Katie was a weird kid. Seems like the wrong thing to say about your dead daughter, but it was the truth. She had this strange energy about her, a constant chaos just behind her eyes. She was quiet and fidgety. Nothing bothered her, but nothing seemed to make her happy either. I remember her at age three, a surprisingly tantrum-prone child. We had just gotten home from the grocery store, my arms full of groceries and her mother Angie holding her hand. A dead squirrel lay sprawled on its back across the  driveway, its eyes staring straight behind at us. I had never been much of a father, I didn’t think i could ever emotionally connect with anyone that powerfully, but I knew I was ready for this one moment.

When Katie didn’t like what she saw, she would cry. Hold her breath and dig her nails into her arms until her face was blue and blood sprang to the surface. I was ready to gently hug her, explain the concept of death, maybe finally get a true, special moment with the kid after almost four years.

But instead, she stood stiff and still, her eyes locked on that squirrel’s. Angie tugged on her hand, pulling her towards the house. I watched them both go inside, unsure of what to do. That was the first time I saw that look in her eyes. Focused. Cold. Much older than that chubby toddler eating graham crackers at the table when I got inside.

There are some things a kid shouldn’t know. As she grew, we still didn’t connect. It wasn’t that I hated my daughter, I just wasn’t sure I necessarily loved her. I grew apart from Angie, not that we ever seemed to be head over heels in love. I felt more and more like this was all something I had settled for, like this was someone else’s life. I had potential, and no one, not even me, knew what it was. I drank. I knew Katie knew, there was no doubt she had overheard our fights. The first time I truly blacked out was the night of her twelfth birthday. We had given her a new sketchbook and a giftcard to a store in the mall. She spent the rest of the day in her room. The next morning that uneasy air about her felt suffocating, as if her constant nervousness was contagious. Angie made me sleep on the couch for a week. It became a weekly cycle.

We both made mistakes, Angie and I. Our fights would reach an almost nightly crescendo of screaming, slamming hands on the walls to make our points, and ending with one of us standing on the back porch smoking a cigarette. On those nights Katie would go straight to her room after dinner, locking the door behind her.

The divorce talk started a few months later. I never tried to deny that it was coming, and I couldn’t say I was upset. Shit happens. The one thing I didn’t expect was Katie running away. Or at least I thought she did. I couldn’t be sure. One day she was there, the next morning gone. Angie was distraught. I don’t think I felt anything. I called the police like I was supposed to, and listened while Angie tearfully answered questions about her daughter. Our daughter. They found her a day later, in a grassy ditch off the highway. They had no idea what had gotten to her, but her body was covered in cuts and scrapes, and her left arm was twisted at a funny angle. When they gave us the news, Angie threw up. Then she told me to leave, right after the funeral.

That kid never looked comfortable in life, but somehow lying in a casket at the memorial she just looked like a normal twelve year old girl. That stiffness only seemed to make sense now, after someone or something had killed her. She finally seemed comfortable.

As promised, I moved out the next day. I packed two suitcases full of the clothes I liked and drove two towns over. I made a promise to myself to cut back on drinking. I picked up a janitorial job during the off-season of an old theater in the center of town. I made a promise to myself that this would be a turning point for me. Maybe if I drilled it into my head enough that I was at rock bottom I would believe it.

The theater itself was surprisingly large. Rows and rows of red plush chairs, and a mezzanine stacked on top. There were countless closets and shelves full of props and costume pieces that needed to be put away. Dust had formed a fine layer over everything. The most modern thing in the building was the ghost light, left plugged in on the stage.

My first day on the job I didn’t think to wear a dust mask, or any sort of gloves. I set to work putting away misplaced props, dusting behind them. I hadn’t prepared for how much dust this would actually stir up, leaving my nose and eyes itchy and running.

I was walking down from the stage, when something rattled overhead on the catwalk. The catwalk stretched up across the top of the theater,  long and looming. As I was scanning the bottom, hoping maybe to see another person, the sound started again, as if someone was running back and forth. I grabbed a flashlight and started my ascent. As I reached the top of the ladder, a cold uneasiness formed in my chest. I suddenly felt overwhelmingly sick. I told myself that maybe I was just afraid of the height. Shining the flashlight back and forth, nothing was there.

On my way out of the theater, it happened again. A back and forth rattle. I rushed out into the lobby and locked the door. A decorative mirror by the door caught my eye. Blotchy red patches from rubbing away dust and chapped lips. And I didn’t quite feel it, but I looked uneasy. Uncomfortable. Unsettled. For the first time in my life, I could see Katie’s resemblance to me.

