He moved right to the closet door. Listening.
Hearing nothing.
And then he crouched down and put his eye right up to the keyhole. And looked into the dark closet.
18
A glassy blue eye looked right back.
And a voice—from inside the closet—said, “Peek-a-boo!”
Andy screamed. He rolled back on his butt, hitting the wood floor hard. And still he screamed, looking at the keyhole, imagining that he saw a glint of blue in the black spot.
“Help!” Andy yelled. And then louder, screaming. He heard his voice echo off the high ceiling. As he sat there yelling and crying, he looked down at his hands and saw that he was clawing at the wood, as if trying to hold on . . . or crawl away.
He heard the voice again. From inside the closet. Sweet. Helpless.
“Andy, please. Let me out, Andy. Come on, Andy. It’s dark in here. I’m scared of the dark. Please . . . Andy.”
Andy clawed at the wood some more. He looked up at the door of the classroom. It looked so far away, and the closet door seemed so close.
“Hey, Andy, I’m tired of fighting. Let’s make up and be friends again.” He sounded just like the nice Good Guys on the TV show. Nice, and friendly.
“What do you say, Andy, huh?”
Andy tried to scream, but his voice sounded all dry and cracked. “Help me! Someone! Chucky’s here . . . please!”
And he was answered.
From inside the closet.
As Chucky—and he knew it was Chucky—started pounding on the door. Pound. Pound. Pound. His little fists making the door rattle on its hinges. Andy imagined that he could see the wood bulge . . . splinter . . . break.
He got up and ran to the classroom door. He looked over his shoulder at the closet. Chucky kept pounding. He screamed, “Okay, I promise I won’t kill anyone else . . . promise, you understand. So okay, now, open the door.”
Andy turned the classroom door knob. But it didn’t move.
“No,” he moaned. And again, “No . . .” He kept twisting the knob, back and forth, but nothing happened. She wouldn’t have locked me in here, he thought. She wouldn’t have done that.
“You heard me!” Chucky bellowed. “I promise . . . you little shit, now open the door!”
It wouldn’t open. Andy slowly turned to face the closet door. It was the only thing he saw in the room. There were no toys, no books, no desks, no chalkboard. Just this one door with peeling green paint. And the terrible screaming.
“God damn it! Let me out!”
It wasn’t a Good Guy voice anymore.
Andy watched the door bend each time Chucky beat against it. I could count, Andy thought. Count to ten. And then he’ll stop . . . or the door will just explode open.
He heard the sound of a school bus outside, struggling to move away from the school. Andy looked toward the window. He licked his lips, frozen for a second, but then he dashed over to it. He grabbed the metal handles of the window and tried to push it open. But nothing happened.
“Andy, open it now—or else!”
He looked up. He saw that the window latch was closed. He reached up on his tiptoes, but he was way short of reaching it.
The pounding seemed to be coming faster, like drums, or a train, picking up speed. Andy thought he heard the wood splitting. But he didn’t turn around. Instead, he grabbed one of the kids’ chairs and pulled it close to the window.
There, Andy thought, climbing up but listening carefully to the noise behind him. That was definitely wood cracking, breaking.
Please, God, don’t let Chucky out. Please, God, he thought. If you don’t let Chucky out, I’ll be good the rest of my life. I’ll be a good boy and . . .
He tugged at the window latch. It wouldn’t move. More splintering. Then another tug. He grunted and it moved sluggishly.
Just enough, he thought.
He hopped down from the chair and pushed open the window. It was hard getting the window to move even just a little bit. But Andy used his whole body to push upward on it. With the window open, he smelled the air, and a bit of the bus exhaust.
He took a breath and crawled through the open space. He was almost all the way out when something grabbed his foot and held it.
It was only that his shoelaces were caught in the windowsill. He jiggled his foot, the shoe came free, and he slid over the side to safety.
Miss Elizabeth Kettlewell walked down the hall, the clicking of her heels matched by the clucking of her tongue.
Whatever has happened to school? she thought. There was a day when the principal was the final arbiter, a teacher’s best ally in the battle for the minds of kids. But now it’s all so different. This new principal—so incredibly young—just yessed her to death and said, “I’m sure you can handle it, Miss Kettlewell.”
And yes I can, she thought. Discipline might be gone from the rest of the world, but not here. Not in my class. She got to her door, turned the knob, and tugged.
Darn, it always sticks. These old doors, this old school. She pulled hard, and the door opened with a loud thwack that reverberated in the empty corridor.
She thought she heard something . . . someone. A pounding. From inside the classroom, she wondered . . . or down the hall?
She looked down the bleak corridor. Only half the lights were on—an energy conservation measure. It made the school hall a gloomy place in the afternoon. Of course she was usually the only one left. The younger teachers wasted no time in getting out, getting home. Such dedication.
But she stayed. Correcting papers. Straightening up her room. Besides, she admitted, there wasn’t much for her to go home to.
She walked into her classroom.
“I’ve called your . . . ,” she started to say. But she didn’t see Andy Barclay. Then she heard the pounding . . . coming from the closet.
That bad boy, she thought. Those foster kids are always so . . . bad.
She started for the door, saying loudly, over the pounding now, “Andy, I told you to stay in your seat. Now, come out of there. Right now!”
She waited for the boy to come out, but he just kept pounding at the door. Miss Kettlewell shook her head and grabbed the doorknob. She twisted it.
But it was locked.
Right, she thought. I locked it.
It didn’t occur to her to think how Andy had got in there and locked the door again.
