Child’s Play 2

by Matthew J. Costello

  She watched Andy study the picture. He put a hand on a corner of the book and tilted it down to see better. Sitting close to him, in his bed, Joanne could smell his clean hair from his long bath. It had been a good day. He had played outside, and she had heard him laughing with Kyle. At dinner, everyone seemed happy. Almost like a real family, she thought. Even Kyle was so sweet, so polite.

  Andy flopped back on his pillow.

  Right beside Tommy. He and the doll seemed inseparable now. And that, she thought, was good. It would make Phil feel so much better. There’s nothing wrong with this boy that a little love won’t fix.

  She looked at her watch and then shut the book.

  “And they all lived happily ever after,” she said.

  Andy held the bedclothes tight against his chin. “No, they don’t,” he said.

  Joanne smiled at him. “What do you mean, Andy? Of course they do.”

  “Did you see Humpty?” He grinned. “I don’t think he’ll be living happily ever after.”

  She smiled. “Well, they do for now. We’ll read some more tomorrow night, okay?” She ran a hand across his fine hair. He nodded and smiled, squeezing his eyes shut.

  She reached over and turned out the bedside lamp. And in the sudden darkness, for a moment, all she could see was the doll’s glistening marble eyes. A pale blue glow from the night-light was blocked by the bed.

  “Remember,” she said. “Kyle is in the next room . . . and we’re just down the hall. If you need us, for anything, just holler. Deal?” Andy opened his eyes and nodded. “We’ll be here in three seconds flat.”

  She leaned close, hesitated a moment, but then kissed Andy on the forehead.

  “Good night, M—” He hesitated. And then said, “Good night, Joanne.”

  “Good night, Andy.”

  I wish he had said it, she thought. I wish he had said that word.

  Mom.

  She smiled at him. Before she got up she straightened the bedclothes around Andy and then around the doll. She rubbed the doll’s head, feeling the stiff, synthetic hair. “I’m glad to see you’ve made a friend here.”

  She saw a bit of a smile on Andy’s face. Then she stood up and left the room.

  He counted, waiting for Joanne to walk down the hall and then down the stairs. He listened for her voice talking to Phil. She’s nice, he thought. I’m lucky. Kyle says that there are a lot of mean—really mean—foster parents. But Joanne is nice. And Phil, well, he’s okay.

  He waited until he was sure Joanne was all the way downstairs. Then he slid out of the warm bed, dragging Tommy behind him, pulling the doll by its hair.

  Guess I got a new friend, Joanne had said.

  She has that wrong, he thought.

  He hurried to the chest of drawers and opened the bottom drawer, empty except for a few pairs of socks. He pushed Tommy into the drawer and then slammed it shut. It didn’t shut all the way. Something—a hand, maybe a foot—caught, but Andy hurried back to the safety of his bed. He pulled his covers tight and shut his eyes.

  Now I can sleep, he thought.

  He lay there, trying not to think bad things . . . things that would keep him up.

  But he heard a sound. A thumping sound.

  From over there. From over by the dresser.

  His eyes popped open. “No,” he whispered—prayed. Please, no, he thought. I’m just imagining this. That’s all.

  He leaned up, looking into the darkness. The blue night-light lit only a tiny spot on the wall by the foot of the bed. He couldn’t even see the bureau.

  I’ve got to look, he told himself. I’ve got to. ’Cause if I don’t, maybe the doll will come to life and get out of there, in the middle of the night.

  I have to make sure.

  He would have liked to reach out and turn on the light. But Joanne or Phil might see that. Besides, with the night-light he could see pretty well, he told himself.

  And he saw the drawer closed tight.

  I thought it got stuck earlier, he thought. It didn’t close all the way . . . did it?

  He slid out of bed. The wood floor was cold on his feet. He started for the bureau, but then he stopped and grabbed a magnifying glass on the end table. He had played with it that afternoon, looking at all sorts of things: the grain on the wood, the forest inside the carpet downstairs, the jungle in the grass.

