My heart slammed against my ribs. I instinctively hit the brakes, pulling the car onto the shoulder of the highway, gravel screaming under the tires. I spun around, grabbing the headrest, ready to confront an intruder.
Nothing. Just the empty bench seat.
Hands shaking, I grabbed my phone to call the police. That’s when I saw the notification on my screen. Sarah had replied to my photo of the windshield.
Mark, this isn’t funny. Where did you get this?
I typed back furiously: I told you, at that old building off Highway 9. Why?
Three dots appeared, disappeared, and appeared again. Then her call came through. I pressed the phone to my ear.
“Mark?” her voice was thin, trembling.
“Sarah, listen to me, something weird is going on with the car—”
“Mark, stop,” she interrupted, her breath hitching. “Where did you take that picture? Be serious.”
“At the abandoned hospital!” I yelled, looking wildly around the quiet stretch of highway. “Why are you freak—”
“Look at the bottom corner of the photo you sent me, Mark,” she whispered. “Look at the reflection in the glass.”
I lowered the phone, opened the photo gallery, and pinched-to-zoom on the bottom left corner of the windshield glass, right beneath the child’s handprint.
In the dark reflection of the car’s dashboard, you could see my face holding the camera.
And directly behind my shoulder, sitting straight up in the middle of the back seat, was a little girl with sunken eyes, looking directly into the camera lens with a wide, unnatural smile.
My blood ran cold. The temperature in the car was so low now that frost was forming along the edges of the side windows.
Slowly—agonizingly slowly—I raised my eyes to the rearview mirror.
The back seat was empty.
I let out a ragged breath, dropping the phone. “Okay,” I whispered to myself, my voice cracking. “Okay. I’m getting out.”
I grabbed the door handle and pulled.
It didn’t budge. The lock knob was pulled up, but the door was jammed shut. I slammed my shoulder against it, but it felt like pushing against solid steel. I lunged toward the passenger side—locked. The electronic windows wouldn’t roll down.
Then, from the dark footwell directly behind my driver’s seat, I heard a quiet, wet intake of breath.
A small, ice-cold hand reached around the headrest and rested gently against the side of my neck.
I froze, paralyzed by a sheer, primal terror that locked the air in my lungs. The fingers were impossibly cold, soaking through my skin straight to the bone.
A soft voice whispered right into my ear, smelling faintly of old copper and dust.
“Thanks for coming back for me, Daddy. Let’s go home.”
My phone, lying face-up in the passenger seat, lit up with one final text from Sarah.
Mark, please answer me. I just checked our daughter’s room. Her bed is empty.
