The scream was distant and brief.  The sound of tires skidding.  A woman’s scream.

Kyle Meade looked up from the copy of Phantoms he was reading. 

He set the book down on the desk and cocked his head, listening. 

Motes of dust drifted lazily in a bright shaft of sunlight beaming through the window.  From where he sat, his desk facing the large windows of the bedroom he’d converted into an office, he could see a portion of the street outside, Quail Lake Road.  The road was empty; perfectly still and peaceful in the golden afternoon sunshine.  Only the trees moved, their falling leaves fluttering in the soft autumn wind.

The thin, red second hand of the wall clock swept soundlessly around the dial. 

The only noise he could hear was the creak of his chair as he shifted his weight to glance out the corners of the window. 

After listening intently for several seconds, Kyle was no longer sure that he had actually heard anything at all.

Imagination, he told himself.  Wishful thinking.

He almost would have preferred that someone had screamed.  He was restless. 

His wife, Jody, had been gone for nearly a month.  She was on temporary duty assignment for the Air Force; attending officer training at Fort Maxwell, a few states away.  He and his wife had only been in Colorado for a few weeks before she was called away for duty.  Kyle still hadn’t found a job to keep him occupied while she was gone and, although her assignment was a relatively short one (what with the war on, Kyle told himself), he could not shake the boredom that naturally comes from being alone and lonely on a military base when you’re a military-househusband. 

Although a part of him still hoped to catch glimpse of an accident, he let his glance fall from the window back to his book. 

But the book was gone.

Kyle lifted some of the papers that were scattered on the top of the desk.  He looked in his lap.  He even looked on the shelf, just to make sure he hadn’t put it back.  Puzzled, he found the book resting on the floor by his feet.

Ghosts, he told himself.  Wishful thinking for the bored and absentminded.

***

He’d been making light of “ghosts” for weeks. 

Before Jody left for Alabama, she’d hidden treats and gifts around the house for him to find while she was gone.  A candy bar in the coffee pot.  A Playboy tucked between the towels in the bathroom.  A rubber ducky to keep him company in the shower.  An “I Miss You” note hidden under his pillow.

Everyday he found something new.  But it wasn’t until something disappeared that he started making jokes about the “ghost” in their apartment. 

Kyle was absolutely certain that his wife had bought him some razor blades before she left, but the very next day he couldn’t find them.  He searched the medicine cabinet.  Not finding them there, he checked the drawers in the bathroom counter.  He even checked underneath the towels and in the shower—just in case she’d hidden the razors somewhere, too.

Frustrated that he might have to run to the store just to shave, he looked in the cabinet again, taking everything out and setting it on the counter next to the sink.  Finally, he broke down and called Jody; more annoyed with himself for being so absentminded than to complain about her buying candy bars and magazines but forgetting razor blades.

***

“But I bought them,” she said when he called.  “I put them in the medicine cabinet.  Right next to your razor.”

“I took everything out of the cabinet,” he told her.  “I don’t see them.  Did you hide those on me, too?”

“Did you find the candy bar in the coffee pot?”

“I did.  You did that?  I just thought I’d forgotten about it.”

“Forgotten… that you put a candy bar in the coffee pot?  Silly goose.”  She laughed.  She had such a sweet laugh when she thought she was being clever.  He could almost hear her goofy, half smile through the phone.  “But I’m one hundred percent positive I bought razor blades and I set them in the medicine cabinet, in the middle of the third shelf, right next to your razor.  I’m sure of it.  Go check.”

“Okay… but I’m telling you, I’m one hundred percent positive that I turned that thing upside down and took everything out of it…”  Still, he set the phone down and went to check anyway, to prove (just once) that she was one hundred percent wrong.

He walked into the bathroom and chuckled at the contents of the medicine cabinet lined up on the counter.  “Nope.  Not a razor blade among ‘em.”  Then he opened the mirrored door one last time…

And there they were. 

The only thing in the cabinet. 

Right in the middle of the third shelf. 

Just where she said they would be.

