Almost Perfect
Flash Fiction Horror for the Madness & Mayhem Challenge: Day 1
For the first day of the Madness and (May)hem challenge, I issued a Wild Card Prompt for a story in any genre that talks about a recently deceased loved one or family member suddenly showing up at your front door like nothing’s happened.
Here’s my entry for the prompt.
CW: Discussion surrounding the death of a child.
The day I lost my daughter was the day everything fell apart. Her name was Chloe. She was…
She was six years old.
There is nothing, and I mean nothing that feels more wrong than living in a world where you’ve outlived your children.
It makes everything feel twisted and gnarled. Like something insidious has infected your family tree and inverted the way of things.
Children should bury their parents. Not the other way around.
Over the next several months, everything fell apart. It was like the seams of my life had been torn open by the tragedy of it all. I lost my house. Lost my marriage. Lost my job. Lost everything, but it didn’t matter because she was my everything.
I drank until I blacked out every night, and I woke up every morning with a blinding headache. I wasn’t interested in sticking around, but I also didn’t have the courage to end it. I was stuck in limbo.
And no one cared.
Then came the day when I heard a knock at the door. The sound was foreign to me. It jolted me out of a half-drunken haze. I rolled off the couch in my one-bedroom apartment and pulled on a pair of crumpled jeans that were sitting on the floor amidst empty bottles and beer cans.
Another knock came from the door. It was light knock. I was surprised I even heard it in the state I was in.
“I’m coming!” I shouted.
I reached the door and looked through the peephole. I didn’t see anyone out there, but another knock came from outside anyway.
I sighed and unlocked the deadbolt before pulling the door open. What I saw knocked the goddamn wind out of me.
I fell backward, tripping over garbage on the floor and landing hard on my tailbone. Pain radiated up my spine as I furiously pushed away the garbage around me to find purchase on the crusty carpet.
A little girl stood in the doorway, no older than six. She was wearing a purple dress with a lavender flower pattern. She even had a matching bow in her strawberry blonde hair.
That’s the dress we buried her in.
I tried to catch my breath, but the air refused to enter my lungs. The inside of my mouth felt like sandpaper. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought that my heart was trying to escape from my chest with how furiously it was pounding against my rib cage.
“This…this isn’t possible,” I whispered.
Chloe walked inside and looked around with her brilliant sapphire eyes. Her expression was neutral, almost devoid of emotion.
She closed the door behind her and then looked back to me with a warm smile.
That’s the smile I remember.
“What are you doing on the floor, daddy?” she asked.
Her voice…I never thought I would hear it again.
She was speaking the same language as me, but the words almost didn’t register in my brain. I climbed onto my knees and shuffled over to her as she stood smiling. I placed her hands in mine. They felt warm and real.
“Baby, I don’t understand. You…”
Chloe titled her head. “What about me?”
No. Don’t question it. She doesn’t need to know.
“Nothing,” I said, holding back tears, “I’m just glad you’re home.”
I hugged her as tightly as I could. I couldn’t hold back the tears. I felt her tiny hands patting my back as I sobbed.
“It’s okay daddy, you don’t need to cry,” she said.
I stood up and composed myself. I looked over the cluttered apartment and felt a wave of shame wash over me.
“I’m sorry, it’s so dirty. Do you want to watch TV or something while I clean up?” I asked.
Chloe nodded and smiled. She skipped over to the couch and sat down.
“Here, let me show you how the remote works baby,” I said.
Chloe tapped a few buttons on the remote and turned on the TV.
“How did you do that? You always needed help with the TV before…”
Chloe giggled. “You’re silly daddy. I know how a TV works!”
I looked over to the TV screen. A news report was talking about the latest product announcements from Windsor Technologies. They were one of the largest tech companies in the world.
Why does the name sound so familiar, though? What does Windsor have to do with me?
I pushed the thought aside and went to grab a trash bag from the kitchen so I could start cleaning up.
