“No…” I begged. The idea of losing the last shred of my mother had broken me, shattered my feeble attempts at toughness. I had no plan. No idea. No hope. And so all I could do was beg.
“Please,” I whispered, careful not to wake Andy or Dad. If I did, it would be over. The creature would be gone, and my bear would be gone with it. “Don’t take it.”
The smile grew ever wider, and I became convinced that my life was about to end, right there, on that very patch of linoleum. It might have too, if not for the deep growl that rose from the hallway. It was Memphis of course, my fat, surly savior. He wasn’t attacking – even he knew better than that – but he was standing his ground, ears laid back, fur bristling. I wondered why he would do such a thing when running was the easiest option. If a burglar had broken in, I could just about guarantee that lazy bastard would have found a quiet corner to sleep. Then it struck me. What could possibly hate a rat more than a cat?
The smell of the thing alone must have been enough to drive Memphis into a frenzy, and as I watched him, I realized my instinct was right. He wasn’t doing anything as silly as defending me. Every ounce of his being was in conflict as he stared at the gigantic rat thing before him, his mind and his instincts at odds, his senses telling him to attack while whatever common sense he had told him to flee. He kept doing this little half dance, stepping forward and back, as if the carpet under his paws were on fire and he couldn’t bear to step on it for more than a few seconds.
And there we were, the three of us locked in place, frozen in time, until the Toy Thief reached down with a lightning-quick hand and swatted the cat away. There was a growl, a spitting hiss, and like a flipped switch, the spell over me was broken. I ignored the knife in my hand, and I dove for the bear, hoping to wrench it free. I snagged one of the legs, but he was quicker than I had any hope of being. He snatched it clear and pushed me back with a leathery hand on my face, flipping me onto the linoleum. His horrid, loathsome mouth filled my vision from end to end, and the only thing that existed in the entire world was teeth. All I could do was close my eyes.
“What the hell are you doing to that cat?”
Andy’s voice. Sleepy. Confused.
Then a sharp gasp of air as he saw it.
The Toy Thief glanced back at him for half a second. Then, in a frenzied blur, he was up the wall, on the ceiling, scrambling toward the door. And like a bad dream, he was gone, and the bear was gone with him. The sliding glass door still sat open, the dark breeze outside blowing in, catching the curtains in playful wisps as Andy stared with awestruck eyes.
Chapter Seven
The worst dream I ever had.
Does everyone else have one? A moment that just sticks out, the few seconds of images flashing by, like a movie you watched too long ago to really remember, but too awful to really forget. I’ve never asked anyone else about their dreams, mainly because I just don’t share my own experiences with them. The memories are too awful, too close to real life to just take your shoes off and play around in.
It was that first night, after coming face to face with the Toy Thief. Somehow, I slept, once the night had nearly bled into dawn and the sun had banished that awful darkness. I was in my bed. That was the scariest part. It might sound funny if you’ve never had a dream like that, but every other nightmare is just… off. “Surreal” might be a better word, that feeling of your room being just different enough to make the whole thing seem silly when you think of it hours later. I mean, they’re plenty scary, but this dream went beyond that. It was my room. My bed. My aquarium glowing in the corner.
I became suddenly aware that there was something in the room with me. Without a thought, without even seeing a thing, I knew it was there, and I knew it wanted to hurt me. Where, who, or even what it was, I couldn’t begin to guess, but that sense of bitter hatred toward me seemed to radiate off it. I wanted to move, to scream, to get up and run as fast as I could, but my body was frozen in ice, my joints locked into place. For hours I lay there, that feeling of utter dread permeating the walls, the floors, my skin and bones.
The sun began to glow through the blinds, and I felt my heart finally loosening because I knew. Nightmares, no matter how deep and terrifying, always fade when the sun hits. But the sun didn’t end it. It spilled through, the light creeping across the room, brightening the corner enough to see it, to finally lay eyes on it: the shape of something not quite a man, something bent and gangly, carved out of darkness itself, so black that it seemed to swallow the light that pressed against it.
The light won’t save you…
The Toy Thief was a child compared to this voice – less than a child, a game maybe, or… a toy. I wondered how I had even been afraid of the Toy Thief now that this true darkness had emerged for me, and I realized I had never actually been afraid before this moment. Every moment of my life had just been a dream, and now, for the first awful time, I was awake, horribly, endlessly awake. That silhouette solidified, growing solid around the edges, the dark taking physical form as it stepped closer to my bed.
I’m coming…
Tears ran down my cheeks, and my heart promised to stop if the nightmare didn’t. If I’d had the ability to end my own life in that moment, I would have, I truly would have, just to stop it from coming a step closer.
I’m coming for him, and when we’re gone, you’ll never see him again…
A hand carved from pure ebony reached for me, and behind it, in that featureless face, bloody pits of red opened up.
Eyes.
They saw everything.
They saw me.
No death for your brother… he’ll never get that kind of peace.
Andy shook me into consciousness at about ten. I could have slept until at least three if left alone. The late nights were catching up with me. I felt sore all over, and I honestly didn’t remember when I had finally fallen into sleep. I thought of the dream, of the shape of a man, of the eyes made of blood, and a pain shot up through the back of my neck.
“What?” Andy said as he stopped at my door.
“I’m just… sore.”
“Did that thing hurt you?”
For a moment, I wasn’t quite sure what he meant. The lingering nightmare was still metallic in my mouth, and I wondered how he knew about something that had just happened inside my mind.
“Thing?”
“The thing in the kitchen. Jeez, are you all right?”
Everything came into focus as the events of the past week, of last night, spilled all around me.
“Yes. Just a bad dream.”
“Good. Garage,” he said without another word.
I followed him out, shaking the sleep out of my eyes as we went. With everything that had happened, I wasn’t sure what he was up to, but I also wasn’t about to question him. When we were safely out, far away from Dad, he said, “Now show me.”
It took a second to figure out what he was asking.
“Showww youuuu…”
“The toys.”
The fog lifted, and I remembered everything we had talked about the night before. After slamming the sliding glass door and locking it, I had dragged him into my room and closed the door behind us. Then I’d told him everything. The video he’d smashed. Sallie’s doll. The late-night encounter. And most important of all, the handprint on his own back. There were tears in his eyes when he drew up his shirt and stared into the mirror at the gruesome mark, which had already started to fade a bit.