Luke Delaney - The Toy Taker

The boy began to stir, sensing the presence next to him, chasing his dream away, or perhaps this was part of his dream — the voice of a man whispering softly — whispering words of kindness — whispering his name, gently drawing him from his sleep: ‘Samuel. Samuel. I’ve brought you something — something special.’ The boy rolled over to face him, still more asleep than awake, eyes merely flickering open a millimetre or two before closing tightly again — seduced by tiredness. ‘Samuel, you need to open your eyes. It’s time to wake up. Wake up, Samuel. Someone’s come to see you — someone who’s missed you very much.’ The boy’s pupils stopped dancing under his eyelids, his slightly sticky eyelashes the first things to part as he at last woke from his sleep and instantly stared at the man kneeling next to him, his face too close. Shock and fear involuntarily filling his lungs with air as he prepared to call out into the house, into the night, but a smothering hand clasped over his mouth before he could release any sound, and the man’s other hand pushing something in front of his face, something it took him took a few seconds to recognize. But when he did, the recognition brought with it instant relief and joy, the fear in his eyes turning to happiness as he snatched the precious thing from the man’s hand and the other hand was removed from his mouth.

‘How did you …?’ the boy tried to ask, but the man pressed a finger to his lips and one to the boy’s.

‘Sssssh. Don’t speak,’ he whispered. ‘If they hear us, they won’t let you come.’

‘Come where?’ Samuel asked, his voice still too loud in the night as he sat up in his bed, the duvet falling around his waist to reveal his blue-and-white dinosaur pyjamas. He clutched the precious thing in the crook of one arm while his other hand rubbed at his sleepy eyes.

‘To a magic place,’ Allen whispered, ‘where only the best children get to go.’

‘Where is it?’

‘Not far, but we have to go straight away.’

‘How do we get there?’

‘Oh, you’ll have to wait and see. It’ll be a surprise.’

‘Do I need to get ready first?’ Samuel asked, still innocently blinking the sleep from his brown eyes.

‘No. You can come as you are. Just pop on your dressing gown and slippers and we’ll be gone. But we have to tiptoe very quietly down the stairs. We mustn’t wake anyone.’

‘Why?’

‘Because they might try to stop us.’

‘Why — have you done something wrong?’

‘No,’ he whispered, hiding his awkwardness behind a slight laugh, ‘it’s just they wouldn’t … understand.’

‘My mummy and daddy will be very cross with me if I go with you. They told me I should never go with strangers.’

‘But I’m not a stranger,’ Allen implored, his desperation growing — the others had been so simple, so straightforward, so willing. ‘You know me — we’ve met before, remember?’

‘I don’t think I know you,’ Samuel argued, his voice growing louder again.

‘Of course you do. You remember me. You must remember me.’

‘I don’t want to get into trouble.’

‘You won’t,’ Allen reassured the boy. ‘I promise.’

‘Can Tommy come too?’

‘Of course,’ Allen answered, relief spreading over him as he felt the boy weakening. ‘Of course.’

‘I suppose … I suppose I could come for a little bit.’

‘That’s right. That’s right, and there are other children already there — waiting for you — waiting to be your friends.’

‘Really?’ Samuel asked, genuine excitement in his small voice.

‘Really,’ Allen confirmed. ‘I wouldn’t lie to you, Samuel. I’d never lie to you. Now quickly and quietly put your dressing gown and slippers on and we’ll be off.’

‘Is it like Neverland? Do we have to fly there?’ Samuel asked as he slipped silently from his bed and searched for his slippers.

‘Better,’ Allen told him.

‘Better?’

‘Yes, better. Better because it’s real.’ He waited for the boy to tug his dressing gown on and took him by the hand, still kneeling on the floor. ‘Now remember — we have to be totally silent and not wake anybody up. Do you understand?’

‘Yes,’ the boy answered, lowering his voice. ‘I’ll be very quiet, promise.’

‘Good,’ Allen told him and struggled to his feet, still holding the boy’s hand. ‘Now we need to go,’ he continued and began to lead the boy to the bedroom door and out into the waiting hallway, all the time listening for the sounds he feared most — of a woken parent, a nanny or housekeeper come to challenge him, incapable of understanding why he had to take the children, instantly brandishing him a monster. But there were no such sounds, just the eerie, still silence of a sleeping house. ‘Come on,’ he told Samuel conspiratorially, as if they were on a great adventure together that had to remain a secret just between the two of them. The boy nodded his agreement, smiling nervously.

Together, hand-in-hand, they made their way down the flights of stairs, Allen steering the boy away from any creaking floorboards, pressing his finger to his lips whenever he felt the boy was about to speak and accidently betray them, until they were finally past the sleeping parents’ room and halfway down the stairs that led to the first floor and comparative safety. But Samuel’s growing concerns could wait no longer as he ignored Allen’s signals to be silent and spoke — spoke too loudly.

‘I don’t think I should go,’ he half-whispered. ‘Mummy will be too cross with me.’

‘You don’t have to be afraid of Mummy any more,’ Allen desperately whispered his reply, pulling the boy closer to him. ‘She can’t follow us to the magic place — no one can.’

‘I don’t want to go,’ Samuel told him, the fear returning to his eyes. ‘I don’t want to go with you.’

‘Yes you do,’ Allen insisted, frantically looking back up the staircase, trying to hear the sounds of danger above his own words. ‘Of course you do. Look,’ he pleaded, ‘Tommy wants to go.’

‘No he doesn’t,’ Samuel answered, his voice dangerously loud now, but not loud enough to conceal the sound of voices coming from above — from the parents’ room — voices growing ever more awake and alert.

‘We have to go now,’ Allen told the boy. But Samuel pulled away from him and slumped on the stairs, back against the wall, shaking his head in defiance, making Allen’s already fluttering heart begin to pound out of control. The sheen of sweat across his brow turned to small drops that ran down the sides of his face, dampening his hair and sticking it to his skin. Footsteps now, on the ceiling above them, moving to the hallway and making him stop breathing until he realized they were heading upstairs towards the boy’s room and away from them.

He only had a minute or two to escape at best. He looked down at the shivering boy, waiting to be told what to do — waiting for the voices in his head to return − but nobody spoke to him. Panic was his only guide now. He grabbed the boy up and smothered his mouth with a hand, pressing him against his body as he ran as silently as he could down the remaining stairs, trying not to drop the boy or his bag, hearing the increasing commotion above, wide-awake voices now, shouting to each other as he fumbled with the Yale lock, the boy beginning to kick and buck in his arms, his screams muffled by a gloved hand.

As soon as the front door opened he was hit by an unexpected rush of freezing air that stole his breath and almost pushed him back into the house where only danger waited. He forced himself through the opening and into the moonless night, fleeing along the deserted street, his footsteps almost totally silent as the rubber soles hit the pavement, adrenalin taking him halfway along the street, closer and closer to his waiting car and safety. But the boy grew heavier and heavier, while his own ageing body grew weary under the weight of him, arthritis robbing his joints of any spring as his run slowed to a jog and then to a walk. The freezing night air burned his lungs as he gulped at the oxygen, the realization dawning on him that he would never make it before the danger from the house hunted him down in the street.