But Sullivan’s eyes focused on the two technicians standing in the bright pool of light, concentrating on the doll.
“Can they hear us?” he said to Mattson.
“Yes, if you want . . .” Mattson pointed at a switch.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” Sullivan said, flicking the switch on. He saw the two technicians look up. Then he recognized Hal Turner. We go back a long way together, Sullivan thought. A long way . . . There would be no Good Guys without Turner. And he probably knew that.
Turner squinted in the darkness.
“Good morning, Mr. Sullivan,” the other technician said, answering for them both. Sullivan saw Hal Turner wave weakly. This craziness has to be confusing him. It’s partly his baby.
“Are you all set in there, Bob?” Mattson said.
“Just . . . about,” the younger technician said. “We’re ready to put the new eyes in . . .”
“That’s Bob Meyer,” Mattson said, whispering. “One of the best microchip boys. He’ll find out what’s wrong,” Mattson said confidently. He radiated a confidence that Sullivan didn’t share at all.
“Okay . . . ,” Bob Meyer said. “That should be it. Hal, would you bring the drill down a bit.” Sullivan noticed that Meyer seemed to be calling the shots. Turner was just an old lab man.
Sullivan watched Meyer take the doll and turn it horizontally. Now both its head and torso were held by clamps. Then Meyer reached up to the drill. Sullivan saw the attachment on the drill: two prongs holding marble-shaped objects—the eyes . . .
“Okay,” Meyer said, looking over at the observation room. “We should be able to see what’s working and what’s not working in this baby . . .”
Sullivan heard him mutter something that he apparently didn’t think the microphones would pick up.
“. . . which is probably nothing . . .”
The whir of the drill started, amplified loudly in the observation room. Sullivan winced at the screeching noise. Mattson said, “Should I lower the volume, sir? I can.”
Sullivan shook his head. He wanted to hear everything. See everything.
Meyer reached up for the prongs. “The doll’s been rebuilt from the ground up, Mr. Sullivan. Everything except the integrated circuits and the microprocessor inside the head. The brains of the thing. But it could be that will be a wash, too. We’ll know soon enough.”
Sullivan looked down. He noticed that he had clenched his fists, that he was gripping the edge of the table.
He brought his hands up and flexed them, splaying his fingers out, trying to relieve the tension. Easy, he told himself. It’s all over. This is just an investigation.
No, it’s an autopsy.
lust to see whether we have any blame, any culpability in this matter.
The drill sound changed. Sullivan saw Turner lean closer, looking over Meyer’s shoulder as he lowered the machine that would insert the eyes.
And then—just when Sullivan was about to take a breath—the drill went silent.
He heard Meyer say, “Hey, what’s wrong?”
Turner went back to the base of the machine, looking at it, flicking buttons.
“I . . . I don’t know. There isn’t anything—”
Mattson coughed.
And then the whirring sound returned, but louder, crazed now. Out of control.
And the machine plunged down violently into the doll’s head, jabbing down as though stabbing at the doll. Meyer’s hand was still on it, trying to guide it. At first tiny sparks flew off the machine. Then more sparks, and bigger sparks, until Sullivan saw Meyer gyrating uncontrollably while holding onto the machine, as if he were a puppet being jerked around by some bored kid. The sparks flew into the air. They fell onto the floor, glowing for seconds at a time.
Meyer, with great effort, turned around and faced the observation booth, his hands still locked on the machine, frozen by the electricity running through the machine, right into him.
“Jesus . . . ,” Mattson said.
Meyer’s eyes bulged—right out, looking at Sullivan. Tiny plumes of smoke rose up from his body. And Sullivan had a creepy thought: At least we can’t smell anything in here.
Hal Turner ran over to Meyer, but Mattson screamed, “Don’t touch him!”
Then Sullivan heard a crackling noise, even louder than the machine’s whir. The lights flashed and Meyer came flying right off his feet. Like a man shot out of a cannon for an insane circus trick.
Mattson pulled Sullivan back just as the technician crashed through the glass.
