The Toy King [TH]

For the third year in a row, his aunt Susanne had gotten him socks. The extra fluffy ones, she said, would do him well in the winter. Andy's mom had explained to him in private last year, when he'd turned five, that the thought of the gift was what mattered. There were kids who didn't get anything for their birthdays, not even socks. Andy had curiously asked her what good wool socks would do in the middle of June. His mother had brushed his hair away from his face with a smile and said he'd know exactly what good they'd do once the snow fell later on in the year and he wanted to build snowmen with his friends without freezing his toes.With the living room full of family and kids from the neighborhood, and gifts almost spilling over the couch, Andy knew it would be selfish to complain. He forced a smile he knew his mother would approve of, thanked his aunt Susanne for the gift, and pulled another colorful box in his lap to open. He began tearing through the wrapping, throwing it aside to join the pile of already-torn paper from previous gifts lying beside him on the floor, and mustered the resolve to smile again at a designed navy blue T-shirt that said "Coolest kid on the block" with a drawing of a cartoon little boy standing on a rectangular piece of concrete. In his young mind, a very mature thought formed: at least he had gifts. Some kids never got any, not even socks. Still, he thought, I wish there were more toys.The other boxes of gifts, most with wrapping paper of his favorite superheroes and cartoon characters, were eventually torn through and emptied. He got a bright red racecar that he was excited to test out, once his mom found the right batteries; plenty of clothes; a poster with his favorite TV show, Monsters in Space, to hang on his wall; several birthday cards with sentiments he couldn't fully appreciate at his age, but with dollar bills tucked inside that were far easier to comprehend.Just as the last present was opened, his mother appeared in the room with a tall rectangular box wrapped in gold paper. Andy's smile grew; his mother's surprise gifts were always the best."What do we have here?" she said cheerfully, giving the box a shake and putting it to her ear. "I wonder what it is."Andy jumped up from the floor to grab it. He pulled quickly through the paper, leaving gold fragments around his feet. The first thing he saw through the plastic sheeting on the cardboard box of the toy was a blue jeaned leg, then a cowboy boot with a gold spur on the heel. As the upper half of the wrapping paper was peeled away, he saw a friendly face smile at him through the plastic sheeting of the box. Pasted in golden font to the left of the face was "Sheriff Woody! Every kid's favorite cowboy!" Andy's eyes became wider as they trailed the packaging. Oddly, he noticed that both arms of his Woody doll were in an upright position that looked cramped and unnatural. Even more, the plastic surrounding Woody was crinkled and crooked. His aunt Susanne would later comment on the ride home with her husband that it looked as though the toy cowboy had been hastily jammed in during packaging. Andy's mother, unbeknownst to Susanne, had also found the toy's condition curious, nothing like how it'd been when she'd finished wrapping it. And a blip of a thought sent a brief wave through her head before disappearing forever: it almost looked like the toy cowboy had tried to escape."Mom!" he screamed, hugging the box. "Mom, look! He's even got the badge and hat like on the commercial!"Andy briefly dropped the box to thank her and hug her legs, then picked it back up to further inspect his new favorite present. He pulled his Woody doll free from its crumpled casing and hugged him tightly, Woody lying limp against Andy's small chest. A pull string with a plastic ring around the end jutted out of his back. Andy gave it an excited pull."You're my favorite deputy!" the Woody doll exclaimed happily, the string feeding itself back into its cotton home as the words finished.Andy grinned, and maybe it was only his childish imagination, but he thought that his Woody doll's plastic smile had grown a little wider.Andy's eyes opened. His bedroom was pitch black, which was unusual. The bulb in the nightlight by his door must've blown out again. He tried to will his legs to wiggle out from under his sheet and found that they disobeyed. He'd experienced something similar before, but never like this. Andy suffered from what would later be diagnosed as sleep paralysis, when the signal between the brain and the body is disconnected during transitions into wakefulness. His mind was awake, but his body was unresponsive. His bladder was getting full, and he knew his mother would be upset with him if he wet the bed again. When he last mentioned this paralysis to his mother, she advised that he try his best to go back to sleep. Like most things in life, struggling is what makes it scary. Andy's fear was twofold: he didn't like being frozen in his body and he was afraid his bladder would let loose before he regained control. With this thought, panic acted as a blockade that kept his anxious mind from falling back to sleep.His ears and eyes - though unmoving - still worked, and in the silent house, he could hear what could only be described as the distinct pitter-patter of small steps. An explanation rushed in to ease his approaching fear. His dog, Muffins, who had long paw nails that needed to be filed down, must've been wandering around in the hallway outside his room. Andy, having nothing other to do besides lie awake in the darkness and listen, obsessed over the sound.Clip clap, clip clap.Then a new sound interrupted the silence: the unmistakable squeak