David Callaway lived in New York with his wife Alison and daughter Emily. Emily was still a child. David was a psychologist. Katherine was his co-worker and she was also a very good family friend, especially Emily liked her.
One evening Alison put her daughter to bed. Before putting her to bed she played hide and seek with her. It was Emily's favorite game. Then Alison went to the bedroom, where her husband was waiting for her. There was some tension between the two of them. Their conversation suggested that David was impotent and that that was the reason for the tension. That night David woke at 2.06 AM. He had just a nightmare about some party where he was with his wife. He was alone in bed. It was strange. he went looking for his wife. He found her lying in the bath-tub. She killed herself - she cut her wrists. Emily was staying at the door looking at her father and dead mother.
Emily was traumatized by the suicide of her mother. So David decided that the two of them would move to another place so Emily could start a new life in a new surrounding. He bought a house in a small village deep in the forests, not far from New York.
David as a psychologist tried to help Emily. But he approached her more like one of his adult patients and not like his daughter. He also decided which psychological methods would help her most and he didn't accepted the spontaneous methods that his daughter came up with. That brought tension between them and also some conflict situations. Emily's condition was from day to day worser.
David's neighbors were a strange couple. They just lost their son. He was their only child. They were still very upset and depressive about it. They also quarreled a lot and David had the suspicion that the man also beat his wife. He tried to help them but they didn't let him.
The first day at their new house Emily went into the forest. She was strangely attracted by it. In the forest she came to a small scary cave. Someone or something appeared from the cave. From that day she had an imaginary friend. She called him Charlie. David was first frightened that Charlie was an adult man who wanted to molest his daughter, but then he saw that Charlie was just an imaginary friend. But that he also didn't like it, because this Charlie would just disturb his therapy with his daughter. He wanted to find out more about Charlie, but Emily told him, that Charlie didn't want her to talk about him to other people.
David was almost daily on the phone with Katherine his co-worker in New York. He needed her advice regarding his daughter. Katherine was very pleased to help him. Most of the time David worked in his room. He had some headphones on his head, listened to some music and wrote down his observations about his daughter or studied some books.
Emily became more and more hostile against her father. And Charlie was the reason for her hostile behaviour. Charlie told her that her father was responsible for the dead of her mother. Charlie suggested that the two of them should play with her father. The aim of the game was to make her father upset and angry.
One night David woke at 2.06 AM. He had just a nightmare about some party where he was with his wife. He saw that the light in the bathroom was on. he went to the bathroom. There he was shocked. The bath-tub was full of water and there were candles around the bath-tub, like the night that his wife made suicide. And there were words written on the wall, that he killed his wife. Emily watched from the door. David was very upset, he asked his daughter why did she do it. But she answered that she didn't do it, that Charlie did it.
David met Elizabeth in the village. She was just divorced. From the beginning they were attracted to each other. She often looked over Amy. Amy was the daughter of he r sister and she was the same age as Emily. One day Elizabeth came with Amy to David, so Emily could play with Amy. But Emily didn't want to play with her. She told her not to come anymore, because Charlie didn't like her and that because of that she was in danger in the house. She also destroyed her doll.
David invited Elizabeth to dinner with Emily at his house. Emily was that evening very hostile against Elizabeth. She didn't like her. She didn't like that her father had forgotten her mother and that he had found a new wife. After Elizabeth went home Emily told David that Charlie was very upset about Elizabeth. David tried to explain that Elizabeth would not replace her mother, that she was just a good friend. He didn't succeed. That night David woke again at 2.06 AM. He had just a nightmare about some party where he was with his wife. He saw that the light in the bathroom was on. he went to the bathroom. There he was shocked. The bath-tub was again full of water and there were candles around the bath-tub, like the night that his wife made suicide. And there were words written on the wall, suggesting that his relationship with Elizabeth was wrong. He also found their cat dead in the bath-tub. David was very upset, he went to his daughters bedroom and asked his daughter why did she do it. But she answered that she didn't do it, that Charlie did it.
Some days later Elizabeth came to visit David and Emily at their house. David was studying in his room. He didn't hear Elizabeth, because he had his headphones on. Elizabeth went to Emily's room. She found her there siting on her bed. She started some small-talk with her. Emily told her that she was playing her favorite game hide and seek with Charlie. And that Charlie was hiding at that moment. Elizabeth asked her where Charlie was hiding. Emily didn't answer but looked to her wardrobe. Elizabeth wanted to be friends with Emily so she started to play the game. She tried to find Charlie. She opened the wardrobe. Someone or something sprang from the wardrobe and pushed Elizabeth out of the window. Emily's room was on the second floor so Elizabeth couldn't survive the fall. David didn't hear anything.
That evening the local police officer came to David. He was looking for Elizabeth. He found he car damaged and off the road, but he couldn't find her anywhere. He found out that she wanted to visit David that afternoon and also the traces of the tires on the road showed that the car was coming from David's house. David and Emily told the officer that Elizabeth was not by them that afternoon and that they didn't saw her. The police officer was a little suspicious about their statement, but he went back to the village.
