POP POP

1

It was midnight when Angela’s bright blue eyes popped open, her heart racing and her soft, silken sheets clinging to her sweat-drenched body. Sitting up in bed just as suddenly as she had awoken, Angela scanned the dark bedroom around her, sure that she wasn’t alone. The room was deathly quiet; the sound of her ceiling fan swaying and the ticking of her nightstand clock were the only things piercing the night air. Looking around, Angela saw only dark shadows moving, but a quick flick of the lamp next to her table lit the room, dispelling any notion of intruders or spectral invaders. 

“Holy shit,” Angela sighed, swinging her legs over the side of her bed and throwing the sheets off her overheated body. She hadn’t remembered pulling the covers on. Still, in Virginia's warm, waning summer months, her home often fluctuated between too cold and too hot, depending on the air conditioning. Thoughts of the dreams that had shaken her to her core flickered back, and suddenly she was overwhelmed by the need to check on her daughter. 

Kaylee was the sweetest, most fun 3-year-old child a mother could hope for. Kaylee had been born two months after Angela’s husband, Timothy, had passed away in a car accident, and Angela’s fear that she would be too overwhelmed or too depressed to give her daughter the life she deserved had nearly drowned her in the weeks leading up to the birth. Yet the moment Kaylee was born, and in Angela’s arms, the new mother looked upon her daughter with love and knew she would do anything to keep her daughter safe. In the weeks and months that followed, Angela built her own support system, including her daughter’s pediatrician, her own therapist, and close friends. Soon, she and her daughter had made a wonderful life for themselves.

Living on the outskirts of Richmond, Angela and Kaylee resided in a single-story farmhouse that Angela had inherited from her late parents. Dating back to the early 50s, the fusion of a wood-paneled living room with more modern kitchen and bedroom aesthetics made the home feel both comfortable, familiar, and chic. Memories of her childhood splashed through her mind each time she walked into her daughter’s bedroom, the same one she had shared with her sister Lisa as a child. Afternoons spent crafting elaborate stories with their dolls, and nights tucked snugly under their bright pink comforters as their father sat between them, reading Dr. Seuss books and giggling as he found each character’s silly voice. 

Between her love of storytelling and her father’s passion for bringing those stories to life, it was no wonder Angela followed in her father’s footsteps and became a writer. Her father had made a career of bringing tantalizing horror stories to life, never quite reaching the heights of Stephen King, but enjoying a modestly successful career that afforded him and his wife the security they needed to start a family. Angela, as she had gotten older, became obsessed with her father’s stories, and knew she had her own stories that needed to be told, as if she would burst apart and shatter into glass if she didn’t get the words down on paper (or typed on screens, as it is now). 

In the first run of her first published novel, THE HARBINGER, a gritty crime thriller, Angela had done a local book tour across the state, and in a small town bookshop called Over the Moon, she had met Timothy. He owned the bookstore, and his swooping, dirty blonde hair, Clark Kent glasses, and crooked grin had instantly drawn her in. They had gotten lost in conversation after the brief book signing she had done in the store, discussing their favorite authors, a shared love of all things Ancient Greece, and even a mutual interest in movie soundtracks. That conversation led to a first date at a local pizza dive, and six months later, they were taking a trip abroad to Greece, where Timothy proposed on the shores of Myrtos Beach in Kefalonia. 

They enjoyed two years of wedded bliss, including a thrilling pregnancy that overjoyed them both. Without any family except for her sister Lisa, who lived across the country in California, they had been ready to begin building their family together, and losing Timothy in that dreaded crash had nearly destroyed her and the perfect world she had crafted for herself. Kaylee was her saving grace, and the bond they had built together had helped ease the pain and the missing part of her heart that had died with Timothy. 

It had been months since she had last felt that loss so deeply that it had made her stop dead in her tracks, so when Kaylee had come up to her and said, “Momma, there’s Pop-Pop,” Angela’s heart had skipped a beat.

2

“Honey, who’s Pop-Pop?” 

Angela had watched her daughter, her frilly pink dress bouncing as the toddler moved around wildly at Angela’s legs, as the 3-year-old had picked up her favorite stuffed animal, a light brown bunny, and bounced it off Angela’s arms. 

“Him,” she said innocently, pointing to a corner of the room where a single blue velvet armchair resided. They were in Angela’s office, where she spent her time writing articles and her latest novel, and when she followed her daughter’s hand to where it pointed, her heart stopped again. She had often stopped writing and looked behind her to find Timothy sitting there, smiling as he had snuck into her office to watch her write. He would raise his eyebrows, giving his best Eugene Levy impression in the process, and then he would jump up suddenly, and she would give chase, laughing as he stopped and scooped her into his arms. The memory of those moments always brought a smile to her lips, ever so faintly. Then she would lose herself in the memory of what came after, when he would carry her into their bedroom and spend the afternoon embracing her ever so tenderly. 

