FicWad

"Baby," I felt a small hand grasp my right shoulder and shake it lightly. "Baby. Come on, wake up!" The shaking became more violent after I just laid there pretending I didn't hear her. Then, she completely yanked me out of bed. "baby, the moving trucks are here!" She bounced up and down on her feet above me. She was only maybe five feet, six inches, a hundred-thirty five pounds. How the hell was she so strong?

"Okay, okay!" Today was the day we moved into the house we purchased together. It had been five months after the death of Felicia's brother, Daniel, and she declared that we should start over new. The first thing she wanted to do was buy a house. We looked for a few weeks, then we found the perfect one. It had a huge backyard with a play area, finished basement, kitchen with marble island and a master suite. It was six bedrooms, three and a half bathrooms. It was perfect. It was newly remodeled and wasn't much of a hassle buying it. It was located right outside of New York City, in the Rochester Suburbs. The schools were pretty good out there and it was close enough for Felicia and I to easily travel to work.

I was holding down a solid position at a car and house insurance agency as a Claims Adjuster. It wasn't the perfect job but I never complained. The pay was pretty awesome, the benefits were very reasonable and if you liked bonuses, as I did, you were in luck! Felicia was an aid at a woman's Rehab Facility. She finally found her niche. I guess she saw the effect alcohol and drugs had on her mother, she worked as though she was helping her mother. Although her mother hadn't spoken three words to anyone since the nineties, she was helping herself to the thought that maybe she could cure her mother of whatever was wrong with her.

I sat there on the floor, still in my sleepy daze. She bounced around the room to pop music on the radio. She was genuinely happy. We were genuinely happy. Had this been four months ago, you wouldn't be able to get three words out of her without her crying all of a sudden. but today she was ready to move on, enjoy life. She took my hand and helped me off of the the floor. Wrapping her strong arms around me I looked down and smiled at her smiling, she did that a lot lately.

"I can't wait to get the fuck out of here." She whispered into my chest.

"Me neither, baby. Me neither." She always said that house held so many bad memories. She was right in a way.

In the eighteen eighties a family had lived there. A man, a woman, two kids. The man used to beat his wife so one day she got revenge and beat the shit out of him. "Accidentally" killed him, realized what she did, killed her children and then herself. It was the little boy who would hang around the house. It was him who told me what happened. He would always ask me if he could play with Gia. I told him no, which lead to him asking me why, and then I would remind him that he was dead, and then he would go away. I always knew it but I was never that stupid to let Felicia know.

We shortly got dressed as I washed up, slid on some jeans and a rock tee. I looked out of the window seeing the two large trucks.

"Are we really gonna need two trucks? It doesn't look like we have that much just by looking at how many boxes we have." She came from behind me and joined me as we both gazed out of the window.

"Yeah, but Danny had a lot of stuff." I slowly placed my hand on her back as she silently starred out of the window. Her hair had gotten so much longer and she had bangs now. God, she never ceased to look amazing, even when she just woke up.

She was making one of the rooms Danny's room. She was going to put all of his things in there, decorate it, paint it his favorite color and wait for him to come around, in hopes that she would see him.

"You'd tell me if you saw him, right?" Her voice shook.

"Of course I would. I promised you I wouldn't keep anything from you anymore." Still staring blankly out of the window, she nodded her head.

"Good." She turned around and turned toward me. "Come on, let's go wake up the girls." I followed her out of the room and down the hall to Gia's room. She was becoming more and more like her father each day. She had a thing for Pink Floyd, dark colors and she slept during most of the day. She's only eight by the way. I often wondered what her sixteen year-old self would be like.

We opened the door to her laying half-way off of her bed. I forgot to mention that she was an extremely wild sleeper. This was the most we had seen her on her bed. Usually, we would come in to her room and see her peacefully sleeping on the floor.

She popped her head up as soon as she heard us enter her dungeon.

"What time is it?"

"It's ten in the morning." I pulled her up, sitting her on my lap. She sleepily looked around the room and wiped her eyes.

"But it's Saturday." She whined.

"It's moving day." With that said, she hopped right off of my lap and dived into her closet picking out something to wear. I never knew she was so excited to move.

"Gigi, I never knew you wanted to move so bad!" Gigi was our nickname for her.

"Moving means we're moving to the new house, which means I get a bigger room!" She piped up. We stood there laughing as she hastily threw old clothes out of her trunks to put on. She was growing so fast, we both thought. She played the piano pretty well and she liked books. Her hair had never changed color from the day she was born, but now she looked more like her mother.

"See you in a few, Daddy." She stood on her toes pursing her lips up for a kiss. I leaned down and kissed her.

"Okay baby. Love you." She ran into the bathroom.