  He moved closer to the bureau, and when he got there he reached down for the handle on the bottom drawer. He took a breath.

  Please be there, he thought. Please be there.

  He pulled it open as fast as he could.

  And the doll was there, lying face up with that same stupid expression on its face.

  Andy started breathing again. He leaned forward, the magnifying glass held out in front of him. He moved closer until he was right over the doll’s face. He suspended the magnifying glass right over one of the doll’s eyes, and then the other. They seemed to catch the blue light, and they sparkled with a deep blue glow, like the sky at night, filled with stars.

  It’s just a doll, Andy told himself for the thousandth time.

  And then he blinked.

  And the head turned to him.

  He tried not to yell, to squeal.

  “Hey, wanna play?” it said. Andy dug around to the back of the doll. He felt the battery compartment, and he fiddled with the latch. The small door popped open and he felt the two big batteries.

  “No,” Andy whispered to it. He shut the battery compartment and again slammed the chest drawer closed.

  He ran back to the bed, back to the cold sheets, thinking, Now I’ll be able to sleep.

  Joanne stopped the sewing machine. She thought she heard something. But then the wind blew against the window. A tiny breeze sneaked through a crack.

  She leaned forward and pulled the drapes across the window.

  Then Phil announced, “There we go, babe. Good as new.”

  She turned and looked at the statue. From across the master bedroom, she couldn’t see the web of cracks that covered it. It had been one of her favorites, for what she knew must be very transparent reasons.

  “Now, just have to . . .” Phil started lowering the repaired statue to the small rolltop desk near the bed. “. . . let it set for a year or two.”

  He gingerly slid it onto the desk. “There,” he said happily. “Good as old!”

  But then Joanne heard the statue land against the wood, a loud sound, and the mother holding her child fell apart, some pieces flaking off, while others, covered with the porcelain glue, melted away.

  “Damn,” he said. He looked up at Joanne. “I was being so careful . . .”

  “Never mind,” she said. “Give it up, honey.”

  Phil looked down at the pieces lying on the table. “It’s worth a lot of money.”

  “It was worth a lot of money. Now it’s a wreck.”

  She saw that Phil looked as disappointed as she felt. She picked up her handiwork from the insectlike nose of her Singer portable. “Hey, how do you like this?”

  Phil stood up and walked over to her. “What is it?” he said.

  “It’s a blouse.” She laughed. “See, the arms will go here and there. And the front—”

  “Oh, I see it now.” He rubbed his hands on his sweat pants, and dried glue flaked off his fingertips.

  “It’s for Kyle,” she said. “Think she’ll like it?”

  He shrugged. “Hey, what do I know about teenage girls?”

  “A lot more than you did three weeks ago.”

  He walked away and then fell back on the bed. “I’m not too sure about that.”

  She put the blouse down and followed him.

  “Phil, I’ve been thinking that maybe . . .” She came to the side of the bed, standing next to Phil. “That we could get something for Andy, something to make him welcome.”

  Phil looked up, grinning. “How about a Valium?”

  “Very funny. But I mean it. He’s such a sweet boy, away from his mom. And he gets scared
so easily, I . . .”

  She looked down at Phil. Her husband had started staring straight ahead, and then he opened his mouth, curling back his lips to expose his fangs. He stuck his arms out. “I’m coming to get you,” he said in a low near-Transylvanian accent. “And then I’ll get the boy.”

  “Phil!” She laughed. He stood up and started lumbering toward her. She stood there, letting his zombie arms encircle her, while he prepared to nuzzle her neck. “You have such beautiful veins for sucking blood . . . ,” he said.

  She giggled as he kissed her neck and turned her around, ready to throw her down on the bed and, she guessed, ravish her in classic B-movie fashion . . .

  He wriggled in the drawer.

  It wouldn’t open. It was like some kind of Chinese trick door. I’m in here—now how the hell do I get out?

  He rolled his body—his plump, little doll’s body that seemed to have more and more feeling—back and forth, rattling around.

