The Counting Game

My daughter, Lily, is three. She’s a bright, curious child who loves to line up her toy cars by color and count them over and over. But something happened last Tuesday that made me dread the quiet hours of the night. I was in the kitchen, stirring a pot of spaghetti sauce, while Lily sat on the living room floor with her plastic telephone. She was chattering away to her imaginary friend, as she often did. But then her voice changed. It became low and halting, almost like she was repeating something she didn’t understand. I heard her say, ‘Seven, eight, nine, the shapes in the hall, they crawl and they crawl…’ I dropped the spoon. That wasn’t a nursery rhyme I’d ever taught her.

I called out, ‘Lily, what are you saying?’ She looked up, her little face pale and wide-eyed. ‘The man in the mirror told me the counting game,’ she said. ‘He says we have to count the steps, or he’ll come out of the big closet in your room.’ My blood ran cold. Our house is a small ranch-style home. There is no ‘big closet’ in my room, only a small linen closet. But the way she said it, with such certainty, made me shiver. I went to check the hallway, my heart thudding. The long hallway to the bedrooms was empty, but I noticed scuff marks on the wall near the linen closet, as if something had been dragged along it. I ran my fingers over the marks. They felt greasy, like old candle wax. I hadn’t lit a candle in months.

That night, I put Lily to bed earlier than usual. She protested, but I was firm. As I tucked her in, she grabbed my sleeve and whispered, ‘He counts too, Mommy. He counts the steps to my bed.’ I forced a smile and said, ‘Honey, there’s no one here. It’s just us.’ She shook her head, her eyes serious. ‘He’s in the wall. He taps when I count wrong.’ I turned off the lamp and closed the door, but I didn’t go far. I stood in the hallway, listening. From her room, I heard a faint tap-tap-tap from inside the wall. It was rhythmic, like someone counting. I pressed my ear to the wall. The tapping stopped. Then it started again, slower, as if waiting for me to leave.

I called my husband, Tom, who was on a business trip. He laughed it off. ‘You’re letting your imagination run wild. It’s just the house settling.’ I wanted to believe him. But as I lay in bed that night, I couldn’t sleep. Around 2 a.m., I heard Lily crying. I rushed to her room. She was sitting up, pointing at the closet. ‘He’s here, Mommy. He wants to play the counting game with you.’ I flicked on the light. The closet door was slightly ajar. I’d closed it before she went to sleep. I walked over and yanked it open. Inside, there was nothing but a few of her winter coats. But on the back wall, etched in the wood, was a series of tally marks. I counted them: five groups of five, plus three. Twenty-eight. I didn’t know what it meant, but I felt a cold dread settle in my stomach.

Lily began to chant in that eerie monotone: ‘One, two, three, the man in the tree. Four, five, six, he plays with sticks. Seven, eight, nine, the shapes in the hall, they crawl and they crawl…’ Her voice trailed off. I looked at the closet again. The coats were moving. Not hanging, but shifting, as if something was pushing through them. I slammed the door shut. ‘No, Lily, stop it!’ I shouted. She started to cry, and the lights flickered. I grabbed her and ran out of the room. In the hallway, the scuff marks on the wall had grown. They now spelled out a word: ‘COUNT.’ I didn’t wait. I carried Lily to the living room, where the lights were bright. I called the police. They came, searched the house, found nothing. They said it was probably a draft, a prank, but they left me with a card for a counselor.

The next morning, I saw Lily playing with her phone. She was counting the buttons on her dress. ‘Seven, eight, nine,’ she said, without emotion. ‘He says we have to count every night, or he’ll take my toes.’ I felt a chill. That night, I tried to get her to sleep in my room. She cried, saying, ‘He’ll be angry if we don’t play in my room. He’ll start counting faster.’ I gave in, and we sat on her floor, counting out loud together. I counted to twenty-eight, and as I said the last number, the closet door creaked open. A shadow fell across the floor. I looked up, but there was nothing there. Yet I felt a presence, a cold spot in the air. Lily whispered, ‘He says good job, Mommy. Now we have to count the days until he comes out.’

That was a week ago. Every night, we play the counting game. We count the steps in the hallway, the tiles in the bathroom, the cracks in the ceiling. Lily has started counting in her sleep. I’m afraid to stop, because I don’t know what will happen if we do. But I also know that if we keep counting, we’re just giving him something to take. The last time we counted, I noticed the tally marks in the closet had increased. They were no longer twenty-eight; they were over a hundred. And I realized, with a sinking feeling, that we are not counting to keep him away. We are counting the days until he can cross over, and we are giving him more each night. My little girl sees him, and now, so do I. I just hope someone hears this before we run out of numbers.