Chapter 2 – The bleeding man

Luckily, I didn’t see the little girl every time I went into the treehouse.

Once school started and I’d made a few friends, a couple of us would hang out there sometimes. But the little girl never appeared then, either.

Apparently she’s shy.

The first time I had a friend over, this guy Jim, he saw the treehouse in back and freaked. “No way,” he’d said, already jogging toward the ladder. “A real treehouse!”

I tried to persuade him not to go inside – begged him really – but the more I protested the more he wanted to check it out.

“You got a secret porn stash in there or something?” he asked, whispering too loudly only twenty feet from where my mom was distractedly heating up a couple burritos. “I wanna see it.”

“Fine,” I told him. I was super nervous, but part of me was a little curious, as well. Not that it mattered, because when we finally climbed up there it was fine.

No little girl.

Man oh man, was I relieved.

Still, during those first couple months in the new house, she continued to appear when I was there alone. It happened at least a few times. Maybe more. Honestly, after a while, I just kind of forgot about her. I’d just read a book or listen to music, and she’d play with the invisible dolls, constantly humming that weird tune.

Every now and then she’d start up with the “just me and Mommy” stuff. But since it seemed triggered by my talking to her, specifically by certain words (“Home” being one of them), I basically didn’t say anything, and she’d stay quiet.

So, even though it was obviously weird, it was also not really a big deal. It was just another new thing I’d have to learn to live with. Lately, it seemed there was a whole bucketload of things I had to learn to live with, but I guess that’s part of growing up.

After a while, I figured it would be fine. That her presence there wouldn’t be a problem.

But then, just like that, it was a problem.

A nasty one.

Looking back on it, I realize that the mistake I made, what broke the fragile peace between us, was going up into the treehouse at night.

The first time I did that, it had been a hot day in late summer. Or fall, I guess. But it felt like summer. I mean, it was crazy hot for being almost October. Mom called it an Indian Summer, which I thought sounded racist, but I didn’t say anything. And, of course, our air conditioning broke, and Mom said the repairmen were busy and it would be a few days until they could come fix it. So the house was hot, and being outside – maybe even sleeping outside – seemed like a good idea.

At the time.

So one night, after dinner, I packed up a couple books, my iPhone, a bag of candy and a bottle of water. The plan was to sleep in the treehouse. Something I’d never done before, but times were desperate. Besides, by that time I hardly noticed or cared about the little girl. If she was there goofing around, that was fine by me.

Once the sun went down, I put my stuff in my backpack, walked across the overgrown grass of the backyard to the big tree, and climbed the rope ladder.

Inside, the treehouse was wonderfully cool and breezy. Since it was nestled within the shady tree all day, it never really heated up like the house did.

But it was also dark. There wasn’t any moonlight coming through the windows, and I could hardly see my hand in front of my face. I managed to crawl over to my sleeping bag, where the electric lantern was shoved into the corner along with some other stuff. I’d never used it, having avoided the treehouse after dark, but figured the batteries would be just fine.

I knelt on the sleeping bag, feeling like a blind man. I dumped my backpack next to me and fumbled around in the corner until I found the lantern.

I could already hear the girl humming from the other side of the treehouse.

Honestly? In the dark? It was creepy.

I started breathing faster, feeling a little panicked as I hurried to find the switch for the stupid lantern, thinking if I could at least see her then it wouldn’t sound quite so… menacing.

I finally found the knob on the side of the lantern and twisted it. The light popped on, and the treehouse interior lit up.

Sure enough, the little girl was there, hair in her face, playing with those dumb invisible dolls.

“Hey you,” I said, wanting to keep it brief. Then I settled back against the wall.

And that’s when I saw him.

I couldn’t move. I mean, I literally could not move. I couldn’t even breathe. I was scared shitless, to be honest.

In the corner of the treehouse to my left, just a couple feet past the edge of my sleeping bag, was a man.

