D Gillespie - The Toy Thief

“It’s okay,” I said, parroting what he had said moments before. “He’s home, so it’s okay.”

“That’s right.”

So much had happened, so much that would make a parent half-mad with concern, and yet Dad didn’t know one-tenth of the truth. I could hear the doubt in his voice when he told me it would be okay, and I think he heard the same in mine. We loved each other. We loved Andy. And both of us, in different ways, knew it would have to get worse before it ever got better.

When Andy was finally out of the shower, Dad went to the kitchen to make some calls: to friends, cops, whoever else needed to know. I found my brother in his bed, curled up as far back into the corner as he could be, and draped with a heavy comforter. I sat on the edge of the bed, slow and careful, as if my brother were as fragile as an egg.

“You okay?”

He opened his eyes and stared back at me. “I… I don’t know.” It was the truth. I could see it all over him. “Do you think… he’s dead?”

I surely wanted to believe it, but I wasn’t any more certain than he was. Even so, I nodded. “He has to be. He was burned all over,” I said. “And even if that didn’t kill him, he probably drowned.”

He was staring at me, deep into my eyes, past them, through them, into something else entirely. “You saw him. You know what he can do. And you don’t believe that any more than I do.”

There were questions, things to talk about, but I didn’t think either of us could do it, not that night. We were spent, the pair of us. The sun was setting in the stormy sky, and soon I wouldn’t be able to hold my eyes open if I had to. In the other room, I could hear Dad on the phone while banging some pots together with one hand. He was cooking – what, I couldn’t guess, but it was more than he had done in years. Such was the plight of my family at that moment. I looked back at Andy, whose wild eyes were darting around the room, checking every corner. There was no point in lying.

“You’re right. It might not be dead,” I said directly. “But we hurt it. You hurt it. That means it’s weak. That means we can kill it.”

I wanted to say more, but at that moment, Dad burst in with a pair of plates loaded with slightly too-done grilled cheese sandwiches and Doritos. I was still wet, still soaked actually, but I slipped down onto the floor and tore into mine then and there, without another word. Despite how different Andy might have been, his hunger was unaffected, and in less than five minutes, we had cleared the plates, along with a glass of milk each. Dad flipped on the TV and we sat there on the floor, the three of us in Andy’s room, like we hadn’t done in years.

“You want more?” Dad asked when we were finished, and we did, both of us. Minutes later, we had fresh ones, these a bit more golden than the first round.

“You know,” Dad said as we ate, “the police will probably come by tomorrow. They’ll want to talk to you. Both of you, I imagine.”

I glanced over at Andy, who, after eating, had begun to look a bit more like himself. “Okay,” he said in his usual quiet tone.

“That’s fine,” I answered.

He patted Andy on one knee and patted my damp shoulder. “Look,” he said, “I don’t care what happened. I really don’t. And I know that I ain’t been the best dad ever.”

I opened my mouth to correct him, but he raised a hand.

“No,” he said. “Just hush and listen. I didn’t know how to be a dad. Not by myself anyway. And if I had anything to do with this, I mean anything, I want you both to know I’m sorry for it.”

He wrapped his arms around our shoulders and started squeezing us, his voice growing a bit shaky. “I hope you know how much I love you. And whatever… this was all about, I don’t ever want it to happen again. Do you both understand?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Yeah,” Andy said.

“Good,” he answered. “Now get some rest.”

He left us alone, and I considered shutting the door and hashing everything out with Andy. It had to be done, we both knew it, but one look told me all I needed to know. Now that his belly was full of the first food he’d eaten in a day and a half, his eyelids were turning into lead. I knew he was on his way out, so I stood up, leaving a damp spot on his bed and the floor.

“Wait,” he said quietly. “Don’t leave.”

I went back over and knelt down so we were eye to eye. “We’re safe,” I told him once more.

“Please,” he said again. “Just until I fall asleep.”

I couldn’t argue with him. I was tired myself, and ready to get out of the wet clothes, but there was no use in fighting. He was shivering, even under the comforter, and I realized it wasn’t because he was cold. He was back there, back in the cave again, and there was nothing more frightening to him than the idea of being alone. So I leaned against the side of the low bed and watched him, waiting for his eyes to close. My hand was resting across the bedrail, and I laid my head against it, refusing to let my own eyes close until I got out of those damn stinking clothes. A minute later, I felt his hand sneak out of the covers, across the sheet, coming to rest under my own. I gave it a gentle squeeze, and I waited. A few minutes later, I heard his breathing slow, and I raised my head up. He was out, and for the first time in several days, he looked at ease. I crept out of the room, carefully shutting the door behind me as I left.

I went into the bathroom and sat on the toilet with the lid down. I listened to the familiar drip of the leaky faucet – one of Dad’s to-dos that never quite got done. The sound was almost reassuring somehow. It had been dripping for years, and it was as much a part of this place as the rattling air vent in my room or the chorus of cracks and pops when you walked down the hallway. With a slow hand, I stripped out of the wet clothes and dropped them in a pile on the floor. It was, quite possibly, the most wonderful shower I had ever taken, even if I kept glancing at the frosted window in the center of the wall, certain that I heard something just outside.

I got out, slipped into an old, too-small robe Dad had bought a few years before, and sat down on the toilet once again. I turned the hair dryer on the lowest setting, letting it warm up the room as I brushed the tangles from my hair. My mind was swirling with everything that had happened that day, but my sleepiness was beginning to overtake me minute by minute. Thunder rolled somewhere in the distance, and the familiar sound of rain on the roof was too soothing, too wonderful to even consider staying awake. I barely had the forethought to flip the hair dryer off before it slid from my hands, and I let my head drift back onto the wall, so very comfortable in that moment.

I knew the instant the dream began, but I could never be sure of when it ended. I opened my eyes and stared into the gleaming bathroom mirror, confused and surprised that the normally beige wall behind me had gone slick, inky black. The wall pulsed, moved, shivered as I stared at it, and I realized with utter horror that my head was touching it, resting against that awful, slimy surface. It wasn’t blackness; it was something deeper, something that ate the light itself, and though I tried to move, my body was locked up, each joint refusing to bend.

I’m in here, he said, the surface of the wall shimmering as he spoke. I’m in you.

The smell of smoke filled my nostrils, a pungent odor of burned flesh that entered into every pore on my body.

I was weak. That body was nearly spent. I thought your brother would be a fine fit, but then… He paused, and I could hear the anticipation in his voice. But then… you.

I tried to move, tried to wake myself, tried to scream. But I became more and more aware that this wasn’t a dream. It was the same as before, only that time I had been lying in my bed, staring at the shadow that shambled toward me.