of an opening door. Very slowly, as if barely pushed by a breeze. If he'd had control over himself, Andy would've let out a sigh of relief. Finally his mother, seeming almost psychic at times, felt his predicament on her mom radar and had come to his rescue.The gap of the door widened but didn't give way to his mother. Andy watched with fleeting hope as it soon closed as hauntingly slow as it had opened, with a carefulness that could only be achieved with practice. He wished his mother had done more than crack the door and peek in from the hallway. He wished she'd walked in and shaken him awake, freed him from the invisible dumbbells that weighed on his body.Then he heard it again.Clip clap, clip clap.Andy's confusion was closely tailed by terror as he heard a soft rustling sound near the door. A few moments later, in his peripherals, he could see a modest burst of light decorate the small bedroom as his nightlight came back to life. He tried to shout but his body continued to disobey. Only his mind could react when the tiny man-shaped shadow first came into view on the wall opposite his bed. The pitter-patter he had grown to fear matched perfectly with the progression of the wall shadow. He heard more rustling beside his bed, cotton from his comforter being tugged on - climbed, most accurately - and the hairs on his arms stood in attention as something in the darkness gently grazed his right lower tricep.The last thing Andy could remember feeling before sleep forcefully overcame him at that moment was the warm, wet sensation of urine collecting in his underwear and pajama bottoms. And before his tired, terrified mind finally gave up on the situation and fell into unconsciousness, he heard, in a voice so human it was frightening: "You're my favorite deputy, Andy."Parents have a way of subtly dismissing the fears of their children. Their goal is often to soothe, not to understand. There's no monster under your bed, sweetie. No boogieman hiding in your closet, no ghost lady standing with glowing eyes in the dark corner of your bedroom. They feel no need to check behind the hanging sweaters and shirts for dangerous figures because they feel no urge to believe in them, and the child is left with a loose explanation that doesn't always match with reality. But sometimes the children are right; sometimes the boogieman really is hiding in your closet.It made sense that Andy's mother thought it had only been a bad dream. How could a cowboy doll come to life in the middle of the night and sneak out of his room? How could a toy have the calculated sense to feel the need to sneak at all? Why would clumps of cotton and plastic understand the concept of being caught, and further, intuitively know that being caught would be bad for them? Wasn't it more likely that what Andy experienced had simply been a dream so vivid it felt real? That the excitement of his birthday paired with the copious amounts of sugar consumed throughout had culminated into a nightmare once the darkness had settled and the house had quieted? In truth, hidden behind her genuine love and concern for him, Andy felt his mother's lack of belief was largely overshadowed by the irritation of having to change his sheets and remove the pungent smell of pee from his mattress.Had you asked anyone who knew Andy, they would have attested to his brilliance. His young mind worked with an accuracy that was incredible to witness in a six-year-old. A talkative, energetic boy, it was rare to find Andy seated or quiet. Many of his waking hours were spent drenching those around him in a storm he was talking up, and some form of playing. His mother got her daily dose of exercise trying to keep up with him or entertaining a new game he had either learned from the neighborhood boys he played with or one he had invented himself. The games - often fast-paced, enthusiastic and involving running - reflected the archetypical nature of a happy young boy.For a time, Andy had believed his mother, had believed that it had just been a bad dream. But it was soon obvious to him that something was wrong.If encouraged, Andy would tell stories of oddities that had started to occur in the house after his sixth birthday. Objects in his room being ever-so-slightly rearranged while he was away at school; the tapping of plastic feet rushing to and fro on the hardwood floor once his mother had gone to sleep; little green Army men he hadn't played with in days found tangled in the sheets of his bed or hidden in potted plants throughout the house. And he swore, if he tip-toed quietly enough up the stairs and put his ear to the closed door of his room, he could hear faint whispering.Plotting. Planning.Once or twice, desperate to get rid of it, Andy had intentionally left the possessed cowboy at school or in an aisle at a grocery store, only to find the doll lying lifeless at the foot of his bed when he awoke the next morning. Instead of an alarm clock, Andy was roused from his sleep by the repeated phrase "Reach for the skyyyyyy!" One night, he had put heavy books over the top of the toy chest to prevent escape but opened it after an hour of Woody's nonstop exclamation that somebody had poisoned the waterhole. Andy hadn't outright caught the toys in action yet, but he knew of their activities. Worse, they knew that he knew.Naturally, his mother was the first to note Andy's recent change in behavior. His fervor had faded. He yawned often, and bags had formed under his sleepy eyes. Once an adventurous boy who would jump from a tree if dared, he was now flinchy and easily frightened by noises or sudden movement. He would sometimes stop mid-step during a trip through the living room or kitchen and stand still, looking up at the