“Honey, do you see someone there?” Angela’s voice cracked, tears being held back ever so tightly at the turn of events. 

“Yep,” she said innocently, not a thought stopping her or making her cautious as she continued to play with her toy. Angela knew her daughter well enough to know no deeper conversations would come, as the young girl often shut down when she wasn't ready to discuss things with her mother. She gently brushed her daughter's soft hair away from her face, then planted a soft kiss on her forehead. As the girl lay down on the floor to play with her toy more, Angela wiped at her eyes and stared at the chair, suddenly aware that someone must be watching her.

3

The next few weeks carried on much the same way, with life returning to normal save for the occasional laugh or comment from her daughter to the invisible “Pop-Pop”, like little sparks of fireworks in an otherwise dark void of space. The part of Angela that missed the people she had lost, the part that wished to hear her father’s haughty laughter or feel her husband Timothy’s long arms wrapped around her in that perfect embrace he was famous for, wanted this Pop-Pop phenomenon to be a blessing; a gift from the universe that would allow her and her daughter to feel connected once more to the family that had been torn away from her. 

Another part of Angela, the part that aligned with more science and reason, told herself that what her daughter was experiencing was nothing more than an overactive imagination. Many children went through a stage where imaginary friends came to life and became a fixture, a solid foundation in their daily routine. She was open to the possibilities of spirits and the paranormal. Still, she had always been drawn more to the scientific aspects of the supernatural than to faith, so she sought evidence more than belief. 

Yet the most significant part of her, the part that had stared into the darkness and found a beacon of light to hold off the fears and follies of mankind from her mind as she wrote the darkest horror stories and thrillers an author could create, felt an ominous gloom fall over their house. If it was truly her husband, father, or some other family member returning home, and if this was a positive thing, why was Angela filled with unease? She had felt that before, moments before receiving the call of her husband’s accident, like the cold hands of fate gripping her neck and choking the hope from her lungs. 

Soon, ideas of imaginary friends left her mind as Pop-Pop made himself known around the house. Faint knocking would appear in the middle of the night, and quick glimpses of her extensive, state-of-the-art security system would confirm there were no visitors at her doorstep or intruders in her home. Lights would flicker on their own, and drawers and cabinet doors would be found left open when she and Kaylee awoke the next day. Angela called handymen and electricians to go over the house, but no answers could be found, save for Kaylee’s laughter when she claimed Pop-Pop was just messing with us.

One day, while her daughter napped, Angela finished cleaning the dishes piling up in the sink and ran the dishwasher. Wiping her brow and throwing the dish rag on the sink, Angela had turned off her playlist of classic rock on her phone and turned to see something unimaginable. A pale, nearly transparent figure seemed to glide into her daughter's room. It was quick, too quick to see any distinguishing marks or looks that would identify what she believed was an intruder, but fear left her body when her motherly instincts kicked in. Grabbing a nearby knife from the kitchen counter, Angela ran down the hall, nearly slipping as she spotted wet footprints of large, bare feet on her clean floor. 

Rounding the corner and pushing her daughter’s door open, she found her daughter wide awake, sitting up in bed with a stuffed rabbit toy in one arm and looking somberly at her closet door. Angela saw the footprints continue towards the closet, and she quickly rushed in, not wanting to lose her nerve and needing to protect her daughter. 

“Mommy, don’t go,” Kaylee said fearfully, tears forming in her little eyes and her tiny arms clutching her toy for comfort. Angela quickly threw open the closet door, and to her surprise, it was empty except for some loosely hanging clothes and scattered toys. Angela clicked on the bedroom lights and searched the room and closet again for any sign of the intruder, but found none. 

Her daughter now crying, Angela set down the knife on the nearby dresser and picked her daughter up, soothing her sobs and calming her down, but in that moment Angela felt that familiar dread creeping down her back, like ice water filling her veins. Had her husband or father returned and simply scared her daughter by accident, or was a far more grim specter in their midst?

4

In the present, Angela walked to her daughter's bedroom, turning on the lights in her room and the hallway as she walked by. It was nearly fall now, with late September just about to cross over into October and a crisp chill threatening to settle in the late-night hours of Virginia. A rainstorm had made its way to their area, and Angela could hear the familiar patter of raindrops on the roof. The chill running down Angela’s back made her wish she had grabbed her slippers and robe, her bare feet padding along the cool hardwood floors, and her arms covered in goosebumps. 

Hearing the familiar hum of her daughter’s ambient music and glimpsing the soft blue light emanating from the LED lights she set up for her daughter this past summer, Angela slowly opened the bedroom door to look in on her little girl, but as the door swung open, terror suddenly clutched her chest. Her daughter’s bed was empty, the sheets thrown back, and her stuffed bunny nowhere to be found. 

