Toybox

by Al Sarrantonio

  UNDER MY BED

  When Daddy says I'm bad, he puts me to bed and turns out the lights. He does that a lot, and I don't like it, but at least I've got somebody to talk to when I'm in here. Daddy thinks I'm alone, but there's a man under my bed.

  He only comes up out of the trapdoor after the lights go out and Daddy shuts the door and goes away. The man says he doesn't like lights; he says he doesn't like Daddy much either, and I have to smile when he says that.

  He lives somewhere down below the bed, though I'm not really sure where. The living room is downstairs below my bedroom, so he can't really live there or Daddy would see him; he must live in the little space underneath the floor.

  He talks to me about things when I'm shut up in here because Daddy says I've been bad. Daddy says I've been bad a lot, every time I do something he doesn't like. Daddy doesn't smile a lot and I don't think he likes me very much anymore.

  There was a time when Daddy did like me, but that was a long time ago, when Mommy was still here. I even remember Daddy picking me up and swinging me through the air, letting go and then catching me again, with a big smile on his face. He called me his little Billy boy.” He must have liked me, or he wouldn't have called me that. I even had friends then, and I remember Daddy taking me and all my friends to the ball game once. I spilled soda on myself, and Daddy didn't even get mad; he just smiled and said, “Let me give you a hand there, Billy boy,” and helped me clean it up. I spilled soda on myself last week when Daddy's girl friend was here and I thought he was going to kill me.

  I remember things began to change just about the time me and Pete Cochran became best friends. Pete's father worked at home, and Mommy used to come over to Pete's house to pick me up after we finished playing. Pete and I played super-heroes, or Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer, or the Hardy boys, and one of us would make believe he was in trouble and the other one would save him. It was fun, and we almost always played it at Pete's house.

  But after Daddy and Mommy started fighting I couldn't go to Pete's house anymore, and then Pete couldn't come to mine, and after a while Daddy wouldn't let me go out at all. The fighting got worse and worse, and most of the time I stayed locked in my room. Daddy stopped calling me “Billy boy,” and they both started putting me to bed a lot, sometimes in the middle of the day. I almost always had my pajamas on. I think they wanted to get rid of me so they could fight, and I used to lie in bed and listen to them yell at each other and sometimes throw things around. Once, the police came, and that was exciting, but otherwise it wasn't very good. They started to hit me sometimes, too. Mommy hit me once and told me that she and Daddy never wanted to have me, and that the only reason they had me was because Daddy thought it would keep him and Mommy together. She smelled like whiskey when she said it. “At least Pete Cochran's father knows what love is,” she said.

  After Mommy left, I asked Daddy if that meant that Mommy was Pete Cochran's mommy now instead of mine, but the way he looked at me made me never ask him that again. Things got very lonely after that, and I never went out and didn't see my friends anymore.

  The man under my bed came out for the first time right after Mommy left. A few nights I heard sounds down there, like mice or squirrels, and I hid under the covers. Then, one night after Daddy shut me up in here and it was real dark, I heard the trapdoor open and the man came out. I heard him puffing as he pulled himself out of the hole, and then he lay there for a while breathing hard. I was scared stiff and yelled for Daddy to come and when he did come and turned on the light the man was gone, back down in the hole; but as soon as Daddy turned out the light and left, the door opened again and the man pulled himself out. I yelled for Daddy to come back but he wouldn't, so I pulled the covers up over my head and listened through the mattress. I could hear him moving around down there. After a while I couldn't hear him moving, so I pulled one side of the sheets up over the edge of the bed and made a hole so I could listen out.

  He started to talk to me then, and for a minute I was afraid since his voice sounded a little creepy, like squashing bugs; but he wasn't saying mean things so after a while I stopped being scared.

  “I know how you feel, Billy,” he said from down under the bed. “I'm on your side.” Then we talked for a while about things I like to do, and what I don't like and things.

  After that night, he climbed out of his door and lay down there talking to me every time I got put to bed. You could say he became my best friend, like Pete Cochran used to be. I could talk to him about anything at all. And he really understood how bad Daddy is to me, and he felt sorry for me about it. “I don't like your Daddy,” he told me once.