  But the damn drawer didn’t budge.

  Okay, he thought. Not the first time I’ve been in a tight spot. Just have to concentrate . . . relax.

  He brought his hands up to the top of the drawer. He felt the wood bars running over the drawer, and then the bottom of the drawer just overhead.

  There, he thought. I’ve got an idea.

  He grabbed one of those struts and used it to inch his drawer open. For a moment it seemed too heavy to move. But then he felt it slide just a bit.

  Nothing like a little concentration to solve a problem.

  He grinned. Concentration can be your best friend. And he thought, with pleasure, about the first offering he had made to Damballa . . .

  The woman had turned out to be stronger than he had imagined. She actually fought back, punching at his face, his balls, before she ran down the stairwell, screaming.

  People would come out of their apartments, he worried. And that would spoil the sacrifice.

  But it was too late. Rabbit people mind their own business. Good, God-fearing, tax-paying wimps mind their own small-minded business.

  That was one of the first things he had learned.

  So he took his time chasing her, letting her think she might get away, down the stairs, then through the basement. Why would she go in the basement, he wondered. But then he figured out a reason.

  And all because he took time to concentrate, to think. Yes, he thought, she was going to run through the basement to another set of stairs, and then into the other side of the building. Right up those stairs . . . to the elevator, to her apartment, to safety.

  He nearly tripped over her high-heel shoes on the way down. But he didn’t follow her beyond that. Instead, he stopped. He ran back up.

  And he was there, waiting for her, when she started coming up the other side of the building. It was too funny! She nearly ran into him. She almost—he smiled at this—thought he was a neighbor, someone who could help her. But one look at him and she dropped that notion.

  I don’t look like a neighbor, he thought. Too many nights sleeping with the rats. Too many winters wearing layers and layers of other people’s clothes to keep warm. Dead people’s clothes. Filled with their smell. Sometimes even the smell of their fear.

  He actually liked that smell, but no, he didn’t look like anybody’s neighbor.

  She backed away. And Charles Lee Ray began saying those words taught him by the holy man, the gris-gris shaman who had taught him about the power.

  Never for humans, he had said. It would be an abomination to do the ritual sacrifice with humans.

  Not for what I want to do, Charles Lee Ray thought.

  The woman screamed. He saw that she wasn’t young, but she was strong. Maybe she was a jogger, maybe a weight-lifter. Now she cowered in the stairwell, cornered.

  He finished the first prayer.

  Damballa gora stamba, keynu!

  Mighty Damballa, grant me the power.

  And he felt the gris-gris—the dark magic—all through his body, almost sexual, as his hands closed around the woman’s neck.

  And he repeated the chant, over and over, louder than the woman’s sputtering. Even her kicks didn’t bother him. This was just too wonderful.

  And it was only the beginning.

  His patient work was rewarded. The drawer was open. He saw a bluish light, the window, and the outline of Andy’s bed.

  He waited a moment—just to make sure that the little bastard wasn’t there, waiting for him, ready to ram an ice pick into his nice new head.

  Then he sat up.

  Chucky relaxed his face, that stupid doll face, letting the puffy-smile cheeks go flat. He saw the top of the bed and Andy’s sleeping body only a few feet away. He’s asleep, Chucky thought. Perfect. I have all the time in the world.

  He thought happily of the first thing he’d do, right after the change. Yes, right after he took over Andy’s body, and poor Andy’s soul was forever imprisoned in the Good Guy. Why, he thought, I’ll just have to smash the doll into a million pieces. I’m sure any shrink would understand my anger.

  Chucky grinned in the eerie glow.

  15

  Phil worked his hands under her faded Northwestern U shirt, expertly covering both her breasts. He tweaked her nipples too roughly.

  But then Joanne thought that maybe she just wasn’t in the mood.

  His knee was grinding away in her crotch. He nibbled her ear.

  But then he stopped and leaned back. He gave her a long, hard look. “What’s the matter?” he said.

  “Nothing,” she said, turning away.

