The Runaway

Chapter 2

Chapter 2

Jane woke up with a start, something was wrong, did he hear...laughter? He gently shakes Teresa making her wake up, she lets out a sigh and snuggles closer to him whispering to Jane to go back asleep. The laughter comes again, closer this time and Jane immediately sits up seeing Charlotte giggling in the doorway.

"Daddy's with another woman!"

She started singing as she ran away, darkness immediately engulfing her little form. This time Jane shakes his wife more forcefully but she doesn't wake up she just turns away from him so Jane decides to follow Charlotte's ghost on his own. He enters the hallway carefully, trying not to stumble through the darkness.

"Charlotte?"

She reappears at the end of the hall giggling at him and running into her room, another voice enters the hallway and he turns around to see Marie crying, she's wearing Charlotte's night gown and her skin is slowly turning a ghastly pale. The dark chocolatey locks turning black and she looks up at him with faded blue eyes. She looks dead.

"Daddy I'm scared!"

Jane's about to go to her when he hears Charlotte screaming in her room and he immediately runs to Charlotte's room swinging her door wide open as Marie yells at him:

"Please don't leave me!"

The moment Jane enters the room he trips over Charlotte's dead body, falling into a pool of blood. The face on the wall grinning at him as Charlotte's door swings shut. Marie begins to scream on the other side, Jane trying to pry open the locked door to no avail.

"Daddy!"

"Marie!"

He tries again and the door finally opens, Teresa at the other side stopping him from running towards Marie.

"Patrick wake up!"

He looks at his wife and then at his daughter whose lying in a pool of her own blood but Teresa clasps both sides of his face and forces him to look at her.

"It's a nightmare Jane, she's not there! Now wake up! Wake up!"

He looks back at where Marie was standing and she's gone, Teresa's hands go from his face down his arms and she holds his hands.

"There we go, it's okay everything is fine."

"But-"

"Here let me show you something."

His wife turns on the light to reveal them standing in an empty hallway, just outside Charlotte's room.

"You slept walked all the way here, it's alright I heard everything."

"But Marie-"

"Isn't here, and neither is Charlotte. The only people in this house are you and me."

"..."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"No, stopping me was a mistake Teresa, I need to go back to work."

"But Jane it's 3am!"

"No! Don't you understand that this is my fault!? I left Marie! I left her and he took her! Marie is my fault, therefore I need to fix this!"

A stray tear falls down his cheek, followed by more.

"It's my fault Teresa. I left our daughter! What father does that?"