After the police officer departed, David started to interrogate Emily. He was terrified of his suspicion that Emily had something to do with the disappearance of Elizabeth. Emily ran to her room. David went after her. In her room he saw the broken window. He also saw Emily's drawings which showed how Charlie pushed Elizabeth through the window. David was terrified. Emily burst into tears. She told her father that she didn't want to play with Charlie anymore, that the game wasn't fun anymore and that she was afraid of him.
David went quickly outside the house to the place where Elizabeth fell. He looked around but couldn't find anything. He went back into the house. Emily was waiting for him on the stairs. She was terrified. She showed him her clock. It was 2.06 AM. It was strange for David, he didn't have the feeling that it was so late already. He had to spent more time outside than he remembered. Then he was shocked - the bath-tub. He ran to the bathroom. The bath-tub was again full of water and there were candles around the bath-tub, like the night that his wife made suicide. Elizabeth's dead body lay in the bath-tub. Emily screamed to David that Charlie did it. David locked Emily in her room. Then he went downstairs. He didn't know what to do. It was too much for him. He walked confused through the rooms. Then he decided that he should hide the dead body. He went back to the bathroom. The body was gone. He ran to Emily's room. The door was still locked. He opened the door. Emily was sitting on her bed. Then he realized that Charlie was a real person.
He went back to the bathroom. He saw blood and water traces on the stairs. They were leading through the main door outside the house. He took a large knife from the kitchen and went outside the house. There in the dark he found the strange neighbor. There was a lot of confusion. David yelled to the neighbor to tell him where he hid Elizabeth. The neighbor was shocked when he saw blood on David's clothes and the knife in his hand. He started to yell back to David asking him were Emily was. David ran back to the house to protect Emily. The neighbor ran after him. David wounded him with his knife and closed the door in front of him.
Inside the house David hugged Emily and asked her for forgiveness for not believing her that Charlie was real. Then he started to check the doors and the windows. Suddenly the neighbor appeared behind Emily. He put his arm around her. Emily started to scream. David came running with his knife. He hysterically attacked the neighbor. The neighbor felt heavy wounded to the floor. David bent over him and told him that he knew that he was Charlie and that he got him now. The neighbor looked strange to him and his last words before he died were that Charlie was the name of his dead son.
David looked to Emily. Emily told him that the neighbor was not Charlie. David tried to get from her who Charlie was. But Emily was to frightened to answer him. She just asked him not to leave her again. He didn't understood. Then she begged him not to demand from her to show him who Charlie was. David understood less and less. Then he saw that the door of his working room was open. There was something unusual in his working room. He went into the room. All the things that he brought with him were still in boxes. Nothing was unpacked. The headphones were unpacked. The notebook in which he was sure he wrote the observations of his daughter was completely empty. Then he realized. He remembered everything.
Because of the stress of his work he became impotent. He tried several medicines, but nothing helped. At an important party he saw his wife having sex with one of his friends. It was to much for him. He felt like his manhood was ridiculed. Another person appeared in his mind. It was Charlie. Charlie/David killed his wife. Emily saw everything. First her father killed her mother and put her in the bath-tub. Then he went to bed. Some minutes later he woke and was shocked to find his wife dead in the bath-tub. The first day in the new house, when she went into the forest her father appeared from the cave and presented himself as Charlie to her. He took the name of the dead son of their neighbors. All the time Emily had to live with the two personalities in her fathers head. When ever David thought he was working in his study room he was Charlie.
It was to much for David. He lost his mind. Charlie appeared for good. He was dissapointed in Emily. He accused her for betraying him. He started to walk to her. He planned to kill her with his knife. When he was in front of her a shocked expression appeared on his face and blood came from his mouth. A knife was in his belly. Elizabeth came to the house to rescue Emily and she killed David.
She told Emily not to move and to wait for her here. She was strangely different. Not the nice and warm Elizabeth that Emily knew but some cold woman. Elizabeth took the knife from David's belly and put it in the hand of the neighbor. Emily saw that Elizabeth wore gloves. Then Elizabeth took all the hidden small cameras in the house. When she was finished she took off her gloves, put some blood on her hands and clothes, and made a mess of her hair and make-up. Then she took Emily and together they went to the police station.
Elizabeth put Emily to bed. Emily was in a state of shock. She didn't say a word. Elizabeth closed the door of her room and went down the corridor with a co-worker. Emily was in a children's psychiatry hospital. Elizabeth and her co-worker discussed Emily. From the moment Emily and Elizabeth came to the police station, Emily didn't say a word. She suffered a complete breakdown. She was completely apathetic. The co-worker said that in a way Elizabeth was very lucky with this coincidence. Elizabeth was doing an important research on children under heavy stress and now she had a child patient who went through extreme stressful situations. This coincidence would help greatly her research. The co-worker joked that it would be nice for the research if they had some cameras in David's house. Elizabeth looked angrily to her co-worker. She snapped to him that it was not appropriate even to joke about the situation in which the girl was.
The End