Gutted: Beautiful Horror Stories Read Free

watch a show? You want something to eat? Maybe I can order something? I don’t want to be too pushy.” I don’t want to leave her alone.
    She just stands there. She’s still got that scratchy wool blanket wrapped around her and she keeps cinching it tight. Underneath, she’s wearing a tank top undershirt and boxer briefs. She shrugs, stands there some more.
    For how small the room is, there seems to be a chasm forming between us. I’ve never been comfortable around other people. I’m fine on stage, but face-to-face? No. My therapist would call what’s happening here exposure therapy. It’s when you’re forced to do the thing that makes you most uncomfortable so that you can try and get over it. This, I learn, is that thing.
    I walk slowly, cautiously, as though approaching a feral cat instead of the daughter whose diapers I once changed. We’re next to each other now. Her vacant eyes, I see, are staring at a copy of Cracked magazine that is laying by the couch on the floor. Should I do it fast or slow? I don’t know, and hardly remember what I decided. Next thing I know my arm is around her, ungainly and stiff, unsure if I feel resistance or acceptance or total indifference. I try to pull her toward me but it’s like tugging on the trunk of a tree.
    My daughter died in that box. I have to bring her back.
    I almost forget I’m supposed to feature for an act at the Improv that night. I wonder if a little comedy could do her some good, but quickly decide it would not. Honestly, I’m frightened of slipping up and telling one of my more inappropriate jokes. Which basically means my whole act.
    “Why don’t you lie down,” I say. “In a warm, comfortable bed for a change.”
    She nods and I lead her to my room. Her room, now. The only room.
    Keeping the blanket wrapped around her, cinching it ever more tightly, she lies down atop the bedspread. Her neck is bent, head thrust forward, so I place another pillow underneath it so that it doesn’t just hang in the air. Gaunt and pale with those deep-set eyes staring straight up overhead, Meagan has become a mummy. I watch as her body curls into its accustomed pose. Boxed in atop a king size bed.
    I turn on the TV and flip through channels. It’s primetime on a Thursday night and guns blaze from every station. I may as well make her watch Taken 1, 2, and 3. Then I remember how I kept her books. The ones we used to read to her as a little girl. Maybe that could help soothe her, anchor her in some way to her former self.
    “Stay here,” I say. “I’ll be right back.”
    The books are in a box in a storage room by the garage. I rip it open and look.
    Goldilocks, Hansel & Gretel, Rapunzel, Snow White
    Christ , I think with mounting dread. Every story involves some little girl who leaves home and almost gets killed.
    Okay, keep it simple . Basic pleasures here: a warm bath, clean clothes, comfort food, a soft bed. She’s still my daughter, I’m still her dad. I can do this.
    The bathroom is off the bedroom, so I have to pass by her first. I open the door and almost cry out. She’s gone. How is that possible? Was she taken again? I run to the bathroom, it’s empty.
    “Meagan!” I shout so loud it hurts my ears.
    Then I hear a muffled voice. Coming from down by the floor. I look and see that the bed skirt is ruffled. I dip to my knees and peek under the bed, and there she is. Her head thrust forward so that her forehead is pressed into the underside of the box spring. That wool blanket pulled so tight I’m surprised she can breathe.
    Tired of your daughter forgetting to make her bed? Easy fix. Just have her kidnapped by a man who keeps her in a box and she’ll never sleep in it again.
    Thank God I didn’t perform at that night’s show.
    Of all people it was the police who saved me, because they sure hadn’t saved her. She had written instructions on the underside of the box lid. Had scratched instructions, I mean. With her fingernails. The police used carbon