***

“…I don’t know how I missed them,” he said into the phone again.  “I took everything out except the razor blades… there they were, right where you said they’d be.  I just don’t know how I missed them…”

“It’s time you knew,” she laughed, “I have magic powers.”

Now he laughed.  “Magic powers, huh?  More like a ghost.  He keeps hiding things on me.  Putting candy bars in my coffee pots.  You and him are conspiring against me, that’s all.”

“Darn.  You’ve guessed it.”

***

That was weeks ago, now. 

Still restless, Kyle decided to give up on reading and set Phantoms back on the shelf. 

He went to get the mail—a thinly disguised excuse to walk around outside and look for the accident he thought he’d heard.  But there was no accident.  And there was nothing in the mailbox besides a Chinese food menu. 

“And I already have this one.  Still, Chinese doesn’t sound too bad…” 

He fearfully glanced around to see if anyone had seen him talking to himself.  He sighed and smiled when he saw that there was no one there. 

“No one but the ghost.  ...Hearing things… dropping books… talking to myself.  You’re losing it, Kyle ol’ boy… you’re losing it.” 

And he wondered to himself, “How long until Jody comes home?”

***

Still bored and restless, Kyle decided that the best way to get through the rest of the day was simply to end it.  To take a shower.  Go to bed.

In the bathroom, he turned the water on in the tub and let it run as he looked at himself in the mirror. 

Steam began to spread slowly through the little room, rolling out from behind the curtain like a fog.  For some reason, he felt as if someone were behind him and he kept looking over his shoulder in the mirror.  He made faces at himself, stuck his tongue out at the feeling of being watched.  He turned to the side and patted his stomach.  A generous layer of baby fat was growing with all of his inactivity.  He wondered if he was beginning to look like his father and made another face in the mirror.  The fog began to hang heavy in the air and the mirror clouded; his reflection soon erased by the mist from the shower.

***

Even in the hot water, Kyle couldn’t quite shake the feeling that someone was watching him.  He felt a tingle… a chill at the back of his neck, despite the heat.           

“Ghosts,” he said to himself, reaching for the soap. 

The rubber duck stared at him from the soap dish.

“Forgot about you, little buddy.”

The duck simply stared at him.  Silently.

“So it’s a staring contest you’re after, eh?  Well,…  I’m game.” 

The duck stared at Kyle.

Kyle stared back. 

He stared into its little painted plastic eyes, paying more attention to a little toy duck than he ever had before…  seeing the beady white eyes with the small black dot in the center as if for the first time…  never blinking…  just staring. 

And then Kyle blinked.

“I give up.  You win.”

The duck kept staring.  Smiling.

He’d never noticed the goofy half smile on its beak before… 

“You think you’re being clever, huh?  You with your plastic eyes?  You don’t even have eyelids, ducky.”

And still the duck stared. 

Kyle shivered.  There was something unnerving about those little painted eyes; eyes that followed him wherever he stood.  Just staring, never blinking... white eyes with little black dots... following his every move.             

“Enough,” Kyle said, turning the toy around.  “Nothing more to see here.”

He closed his eyes and tipped his head back into the stream of hot water, rubbing his fingers through his hair; trying to rub the chill off the back of his neck with hot water and shampoo.  After awhile he forgot about the chill, relaxed as the smell of his wife’s lavender body wash filled his nose.  His mind began to wander, thinking of the last time he’d been with her... their furtive, good-bye love-making.  He wished he had the chance to try again, wished she was with him then.  “Instead of that stupid duck.”  He opened his mouth to swallow some of the water cascading down his face.  Then spit it out again.  The smell of his wife’s soap only grew stronger.

His ears perked at the sound of a low, slow squeak coming from outside the curtain; almost like the sound of a fingernail on a chalkboard.  Only softer.  Smoother, somehow.

He pulled aside the curtain and poked his head out, searching for its source.  Steam billowed out from behind his head and the bathroom was lost in a soap-smelling haze.  He couldn’t see anything.

The squeaking stopped.

“Damned ghosts,” Kyle shrugged, closing the curtain and reaching for the soap again. 

He turned to see the rubber duck staring at him from the soap dish. 

Kyle felt the chill on the back of his neck creep down his spine. 