  But she knew he wouldn’t buy that. She wasn’t a prissy lover. He liked to joke that it wasn’t at all hard to get her motor going. And that was true. And now . . .

  “Come on. Yes, there is something wrong. What is it?”

  She sighed. “That woman called—the one from the adoption agency . . .”

  He waited, to let her get the story out.

  “She said that . . .” Now she looked away. “We were turned down again.”

  He touched her cheek. She wished he hadn’t done that. She couldn’t stand him being sweet and gentle, not now. Not today.

  “Honey,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

  “The woman said that there just aren’t that many kids to be had. We’re still on a wait list. If they get a good match up, someone that they . . .”

  Phil sat up and shook his head. “Damn, how long have we been on that wait list? For over a year? And what else do you have to prove to them? You’ve quit your job, you take these kids in from the center, you stay here and take care of other children. And you get your heart broken every time. What the hell else do they want to see?”

  “They know all that. It’s in our folder. But . . . we just have to wait . . . like everyone else.”

  Phil stood up. He walked to the desk and fingered the broken statue. “Yeah, well I hate waiting.” He turned back to Joanne. “And I hate seeing you go through this over and over.” He paused. And she knew what he was going to say next. “It has to stop, Joanne. It’s just too painful, for you.”

  But she sat up and shook her head. “No, Phil. I’m still . . . happy. I love taking these kids in. Honest! We’re making a difference in their lives, a real difference. Look at Andy. He needs our love, our home. And he’s trying so hard to fit in and please us. I think he really likes it here . . . he really likes us.”

  Phil shook his head.

  Then he said, “I’m happy if you’re happy.”

  She smiled. “I am. You’ll see. Everything’s going to turn out fine . . . just fine . . .” She raised her arms to her husband.

  And Phil smiled and walked back to their bed.

  There was something wrong.

  Andy tried to breathe through his mouth. But he felt something, tasted something inside his mouth. He tried to move, but something was holding him.

  Just another nightmare, he thought.

  But then he opened his eyes.

  And he saw the sock—one of hi
s socks—stuffed in his mouth, bulging out of his face like a giant wart. And his hands and feet were tied to the bed.

  He felt something moving on his chest.

  He tried to squeal, to cry out, but only the smallest muffled sound escaped the sock.

  The thing on his chest moved, crawling up close to his face, closer, until he saw the head, outlined in blue.

  “Surprise!” Chucky said.

  “No,” Andy cried, but the sock muffled it. Then he begged God. Please . . . don’t let this be happening.

  The doll’s body felt heavy on his chest. It was real . . . real!

  Andy snorted at the air. He tried pulling against the sheets that held him fast to the bed. But he only made his wrists and ankles hurt.

  Chucky leaned real close to him. Andy smelled him—the plastic, and a wet smell.

  “Did you miss me, Andy? I sure missed you.”

  Please, God, let this be a dream, Andy thought. Just another dumb nightmare. But it all felt too real—the sheets knotted to his wrists, the chunky body sitting on him. This was real.

  He started to cry.

  I thought it was over. I thought it was all . . .

  “I told you we’re friends to the end. And now, it’s time to play.”

  He watched the doll face break into a mean smile. And Andy could see those teeth, those shiny white plastic teeth that were so good at biting.

  He watched the teeth move up and down.

  “I’ve got a new game, sport. It’s called ‘Hide the Soul.’ And guess what? You’re it.”

  The grin grew wider and Andy screamed. But almost no sound escaped the sock in his mouth.

  He watched Chucky reach out a hand toward his head. He’s going to kill me, Andy thought. He’ll strangle me. He’s strong, and he’ll wrap his hands around my neck, and maybe he’ll bite me.

  But all Chucky did was touch Andy’s forehead.

  Andy could strain his eyes upward and see the plastic hand pressing against his head, and the T-shirt, the stripes so dull in the dark room.

  He looked back to Chucky’s face. The doll blinked and then seemed to look up.

  “Ade due Damballa . . . ,” Chucky said.