The Hollow Playmate

When I was born, my parents were barely out of their teens, and money was so tight that we ended up in a rusted-out double-wide at the edge of a dying town called Pemberton. The place smelled of old cigarettes and damp plywood, but it was home. I don’t remember much from those early years, but my mom loves to tell the story of how I’d sit in my crib, staring at the far corner of the ceiling, giggling at nothing. She’d shiver, but she chalked it up to baby weirdness.

As I got older, the giggling turned into conversations. I’d be playing with my toys, and suddenly I’d go quiet, my eyes fixed on a patch of wall, and I’d say, ‘He’s here again.’ Mom would ask who, and I’d answer, ‘The boy with the empty face.’ She thought it was an imaginary friend, but there was something off. I never smiled when I said his name. I’d clench my jaw and turn away, and sometimes I’d cry for no reason, begging her to make him go away.

One afternoon, we were heading to the grocery store, and I was strapped into my car seat. I let out a heavy sigh and said, ‘He’s in the back seat.’ Mom glanced in the rearview mirror, saw nothing, and told me to stop being silly. But I insisted, ‘He’s sitting right there, between my legs. He says he wants to come with us.’ She turned around, and I was staring at the space next to me with pure hatred. She said my face was twisted like I was about to scream, but my voice was calm. ‘He says he’ll always be with me.’

That night, I cried for hours, pointing at the closet door. Mom opened it, but it was just my clothes. I shook my head, ‘No, he’s behind the door. He’s always behind the door.’ She slept with me that night, and she swears she felt a cold spot in the bed, like someone had been lying there. For weeks, I refused to be alone. I’d cling to her leg, and if she left the room, I’d scream until she came back.

Then, one evening, I went silent. I was four, and I was sitting on the floor, playing with a set of plastic animals. I looked up at Mom and said, ‘He’s not a boy. He’s a hole.’ She asked what I meant, and I said, ‘He’s a hole that wears a boy’s skin. He wants to wear mine too.’ I started laughing, but it wasn’t my laugh—it was high and shrill, like a wind through a cracked window. I got up, walked to the bathroom, and locked the door. Mom panicked, pounded on the wood, and when I finally opened it, I was standing there, calm, with a strange smile. ‘I told him no,’ I said.

After that, the episodes lessened. I stopped talking about him, and Mom thought it was just a phase. But when we moved out of the trailer park when I was nine, I remember staring out the car window as Pemberton shrank behind us. I felt a sudden lightness, like something had been lifted off my chest. I turned to Mom and said, ‘He can’t cross the water.’ She didn’t know what I meant, and I didn’t elaborate. But I knew he was bound to that place, to the trailer, to the cracked linoleum and the water-stained ceiling.

Years later, I’m an adult now, and I still get this cold draft in my own house, even in summer. Sometimes I see a flicker in my peripheral vision, a small shape, like a child, hovering just out of sight. Last week, I found an old photo of us in front of the trailer. I was two, sitting in a plastic pool. And just behind me, there’s a smudge, a dark blur that looks almost human. I’ve never been able to explain it. And last night, I heard a whisper in my ear, a child’s voice, as clear as day: ‘I found you.’

I don’t know if it’s him, or if it’s just my mind playing tricks. But I’ve started sleeping with the lights on. And I’ve started to wonder if moving away only delayed the inevitable. Some holes don’t close. They just wait.