The rattling became routine. I figured it was just the air conditioner messing with an old building. I had been working at the theater for about two weeks when Angie called. They were considering closing Katie’s case. There were no leads as to who or what killed her, or if maybe it had been some sort of suicide, or an unknown disease. The autopsy was coming back incoherent. I still couldn’t remember the day she went missing.

That day I got to work and turned on the lights, ready for another day of dusting and scrubbing. I had learned my lesson and wore the right gloves and dust mask every day, and had fallen into a routine. The lights turned on in rows, until finally the stage came into view. Standing on the stage, fists clenched, was Katie.

She was staring straight at me. She had deep circles under her eyes, and her hair was disheveled. Her hands and wrists were blue and purple, and the rest of her skin was tainted a sick greyish yellow.

I stumbled back out into the lobby, slamming the door shut behind me and going straight home.

I wish that was the last time I saw her. Her face would appear for only a moment as I passed by windows or open doors. I would find locks of frizzy black hair littered around the theater. I had never been very apologetic, but was this feeling guilt? Had I killed my daughter?

The next time I saw her, I swallowed the icy knot in my chest and willed myself to walk towards her. She was at the top of the mezzanine, standing in the aisle like she didn’t know where to sit for a show. Every step I took it felt harder to move, but curiosity and guilt motivated my every movement.

As I reached her, I extended my arms, as if I was going to hug her. As if I ever hugged her when she was alive. Her whole body was quivering, flickering like static on a television. The moment my hands would have connected with her skin, I found myself stumbling forward, at home in my dingy apartment. A shopping bag toppled out of my hands, the sound of glass clinking on the carpet. That night I drank until I vomited in the sink.

She didn’t show up after that, but the theater felt different. The air was heavy beyond dust, and I couldn’t escape the creeping sensation of being watched. I was beyond relieved when the announcement was posted for the first auditions of the season. I couldn’t bear to wander the empty building alone anymore.

Whatever show this was brought maybe fifty young girls to the theater. Sixteen year olds singing scales in the bathrooms and stretching in the lobby. They were called into the theater one by one, all of their facial features and details blurring in my mind as they walked past. All of them were one in the same, generic. Too bubbly and loud and they filled the whole place with ecstatic energy. I almost wished I had the place to myself again.

I got home that evening and fell onto the couch, suddenly exhausted. When I woke up, the apartment was dark and silent. One of my neighbors was vacuuming. I had an awful knot in my back from the couch. Standing up and cracking my back, I made my way into the bathroom, flipping the light switch. I turned to close the door, and there she was.

Katie was at the end of the short hallway. It was too dark to make out her facial features, but there was no doubt that it was her. She took a step forward. And then another. And I slammed the door shut, pulling the lock tight.

I don’t remember how long I stayed inside of there for, or getting up to go to work. One minute I was cowering in the bathroom, the next I was standing in the theater, dressed in different clothes than yesterday. Did I shower?

That night it happened again. She was at the end of the hallway, and I waited for the blackout. My heart was pounding so hard I could hear it, and fear gripped me like an icy fist. I took a deep breath. What was I so scared of?

This kid wasn’t violent. She was dead, what could she possibly do to me? I reached to open the door, but jerked backwards when a hand slammed into the other side. Another slam, farther down the hall, and then a scream.

The scream wasn’t one of fear, and it certainly didn’t sound like it came from a young girl. Another scream, this time from a male voice. I blinked, hard. I was listening to one of my fights with Angie, locked in a bathroom that was melting away until I stood in a bedroom with purple walls, the screams and shouts berating me from outside.

The fear was morphing into shame at the realization I was crouched on the ground in her bedroom at the old house. When the hell did we paint the walls purple? Had I really known her that little? Not unlike, when I saw her at the theater, the room was flickering. I cautiously stood up, brushing the bits of shag carpet off my knees.

Her bed had a soft looking blue blanket spread across it, wrinkled from someone lying on top. At her desk, a notebook sat open to a page of math, stars drawn hapazardly around the margins. On her bedside table, a water bottle sat half empty, next to a paper weight shaped like a fox.

This is what I was so scared of? A child with purple walls, and a soft blanket, and animal decorations? I dropped to my knees, but instead of soft carpet, they slammed into stained tile. The screaming went silent. Outside the small window, the sun was beginning to rise.