Hours vanished. Then there was a sudden, sharp hiss somewhere down the hall, followed by the surprisingly heavy clump of fat paws tumbling across the floor. I jolted awake, mind racing. Memphis running sprints in the dead of night was nothing new, but the hiss? That was completely out of character.
I considered getting out of bed and just letting him in once and for all. I was still too tired to care what the silly cat was up to, but my bladder was beginning to tighten from all the 7 Up I’d downed during the movie. I didn’t necessarily need to pee yet, but I knew I would soon enough, so I just waited, trying to muster up the energy to actually stand up and go. I had nearly given up when I heard it.
The latch on my door as it clicked open.
Instantly, I narrowed my eyes down to slits, certain that Andy was either letting the cat in or maybe sneaking in for a more devious plan, some long-brewing revenge. Either way, I went immediately into fake sleep mode, and all the key signs were engaged at once. My breathing changed, my body went limp, and a light, subtle snore rose from my lips. The room went blurry, but I could see well enough with the aquarium light.
I waited.
I can’t say how long I held that position, but it felt like several minutes. There was a small slice of blackness running up the walclass="underline" the narrow crack of the barely open door and the empty, lightless hall behind. What the hell was Andy doing? Spying on me? Taping me? Some sort of sick, slow-burn vengeance that I hadn’t even considered? I couldn’t begin to guess, but the tape of the Toy Thief felt so far away that it didn’t even cross my mind for a second. That is, not until the door crept open further. That was when I saw the eyes.
A pair of gleaming, reflective orbs hovered two feet above the carpeted floor, as shiny as shot glasses. They bobbed like glowing phantoms, turning slowly to each side, scanning the room for – what, exactly? Danger? Me? It was the measured movement of a thing that was beyond careful, beyond apprehensive, beyond patient.
I was dreaming. I had to be. If it was Andy, he would have to be kneeling, crawling on all fours, prowling into my room like a dog. None of it made sense, and so I knew it was all just a dream. I could feel my heartbeat racing, and I wanted to stand up, to end this thing, to force my frozen limbs to move. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. So I watched.
It leaned forward, and I saw something else glinting in the blue light – a jagged crown of metal across the forehead, a strange, decorative circle of bronze. It didn’t make sense, but dreams never do. I thought about Memphis and felt a sudden pang of fear – not for myself, but for him – and the terror ran through me like fire. As much of a pain in my ass as he could be, I loved Memphis dearly. I couldn’t imagine a cat as stubborn as him hiding in a dark corner of the house as this thing slunk past. As I stared at the creature through the slits of my eyelids, my imagination began to run wild with visions of Memphis lying in the den, skull crushed, throat sliced, maybe even skinless, his fur lying across the back of the couch like a blood-slick banana peel.
No. Not that. Nothing like that was going to happen. Nothing like that could happen.
Just a dream.
It stepped into the light. It was a slow, measured step, but I knew what I would see before it appeared. A thin, black hand reached into the pool of blue-tinged light and rested there, so gentle that it didn’t make a single sound. I’d seen that hand before, and now I knew. I didn’t want to know, I begged to God not to know, but it was too late. It was the same hand that had plucked away the doll, all bones and sinew wrapped in black skin, and so I knew.
It was no dream at all.
The hand was followed by another, reaching forward in the shape of a man walking on all fours – not like a dog, but a spider. Now, even through my half-closed eyes, I could see it all. The eyes didn’t just look glassy, they were glass. They were glass lenses, round, perfect circles set in what could only be a ghoulish mask.
It looked like it might have been carved out of wood. The face of the mask was flat-nosed, with a pair of nostril holes that pointed straight at me. The overall shape was human-like, but twisted horribly, changed just enough to seem wrong. Most unsettling of all was the mouth, lips curled and pulled back like some sort of snarling animal to show the rows of narrow, yellowed teeth. They were crooked, the ends of them refusing to line up, each one askew and angular and awful. My bladder threatened to burst as I took in that horrid, dead-eyed face, and the only comfort to be found was in the realization that it wasn’t real. It was only a mask.
Then the lips moved.
In all the days from there to here, I still can’t even begin to guess how I held myself still in that moment. The strange, flat nose twitched, the nostrils flared as it sniffed quietly, and I saw that crude mockery of a human mouth open and close, tasting the very air.
Real.
That word echoed, firing from one dark corner of my brain to the next. An impossible thought, an unreal fact that was undeniable as it stood there, hunched on all fours on the floor of my bedroom, mere feet away from me.
Real.
I felt my eyes creaking open as my resolve threatened to shatter. I needed to see more, to know that it was real, to stand witness to something unnatural and impossible as it padded in, one step closer. I saw the whole body in that moment: long, wire-thin, clad in dark clothes that covered all except the ghastly face. The sight of it was enough to snap me back, and I focused once more on narrowing my eyes and keeping up the ruse for as long as my body would allow. It was, as near as I could tell, my only defense.
A hand reached forward, then the foot behind it, then another hand, all of them completely, utterly silent. My mind struggled to reconcile the lack of sound, and the more it moved, the more I believed that the entire thing was nothing more than a waking nightmare, an idea that was all but confirmed when the left hand came to rest on a plastic grocery bag filled with books I had checked out from school. I knew what I was seeing – that ghost thin hand touching the plastic – and I knew what I should hear – that characteristic crinkle of cheap synthetic material. Instead, I heard nothing at all.
So I let my eyes drift closed for a moment, certain in the thought that when I opened them once more, the thing would be gone. My lids lifted to reveal it across the room, kneeling next to the aquarium, again seeming to move in a soundless vacuum. It was studying the tank, reaching here and there with darting hands, its curious head tilting like a cat’s. There was a faint click that seemed to echo in the silence of the room, and the aquarium light was gone.
Real.
Really real.
In that darkness, I felt on the verge of crying, of letting my resolve shatter and break into a thousand pieces, of giving up and letting it take me. I knew, of course, that I was the reason it was there. I had to be. All that time, I’d felt like some kind of clever little hunter, but the reality was quite plain. I was a child, helpless, a mouse cowering between the paws of a cat.
A toy.
I couldn’t hear it, but I could sense it, so close that it could breathe on my cheek. I thought of the video, of the photographic evidence I had captured, and I realized I had signed my own life away, all unwitting. It knew. Somehow, this creature of the shadows had let itself be caught on tape, and it had returned to the scene of the crime to clean up the evidence. Sallie’s doll would never be seen again, and neither would I when all was said and done.
Then I heard it: a quiet little clicking noise like a bug chattering. I focused on it, trying to understand what exactly it was I was hearing. A light appeared in the center of the room, a tiny pinprick that sliced through the gloom. It was too small to show everything, much duller than the aquarium had been, but I could make out the creature’s face, hovering in midair, disconnected from everything else by the harsh blackness of the room.