He landed at Sullivan’s feet.
And then it was dark.
“We’ve blown the power! How the hell could we have—”
But Sullivan knelt down. He felt around the floor for Meyer’s body. His fingers touched the shards of glass. A toothpick-sized piece punctured his skin. Then another. Finally he felt Meyer. He felt the steady rise and fall of the man’s chest.
“He’s alive!” he shouted at Mattson. “Damn it, he’s alive! Call somebody. Do—”
He heard Mattson feeling along the nearby table. Then the chatter of a phone.
“We need a medic down in R and D! And hurry!”
Sullivan heard footsteps, then Turner spoke from outside the room.
“Is he all right?”
“Hal,” Sullivan said. “Do you have a flashlight in there?”
Sullivan heard the drawers of a nearby desk being opened. And then Turner’s voice—“Got it!”
A click, and a pitifully narrow beam of light escaped from a small flashlight. Turner trained it on Sullivan, then down to Meyer. “Is he okay? Did—” But he stopped.
Sullivan stopped breathing. Everyone stopped breathing . . .
There was sound. A small sound. Movement. From somewhere back near the lab bench. Turner quickly swiveled the light from Meyer back to the smoky blackness of the lab.
“What was that?” Turner said.
He brought the light up. Sullivan saw the outline of the machine, the drill. The prongs were empty.
There was no doll.
“It must have blown the doll away . . . ,” Mattson said hollowly.
But even as he said it they all heard more sounds, more little sounds, just like—
Sullivan shook his head. No. It’s just my imagination. I’m just all shaken up and—
“Oh, God. Oh, damn!”
It was Turner. He had dropped the flashlight. It clattered to the floor, and for a moment Sullivan thought it would go out.
“Something just stabbed my leg,” Turner screamed. “God, I think I’m cut.”
Then—from out of the smoky blackness—there was a buzzing noise again, and the lights flashed on. Sullivan blinked at the sudden glare.
The side door to the lab opened up, and two of the factory’s medics came running in.
And Sullivan saw what was sitting by the door.
It was the doll.
“What the hell?” Mattson said.
“Go get it,” Sullivan said. “Get it now!” he ordered Mattson.
Mattson nodded. He opened the door of the observation room. The broken glass crunched under his feet.
One of the medics went to Turner, while the other kneeled beside Meyer.
Sullivan watched Mattson. He seemed to be walking so slowly over to the doll, which was still sitting on the floor, right by the door. He stopped just in front of it, and then cautiously bent over . . . and picked it up.
Sullivan took a breath . . . and moved out of the observation room, to Mattson, who was turning around, holding the doll. Turning slowly, holding it at arm’s length.
All of a sudden it spoke.
“Hi,” it sang in that syrupy-sweet voice. The head swiveled left and right. The eyes blinked, once, and then again. “I’m Chucky, and I’m your friend to the end. Hidey-ho, ha-ha-ha!”
Mattson kept holding it away from himself as if it smelled bad.
Sullivan whispered to him. “Not a word of this to anyone, you understand? Not a good
goddamn word to anyone.” He took Mattson’s arm and squeezed it hard, enough to hurt. “You put a lid on this thing, you understand? You smother it. The newspapers will never hear about this, will they?”
Mattson shook his head. Sullivan let go of his arm. “I have to get ready for my meeting,” Sullivan said. He looked over at Turner, who had a blotched red bandage wrapped around his calf. “Are you okay, Hal?”
Hal Turner looked up and nodded. “Yes, but . . .”
“You must have leaned into some glass . . . ,” Sullivan said. “Gave you a nasty cut . . .”
Sullivan kept walking toward the door, out of the lab.
“But, Mr. Sullivan,” Mattson said. “What should I do with the doll? Will we still test it, or—”
Sullivan stopped, turned, and sneered at Mattson. That damned doll, he thought.
“I don’t care what you do with it, Mattson, Just make sure I never, ever see the damn thing again . . .”