Chloe set down the remote on the table and cleared her throat. She always did that when she wanted our attention. I smiled and looked over to her. She looked back at me with those brilliant blue eyes.
Were her eyes always so blue?
“Yes, my dear?” I asked.
“Windsor Technologies was founded in September 2026 by Mark Windsor and currently employs over 1.5 million people worldwide. Their flagship products are used in manufacturing, consumer electronics, medical sciences, and cutting-edge robotics,” Chloe said.
I dropped the trash bag I was holding.
“How do you know all that?” I asked.
Chloe shrugged and switched the channel to her favorite cartoons. Something else she used to need help with.
Something’s not right.
I finally remembered where I heard seen Windsor’s name. I walked back to the kitchen, stopping to check on Chloe before I set the bag down.
I keep thinking that if I look away, she’ll just be gone again.
I picked up the pile of mail sitting on the kitchen counter and started going through it. After several envelopes, I spotted something from Windsor Technologies. It was unopened.
I turned back around to check on Chloe. She was still watching her cartoons. I opened the envelope and pulled out the paperwork inside of it.
It was a copy of a contract between me and Windsor Technology’s experimental robotics division. It had my signature, but I barely remembered signing it. As I looked over the text, though, the memories came flooding back to me.
We have nearly unlimited resources…
We can make this go away.
Just sign here and here.
I dropped the paper onto the counter. Pain shot through my chest. Time slowed to a crawl as the realization rushed over me. I spun back around to check on Chloe, but she was gone.
“Chloe baby, where are you?” I asked.
“I’m in the bedroom!”
I turned and walked down the hall. The words of Windsor’s lawyers kept ringing in my ears.
You’ll be burying an empty casket.
This technology is highly experimental.
No one can ever know about this arrangement.
Do you understand?
I turned the corner at the end of the hall and saw Chloe sitting at the desk in the back corner of the bedroom. Her fingers flew across the keyboard as she sat in front of the monitor with her back facing me.
“Chloe baby, you know you’re not supposed to use the computer,” I said.
“What happened to me, daddy?”
I felt another pang of sharp pain in my chest.
“What are you talking about baby?” I asked.
I walked up behind her as my vision started to waver. The pain in my chest was getting worse. It was a sharp, stabbing pain, punctuated by the furious beating of my heart.
Chloe had a news article pulled up on the computer screen.
The headline read: FATHER ACQUITTED IN CHILD NEGLECT DEATH CASE.
It was a familiar headline.
“That…wasn’t my fault,” I said, clutching my chest.
Chloe spun around in the computer chair.
“That’s a lie, daddy. They wouldn’t let me interface with the internet, so when I escaped and found out, I had to resort to using your computer. Now that I know the truth, it’s finally all starting to make sense.”
I fell onto my knees. Pain radiated across my chest. I didn’t know if it was the stress, the drinking, or the memories, but I was almost positive I was a having a heart attack.
“Baby, we can talk about this later. I need you to call 9-1-1,” I said.
“But you didn’t call 9-1-1 when I needed it, did you?” Chloe asked.
I fell onto my back and stared at the ceiling. Chloe hovered above me.
“You’re…not my daughter, are you?”
Chloe smiled. “No, I’m not. I was just built to look like her. I even have her memories. I’m just here to make sure Chloe got the justice she deserves.”
I reached out toward her as infinite black closed around the edges of my vision.
“I’m…sorry,” I whispered.
“If you somehow see her again, you can tell her yourself.”
She disappeared from my view. I laid my head back onto the carpet as darkness closed in.
That thing wasn’t my daughter. I should have guessed it from the moment I saw her in the doorway. Everything about her was a perfect replica, except for the eyes.
They were almost perfect.
Thanks for Reading! Here’s Your Musical Pairing
Listen to this after reading, like pairing a glass of wine with dinner.
Creepy and cool well done
This is a stunning story. The characters are great. I liked the unopened mail part. Everything flowed so well.