“You know…  I could have sworn…”

The duck simply stared at him.  Silently.

Gingerly, he turned the duck around; giving the toy a little squeeze and a poke to make sure it was settled.  He looked at it for long time.  Watched it.  The chill in his spine spread through his body and—without taking his eyes off the duck—he turned the knob to make the water warmer.

“Ghosts…”

From somewhere outside the shower came the slow, faint sound of fingernails on a chalkboard.

Kyle tore the curtain open and thrust his head into the fog.  His eyes darted wildly from one wall to the other, looked out through the door to the hall outside.  The sound was definitely coming from inside the bathroom, but he couldn’t see anything through the steam hanging so heavily in the air.

Just when he was about to step out to investigate, the sound stopped.

He turned quickly to see if the duck had moved…

But the duck was gone.

***

“I’m losing it…   that’s all there is to it…  Kyle, you’re losing it…”

He searched the tub, even got down on his hands and knees to look down the drain, trying to convince himself that it had simply fallen when he opened the curtain.  He looked at the soap dish again, hoping to find it there, facing the wall, just the way he’d left it. 

But the duck wasn’t in the shower.

***

Suddenly the water became incredibly cold.  It began to beat down on him like icicles, and the muscles in his back clenched.  He had to kick the diverter to keep from freezing.  His body uncoiled as icy water flowed from the faucet around his feet.  He pushed the knob and the water stopped. 

His breathing came in short, raspy bursts.  His heart beat in his temples.  Steam billowed off his chest and he trembled with the sudden chill.  He felt the nearly uncontrollable urge to run… to run away from the shower… away from home.  To get as far away from this place as he could.

He pulled the curtain aside and reached for the folded towel he’d set on the counter.

The rubber duck stared at him from on top of the towel.

***

His hand shook as he slowly reached out to pick up the toy.     

The duck was warm, but dry.  He held it tightly in his fist as he grabbed the towel with his other hand. 

He stared into its little painted plastic eyes… searching for… something in the black dot of its painted plastic eyes … never blinking… just staring.  He set the toy down gently on the counter. 

His hand still shook.

“I’ve lost it…  I’ve really lost it…”

With his eyes locked on the toy’s unstaring gaze, he wiped a patch of the mirror dry with his towel.  No sooner had he looked up, than the patch fogged up again.

His eyes darted to the duck. 

It was just where he’d left it.  Sitting on the counter.  Smiling.

Again he wiped a spot on the mirror.  He needed to see himself, to look into his own eyes and tell himself that this was all the effect of an overactive imagination and an under active afternoon…  but the mirror fogged up as soon as he let go.

The duck sat unmoved.  Smiling.

Blood ran cold in his face as the slow, soft squeak started again.  Kyle looked up at the mirror to watch as dry lines formed in the mist of the mirror…  Something was writing on the mirror with invisible fingers.

And he ran.

***

He grabbed his robe from the hook on the bathroom door even as he burst through it, slamming his shoulder painfully into the hallway wall.  He tripped over the electrical chord of the floor lamp as he rushed to the front door and he fell to his knees in darkness. 

From the floor, he threw himself at the door knob, clawed at the button that kept the door locked until it turned, launched himself outside, pulling his hands through the sleeves of the robe and tying the belt as he sprinted for his car.

He had to get to the car. 

He had to get to the police.   

He had to get away. 

***

The cold, autumn air turned his hair to ice by the time he reached the car. 

Panicked, he scrambled inside and slammed the door behind him.  He batted at the air where the keys should have been… felt the cold metal cylinder of the ignition with fingers desperately groping for keys…

The car keys were still inside the house.

***

From the cool, still safety of the car, he looked at the darkened windows of his home, tried to see through the darkness.  Something had set the curtains fluttering.  Something was standing at the window, watching him.  A shape.  A shadow.

A person.

***

His heart beat painfully in his temples.  His breathing came in cold, painful gasps. 

He let his head fall to rest on the steering wheel. 

He was going to faint.

***

And he let the scene run through his mind.

He had moved the duck, and the duck had moved itself.

