The Thriller Collection by S W Vaughn

Author:S W Vaughn [Vaughn, S W]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2019-10-14T22:00:00+00:00

Alyssa is her usual bubbly self as we walk down the fifth-floor corridor to room 548. She doesn’t fear hospitals yet, because she’s never had to be in one. All she knows is that we’re going to visit Mommy’s friend, who was sick but is getting better. I want her to meet him, but I’m not ready to explain who he is yet.

I’ve called ahead to make sure Willa won’t be there for a while, and Brad assured me that she’d only come in for a brief time that morning and wouldn’t return until after dinner. I also told him that I was bringing Alyssa but didn’t want to break the news to her, at least not this time. He seemed okay with that.

We stop in front of the door to the room, and I take a minute to compose myself. There are so many butterflies in my stomach that I’m sure they’ll start flying from my ears. This moment is bigger than I expected — she may not know it, but my daughter is about to meet someone who’s part of her, forever. It’s daunting.

When I don’t go in right away, Alyssa looks up at me. “Should we ring the doorbell, Mommy?”

Her innocent question relaxes me, and I laugh and reach for the handle. “They don’t have doorbells here, munchkin,” I say. “We can just go in.”

“Oh, okay. I like doorbells, though.”

“Me too,” I say with a smile.

I take a breath and push the door open. And my first thought is that something’s gone wrong, because the bed and the chair beside it are empty, and the wheelchair is nowhere in evidence. No wheelchair … and no Brad.

Then I hear a muted flush from behind the closed bathroom door, and my heart starts to beat again.

“Come on, sweetheart. My friend will be here in a minute,” I say as I lead my daughter into the room. “We’ll just sit down and wait.”

Alyssa looks around at everything with thoughtful consideration as we approach the chair next to the bed. I sit down and lift her onto my lap, and she says, “Mommy, is your friend a magician?”

I look at her. “Why would you think that?”

“Because magicians pop out from nowhere,” she says. “Like this.” She covers her face with her small hands, and then throws both arms out. “Ta-dah!”

I hug her and laugh. “I guess you know a lot about magicians,” I say. “But no, my friend isn’t one of them. He’s just in the bathroom, see?” I point to the closed door across the room.”

She follows my gesture and nods. “Okay. But it would be cool if he was a magician.”

In a way, Brad is a magician, and he’s pulled off the greatest trick of all: coming back from the dead. But I’m not sure that’s an appropriate conversation to have with my four-year-old daughter.

The handle on the bathroom door clicks down, and I hold my breath as the door swings open. It seems to move by itself. Then

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