Graham walked from the kitchen to the front room holding his cup of coffee trying not to spill it as he went. He was useless without his cup of coffee in the morning and today was a special day; he needed to be alert and ready for anything. Today was his daughter’s birthday and the day ahead was going to be pretty demanding. He sat down on the old broken red sofa and switched the television on, rewound the video tape and pressed play.

“Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you” Said Jessica carrying the birthday cake into the room.

“Look Lisa, a birthday cake just for you” Said Graham holding the video camera trying to capture everything he could see.

“A birthday cake just for me, I’m nine years old today.” Said Lisa pointing at the candles on the cake.

“Yes, you are honey and we both love you very much.” Said Graham.

Graham's thumb hovered above the pause button on the video remote; he pressed it and then pressed the rewind button and played the video again. His eyes were fixed on the television screen in front of him. Slowly a single tear rolled down his cheek. The video started again.

“Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you.” said Jessica carrying the birthday cake into the room.

“Look Lisa, a birthday cake just for you.” Said Graham holding the video camera.

“A birthday cake just for me, I’m nine years old today.” Said Lisa pointing at the candles on the cake.

“Yes, you are honey and we both love you very much.” Said Graham.

He pressed the pause button again and wiped the tears from his face. He wondered if he should rewind it one more time. His eyes briefly moved away from the television screen to the coffee table in front of him. On the table was a birthday cake with ten candles on it, a photograph of his daughter Lisa and a newspaper cutting. The newspaper cutting read as follows:

“The continuing court case over the death of the nine year old girl Lisa Watson has now come to an end after 12 long months. The jury has decided to rule in favour of Mr Mark Thompson, saying that he was not responsible for the death of the girl and that faulty brakes were in fact the reason behind this tragic accident. Mr Thompson had his car recently serviced by a local garage in town”

He pressed the rewind button once again. There was a gentle breeze blowing against the curtains in the front room where he was sitting. It was a very hot day outside so he decided to keep the windows open.

Suddenly a loud muffled voice entered the room.

“Daddy? Where are you daddy?” Said the voice moving around the house “I can’t see you daddy.” it continued.

“Lisa?” Said Graham sitting upright on the sofa.

“Why did you leave me daddy? It’s my birthday today.” Said the voice.

“I know honey, I’ve got you a birthday cake.” He said looking at the coffee table.
“But you left me, why did you leave me?”

“Daddy?” Said the voice fading into the walls.

Graham put his hands over his head. She’s dead he thought to himself, just ignore it. He got up off the sofa still holding his hands against his ears. He walked over to the large dining table passing all the newspaper cuttings that were stuck on the wall. He had collected all the headlines from the local newspapers about Lisa’s death and taped them to the wall in the front room. The headlines showed the events of the past year:

“Girl killed by speeding motorist in quiet town”

“Mark Thompson named as the person that killed Lisa Watson”

“Garage was found to be at fault and not Mark Thompson”

“Mark Thompson goes free as trial ends”

On the dining table sat a pen and a piece of paper.

He sat down on a chair at the table just as the voice continued to fade away and everything around him was returning to normal. He picked up the pen and pulled the piece of paper towards him. How do I start this he thought to himself whilst holding the fountain pen. He wasn’t a man of words, he didn’t know how to put his thoughts and feelings down on paper but now he had been left no choice. This was something he had to do and so he started to write.

“I just wanted everyone to know that I’m not a bad person. You have to believe that. Killing Mark Thompson was the last thing that I wanted to”

He stopped upon hearing a sound coming from the corner of the room. Graham slammed the pen on the table and looked over towards the noise.

“For god’s sake” shouted Graham “I’m writing this about you. The least you could do is keep quiet and let me concentrate.” He said looking towards the man in the corner.

Over in the corner of the room was a man tied to a chair, the ropes were wrapped around his legs and his hands were tied behind his back to the back of the chair. His mouth was gagged and his eyes followed Graham’s movements everywhere. He had been sitting there for over three hours now and sweat was pouring from his face. His navy blue business suit was covered in sweat patches and his name tag was broken hanging half undone from his jacket pocket. It read Mark Thompson (Manager)

Graham walked over to Mark and pulled a knife out of his pocket. He moved the curtains back from the window near where Mark sat. They could see that the police force was waiting outside and had been there for some time now. All watching and waiting for any movements inside the house.

They had managed to block the street access with police cars at both of the entrances and there were a number of police cars parked directly outside, with officers pointing their guns towards the house. Graham looked across the street at the houses on the other side; he looked upwards towards the roof tops and saw a number of snipers positioned at different points all looking towards him. Above them they could hear the sound of a helicopter circling the area.

Graham looked at Mark and pointed his knife towards him.

“I doubt either of us is going to make it out of here alive.” Said Graham waving the knife in Mark’s face.

Suddenly the voice returned through the window.

“Daddy, where are you?” Said the girl’s voice. “I can’t see you daddy.”

"Leave me alone shouted Graham get out of my house."

He put his hands over his ears again hoping to block the sound of Lisa’s voice.

