Creepy Tales

Eric

     Ever since my daughter and I moved into this new place...she's been acting strange. Distant, which, for her, is very unusual. Back at our old house, we used to watch movies together and play games...go to the park, that kind of mother daughter stuff. Now, she barely ever comes out of her room. You'd think that she's a moody teenager, wanting space. She's 6. She hasn't even unpacked many of her toys in her room. I asked her if she wanted my help unpacking and she said no. I left her be.

    We've been here for months now. I finally have all the furniture set up all around the house...all the pictures of us up on the walls...One of them is a picture of her and her favorite stuffed animal. She doesn't even sleep with her teddy bear anymore. He's still packed up too. I need to talk to her, but I never get the chance. When I make breakfast for us in the mornings, I sit her plate on the table and turn around to grab mine. By the time I turn back around, her plate is always already gone and the sound of her door being shut is heard.

   Whenever she's done eating, she slides the plate underneath her door. I always have to sigh and pick it up. One night, I couldn't sleep, so I got up and went to the kitchen, poured myself a glass of water, and walked back down the hall, but not before hearing a voice. My daughter's. I had froze and turned around, walking over to her door slowly and listening intently. I couldn't make out what she was saying, but it was evident she was talking to herself. That makes me worried because I know she isn't playing with toys and making them talk. She hasn't been playing with anything at all.

    I ended up calling a child psychologist last week because I couldn't bring myself to talk to my own daughter. That makes me sound like a horrible mother. When I told the psychologist what was happening, she simply nodded and went into my daughter's room.

    The woman came out of her room about 20 minutes later and I stood up, anticipating to hear what she'd say. She told me that my daughter had an imaginary friend. A friend named Eric. A friend she likes to talk to all day and all night. A friend that distracts her from reality. She said it was perfectly normal for a child her age to have an imaginary friend and that she'd grow out of it. I pray every day that she'll 'grow out of it.'

    Now...back to the present...I'm getting myself another glass of water, swigging it down with a couple NyQuils. It's hard to sleep when I'm worrying about my daughter so much. I pass her room when I hear her speaking again. I quietly open the door, just a crack, to see her sitting on her bed, facing the wall, talking. "Well..how am I supposed to do that? I mean I could try..I don't know where I'd find one." She says, giggling. My eyebrows furrow in confusion.

    What could she be talking about? I see her get up from her bed and I immediately walk away, going back to my room and laying down, trying to steady my breathing. Go to sleep. Go to sleep. It's okay. Go to sleep...

  THUNK...THUNK...THUNK..

   I immediately sit up, flinching at the loud sounds. What the hell? I get up, nearly tripping over my comforter. I kick it away from me and open my door, looking into the hallway, seeing that it's clear.

    THUNK....THUNK

  I rush over to my daughter's room to see her smashing her wall in with a hammer. I yell and pull her away from the wall.

   "Elisa! What are you doing?!"

  She looks at me innocently.

   "I'm helping Eric." She says, looking up with puppy dog eyes.

  "Helping him what?!" I ask, finally getting the hammer out of her grasp. 

  "I'm helping him get out." She says, before pointing at the wall.

  The wall has a visibly large hole in it...and I swear I can see something.

   I tear off more of the wall surrounding the hole. I feel like an animal going feral, and for a second, I thought I saw an animal. But, as I tear more, I freeze and back away from the wall, dropping to my knees on the wooden floor. I cover my mouth with my hands in shock and tears begin to form in my widened eyes.

   "Eric!" Elisa exclaims as she sees him.

A corpse of a boy in the wall. Eric.