He couldn’t wipe the mirror dry, but something… else… was writing on the mirror.

His book disappeared off the top of his desk that afternoon.  He found it at his feet.

Razor blades mysteriously appeared where he knew they couldn’t be when Jody told him where they were…

…When Jody told him where they were…

Jody. 

He wished Jody were home.

***

“This is ridiculous,” he said aloud.  “I’m being ridiculous.  I’m being irrational and ridiculous.  I’m going to go to the police and say… what?  Ghosts took my rubber ducky for a walk while I was taking a shower?  There are no ghosts in my bathroom.  The curtains are moving because I left the damned door open when I ran from the bathroom.  If there’s anybody in there now, it’s because I left the damned door open… running away from my bathroom mirror…”

The shape was gone.   The curtains were still.

“Jody!  She got me the duck.  She got me the razor blades…  The candy bar in the coffee pot…  This is one of her little ‘gifts’ to remember her by while she’s gone.  She’s playing a practical joke on me.  Ha ha ha… all fun and games… and I’m running out of my house in my bathrobe because of a rubber duck…  A God damned bath toy!”

“Well,” he said, reaching under the seat for the long, steel flashlight he kept there in case of emergencies.  “We’ll see about practical jokes…”

***

A vague, dank odor clung to the place. 

“Steam from the shower,” Kyle told himself as he peered in the darkness from outside the front door. 

The squeal of the rusty door hinges and then the soft sound of his own footsteps echoed in his ears between the staccato beats of his heart.

The beam of the flashlight was powerful; it lit half the living area and cast dancing shadows down the hall into the bedroom… and the bathroom.  He focused it close at hand, moving slowly; swept the light back and forth over the immediate area, studying the walls, then looking up at the ceiling. 

“The ceiling?  …Ridiculous.  There are no ghosts on the ceiling…”   

With each step, Kyle grew increasingly certain that his panicked urge to run was unnecessary—“ridiculous”—until he was almost halfway through the entryway.  Then he suddenly felt… something odd… a tingle, a cold quiver along his spine.  He sensed that he wasn’t alone.

He stopped.  He brought the flashlight up to his cheek to look down the hall to the bathroom, strained to listen more closely to the silence between the throbbing of his heart in his ears, squinted with special care at the shadows cast behind the door, looked ahead into the gloom as far as he could, and even glanced back to see if something had crept magically around behind him.  Nothing waited in the darkness.  Yet he continued to feel that he was being watched.

He started forward again. 

He stood the floor lamp upright again, quickly plugged it in, light filled the room and he spun around to see an empty room and an empty hallway.  The shadows his flashlight cast had stopped their dancing.  It all looked so benign in the full light of the lamp. 

“…Ridiculous…”

***

Cautiously, carefully, holding his flashlight like a club, Kyle peered down the hall to the bathroom.  Steam billowed from the open doorway.

He counted ten heartbeats for every step he made down the hall.   With every step, he prepared himself for… for… 

“This is ridiculous!” 

He burst through the bathroom door, waving his flashlight wildly in front of him.  The duck sat, unmoved, on top of the counter.  Kyle looked at the mirror… he could almost make out the words scrawled there, but a cloud of foggy steam still hung heavily in the air in front of him. 

***

Before he could take another step closer, the phone rang. 

Kyle jumped. 

He padded quickly to the living room again, and snatched up the phone.

“Who the hell is this?!”

There was a pause.  There was tension in the hiss and crackle of the phone line.  After what seemed an eternity, a soft, serious-sounding man replied: “Mr. Meade?  Kyle Meade?”

“…Yes…”

“Sir, this is Lieutenant Hastings from the Montgomery police department.  Sir, I regret to inform you that a few hours ago your wife was involved in an automobile accident…  It was fatal.  I’m sorry Mr. Meade, but your wife died almost immediately…”

***

The phone fell, the flashlight forgotten. 

Shock had frozen whatever fear he might have had. 

Kyle stood unafraid in front of the bathroom mirror. 

The cloud of fog was gone. 

He read the stark, block letters written in the dewy mist on the mirror aloud:

“I love you.  I miss you.”