User blog comment:Witnessme/Creepypasta Short Story Contest/@comment-27066170-20151011133537

Locust buzzing, swing creaking, sun setting, Talitha’s hand gripped the semi-rusty swing chain as the momentum slowly glided her back and forth on her weathered backyard swing set. Her other tiny hand, covered in a sticky Blue Bell ice cream, held the soggy cone. She lazily sang a children’s nursery rhyme; perhaps it was Ring Around the Rosie. Kirsten, her stay-at-home mother, tired from accommodating Talitha’s wild spirit since the early morning hours, was making dinner before her husband, Steve, returned home from his 75 minute commute from the neighboring school district.

“Come inside, Talitha!” Kirsten yelled from the uncomfortably hot kitchen.

No answer.

Kirsten could see Talitha slightly swinging. In her own world again. Talitha would  behave as such about dusk; she would require a recharge to challenge her mother’s evening patience and will.

“Talitha! Come inside! It is getting dark.”

Kirsten saw Talitha raise her head and then slightly glance behind her. But Kirsten saw no one there. ''What was she looking at? ''Shenanigan, the neighbor’s golden retriever, began barking. Talitha’s ice cream dropped to the ground and it disappeared into the high St. Augustine grass.

Kirsten wiped her hands with a kitchen towel, turned down the heat on the gas stove, and stormed to the back yard to fetch her disobedient child.

Kirsten swung open the squeaky screen door. Empty swing.

“Talitha!...Talitha!...Talitha? Talitha!”

Kirsten knew that in a few minutes,  when Steve arrive home from work tired and hungry, she would need to tell him that they would once again need to explain to Detective Rice that another child of theirs, their last child, had disappeared without a trace.