It kills me, because I always thought that Andy was one of the bloomers, that a kid would change everything for him. That shell, that wall of scar tissue built up around him, it was always hiding something. The shrinks, the cops, just about every person I met, they all thought they knew what was hiding there. After all, things played out the way they did for a reason. Andy showed exactly who he was – at least if you ask them.
Those people were fucking idiots.
I always figured that if anything ever cracked that shell, you’d find a flower growing inside. Dad, stuck with the two of us, used to try to explain how people worked. I think he was trying to smooth the edges between Andy and me, trying to give us something to work with for the inevitable moment when we were the only ones left. I’m sure he imagined the scenario: brother and sister, each hating the other as strongly as was humanly possible. I can’t speak from experience, but I can’t imagine a worse feeling of failure than having two kids that hate each other.
The way Dad explained it, we were all born with gifts. You could call them strengths, talents, areas of expertise, or whatever, but the important thing in life was identifying them, honing them, using them to get ahead. I think Dad, had he noticed his own gifts, might have been able to be an artist. Andy, if left to his own devices, could have been a writer himself. I’ve seen some of his work, and I’m stunned at how complete it is, stories as varied and lovely as any I can find on a bookshelf. For me, I could have been an athlete with a little more guidance. Every shred of physical prowess that seemed to skip Andy was drawn directly into me, but it wasn’t just the physical side. I was aggressive, more standoffish, unable to give an inch. Pitiful traits for a mother perhaps, but quite helpful on a field.
The idea of gifts wasn’t anything revolutionary, but it has stuck with me to this day. Most important of all was finding out what gifts you weren’t born with. These were the things you had to get out there and earn, to find, to take for yourself. My aggression left me cold, so I had to learn how to care about other people. That’s why I never wanted to bring a kid into this world. Not for my sake, but for theirs.
Later that afternoon, I caught Andy walking out of the bathroom with his shirt off. He was pale, always so pale, but slimly built, wiry, and almost strong-looking despite his aversion to all things physical. He glared. I glared back. Then, as we passed in the hall, I caught a glimpse of a patch of red on his back.
“What’s that?” I asked without a moment of hesitation, not because I was a caring, doting sister, but because I never respected his boundaries.
“What’s that?” he asked, pointing at my face.
“Seriously, turn around for a second.”
He turned toward me and pressed his back against the closed door. “Leave me alone,” he spat.
For a moment, I thought of him and Dad going back and forth behind the closed door. Then I thought about how mad Dad was, a quiet, brewing sort of anger, remarkably like Andy’s. I’d never known my father to lay a hand on either of us, but the red, swollen patch of skin looked remarkably like a handprint.
“Who did that?” I asked, straining to get a look.
“Did what?” he demanded. “Just leave me alone. I don’t want to talk to you.”
He spun around, flinging open the door, and I saw it, clear as day. It was a hand, but longer, thinner, inhumanly narrow. The skin was pink, slightly swollen, and speckled with dots of red where the skin had broken. I gasped and began to push into the room. Andy slammed the door in my face and locked it. I started down the hall for my wire to pick the lock, and I heard the recliner being pressed against the door. It was no good – not now at least.
I spent the rest of the day in my room, thinking, plotting, sketching in my notepad. The pictures of the Toy Thief were growing grimmer, more outlandish as the day waned, and long, ghoulish fingers tipped in yellowed claws began to run up and down the sides of the page. More than anything else, I was afraid. Andy could be a pain in the ass, but I didn’t want anything bad to happen to him. I went back and forth, considering the possibilities. Would Dad have ever hit him? And even if he did, would he have been able to make such a gruesome mark?
No.
As the sun faded through the blinds, I became more and more certain. That thing, whatever it was, had visited Andy just the same as it had visited me. It wanted my bear, but there was something else at play here. Never more in my life had the thought of nightfall brought such dread in me, but I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that if anyone was going to protect my family, it had to be me. It was an absurd thought – again, nine-year-old logic – but I truly believed it through and through. Being a kid was like that a lot for me, and probably for you too. Some things just were, and questioning them didn’t get you anywhere.
I overheard Dad calling in pizza, and I caught him in the kitchen when he hung up the phone.
“Heading out in a minute for dinner. Need anything else?”
I tilted my head a bit, rocking back on my heels as I watched him hovering over me.
“Mmmm… nope.”
I wanted to say something else, to warn him about the almost certainly dangerous thing hunting our family. Instead, I just reached up and gave him a hug. My arms barely fit around him, with a foot and a half between my fingertips.
“What was that all about?” he asked as I stepped back.
“Nothing. Just wanted to.”
He kissed my forehead and smiled. “Well, whenever the mood strikes you, feel free. Love you, baby girl.”
I heard him a few moments later at Andy’s door, the two of them discussing the terms of his punishment. Apparently, the music was back on the table. The games and TV would have to wait a while longer. Even after sneaking up on them, I couldn’t always hear what either of them was saying, but neither raised his voice. Whatever fight the two of them had in them had burned itself out.
Dad stepped back into the hall and stopped short. “I’ll run by the video store,” he added. “Anything you want to see?”
There was a long pause. Then Andy replied, “Something scary.”
“Again?” Dad said, good-natured like.
“Why not?” Andy said. “Something gory, too.”
“You’re gonna give your sister nightmares.”
“She can handle it. I’d get a nightmare before she would.”
I realized in that moment that I was smiling, and I felt a little bit like my mom must have felt. Just a pair of boys.
My boys.
When Dad was gone and Andy was safely back in his room with the boombox roaring, I went to work, spending the rest of the next hour or so working out my plan. I went from room to room, checking doors, windows, any possible way that thing might make it into the house. I couldn’t set any traps, not until Dad and Andy were safely in bed, but I at least wanted to have a plan before I got too tired to do anything constructive.
Based on everything I had seen up to that point, the Toy Thief was remarkably skittish. The fact that no one knew about this thing was proof of that, and the reaction after I took the picture only confirmed it. It could have – probably easily, based on how it looked – killed me in my bed. Instead, it ran, getting out of the house in the span of a few seconds. It was fast, silent, and good with locks, all qualities that I assumed allowed it to come and go as it pleased. Even so, darkness was its greatest weapon, and I had no doubt that those lens-covered eyes were designed for nocturnal vision.
So, with these facts in mind, a plan began to emerge. I couldn’t fight it, or at least I didn’t think that was a very good idea. It reminded me of reading about animals in science class, the ones that didn’t really look for fights or hunt for food, but could become wonderfully dangerous when cornered. If I tried to force it into some kind of trap, it would only turn out badly for me.