"Love you too!"

We went to Erica's room next. She was the flower child. I always saw her as a member of the Peace Corps when she got older. She, too, looked exactly like her mother. She was also quite the tomboy. With the exception of her ballet classes. She loved bugs and dirt. She was only six but she already knew she wanted to become an entomologist. She'd spend most of her time in our backyard, trying to find some new species of insect. Like artists work in paints and clays, Erica worked in dirt. But she enjoyed herself and that was all that mattered to us. Her and Gia got along great. They shared each others world and that was pretty interesting. Gia loved the fact that she was so rugged.

We opened her door to find her already awake. With magnifying glass in hand, she was inspecting the growth of her "pet lady bug she'd been keeping in a jar. She named her Crystal.

"Come on, Lady Bug." Felicia appeared behind me. She picked Erica up and placed her on her hip. "We're moving today."

"But I'm gonna miss it here." She frowned. Placing her head on Felicia's shoulder.

"Why? All of your six-legged friends are coming and you have a bigger backyard to explore."

"But he doesn't want me to leave." At those words I turned around looking at her. She had a saddened demeanor.

"Who doesn't want you to leave, Lady Bug?" She paused for a moment, not sure whether she would tell us.

"The boy in the yellow pajamas." She said quietly. Felicia passed her to me as I sat down with her on her bed. She gave me a look as if she wanted me to speak to her about this. Felicia kneeled in front of her.

"Erica," I started. "The boy in the yellow pajamas; what does he look like?" She looked down fumbling with her tiny fingers.

"He has blond hair, blue eyes and his skin's almost white." Felicia and I gave each other a questioning look. "He doesn't want me to leave."

"Well he's gonna have to." Felicia declared. Erica shrugged her shoulders as we carried her out of the room and into our room. Placing her on our bed, Felicia pulled me into the hallway to talk privately.

"I thought your Grandmother said it skips generations!" She folded her arms across her chest.

"Me too! At least, that's what she told me! I never knew Erica could have had it also."

"You think maybe she's making it up?"

"She's not. It was too-" Felicia cut me off.

"Sshh!" She hissed. Putting her ear to the closed door.

"I have to go. They said I have to." She urged. I heard the bathroom door creek open and saw Gia coming out fully clothed.

"What's going on? Where's Lady Bug?" Felicia tended to her as I slowly peaked through the door. Seeing him sitting across from her. He wasn't looking happy. I swung the door open.

"Lady Bug!" I called to her as she hopped off the bed and almost made it to the door before it shut completely. "Fuck!" She screamed as I tried to push the door open. Felicia stood there in utter shock as the door wouldn't budge. She ran up to help me open it when she started to cry. We heard Erica shriek from inside but told ourselves that it was only because she was scared. We banged on the door trying to force the nob but nothing was working. Suddenly, after three full minutes of trying, the door slowly opened. Erica had been laid out on the floor, completely unconscious. Her long hair everywhere around her.

"No!" Felicia pleaded as we rushed to her side. I checked her pulse. She was breathing. Kneeling down, I scooped her entire body up and gently began to rock her. Felicia sat in front of in hysterics. Gia stood at the door way blankly staring at the three of us. I began to cry myself. Her heart rate had slowed down a lot, and I hated to admit that she already felt lifeless in my arms.

"Come on, Lady Bug." I whispered. Stroking her hair out of her face. "You're stronger than this." Then I noticed the chill in the room. I took my eyes off of her for one second.

"Daddy?" Her eyes popped wide open.She gave the two of us the most peculiar looks. "What happened?" She truly didn't remember anything. Gia fully walked into the room.

"You fell, Lady Bug." She softly laughed. Giving us a look, signaling us to go along with it.

"Oh." She smiled. Climbing out of my arms, she walked right down the hall and back to her room. Packing all of her pets in a small box. I actually finished packing for her and let Felicia take her and Gia outside of the house. I tried my hardest not to stay in there too long.

I carried the last box out as Mikey, his wife Alicia, and Felicia's dad arrived to help us move. Everything had been placed in the trucks as I took one last look back at the house. I looked up to our bedroom window on the left. I saw a man peering down at me. He didn't look too thrilled to see me, either. Looking to the window on the right, stood the boy in the yellow pajamas. He was even angrier. I turned away looking to the backseat of the car. Erica was sat there prone, staring blankly out of the window and up to our bedroom window. Almost in complete fright. I sighed getting in the passenger's seat of our SUV.

"We gotta go." I said impatiently bouncing my leg up and down.

"Why? What's the matter?" She said in a rush.

"Because they're staring at us and they don't look too pleased." I said through my teeth as she pulled off in a hurry.