Take Her

Alone in the park near their house early one morning, a five-year-old girl pushes her little sister on a swing, as she often does when they go to the park by themselves. It’s a cool, crisp morning and the only sound aside from the youngest girl’s laughter is of the old swing chain creaking with each new push. The heavy fog sits just above the ground and casts an eerie shadow throughout the park. The older girl wishes that for once her mother would have let her go to the park alone to enjoy the quiet morning by herself instead of always having to drag her little sister along with her.

As they laugh and play together on the slide, they don’t notice that the man watching them from the edge of the forest on the far side of the park has moved closer. When they slip down the slide for the last time and delight in the feeling of their bare toes in the cold sand, they look up to see him standing right in front of them.

The man looks sweaty and nervous, and as his lips curl into a smile when he learns that they are there without their parents, the older girl immediately remembers that she’s seen him in the park before, many times, always watching them.

A moment later he’s gone and has taken one of the girls with him.