HORROR DIARY: CreepyPasta

CreepyPasta #10: THE DANCING TRAMP

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Thaddeus Yeung (10/23/17)

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The pungent smell of disinfectant. A corridor lit a brilliant white by the LED lights overhead. Men in drab white garbs rushing by, each and every one of them plagued by some urgent matter or another.
Henry Haywood sat alone, his head in his hands.
The creaking of a door, the patter of footsteps along the polished hospital floor. A man clothed in white, a stereoscope of some kind adorning his collar – evidently a doctor – approached Henry.
"Would you like a smoke?"
Henry glanced at the doctor. The doctor held a cigar in his hand, and protruded it at Henry, offering the cigar.
"Thanks. I guess."
The doctor lit the cigar for Henry.
"They don't normally allow smoking on hospital grounds, but exceptions have to be made."
The smoke from the cigar billowed upwards in a spiral, forming a white cloud at the ceiling.
"Mr. Haywood..."
Henry looked at the doctor. The doctor's aged face was dire – he was not enjoying this.
"The chemotherapy has failed. She has three months, four at the most."
Henry remained silent.
"We have done our best. I am sorry for your loss."
The doctor looked at Henry. Fat tears were cascading down his face.
Then, Henry screamed.

"What are you doing, Daddy?"
Henry Haywood turned around to find the face of his 5-year-old daughter, Annie, gazing down on his working desk.
"You mean this picture, sweetie?" Henry asked, motioning with his pencil. Annie nodded, evidently curious. Henry chuckled.
"I'm working on an animation, sweetie. It's my job."
"What's an animation, Daddy?"
"What's an animation? Well, it's a series of moving pictures."
Annie tilted her head, confused. Henry laughed.
"I guess I'd better show you, then."
He lifted her up, and carried her over to the projector at the back of the room. Then, he walked back to his desk, and returned with a metal wheel with a spool of film wrapped around it. He inserted the wheel at an opening on the contraption, turned off the lights and flicked a switch on the projector.
The room was instantly lit up by the light from the projector. Annie's eyes widened in fascination as Henry's drawings came to motion on the screen attached to the wall.
"You see the little fellow in the center of the screen, the one that's prancing around in the black suit with the cane?"
Annie nodded. Henry smiled.
"I call him Cecil. In my cartoons, he dances a lot."
A big smile spread across Annie's face. "I really like him, Daddy."
"Why, thank you, sweetie," Henry said. Suddenly, the animation ended, and a bleak white luminance replaced the dancing midget on the screen.
"Would you like to see more of this?"
Annie nodded enthusiastically. Henry suddenly felt a pang of pride over his drawings – even if the studio didn't particularly favor them, at least Annie seemed to like them.
"You wait there, sweetie," Henry said. "I'll go get more for you."
He returned with another roll of film. Swiftly, he unfastened the previous roll from the projector, and inserted the new one.
"I want to be friends with Cecil, Daddy."
Henry grinned. He thought of explaining to Annie how Cecil was just a drawing and wasn't real, but decided against it. After all, of what difference would that be to a little girl? Plus, they said it was good for the imagination. Just let things take their course and everything would work itself out.
But Annie wasn't listening anymore. She was in a whole new world now, in a black-and-white world filled with new friends to be made and new places to explore.

The doctor led him into a hospital room. He pushed the door aside, and beckoned for Henry to enter first. Henry obliged, striding into the brightly lit room.
A little humanoid figure lay below the sheets. The rising and depressing of its chest told Henry it was still breathing. He traced the figure upwards, and found Annie's swollen face. Her eyes were closed.
Henry inhaled.
Obscene plastic tubes protruded from many points on her body. Her scalp was barren with what had once been a glorious mop of blonde, and her skin was pale and colorless.
"We can arrange for her to be released," the doctor said. "No point in having her spend her final days in such a dreary place."
Henry stared at his daughter.
"So much pain and suffering," the doctor said. "This is the part of my job that I hate most."
Henry did not respond.