“Kaylee?” Angela’s whispered breath carried through the nearly silent house like a leaf on the wind, and as she frantically scanned the room for her little girl, a bolt of lightning ripped across the night sky and lit up the bedroom window before the house lost power completely, and all of the lights in the house went dead. 

Quickly pulling out her phone and turning on the built-in flashlight, Angela ran out of her daughter’s bedroom and searched the house, screaming her daughter’s name as she threw off blankets in her bedroom and the living room, looked under furniture, and even scanned her garage to make sure her daughter hadn’t snuck out for some strange reason. Angela tried to open her security app, but the power loss kept everything offline, including her camera’s cloud storage. 

“Kaylee baby, where are you!?” Before she could scream again, Angela heard a faint whimper and realized it was coming from her office. Angela’s heart felt like it would burst as she sprinted into her office, relief flooding her as she spotted her daughter huddled in the corner nearest her desk, tears streaming down her face. 

“Oh, baby, you scared mommy so much,” Angela barely whispered, kneeling to hug her daughter as her own tears began to form. “What happened, baby? What are you doing in here?”

Instead of saying anything, Kaylee simply pointed behind her mother, her eyes wide and tears streaming down the little girl’s face. Angela suddenly felt that familiar chill, and the hairs on her body seemed to stand on end, as if electrified. Angela swung around, putting her daughter behind her as if she held a Spartan shield, and felt her heart stop when she looked across the room. 

Timothy, her precious Timothy, sat in his favorite chair. His skin was a pale grey, and his glasses seemed darker, as if the lenses had turned into sunglasses in the afterlife, hiding his once-radiant eyes. His bare feet lay limply on the ground, and he stared at Angela and Kaylee, tears streaming down his face. Angela gasped, horrified and relieved all at once as she stared at her love. 

“Timothy, honey? Is that you? You’ve been… been Pop-Pop the whole time?” Angela said, curiosity and grief flooding her as she felt herself pulled towards the chair. It was dark, and the shadows cast by the still-lit street lamps outside cascaded across the room, dark and seemingly moving. She held out one hand to Timothy, the tears now flooding her eyes as she begged to feel her husband's touch, even for just one more moment. 

“Talk to me, baby, please. I…I miss you so much. Let me hold you, just one more time.” Angela reached out, hope filling her heart for the first time in three years. 

“Momma,” Kaylee’s whispered sob echoed like a gunshot through Angela’s grief-stricken haze. Angela turned, looking lovingly at her daughter. 

“It's ok, baby,” Angela reassured her daughter, but the words fell flat at the sight of Kaylee’s face, fear and abject terror flooding her three-year-old’s eyes. 

“Not Pop-Pop,” Kaylee quietly acknowledged, staring behind her mother. Angela went stiff, cold rushing across her body as the storm and the air in the house seemed to go still at once. A series of loud cracks and pops echoed through the room, and Angela turned to see the apparition she thought was her husband slowly rise from the chair. It appeared to be her husband, but its bones, or what should have been bones, cracked with such gusto that one would expect to see large patches of ice on a frozen lake splintering in great succession. As loud pops from the thing’s knees sounded in the room, Angela realized, too late, that her daughter had never named the entity for her husband or her late father, but for the sound it made as it moved. 

Angela looked up and stared into what should have been Timothy’s sweet and caring face. Instead, the face was misshapen, its glasses falling to reveal hollow eyes and cracked skin, like the lines children avoid when walking on sidewalks. Sharp and yellow teeth revealed themselves as the entity peeled back its lips in a snarl. In that moment, Angela knew she was looking not into the face of death, but into the face of something that had never truly been alive—a doppelganger, or a thought form gone wrong, perhaps, but never her husband. 

Thinking only of Kaylee, Angela turned one final time and threw her cell phone to her daughter, landing at her daughter’s feet with a dull thud. 

“Run, baby, and call Aunt Lisa, now!” Angela shouted. 

Tears streaming down her face, Kaylee ran, fear taking over as she picked up the phone and ran out of the darkened house. Angela felt cold, clammy hands grip her outstretched arm painfully, and as she suddenly found herself descending into darkness, she could have sworn she heard a guttural scream pierce the otherwise still air of the house. She at first feared it had been her daughter, and she had fought to get back to her baby girl, fearing her sacrifice had been for naught and Pop-Pop was now going to take her daughter as well. Yet the void was endless around her, and she realized in that moment the scream had erupted from her own lips, before Pop-Pop had enveloped her completely, leaving the house empty once more. 

As the sound of pouring rain echoed through the swinging front door of the home, two loud pops reverberated like fingers on a chalkboard, and Pop-Pop stepped into the night, disappearing into the rain like a mist.

THE END