Mattson nodded.
And Sullivan left the lab, the electrical smell following him out into the corridor.
He walked to the elevator, shaking his head, thinking, Hidey-ho indeed!
3
The man with the bushy beard said, “Got any jacks?”
Andy shook his head. “Go fish.”
“Arrgh,” the man growled. He liked to be called Ted. He told all the kids to call him Ted. But it was hard for Andy to call an adult by his first name, as if he were just another kid or something . . . as if he were like all the other kids in this place.
He wasn’t a kid.
He was something else.
And Andy knew that Ted played games with him only so he could talk to him. Ask him questions. Sometimes the same questions, over and over . . .
“Got any threes?” Andy asked.
“No way, jay.” Ted grinned, scratching at his beard. Then he looked up. He stopped, just holding his cards in front of him, and Andy knew it was “talking time.”
“So how are things going, Andy? Anything happen since we last talked?”
Andy tried hard to avoid Ted’s eyes. They were so blue, they could look right through him. Andy looked up from his cards, and then away. Over to the stone wall of the big room, painted with kids chasing a kite, a kitten playing with string, a big yellow sun. The pictures were much bigger than real life, but the colors were faded.
Finally Andy had to turn back, had to meet those eyes. “Mrs. Poole said I might be leaving . . .” Ted nodded. And Andy realized that Ted probably knew more about that than he did. “Yeah,” Andy went on, “just until my mom gets better.”
“Are you excited?”
Andy shrugged. “Sort of . . .”
Ted smiled. A big, happy smile, visible even under his fuzzy beard. “I bet you’re a bit nervous, too.”
Andy shrugged and then nodded. He was scared. He didn’t like the idea of living with strangers. He’d be living with some people who would pretend to be his parents. Foster parents, Grace Poole called them.
Only for a while, she said. Just for a while.
But maybe it would be better than here. Not that everyone here wasn’t nice and everything. They were. Real nice, except some of the kids. Some were mean. And others—
Last week a girl came to the center who was all bruised, as if she had fallen down the stairs, over and over. She didn’t talk. She just kept looking down at the ground. And there were some mean kids here. Kids who teased Andy. Kids who would jump in his face and scream, “I’m Chucky!” And then they would try to strangle him. And at night—
At night he hated this place. There were the sounds of footsteps in the hall. People moving around, secretively. The sounds scared him. Some of the kids even cried out, screaming. And Andy would wake up and hear those hushed adult voices that scared him so much.
And sometimes—on some nights—he was the one screaming. Calling out for somebody, anybody, to come and help him, to save him from—
“You’re a lucky guy,” Ted said. “I hear they have some real nice people picked out for you.” Andy nodded. “Real nice . . .” He saw Ted look down at his cards, but then Ted tilted his head to one side and looked back at Andy.
“How’s the sleeping been going . . . any more nightmares?”
Andy didn’t answer for a second. If he talked about it, if he talked about the dreams, they became too real. He might make them happen again. He wanted to forget about them during the day, when he was safe. Forget all about them.
“Sometimes . . . ,” he said quietly.
“Want to talk about it?”
Andy shook his head. Then he added, “No.”
Ted folded his hand up and held it tight. Andy understood that the game was over, and Ted wanted to do his real work.
“Talking can help, Andy. Talking can make the nightmares go away.”
Andy looked away, at the wall with the mural, at a table where another boy was playing a game with another adult. That boy was looking around too. He was being asked questions too.
And Andy looked over his shoulder, at the big mirror behind him, feeling weird, as if—
“You still dreaming about Chucky?”
Ted said his name. And just hearing it made Andy feel sick inside, the same way he had felt that night, watching his mother fight Chucky, trapping the doll in the fireplace.
She had reached out for the matches, looking at Andy.
I have to give them to her, he had thought then. But he just couldn’t move.
Until he looked at Chucky, screaming, yelling. Trapped behind the wire mesh in front of the fireplace. He wasn’t a Good Guy anymore.
