Your Worst Fears

Sometime Later...

After working overtime at the clinic, I really didn't want to stop at the grocery store, but we were out of milk, so I reluctantly pulled into the crowded parking lot and made my way inside. Since I was here, I went ahead and got a buggy so I could get a few more things, which ended up being a lot more things.

Once I made my way to the cereal aisle, staring at the vast variety of sugary, whole-grained goodness, a little blonde-haired girl skipped by me, heading to the toy section that was a little way down the aisle. As I watched her pick out a generic Barbie and start to play with it, running her tiny fingers through its hair, it made me think about having my own little girl—or boy—and wondered what they'd look like.

Would they have Nick's sky-blue eyes or my red hair? Would they be mischievous like him or quieter like me? As I watched the little girl, I couldn't help but smile, thinking it may be time for us to start thinking about having our own little ones.

I had just turned my attention back to the task at hand when something made my blood to run cold, causing me to drop my box of Cocoa Puffs.

"Crazy, crazy, that's what they say. Hmm mm, hmm mm, they won't go away."

Slowly, I turned my head toward the little girl still sitting on the floor playing with the doll, hoping I was hallucinating. As she continued to sing, I knew I wasn't.

"Voices, voices, inside my head...."

"Where did you hear that?" I all but yelled at her.

"Hear what?" she asked innocently as she raised her head to look at me.

"That song. Where did you hear it?"

"Oh, it just popped into my head," she said through an eerie smile as she nonchalantly ripped the doll's head off. "Hmm mm, hmm mm...."

Backing into my buggy, almost knocking it over as I grabbed my purse, I turned and sprinted for the door, not stopping until I reached my car and was safely inside. I was already out of the parking lot by the time I dug my phone out and called Nick.

"Hey, what's—"

"It's back," I cried. "I don't know when or how, but it's back. Just now, in the store, I heard... I heard that song. There was this little girl and she started singing it and—"

"Amber, slow down," he replied calmly.

"Slow down?" I glanced down at my speedometer. "I'm only going fifty-eight."

"No, you need to take a deep breath and tell me what's wrong."

"I just did!"

"Honey, I couldn't understand half of what you said."

I did as he said, tears streaming down my face and filling my eyes so it made it hard to drive, but I was too scared to pull over. "It's... back."

"What's back?" Before I could answer, he knew. "Wait. How do you know? What happened?"

I repeated everything I had just said, only slower. "And then I ran out of the store."

"Where are you at?"

"I'm heading home."

"No, I don't want you going home alone." He was quiet for a few seconds. "Listen, I just left one of the jobs I'm working on and was gonna run by Bryan's to drop this grill off, but I'm turning around. Meet me at the drugstore on the corner near where I used to live."

Once I made it back to meet Nick, he was already there, so I got out of my car and jumped into his. "What are we gonna do?" I asked, crying again, all the strength I had built seeming to fall apart.

He put his car in drive and pulled out of the parking lot. "We're going to my old house." He quickly glanced over at me. "Just to check."

"Do you think—?"

"I don't see how." He shrugged. "But I also don't know how else to explain what happened."

If something did happen and the box was no longer intact, I had no idea what we would do. With Edda gone, we were at a much larger disadvantage than last time. Before she died, she had said we were protected, now, but still. Who wants that—an evil spirit that I'm sure is out for revenge—to have to worry about? We might be protected from being possessed, but not from being killed, mutilated, or worse—tortured.

I looked out the window at the beautiful sunset and tried not to think about it.

"What about the new owners?" I asked.

"I know them, so they won't care if we take a look."

We rode in silence until we turned onto his street, where we both gasped. "It's gone," I heard myself whisper in amazement, my startled thoughts escaping me.

"What the hell?"

The big oak tree that once towered above Nick's house was nowhere to be seen, an empty void of sky left in its place. As we pulled into his old driveway, we realized why—the big oak tree was on the ground.

We both got out and headed into the backyard. "It's been uprooted," Nick said in bewilderment as he walked around the tree. "Must've been all the rain we've had. It was just too big for the roots to hold it down anymore. Good thing it fell that way, I guess, or it would've taken out the house."

I wasn't as worried about the tree as I was the box that had been buried at the base of it. "Oh no." One of the roots had completely demolished the concrete and the box it held inside. "It's broken."

Despite the fact that my voice was barely audible, Nick had somehow heard, walking back around the huge tree to look down into the hole I was internally dying over. He dropped to his knees beside it to get a closer look, and with my knees weakening by the minute, I joined him. We were both staring at the shattered pieces when a voice caused us both to jump.

"Hey!" We jerked our heads around to see an older man walking toward us with a big smile on his face. "Pretty bad sight, huh?" He had no clue just how bad it was.

"Yeah," Nick replied. "When did it happen?"

"Just a few days ago. I was gonna try to save her, but she's too big to resurrect, and even if we could lift her, she wouldn't stay. Guess I'm gonna have to cut her up for firewood. Y'all don't need any, do ya?"

Nick shook his head. "No, we just came by to check on something we'd buried, but it's gone now."

The man looked over my shoulder into the hole, where broken pieces of concrete protruded upwards through the dirt. "Oh, yeah, I saw that. My granddaughter was out here and almost fell in trying to see what that was. You can take it, if you'd like, now that it's been dug up for ya."

Nick shook his head again as he got up, reaching his hand down to help me. "No need to take it, now," he said, shifting his eyes to me for a brief second as I stood beside him. "It's useless and what was once inside is no longer there."

"Oh, that's too bad," the man said.

"Yeah," Nick agreed. "Yeah, it is."