“You’re dead.” He said while falling down on his knees “just leave me alone, you’re dead.”

Once again the voice faded away into the walls and everything went quiet.

Continued next post.

Outside, the sun was blazing down upon the onlookers. The police kept moving people back across the street and out of harm’s way.

“Is this gonna take long?” Said the woman to the Police Captain.

“It will take as long as it takes.” He replied.

There was a hiss and crackle on the Captain’s radio.

“Sir!” said the policeman through the radio “we’re ready to try it again.”

“Ok!” He replied speaking into his radio “just remember; stay in the car and out of the way.”

“Yes sir!” replied the policeman sitting in the back of the police car. He switched off the radio and then turned to the little girl next to him.

“Ok, remember how we did it last time, just do it like we did before.” He said passing the megaphone to Lisa.

Lisa held the megaphone to her mouth and pressed the button.

“Daddy, where are you daddy?” She said. “I can’t see you daddy.”

“It’s my birthday today daddy.” She continued.

The Captain stood next to his patrol car watching for movements inside the house.

“Sir!” Said another officer next to him “we’re getting reports that the girl’s voice is just making him act crazy; it’s not helping the situation.”

“This isn’t working.” Said the Captain “He still thinks she’s dead. Is there anything else you can tell me about your husband?” He said turning back towards the woman.

Jessica looked towards the house and wondered how it all came to this, her marriage, her life had all changed so much over the past few months.

“I don’t know what else to say” she said in a quiet voice looking at the window where Graham was standing.

“Our lives changed a few months ago when Graham lost his job. This is only a small town and the recession has hit us quite hard here. He turned to drinking and blamed everyone else for his problems. I couldn’t put up with it and so I decided to leave. I took Lisa and left. As I walked away he told me that I was dead to him. In fact we both were, he said Lisa and I were dead to him.”

“So who is this Mark Thompson then?” Said the Captain.

“He was Graham’s old boss. Graham became obsessed with him. Mark had the perfect life that Graham wanted. He made up the newspaper headlines and the stories saying that Mark had killed Lisa, it just all got to weird, that’s when I called you guys. I just knew something was going to happen but it looks like we got here too late.”

Lisa walked over to her mum and stood next to her looking at the house window across the street.

The Captains radio started to hiss and crackle again.

“Sir, its Graham he’s waving a white t shirt I think he wants to surrender sir.”

Everyone turned to look at the house and watched the front door as it opened slowly.

Graham walked outside still waving the white t shirt. The officers raised their guns towards him watching his every move. Lisa watched as her father walk away from the front door.

“Daddy!” She shouted, and ran towards him past the officers.

“Someone grab her!” Shouted the Captain but it was too late. She had already made her way past the patrol cars and onto the lawn at the front of the house.

Graham eyes widened with joy as he saw Lisa running towards him and dropped the white t shirt to the floor. As it fell it revealed he was still carrying the knife in his hand.

“The target is still armed; he is still carrying a weapon.” Said a voice on the radio.

“Take him out!” Said another voice. A single shot was fired and Graham fell to the floor right in front of Lisa.

Lisa stood there looking at her father laying on the ground with his eyes closed and blood running down his face.

“Daddy.” She said in a quiet voice as she looked at him laying there.

The whole place went quiet not a sound was heard from anyone. Then the onlookers started clapping and cheering. Some of the crowd were whistling in Graham’s direction.

Graham opened his eyes and smiled.

“CUT!” Said a voice from the crowd. “I loved it, ok and end scene.” Shouted the Director.

“Fantastic, nice work everyone. We will call it a day but I want everybody back here at 7.30am tomorrow we have some more scenes to film before we’ve finished. But good job today.”

Graham got up and walked over to Lisa. He gave her a big hug.

Some of the onlookers broke away from the police force that were holding them back and rushed over to Graham.

“Can we have your autograph, sir?” One of them shouted.

Graham signed some autographs as he and Lisa walked back to his personal trailer home. The movie title was plastered across the side of the trailer.

“Recession 2: This Time its Personal “

As they walked up the steps to the trailer he turned to Lisa.

“So what did you think of daddies acting then?” He said with a smile on his face.

FIN.

Oh man..totally threw me for a loop.

Wow! Great story, and you surely got me on the twist. I never had a clue until "Cut!". lol. Great contribution. I think you will do well in the contest.

This was awesome John

Bravo.

My wife says it isn't better than mine, but I would have to disagree. I thoroughly enjoyed this one. Knowing it was supposed to have a twist, I've been on the lookout in all the stories and I had NO CLUE where you were going with this one. Most excellent.

John, that was an excellent read! Had me twisting and turning the whole way! Good Job!

I really enjoyed reading this one. I am a big reader and I have a knack of figuring out what happens, but you really had me stumped on this one. I had no clue.

It was great. Thanks for sharing so we could all read it.

Great story, I was really taken by surprise with the number of twists involved.

Classic!

So many twists, I lost count, but you had me wondering where Lisa all of a sudden came from.

Excellent story, John Q. Realistic and written in a believable style.