D Gillespie - The Toy Thief

Andy.

The Thief’s words from the night before rang in my mind once again. This entity, this demon as he called it, wanted Andy’s body, and it had already begun to push Andy’s personality aside to make that transition happen. I remembered the way he’d acted, his normally calm, hard-to-ruffle personality suddenly swinging from one extreme to the other. Glancing down at the dead body, I wasn’t sure if it was all over now or not, though I certainly hoped it was. All I could do was take it one moment at a time and hope for the best.

Whatever the final goal had been, Andy’s transformation wasn’t complete. He was still my brother, still good – of that I had little doubt. Even so, I didn’t fully trust him. If you beat a good dog long enough, he’ll learn to bite. That was my brother now, and I wasn’t sure how he would react when he saw the Thief dead in our own home.

Andy was still sleeping, still curled into the corner like a puppy in the back of a kennel. I kept waiting for his eyes to open and lock onto mine, but they didn’t. He was truly out, but there was an edge to him, a sense that he wasn’t really resting, not the way he had before he was taken. He shifted uneasily, and more than once he spoke to himself – tiny, sharp whispers that I couldn’t make out. I quietly sneaked over and sat gently on the edge of the bed.

“Andy,” I whispered, afraid to actually touch him just yet. His eyes were darting from one side to the other behind his closed lids, and I knew he was dreaming. I couldn’t imagine that it was pleasant.

“Andy,” I said a bit louder as I tapped his shoulder. “Wake up.”

I had to shake him several more times, but he finally awoke with a start and immediately sat up, drawing the covers up to his chin. His eyes, as mad as blue hornets, were dancing from side to side, scanning the room.

“Andy,” I said once more as I placed a hand on his shoulder. “You’re home. It’s okay. You’re back home.”

He looked at me, and his grip on the blanket began to loosen. “Home,” he said, nodding.

“Sorry,” I said, and he looked at me, confused. “For waking you, I mean. We need to talk, though.”

He never stopped nodding, and I wasn’t sure if he was agreeing with me or if he had just temporarily lost control of the muscles in his neck.

“We need to talk about everything that happened.” I waited for him to reply, and when he didn’t, I added, “Talk about what’s still happening.”

He cut his eyes at me, and I knew he had heard the message. “What?” he said frantically. “What’s happening?”

I wasn’t sure where to start. For one thing, I still had questions, and even though I was fairly certain that Andy didn’t have the answers, at least not all of them, I figured he could get me closer.

“When you were back there… in that cave… what happened?” I said, wanting to get some things straight first. “I mean, what did he do to you?”

He cast his eyes down to the bed, his face flushing red with either shame or embarrassment.

“It’s okay,” I said. “I mean, you didn’t do anything wrong.”

“You know,” he answered, finally glancing up. “He did the same to you when he grabbed you.”

I remembered it well, but I still wasn’t sure what it all meant. “I saw him grab you too,” I said. “Before I got you out. I heard you… in pain.”

He nodded and scratched at his leg before holding it out for me to see. “It’s already healed,” he said. “In just a day. It heals so quick. The kind of thing you wouldn’t even notice if you weren’t paying attention.”

I nodded. “Yeah. It’s supposed to be like that. Something you don’t ever see. Don’t question.” I waited for him to add more, but when he didn’t, I went further. “When it grabbed me, it felt like I was sinking. Like I was drowning in ink. Everything was just pure blackness.”

He didn’t answer, but I could see him back there in his mind. “There was a voice,” he said finally. “Something that whispered to me. Told me things. Made me promises. It told me it would make me better. Make me happy. That I’d live forever.”

I listened, breathless as he talked. Then I asked, “Did you believe it?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “Maybe. Part of me. It wasn’t just what he said. It was… this pain. All I could think of was… her.”

“Her?”

He looked up at me, staring right through my eyes. “Mom. I kept seeing her. Her face. She’d be smiling one second. Then she’d be melting. Her skin falling off her bones.”

I could see from the mad glare in his eyes that he was seeing it again, that these images were as real now as they had been then.

“She would talk to me,” he said, his voice cracking. “Tell me she didn’t need me anymore. That I was the reason she was dead. That being in a hole in the ground was better than being my mom. And just when I thought I couldn’t stand the pain any more, I’d hear his voice, telling me that he would save me. He would change me. He would be my mom and my dad.”

Again his eyes caught mine.

“And if you only knew how bad it hurt. If you could only imagine it. Then you’d know that it was easy to believe.”

“It wasn’t real,” I told him. “You know that. Mom loved you. Dad loves you. I love you. There’s nothing here that can hurt you.”

“Maybe,” he said, wiping his eyes. “But we weren’t supposed to see what we’ve seen.”

“I saw something too,” I said. “I mean, there was the pain, but… something else along with it. People. Kids. The others that he’s taken over the years.”

“Yes,” he said, reaching for my hand. “I-I didn’t know if any of it was real, but they were still in there. Still inside him. Like a parasite that killed whatever it latched on to, but they never really died. They didn’t get to die because he took part of them.” He stared down at the floor and added, “Forever.”

It confirmed everything that I had feared: that this creature was keeping itself alive by kidnapping children and warping them into that foul Thief, swallowing part of their souls in the process. Losing my toys felt suddenly like a small and pathetic thing to even be concerned about.

“We know his secrets now,” Andy said fearfully. “We know, so he’ll be back.”

I nodded. “You’re right.”

I walked him into the bathroom, making sure to stay in front of him, easing him forward the way you might coax a frightened dog. “Now listen,” I said, turning my back to the shower curtain. “This will be a… shock.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Last night. I took my shower. Then I fell asleep in here. And then I… found something.”

I gave him a few more words to explain what had happened, but his face was already tightening as he sensed what was coming, what was hiding just behind us. I could imagine what he felt, the same way I had felt the night before, but multiplied and magnified. Still, the sun was shining, the birds were singing, the rain had finally died away. This was our home, our safe place, and the darkness that had locked him away couldn’t reach us here. The very thought felt like some kind of violation.

“No,” he said, cutting me off midsentence. “Not here.”

“It’s okay,” I told him once again. “He can’t hurt us. Not anymore.”

“He?”

“You just have to see it for yourself.”

With that, I drew back the curtain and listened to Andy half scream, half moan when he saw the crumpled, burned body. My brother, who was bigger, stronger, braver than me, actually dropped as if someone had cut his legs out from under him. There seemed to be a dread inside of him now that was infinitely deeper than any I could imagine. The sight of the Thief scared me, filled me with revulsion and loathing, but it simply broke Andy.