laughing now, its high-pitched giggles echoing up the staircase. 

Rage rushes through him, and somehow, Charles Matthew finds a way to steady himself, ground himself, like he had to last October. Like he still has to.  

He breathes in. He breathes out. 

And then, he swings down the baseball bat. 

The blow lands with a loud crunch atop the creature’s head, and its grip on Charles loosens at once. Charles shuts his eyes and lets out a scream a year in the making, then brings down the bat repeatedly, smashing, and bashing until the creature holding onto him stops moving, stops laughing, and loses its grip all together. 

When Charles opens his eyes, he’s relieved to see that the thing that looked like Adeline is gone. 

But something else entirely lies in its place. 

There, motionless and still as death on the tenth step, is Babbit. 

Little Babbit, bent in odd angles. Little Babbit, gone. 

Charles sits in shock for moments, or minutes, or maybe even hours. Then, reality washes over him and he begins crying. He can’t hold them back, the tears, the flood of tears, and so he reaches forward to cradle the lifeless creature close. 

What had he done? This was all he had left of his daughter, and he just, he just…

Charles knows he can’t stay in this house a minute more. He’ll go mad if he does. Well, shit, maybe he already was mad. 

He’d go to Christine, that’s what he’d do, and beg her to take him back. And if she said no, well, then he’d go anywhere. Anywhere but here, in this house, stuck with the memory of his daughter’s death. 

Gently, Charles sets down Babbit. Then, he runs down the stairwell, past the kitchen, and out the front door. He turns towards his car in the driveway but stops once he sees what’s leaning against it. 

There, with its rusted wheels and faded paint, sits a wagon. A little red wagon. 

Just then the black handle bar swings forward on its own and hits the pavement with a loud scrape.

Charles remembers the last time he held that handle, how it felt in his hand, how he lost his hold on it. Letting go meant losing her, and when he lost her, he lost everything.

Charles shakes his head, then pushes the wagon out of the way. He can’t tell what’s real and what's not anymore, and so he climbs into his car and drives. 

He’s sobbing now, his hands slick with Babbit’s blood. Squinting through the darkness, Charles switches on his high beams, hoping the light will cut through the thick fog unfolding itself on the narrow road ahead. But it’s no use, he can only see a few feet ahead of him. 

He knows he shouldn’t be driving right now, clearly distraught on the darkest of nights, but he continues forward, accelerating forward, and all the while still calling out to his little girl. 

Adeline, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry, I’m so—

Out of nowhere, a small flash of white darts across the road, and Charles pulls the steering wheel too hard, too fast. As his car swerves off road and catapults into the unknown, Charles whispers to himself,

You are of sound mind, you act with great virtue. You are here. You are here. You are—

***

The odd thing about the death of Charles Matthew was the fact that there were no tire tracks in the road near the turning point he made, nor were there any drugs or alcohol in his system. It appeared, at least to local law enforcement, that he drove high-speed and head-first into the willow tree. 

The next morning a thick fog rolled in, painting the streets and hills a misty haze. Deputy Taylor had been the first to stumble upon the wreckage. He walked up to the driver’s side window, his boots crunching on dead leaves, and saw the glazed eyes of Charles Matthew still wide-open in raw horror. He called for backup. 

His partner, Deputy Ahn, arrived at the scene and tapped the back busted tire with his toe. He sighed, “You know, it could have been a lot worse.”

Deputy Taylor scoffed, “Yeah, and how do you reckon that?”

“This plate is registered to Charles Matthew, poor guy has two first names, anyway, looks like he wasn’t married and didn’t have any kids.”

“And that’s supposed to make it better?”

“No, it’s just, kids make everything harder, you know? So it’s easier when it’s, like this.” Deputy Ahn shook his head then added, “And, the man had real rotten luck. This road is completely desolate. He hit, like, the only tree within miles of here.” 

Deputy Taylor nodded but didn’t say anything more. 

After all, there wasn’t much more to say. 

Instead, he turned and looked past the mangled face of Charles Matthew, far past the willow tree, and out over the hills. He watched as the flashing lights of an ambulance grew nearer, until eventually they broke through the fog.