  I could imagine him down there lying on his back with his hands behind his head, staring up at the bottom of my bed like it was blue sky with clouds blowing across it. I sort of got the picture of him like Tom Sawyer, with blue jeans on and a straw in his mouth and freckles and a big smile. Even though he told me he didn't look like that and that he couldn't let me see him, the picture I got of him lying down there with freckles and grinning was so strong that I sneaked Daddy’s flashlight under the covers with me one night and leaned down over the side of the bed and shone it on him. I had some trouble with the switch, though, and by the time I got it on he was pulling the trapdoor closed behind him. All I saw was his hand on the door rope and the top of his head; he didn't have any hair and was kind of wrinkly-looking. And I got the feeling he wasn't smiling. Then the switch went off and Daddy heard me moving around and came and took the flashlight away.

  The man under the bed wouldn't come out for a week after that, and I realized just how lonely it was in the dark without him. I slept most of the time with the covers over my head; I was scared to be in the dark without him, even if he didn't look like Tom Sawyer.

  But he did come back a couple of nights ago, just when I needed him most.

  Daddy hit me that night, harder than he ever had before. He had his girlfriend home with him and he was drinking whiskey and I asked if I could watch the TV a little longer, and he hit me. Then he put me in my room and turned off the lights and said that if I made any noise he'd beat me some more. I lay under the covers, and I was crying, and then I heard the trapdoor squeak open, slowly, and I heard the man dragging himself out. He sounded tired, but when he started talking to me I could tell he wasn't mad at me anymore. He almost sounded happy. He said he was sorry Daddy hit me and that he wanted to help; he said he might even let me find the trapdoor. He stayed up with me almost all night, until I fell asleep. The next morning after he left I crawled under the bed and, sure enough, I could feel the edges where the door must be; I'd never been able to find them before, no matter how hard I tried. And last night he said Daddy would never hit me again. “Things are going to be all right, Billy boy,” he said, and that made me feel warm all over, because I knew he was my friend.

  Tonight Daddy's coming home late, and I got into bed by myself just like the man under the bed told me to. He told me to turn out the light and wait for Daddy to come home. He's been under the bed for more than an hour, telling me funny stories that make me laugh, about other kids' daddies and about the things that happened to them. Some of the things are real funny, like what happens in the cartoons I watch in the morning after Daddy goes to work. Even though I know what the man looks like, I still can't help thinking of him lying down there under my bed like Tom Sawyer, with his legs crossed and laughing, telling those funny stories.

  It's late now, and I just heard Daddy come in. He's alone, but he sounds like he's been drinking whiskey again. He's bumping into things and cursing.

  I can hear Daddy looking for me, since he thinks I'll still be up; he'll probably think of looking in my bedroom any minute. The man under the bed says to be quiet; he says he may even take Daddy through the trapdoor with him to where he lives. Wouldn't that make a funny story, he says, and he laughs. I laugh with him. He says he won't even let the light bother him this time, that he'll come right out from under the bed.

  Daddy's outside
my door now; I can hear him fumbling with the handle, trying to open it. He finally does, and now his hand is searching for the light switch. He finds it and turns it on, and he looks very surprised to see the two of us in bed, waiting for him.

  Hi Daddy.

  THE BIG HOUSE

  Chattering with fear, squirrels ran down the boles of oaks. A deeper night fell cold as an ax. The sky roiled like freezing fire: orange, white, black; leaves fell deadened and whipped themselves, tiny tornadoes—then stopped in place, windless, and fell crackling to sidewalks. Sidewalks heaved and split, puffing concrete breath; the sky clapped its hands, booming deep and ominous thunder.

  The last day of October.

  Halloween.

  ~ * ~

  Biff and Buff, costumed as clowns, red-nosed, white-faced, red-lipped, peaked-hatted and wide-eyed, flattened themselves shaking against a house front to either side of a rattling door. From within came shouting, the crash of fallen candy bowls; when Biff chanced a look through the door's neighboring window he saw the tatters of a ripped witch's costume fly by within and the air filled with candy corn and Milky Way bars. Furniture danced a St. Vitas dance, teacups in cupboards rattled like bones, the very floorboards curled and cracked, stepping up out of the floor before stomping back down again. The neighbors inside clung to whatever wasn't moving and each other; their little girl, costume-less, only the brim of her witch's hat still rimming her head, held to her mother who held to her father who held to the dog who gripped the hall rug howling. The rug rolled up and they all flew away, circling the room, still clutching.

