The living room wasn't empty.
Lily was standing in the center of the room, facing the fireplace. She was still wrapped in her yellow puffer jacket, looking tiny and fragile in the vast darkness.
She wasn't crying. She wasn't hiding.
She was standing perfectly still, her back to me.
"Lily?" I whispered, lowering the hammer. "Honey?"
She turned around slowly.
In the stark white beam of my flashlight, her face was pale, her eyes wide and glassy. But she wasn't looking at me. She was looking through me.
And in her right hand, she held the Global G-2 chef's knife.
The blade was enormous in her small grip. The tip hovered just inches from her thigh. The steel was stained black.
"Lily, drop the knife," I said, my voice shaking so hard the words fractured. I took a slow step forward, holding out my hand. "Baby, please. Put it down."
She didn't drop it. She lifted it up, pointing the black-stained tip at my chest.
"He gave it back," she said. Her voice was flat, devoid of the fear that had been there ten minutes ago. It was the voice of a child reciting a grocery list.
"Who?" I asked, inching closer. "Who gave it back?"
"The Snowman," she said.
She took a step toward me. I stopped, the survival instinct in my lizard brain screaming at me to run, to fight. But this was my daughter.
"He's not outside anymore, Daddy," she whispered.
She raised her other hand. Her fingers were coated in the same viscous black ink. She pointed a sticky finger at the sketchpad I had shoved into my back pocket earlier.
"He's in here," she said, tapping her own temple. "And he says he's cold."
She tilted her head, a mirror image of the monster on the deck.
"He wants you to draw him, Daddy. He wants you to finish the picture."
Behind her, in the shadows of the hallway, I heard the sound of dripping.
Drip. Drip. Drip.
Something wet and heavy shifted in the dark.
I looked past my daughter, aiming the light into the gloom. Two reflective points of light stared back at me from the ceiling corner. Not eyes.
Lenses.
Or maybe just wet, black holes where eyes used to be.
"Draw him," Lily said again, taking another step with the knife. "Or he's going to color me red."
ns216.73.216.10da2
and then Add to home screen.