ceiling and twisting his head in various directions. Listening, she later put together. Sometimes Andy would sit for what felt like hours and stare at the limp Woody doll in his hand. No playing, no pretending, maybe giving it an aggravated shake here and there, expecting a reaction. She had been especially shocked to find his toy chest, carefully glued shut at the lid, sitting in the hallway one day. When she had asked Andy for an explanation, he only looked at her with tired eyes and said: "So they can't get out after they stop playing dead." And then added: "They only move when the sheriff makes them because he's the new leader."His performance at school also suffered. Phone calls from teachers became frequent. Andy would fall asleep standing up during recess or gym class. He refused to engage in any form of classroom roleplaying, and would ask to sit in the corner with his back to the wall during playtime, scanning the room with traumatized eyes that were always struggling to stay open. A girl in his class, Mandy, had once approached him with a doll in her hand, inviting him to play, and as Andy saw the toy, he let out a frightened scream so loud that Mandy dropped her doll in surprise. When the teachers rushed over, they found Andy hurling the Raggedy Ann against the brick wall. "JUST STOP IT!" Andy had screamed, tears swelling in his eyes. "MAKE HIM STOP!" His teachers barely had time to grab his trembling hand before he used the arts and crafts scissors to behead the doll in front of his classmates.The grown-ups wouldn't help; it didn't take much pondering to come to this conclusion. Andy knew he would need the help of another kid, and he wasn't exactly pleased with where he knew the help would come from.Sid Phillips was a bigger boy from a few houses down. Andy remembered riding by the Phillips' house on his bike and peeking into the wooden fence outlining their backyard. There he saw Sid, dressed in a black T-shirt with a skull logo on the front and dirty blue jeans, kneeling in the brown grass with an object in his hand. Andy couldn't see what it was, and hadn't had time to prepare for the loud explosion that made his ears ring. Pieces of charred plastic rained from the sky, and as he hurriedly climbed back on his bike and rode home, Andy could faintly hear Sid laughing with sickening pleasure.Andy knocked on the Phillips' front door and asked the man who opened it if Sid could come outside and play. The boy, much taller, came to the doorway, already annoyed. This little kid had no business knocking on his door, and he certainly had no intentions of playing with a six-year-old. But it was odd. Sid hadn't seen Andy more than a handful of times, but there was something determined about the way he looked now. Something fed up. Standing here, with a toy cowboy doll held limply in his hand, was an exhausted little boy who had nowhere else to go and no one else to turn to. Sid smirked. The two boys seemed to communicate without speaking. He motioned for Andy to come inside.The trek through the tenebrous kitchen to the backyard seemed to last forever. Andy kept his eyes forward, focused. He heard aggravated barking coming from upstairs and ignored it. Sid gripped the handle of the sliding door leading to the backyard and gave it a tug. It opened with ease, and he made an after-you gesture at Andy with a twisted grin.The overgrown, sun-scarred grass of the backyard was as unpleasant to walk through as it was to look at. There were deflated tires and rims lying forgotten; an old and dilapidated treadmill with muddy water collecting on the belt; fragments from broken glass plates and other dishes. Andy saw a square patch of concrete with rusted tools scattered around. Instruments of torture, Andy thought, and smiled for the first time in a long while. He knew he'd come to the right kid.Sid disappeared in a weather-beaten shed and came back no later than ten seconds after with a red gas can. Liquid sloshed inside as he carried it in one hand. He didn't ask for permission as he snatched Woody from Andy, took it to a nearby circular barbecue grill, removed the lid, and casually dropped the doll on the grate."Any last words, cowboy?" Sid asked out loud as he retrieved a book of matches from his back pocket. He chuckled humorlessly. "Yeah. They never talk when it matters."He turned the red gas can upright and poured generously, soaking the doll in the brown, smelly liquid. He ripped a single match from the pack, paused, and looked at Andy. He held out the book of matches in offering with an eyebrow raised. 'Would you like to do the honors?' his face said. Andy put up a hand in declination. Sid only shrugged; this was his favorite part anyway."Today... we send an offering!" Sid shouted at the empty sky. "We celebrate... a broken bond between a boy and his toy! We send a spirit back to its resting place. All hail the sheriff, King of Toys!" He lit the match and looked at Andy a final time with a grin that made him shiver. "May the afterlife be kinder than I will." He dropped the match.Andy watched the flames engulf the toy, spreading its orange glare across the grill and sending dirty smoke into the air. Sid placed the lid back on and took a few steps back; he never stopped smiling. The grill suddenly began shaking wildly, and a long, pained scream pierced the air. Andy continued to watch with an emotionless gaze as the rising smoke darkened and the grill lid trembled and the scream continued, and just like he'd never speak to anyone about what had happened one day in Sid's backyard when he was six years old, he'd never tell anyone the joy it brought him to listen to the agony of the burning toy. via /r/shortstories https://ift.tt/37OxvA2