The Koi Pond Vigil

The summer I turned six, we moved into a single-wide at the edge of a pecan orchard. Dad had promised Mom a real yard, and he’d spent every free hour that spring building a koi pond from a kit he’d won in a raffle. It was a simple thing, a black rubber liner sunk into a hole, ringed with river stones we’d hauled from the creek. Mom had cried when she saw it, and Dad had beamed, and our old beagle, Biscuit, had taken to lying beside it, her nose twitching at the water’s surface.

I thought she liked the sound. I thought she was guarding the two orange fish we’d named Peanut and Butter. I was five, and I believed in things like that.

Our home was a long silver tube, like a submarine for dry land. You stepped in through the front door into the living room, where the couch still smelled like the previous owner’s cigarettes. To your right was Mom and Dad’s room, always slightly ajar, always smelling of lavender and dust. To your left was the kitchen, a cramped galley with a Formica counter. Past that, the bathroom, and at the very end of the hall, my room. I’d hung a poster of a cartoon rocket ship on my door, but the tape never lasted in the heat.

That afternoon, the air was thick and still. The air conditioner wheezed but only managed to push the heat around. Mom had promised me The Wizard of Oz after her bath, a reward for helping her weed the okra patch. I’d done my part without complaining, even when a blister swelled on my thumb. Now I sat perched on the plastic hamper across from the bathroom door, my legs dangling, my toes not quite touching the floor.

I counted the tiles on the ceiling. I traced the crack in the wall with my finger. I watched the fan blades turn slowly, cutting the syrupy air. And I waited. The bathroom door was closed. The water had been running, then stopped. I could hear Mom humming something soft, something I didn’t recognize. I tapped my heels against the hamper’s side, a rhythm like a heartbeat. The humming stopped.

I leaned forward, my ear almost to the door. I heard a whisper, not my mother’s voice. It was a dry, rustling sound, like something brushing against parchment. It came from inside the bathroom. My heart gave a start. I knocked. ‘Mom?’ I said. The whisper stopped. There was no answer. I waited, my legs beginning to tremble. I knocked again, harder. The door didn’t budge. It was a flimsy hollow-core door, and it had never been locked before.

I looked down the hallway toward the living room. Dad was outside, tinkering with his truck. The front door was open, and I could see the koi pond from where I sat, the sun glinting off its surface. Biscuit was still there, but she had risen. She was standing stiff, her fur along her back standing on end, staring at the trailer. She was staring at the window right above the bathroom.

I turned back. The door cracked open. Not a hand pushing it, but as if the air itself had expanded. The gap widened a few inches, and I saw inside. The tub was empty, the water long drained. The mirror was fogged, but there were no streaks from a hand. On the sink, a small puddle of water, and in the center of that puddle, a single dead leaf. The window above the tub was open a few inches, its screen sagging, a tear in the mesh.

I called for Mom again, my voice a squeak. I pushed the door wider. The room was empty. My eyes swept to the corner where the laundry basket sat, and I saw a shape crouched there, just beyond the tub. It was the size of a child, but its skin was the color of old dishwater, and its fingers were too long, and they were splayed against the wall, as if it had been climbing. Its head was turned away, but I saw a mouth open too wide, with too many teeth.

I didn’t scream. I couldn’t. I just backed away, my feet moving without me, until I tripped over the hamper and sprawled onto the hallway floor. The thing’s head swiveled, and I saw its face, or the absence of one, a smooth, grey expanse with a nasal ridge, and two pits where eyes should have been. It smiled, or it seemed to, and it lifted one long hand, and it beckoned.

I scrambled up and ran. I ran through the living room, out the front door, across the yard, past Biscuit who was now howling, and I grabbed Dad’s arm. He was under the truck, covered in grease, and he looked at me with a startled frown. ‘What’s wrong, sport?’ I couldn’t speak. I just pointed at the trailer. He wiped his hands on a rag, went inside. I waited by the koi pond, my breath catching, watching the door. Biscuit had stopped howling and was now whimpering, her tail between her legs.

Dad came out a minute later, looking annoyed. ‘There’s no one in there, son. Your mom must have gone to the neighbor’s.’ He picked me up, and I wrapped my arms around his neck. I didn’t tell him what I saw. I knew he wouldn’t believe me. That night, Mom came home, her hair still damp, smelling of soap. She didn’t remember getting out of the bath. She said she must have fallen asleep in the water, but the tub was dry when I’d seen it.

I didn’t sleep in my room that night. I slept on the couch, with Biscuit curled at my feet. In the morning, the koi pond was empty. Peanut and Butter were gone. There was no trace, no bird feathers, no paw prints. Just the still water, reflecting the sky. Biscuit refused to go near the pond from then on. She would stand at the edge of the yard, her head low, and stare at the water. And I knew, somehow, that the thing in the bathroom had taken them, and that it was still there, waiting for me to return, at the end of that long, narrow hallway.

We moved two weeks later. Dad said it was because the orchard was selling, but I knew the truth. I never looked at a body of water the same way again. And to this day, I can’t hear a bathtub drain without feeling the weight of that grey, faceless thing, crouched in the corner, its finger curled, inviting me closer.