The gig I worked tonight was supposed to be over by 11, and lately they’ve finished earlier. I figured I had plenty of time! Except it ran long for once and I got in the door at 11:45. I got it in. I leaned into short and creepy! Hold your loved ones close!

We came home to our house in the woods after the funeral. Marian was a wreck and I told her to go ahead into the house – I’d get her bag and the pictures from the trunk of the car. That’s when I heard the laughter. Jared’s laughter. We had just watched his little coffin with his tiny, cancer-wracked body lower into the earth a few hours ago and now I could hear his laughter coming from just beyond the tree line at the edge of the woods.

The tinkling laughter cut like glass and turned my blood to ice. “Daddy,” Jared’s voice came from the woods. “Daddy, come play! Come play with me!”

I knew it wasn’t Jared. But it sounded like Jared.

“Daddy, please! I miss you! Come play with me!”

I didn’t think I had tears left after the last few days. Apparently, I still had plenty. Through bleary eyes I closed the truck, the box of pictures and mementos of our son in my arms.

“Daddy! Please?”

“You’re not Jared!” I screamed towards the woods.

The cicadas stopped their hum in the hot evening air, and everything went deathly quiet.

A moment later a voice rang out from the woods – this time it was almost Jared’s: “I can be,” it said.

I ran for the house.