Only when Andy grabbed the matches did the doll’s voice change, turning all sweet and nice again. “We’re pals,” he begged.
We’re pals.
In my dreams, Andy thought, Chucky gets out of that fireplace, still burning. And he comes for me, saying, “We’re pals. And now I’m going to get you.”
“I had a dream last night,” Andy said. He looked around. “I don’t want the other kids to know. They tease me about it . . .”
Ted shook his head. He was very serious now. “I won’t tell a soul. Promise.” He crossed his heart.
“I had this dream that Chucky got out of the fireplace and came after me . . . just like that night.”
Ted smiled. “But you know Chucky’s been destroyed, Andy. He’s in pieces, all melted. You saw him. You know that, Andy.”
“Yeah . . . but the bad man inside him is still there. He’s still there, inside Chucky. He’s killed lots of people and he’d going to come and get me.”
Ted moved his chair closer. It made a screeching sound against the linoleum. He was listening hard.
Even though Andy knew he had told this to him before.
I keep telling them, he thought. And they never believe me.
“He has to get me or else he’ll be trapped in the doll. He told me that when he said those words, that strange prayer he said when he held me down.” Andy stood up. “Because I was the first person he told his secret to.”
Ted reached up and took Andy’s hand. “Yes, Andy. I know. But that’s . . . that’s . . .”
Andy stood still. And he told Ted what he had told him before, what he had told all the others . . .
“He’s really Charles Lee Ray, you know, he’s really . . .” Andy felt his eyes going puffy. He sniffed and the air burned his nose.
“It was a dream,” Ted said soothingly. He tried to get Andy to sit down.
Andy nodded. Then he sat down.
“Yeah. That dream scares me. It always scares me.”
And Ted smiled again. “But dreams can’t hurt you, can’t hurt you at all, Andy. Now can they?”
Again, Andy nodded. “Right.”
Ted fanned open his hand, ready to get back to the game. While Andy thought, Dreams can’t hurt you.
But what if it isn’t a dream?
“He’s doing much, much better,” Grace Poole said. She turned back to Joanne and Phil Simpson. �
��I expect that he’ll do wonderfully with you folks.”
Joanne glanced at her husband. His face showed that he remained unconvinced.
But when Joanne looked out at Andy Barclay, she was thrilled. He was a beautiful boy, with large dark eyes and an intelligent, thoughtful expression. He was just the type of boy she would have liked to have had for her own.
But that was impossible.
She reached over and gave her husband’s hand a squeeze.
Mrs. Poole walked away from the one-way mirror. “He arrived in a terrible state, very traumatized. But he’s young and he’s bounced back marvelously.” The social worker smiled. “Once he’s in a healthy, normal environment, he should do wonderfully.” She focused on Joanne, as if sensing her need, her yearning. “You’ve done so well with the other children you’ve taken in . . .”
“There’s always room for one more,” Joanne said.
But then she felt Phil’s hand pull away from her. He walked closer to the glass, watching Andy talking to the child psychologist. “He seems normal enough . . .” Phil turned back to Mrs. Poole. “But how has all this affected him?”
“He still has dreams, terrible nightmares, usually the same one . . .”
“About the doll?” Joanne said.
“Yes—that it’s coming after him. And,” Grace Poole turned away, “he still maintains that the doll came to life, that it was really this Charles Lee Ray.”
The words made Joanne go cold. Everyone had seen the story in the newspapers. Then came the even more lurid speculation in the tabloids. They had heard about the deaths . . . and the boy who claimed that his doll was the Lakeshore Strangler.
But the Lakeshore Strangler was dead. He was killed inside a toy store, surrounded by a pile of Good Guy dolls. His victims had been part of some sick ritual. The tabloids said it was voodoo. But then those rags weren’t known for their thoughtful analysis.
As for Andy, it was probably just a case of another kid with too much time in front of the tube. Too much—
“And,” Mrs. Poole went on, “he says that the doll was trying to take his body, that the strangler was trapped in the doll and . . .”
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