  Above the wind, above the greater howl of the night, Biff turned to Buff and shouted, “It has to be the Big House! We'll have to go there!”

  Buff's eyes went wide; she gripped Biff's arm with a clutch like an iron vise. “No one goes there! I don't want to!”

  “We have to try!” Biff answered, putting his mouth close to Buff's ear to be heard.

  Buff turned frightened eyes from Biff to the night, which seemed to tumble in front of them; away from the porch trees swayed on the tips of their roots, bent one way and then back again. Pumpkins blew by, grinning, still winking from their candles within. Clouds were covered by darker clouds; the Moon, full and manly, seemed to throw his head back and laugh.

  “It's out of control—we've got to go!” Biff said.

  Buff, eyes frightened, turned at a sound from the house and saw the little girl, the brim of her witch's hat flattened against the window above her face, mouthing, “Help! Please save us from the Big House!” before the demon winds within whipped her away, parents and dog trailing behind, into deeper darkness and chaos.

  Buff turned to Biff and nodded.

  “We have to,” she said.

  The House was immediately visible from the street. Buff and Biff, bent like old beggars against the night's debris and whipping winds, clutching their trick-or-treat bags to their breasts, knew the direction and knew the sight. Up under the Moon it stood, on the highest hill, towering the tallest trees; it loomed over oaks older than the town itself, black and batwing-like, tall and wide and ponderous, made of heavy wood and stone. Black in the daytime and blacker at night; no flowers grew around it in summer, when even the oaks stayed leafless yet alive. Its windows were black glass; its door a hole of darkness, huge and rectangular, sharp-edged. At its roofline four gargoyles, blank-eyed, of black marble, guarded; two onyx lions, also eyeless, protected the entry. A wall of dark stone, with black iron gates topped by twin blind owls, encircled the House and kept it tight.

  DON'T COME IN, a sign on one gate read.

  DON'T, read the sign on the other.

  The gate was locked with a lock as big as Buff's head.

  ~ * ~

  Bent double against the wind, Biff and Buff climbed the long hill upward. Soon there was no pumpkin debris; the town lay behind them in the bowl of the valley, below the Big House and the surrounding smaller hills. They stopped to look back; saw house lights blinking on and off, telephone poles rattling, wires whipping, streets buckling, a counterclockwise dervishing of dead leaves and gourds, pumpkins smashed to pies, lawn figures (newspaper-stuffed ghosts, a headless horseman without his headless horse, a scarecrow scared, his straw body pulled to weeds) and the occasional caught trick-or-treater. Below the streets the ground earthquaked—and there came the lower sound of deeper things rising, booming up from the Earth's underground.

  The far hills shook and trembled, prepared to be swallowed.

  “We've got to hurry!” Biff said.

  The Big House didn't breathe. Dead as the air around it, it loomed impenetrable.

  DON'T COME IN.

  DON'T.

  No one ever had.

  The owls stared down at them blindly.

  “How do we get in?” Buff asked, shaking but not cold. She could hear herself speak here, and wished she couldn't. The air was still in the House's domain; still and dry as death.

  “We'll climb,” Biff said. “Give me a hand up.”

  Buff, still clutching her treat bag, cupped her hands and vaulted Biff up as high as he could reach. His fingers brushed the beak of one blind owl, held for a moment.

  With a yelp he let go.

  “It bit me!” he protested, dropping to the ground.

  Buff regarded the owl, which stood poised for flight, frozen.

  “Nonsen—” she began.

  The owl hooted, spread its wings as if stretching, took off in flapping flight to veer toward the house, where it disappeared into the darkness of the door.

  After a moment, with a hoot of release, the other owl followed, after giving Buff and Biff an ominously blank-eyed stare.