He was sort of sprawled in the corner, his legs loose and bent. One hand was pushed against the floor, the other was holding his stomach, like he was sick. He wore dark jeans, heavy boots and a black leather jacket. The jacket was unzipped and spread open, exposing a gray t-shirt underneath. He was pretty old. I’d guess at least in his forties, because he was older-looking than my mom, and she was thirty-something.

The t-shirt, beneath the hand that covered his stomach, was stained and slick with blood. The hand clutching his gut was also wet and red, like he’d dipped his fingers into a can of paint.

He was bleeding. Badly.

His dark hair was long, stringy, and sweaty, plastered to his forehead and cheeks. He had pale, sickly skin and dark eyes.

The eyes were fixed on the little girl.

“Don’t be scared,” he said. His voice was deep and rumbly, but it was also muffled, like he was speaking through a pillow. “Do you live here?”

Still frozen, my eyes darted to the little girl, who had stopped playing. She was looking up at him.

At the corner.

“Shit,” I said, whispered, really. I was shaking. I just wanted to leave, to turn off the lantern and run back into my house. But I couldn’t. I know it sounds weird, but I honestly don’t think I could have moved if the whole tree was on fire. It was like my blood was ice, my muscles locked up. I could only watch, and listen.

The little girl stopped humming, and her hands dropped, lifeless, supposedly having let go of whatever invisible toys she played with. She stared at the bleeding man and, after a long hesitation, nodded. But her face looked different. She looked scared.

I don’t think she knew the man.

“You and your family live here, is that right?” The man spoke slowly, carefully, as if he didn’t want to spook her into doing anything… sudden. “You, Mom and Dad? Do you have brothers or sisters?”

The girl shook her head. “Just me and Mommy.”

I looked back at the man in time to see him smile. When I saw that, and I hate to say it, my bladder let go. Urine soaked the crotch of my pants, and then I started to sort of moan. Like whimpering, I guess. I don’t know why. There was something so terrible – so off – about him. I felt like I shouldn’t even be there. Like it was wrong to be sitting with them, seeing this play out, pissing into my jeans like an infant.

“I see,” the man said. He shifted his weight then, brought his legs under him, like he was going to crawl. His face got even more white, and he looked, for a second, like he might puke. Blood dripped off his stomach and onto the treehouse floor.

I’d never noticed the small, dark stains there.

I did now.

“Come here, sweetheart,” the man said.

The girl shook her head. I could see tears on her face. “I don’t want to.”

“It’s okay,” the bleeding man said. “It’s going to be just fine.”

And then, faster than I would have thought possible, he scrambled across the floor toward the little girl, like a spider who’d caught a fly in its web and was moving in to feast. The little girl started to scream, but I screamed first.

I yelled as loud as I could, and only then realized that I was also crying. I kicked the lantern and it somehow freed all my muscles, made my blood start pumping again. I dove for the hole in the floor.

The lantern was rolling on its side, creating a weird lighting effect inside the treehouse, like a wobbly spotlight.

I only looked back once before my hands and feet hit the ladder. The man and the girl were joined together. It looked like he was giving her a hug.

I climbed down as fast as I could, tripped on the last rung and fell. I got back up and sprinted toward my house, screaming for my mother.

I’d never been more scared in my life.

Later, after I calmed down, I babbled about the man in the treehouse and repeated my vision of the little girl. Although my mom assured me it was just a nightmare, she still went out and checked for herself, gripping a hammer from the toolbox. I watched from the patio as she climbed up into the illuminated box, knowing she’d find nothing there.

Because they weren’t there, of course. The little girl and the bleeding man. They weren’t there because they weren’t real.

They were something else entirely.

I didn’t know if I was going crazy or what, all I knew was that I would never, ever, go into that treehouse again. Standing on the patio, watching my mother climb the treehouse ladder, a hammer in one hand, I swore it to myself.

I promised. Never again.

Unfortunately, this is a promise I would soon break.