D Gillespie - The Toy Thief

I’m coming for you now. You can’t stop me. Your brother can’t stop me either. I’ll hurt him before it’s over. He’s half mine already.

My ankle was burning once more, and I had to glance down to be sure there wasn’t a hand gripping my leg.

Oh, you think I’m mistaken. I can see it all over you. You think he’ll come to save you. That you’ll be able to change him back.

A mouth rose in the liquid layer of darkness, a pair of lips close enough to kiss my ear, and a simmering, hateful laugh split the lips.

What is it? Love? You think that’s enough to save you? I was called into this world by children just as foolish as you. I knew the rules, knew what would happen when that body died. I come from a place where there is no love, no light, no hope, and I’m never going back. I broke the rules. I’ve been doing it for longer than you can possibly imagine, and I’ll do it until the sun dies and all of you cattle are nothing more than dust.

I tried to speak, tried to wake myself, but I no longer held any illusions that I was the one in control.

Struggle, little one. It will only make the end that much more delicious.

I awoke with a choked breath in my throat, something that might have been a scream at the end of any other dream. My hair was dry now, matted and tangled on my forehead. I couldn’t stand, not yet anyway. My ankle was still burning where the Thief had touched me, and I wondered what that touch had done, what it truly meant for both me and Andy. I had only a glancing sense of it, but I could feel something inside of me. The black thing, that darkness that whispered in my dreams – it wasn’t just talking to me, and I was more convinced than ever that it wasn’t my overburdened imagination. It was inside me. It had been injected there, shot into my skin by those deformed hands. I could only imagine what Andy was feeling at that very second.

I leaned forward, resting my face in my hands, breathing deep, realizing that parts of the dream hadn’t left me just yet. I could still smell the scent of burned flesh in the air, still imagine that something was breathing just over my shoulder. I opened my eyes, stared into the mirror, and watched the boring, beige wall behind me. I reached back without ever turning around, felt the drywall under my skin, tapped it, made certain it was real. All of it was real. This wasn’t a dream, not any longer. This was my house.

The toilet seat still creaked underneath me.

The fan still droned overhead.

And the familiar drip of the leaky faucet…

I sat up a bit, tilting my head to one side. I listened. Second after second, moment after agonizing moment, I heard nothing but my own heart pounding, my own breath coming in and out in sharp, wheezing spurts.

No.

Not my breath.

I closed my mouth to be sure, wanting to scream when the ragged sound continued from somewhere close. Behind the curtain. Something was there. Something that kept the water from dripping into the drain. I stood up, quietly reached for the handle of the door when it spoke.

“P-please…”

Every muscle in my body froze, and my stomach rolled over itself, tumbling like a gymnast. The days of pissing myself felt like sweet, lovely memories, and I was quite certain that shit would run down my leg any second. The voice was weak, ragged, and pathetic, and I instantly felt an unexpected pang of sympathy when I heard it. I began to turn the knob slowly, and again he spoke.

“I-I know you’re there. P-please…”

I turned back, staring at the shower curtain, my bowels like fire in my belly. Then I saw it. A hand, red and black, with specks of bone poking through the skin here and there. The curtain drew back slowly, and I saw him, curled into the corner of the tub, the leaking faucet dripping onto his shoulder. I wanted to scream, wanted to run away, but I felt almost instantly that there was no need to. He was nearly dead. I could see it in his eyes, the pink edges curled with black-singed fur. His mouth was open, his lips dark and dead. His body was a ruin, and the simple act of living seemed like an almost unbearable trial. I tried to imagine the horrible fury that had driven him this far, only to fall limp just as he reached his goal.

Behind him, the frosted window was still cracked open a bit, and I could see that the night had fallen quietly, the rain no longer pouring. He could have killed me by now, could have choked me while I slept. But he seemed to know what was coming, seemed to know what the near future held, and I could only imagine that realization had drained the fight out of him. Revenge didn’t mean much when you would be dead yourself before the deed was even done. I looked back into the pitiful pink eyes, and against my better judgment, I sat back down on the toilet.

“What can I do?” I asked, instantly becoming a caretaker.

He shook his head, not quite sure how to answer. “Nothing,” he said finally.

“Who are you?” I asked.

Again he barely shook his head. “Not sure. Used to have a name. Can’t remember. So long ago.”

I remembered the picture I had stolen, the one of the boy and his mother, and I fished it from the pile of my damp jeans, careful to keep the frayed picture from ripping into pieces forever.

“This,” I said, holding it gingerly out in front of my face. “Is this you?”

I couldn’t be sure, but I think I saw his pink, ruined eyes water a bit, and a grim little smile appeared. It was almost enough to make him momentarily less gruesome.

“Me,” he said wistfully. “I was gone. Long time, gone.”

“How long?” I asked.

“Not sure.”

“Do you remember this? When you took this picture? You were probably my age then.”

He closed his eyes, cringing as the singed flesh cracked and wept. “Yes,” he said finally. “I remember. She gave me that… my own toy. A globe. Snow. Never had seen snow. She said we would go somewhere white. One day.”

I leaned closer on the edge of the toilet seat, close enough for him to rip out my throat if he chose to. “What happened to you?”

The pink eyes opened once more. “Him,” he replied, confirming what I already believed to be true. There was something darker, some evil force that had been controlling him, and for the first time in countless years, the human being inside was peering out.

“He came to me. In dreams at first.”

“Dreams!” I blurted. “Yes, in dreams. A shadow with bleeding eyes.”

“You see him?” he asked.

“Yes,” I replied.

There was a look of pain across his face, and I felt horribly humbled and frightened by the fact that this dying creature was pitying me.

“Bad.”

“What do you mean?”

He took a deep breath, but not nearly as deep as he had before. “He’s not from… here.”

“What do you mean?”

“Someone… brought him here. Gave him a body. He shouldn’t be here… shouldn’t be alive.”

“Like, a ghost or something?” I asked, confused.

His answer was short, but clear.

“Demon.”

There it was. This thing, whatever it was, had no business even existing in our world, and it was being passed from person to person, a disease intent on keeping itself alive by finding another host. Andy was supposed to be next on the list, but now there was little doubt that I was the one caught in the crosshairs. How many missing children were turned into these things, pawns in some game they didn’t understand?

“How did he… do this to you?” I asked.

He swallowed and I could see that speaking was growing harder by the second. “I woke up in a dark place. The cave,” he added with a slightly bitter look at me.

“What did he… do?” I asked.