  There was a ponderous creaking sound.

  The gates opened inward.

  Biff, standing in awe, clutched Buff's hand.

  “Should we—”

  “We have to,” Buff said, stepping forward, drawing the boy with her.

  The gates shut behind them with a ponderous clang, and as they turned to regard this, they saw that the owls were once again in frozen position: though facing inward now, toward the house, staring down at them blankly.

  Biff shivered, sure that one of them grinned.

  Buff pulled him toward the house.

  There were paving stones beneath their feet, so black they appeared empty. Buff thought she and Biff might drop at any moment into one of the seeming holes, though their feet continued suspended over each abyss.

  Above them, gargoyles regarded them, turning their heads.

  The onyx lions rippled their muscles, began to stretch tautly, attention focusing on the two intruders.

  A rumble of roar began deep in the lions' stone bellies, trembled up toward their throats and opening jaws—black fangs glistened. “Run forward!” Buff said.

  They reached the porch, jumped steps as the lions swiped, heads shaking with rage; claws barely missing

  Then: Buff and Biff were inside, though the dark rectangle of door, the sharp-edged opening, into...

  Dark.

  ~ * ~

  Blacker than black. Biff felt Buff clutching, Buff felt Biff trembling. She knew if she reached down there was nothing beneath them now; knew there was nothing ahead or behind.

  She reached slowly down, drawing Biff's hand with her. There was no floor beneath them.

  The two of them made simultaneous mewling sounds

  —then suddenly they were tumbling, falling, floating all at once, connected by handgrip only.

  Lights blinked on, dim but still blinding.

  Buff blinked, expected lions charging, gargoyles capering, owls flapping, claws extended

  They found themselves in a perfect front parlor on Halloween, strung with orange and black crepe. Cardboard skeletons on the walls were jointed into dancing poses; the largest of happily grinning cutout pumpkins were taped to the black windows; autumn leaves—red yellow and golden—were scattered artfully on the floor; straw broomsticks leaned in the corners; a straw-stuffed scarecrow s
tood guard in the center of the room, arms folded, head tilted, one button-eye missing to make a wink, lipstick smile under a smaller button nose, hat cocked jauntily...

  ...and guarding the largest candy bowl Biff and Buff had ever seen. A cauldron of candy it was, a huge open gourd bursting with gumdrops and twisted paper bags, candy bars of every wrapper color, popcorn balls and candy apples so sticky-shiny they hurt the eyes to look at them; and Neco wafers and jujubees, Atomic Fireballs and giant lollies shaped like Martian monsters (black and orange and green), crisp apples stuffed with crisper coins (quarters not pennies!), coupons for milkshakes and hamburgers, gum and more gum, tootsie rolls and pops of same, tiny raisin boxes, Mary Janes and Turkish Taffy, more popcorn balls, candy corn in fifty colors: yellow/white, orange/brown, brown/white, purple (!)/green (!), etc. etc.! Candy corn pumpkins with green sugar stems, candy pellets on paper rolls like checkout receipts, pink gum shredded like chewing tobacco, yellow and pink faux cigars, hard candy cigarettes in suspicious brands, candy in boxes, wrappers, cellophane, naked! Candy in every mixed color of the rainbow!

  “Help yourself!” a voice invited; Buff saw the scarecrow wink its good button-eye to match its other and point with a rustle at the cauldron.

  “It's...alive!” Biff cried.

  The scarecrow became inert again; they cautiously approached and discovered that it was indeed stuffed with straw, unmoving, inanimate.

  “I said… help yourself!” a deeper voice came from another part of the room; Buff and Biff tracked the ventriloquist's voice to one of the cardboard skeletons on the wall, which made its joints dance, its eyes glowing like coals and its jaw jabbering.

  Then it stopped as a deeper voice yet, thrown from one of the broomsticks jumped up from its corner, a wide mouth stretching out from the top of its wooden handle. Eyes goggled, then disappeared; the splinter mouth, in mid-voice, was cut off: “Help—

  “YOURSELF!”

  The lowest of low voices spoke, a bass rumble that seemed to come from the floor itself, which quaked, throwing up leaves.