Baby Shadows

They ran around the park, laughing, loving the game of chase, and giving off an occasional scream. Matt watched them, his eyes slowly closing. The day was so hot, it was hard to stay awake. Finally giving in to the weight of his eyelids, he nevertheless carried on listening to his girls having fun. Suddenly, Annie’s screams turned from screams of happiness to screams of pure fear. His eyes shot open again, the heaviness gone in a flash. For a second, the scene before him didn’t register. Then he was up to try and save his daughter from the man who held her. Hope stood screaming, her terror making Annie worse. Annie wriggled, trying to escape the strange man holding her in his arms, and make her way back to Matt, and the safety she’d always known. But there was no way this man was going to let go of the precious bundle he’d managed to grab hold of. Within seconds, he had her in his car and was in the vehicle himself, driving away.

Val was at the ice cream van, buying ice-creams for her girls when she heard the terrified screams. For years after, she would remember running back to save her child, too late. She would remember seeing the car pulling away, see Matt with tears streaming down his face, see Hope, her mouth open in a silent scream, her eyes wide and terrified. See Annie, her eyes mirroring the fear Hope felt, tears running down her face as her family were left behind forever.

“Daddy, where did Annie go?” Hope asked, blinking up at Matt. Matt fought back tears as he replied.

“I don’t know, honey,” he told his one remaining daughter. She stared at him, his words not sinking in. How could he not know? Life was never the same for any of them after that. Matt would shut himself away in his room for hours, only coming out to check on Hope, his eyes wide with panic if he felt things had got too quiet. Val tried to keep up a semblance of normal family life at first, but this proved too much for her to keep up, and she soon retreated into a world of drinking, and crying. And little Hope had to learn to keep quiet, and to amuse herself, so that she didn’t annoy the parents who now scared her. As she grew up, she began spending as much time out of the house as she could, with Matt ringing her every five minutes.