Hollow Hearts

A Slender Dawn

"Don't open the window!" I said.
"But why daddy?" Lisa asked. My six year old daughter is as clumsy as a toddler, but I love her to death.
"Because you'll fall, and we live way up high, remember?" We lived in apartment fifteen, the odds being on the second story, the evens on the first. "Plus, it's bedtime."
She cuddled up to me in a little ball, pulling her knees to her chest and clasping both hands around them.
"Can I stay out here?" She looked at me with her big brown eyes.
"No, honey, it's a school night."
"But daaad!" she whined.
"No buts," I told her, "those things go on a toilet when you need to use it. Now turn around so I could take out your hair-ponies." As she did so, Lisa made a pouting look and stuck her tongue at me. "And those stay in your mouth."
"I know, he-he!"
I lifted one brown pigtail up off of her shoulder and said: "this little piggy has school tomorrow," and pulled out the pony. "And this needs to go back in the drawer." I made a whooshing sound as I threw the thing across the living room, making it on her little arts and crafts station next to the fish tank that held three goldfish.
"What's the other do, daddy?"
I lifted the other one off of her shoulder and pulled back when I felt something wet. Pulling my hand back, I saw that there was liquid draining from the hole inside her head. I screamed as the world around me became black and white, everything with color became shades of gray, and I looked back at my daughter, my Lisa, seeing her standing in the middle of the room. She had no face, but I could hear something that sounded similar to her voice: "you did this to me, daddy," The distortion was obvious in the words, making it sound like more than one child was talking. "You let this happen.". I screamed again, this time, frightened for MY life and not hers.
Then, my vision became like static from a camera. When my eyesight cleared up, I could see an impossibly tall, blank faced man in a black suit and tie laying his hand on her shoulder.
And I woke up.

It was a strange thing, waking up, not remembering anything from my dream. All I could recall was that it was about Lisa. My darling, four year old Lisa. Poor, vulnerable Lisa. I began to think of how weak she is without her father to protect her. I vowed to myself that for as long as she needed, I would be there for her, thought the good times and the bad, high school and PMS, boyfriends or girlfriends.
Lisa...
LISA!
I jumped quickly out of bed, barely untangling myself from the mess of blankets and sheets and threw my stiff and barely awaking body out of the bedroom door, succeeding in slamming my head onto the door before turning the knob all the way, and burst out into the hallway. I looked frantically for a weapon and grabbed the nearest foldable chair we kept in the living room for spares, and ran to her room. The door was open wide, and I walked in. I dropped my chair, and sighed with relief. She was still asleep.
I sat on her bed, thinking about what I put myself through to get here, to my daughter, to make sure that she was safe and sound. I felt her stirring, and sat up. I turned to look at her, and she looked at me, smiling. "Hey, daddy." She said, obviously sleepy.
"Hey, baby. What are you doing up?"
"I felt something sit on my bed, and I thought it was the Tall Man." The hairs on my neck immediately began to stand.
"The Tall Man?"
"Yeah, he's very tall, he doesn't have a face, but he's very nice, even though he looks scary."
This rang some warning bells. I felt a cold breeze sweep over me, and I looked at her window. That's odd, I thought, I closed that before I put her to bed. I shot up onto my feet and slammed the window shut and locked it. I backed away slowly, but keeping my eyes on the window. "Baby, did you open the window?"
"No daddy, the Tall Man did."
"Lisa, tell me the truth, did you open the window?"

Two days later and Lisa had stopped talking. I don't mean conversations the way six year olds can carry, I mean completely stopped taking. She was a smart girl, and it didn't take her long to learn sign language, but that didn't really help our case.
I still had that horrible nightmare, and checked on her daily for the next week, but every time I saw her, the window was open. She would say "the Tall Man did it". I've asked who this "Tall Man" was, but she never revealed anything to me. Even though my dream gave me an idea, I never had really thought it could be him. I called the police that night of my first dream, but since there was no damage to the window or room or any trauma at all, there was nothing they could do. They chalked it up to being forgetful on a hot day.
I called my mother to tell her about what had happened. She told me not to worry, that se agreed with the police. So I went with that, although the dream haunted me.

A few nights later, the tall, faceless man