“Andy, open the door!” she ordered.
More pounding, as she dug out her key. She stuck it into the lock.
The pounding stopped, and she unlocked the door and twisted the knob.
The door creaked open, the only sound now that the pounding had ceased.
She had expected to see Andy standing there, right at the door. Embarrassed that he’d got himself locked in the closet . . . somehow.
But she didn’t see anyone. She peered into the gloomy darkness. She smelled the old abandoned sweaters, the rubber kick balls, and the hidden smell of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich left behind weeks, even months ago.
She didn’t see Andy.
Her hand was on the doorknob.
“Andy,” she said a bit more quietly. “I want you to come out this . . . very second.”
Nothing. She took a step into the blackish gloom of the closet. The single light was a few feet away, its string dangling down from the ceiling like a fishing line. She stepped over old, dusty jackets, puzzles, and balls piled on the floor.
“Andy,” she said again.
She saw field hockey uniforms and costumes from last year’s play hanging to the side. She reached in and pushed them aside, thinking, That would be a good place to hide. And, What a bad boy this new child is. I’m not sure I can spend my last year with such a . . .
She pushed the uniforms quickly aside. They slid noisily to the left and right.
But there was no one there. She breathed again. And then turned.
Something fell from a top shelf.
She yelped, and fell again
st the wall. A kick ball flew past her and bounced on the floor with a noisy and deep boing.
It bounced up to the height of her shoulders, and she reached out and caught it, smiling to herself, thinking that she was far too jittery.
“Andy, where are you? Where . . .”
She turned around and faced a large archery target used by the upper school, which was always storing things in this big closet. The target was red, white, and blue, the colors dull.
Something moved from behind it, something small, popping out from behind the target.
“What?” she mumbled.
It was a small boy, very small, with red hair and—
“Class dismissed!” he yelled.
And he leaped at her.
She backed up. She stumbled on the balls. But even as she reached out to catch herself, to stop her fall, she saw something in the boy’s hands. A long cylindrical object with a hose dangling from it, ending in a pin.
The pump. For all the balls, she thought. The air pump.
But this small boy . . .
No, it’s not a boy. It’s that doll, the one I threw in the closet. A doll . . .
It landed on her and knocked her against the shelves. A row of books and balls tumbled to the ground, and the doll stuck something in her. The needle. The hose. The pump.
She fell to the ground.
This isn’t happening, she thought. Dolls don’t do this. It’s Andy in a mask, a costume. Yes, that’s what it is.
The pin punctured the skin, and she felt the wetness of her chest, so wet, so messy.
I’ll never get that stain out, she thought. Never.
She grabbed at the air pump but the doll—Andy—held it tight, digging it into her skin, like a dentist way off the mark.
I’ve had nasty foster children in my class before, but this . . .
He stood on her body. His sneakers did not feel heavy on her pelvis. He wasn’t heavy, certainly not as heavy as a boy. It felt more like a . . .
Doll.
“No,” she moaned. She watched the doll smile. A horrible smile, worse than any leer she had ever seen before. He started to raise the plunger. Slowly, his grin growing wider.
“No!” she begged.
And up now, all the way to the top. Stopping. The doll flashed teeth. They weren’t real teeth. Even in the darkness she could see that. They had to be plastic.
The doll pushed the plunger down fast. And Miss Kettlewell felt her wound puff up and explode, the air stretching her skin, pulling it.
She screamed. She raised her fists against the doll, missing, hitting the wood floor. She heard the doll laughing, cackling. It snapped the pin out of her wound, and the hose whipped into the air sending a spray of blood onto her face, onto her dry lips.
She grunted, and with a tremendous effort, she pushed her body off the pile of balls and books.
The doll flew backward, rolling toward the target.
She tried to stand. But that was impossible. There’s no way I can stand, she knew. No way at all. But I can crawl. Yes, she thought, starting to move over the clutter. I can crawl. And beg . . .
“Please . . . ,” she moaned, always moving. Arm. Knee. Arm. Knee. “Somebody . . . help me . . .”
She was out of the closet, and she saw the open door. She picked up speed.
If I get there, I’ll be safe, she told herself. Just a few more feet now, a few more . . .
She felt her knees sliding on slimy wet patches, sliding on the blood dripping from her wound.
The custodians don’t like messes, she thought. And this will be such a very big mess.
Almost there. She could see the corridor—she saw a bright red exit sign. Someone would hear her. She’d scream so loud that someone in the office would have to . . .
Hear her!
She reached the door.
From the corner of her eye she saw a small red sneaker. She watched it kick the door away from her hands.
When she looked up he was standing there, his back to the door, facing her.
“No!” she moaned, and she spun around and started back.
The window, I saw an open window. I can get out. Call for help.
She wet herself like a madwoman.
When she turned back to see where the doll was, she saw him run and then slide on the waxy floor—right beside her.
“Wheee,” he said.
But she kept on going, through the path between the students’ desks, until she saw the window. Oh, yes, someone will hear, she knew.
She reached the wall, and her hands clawed upward, up to the windowsill.
I’ll pull myself up, she told herself. And . . .
She saw a reflection in the glass of the window. A yardstick. And not just any old yardstick. One of those special yardsticks. With his picture on it. The doll’s face—dozens of them.
It slapped down on her hands just as she pulled at the windowsill.
“Oh,” she moaned. And then again, harder, smacking her knuckles.
“You’ve been very naughty, Miss Kettlewell. Very . . .”
Whack. The yardstick smacked her knuckles. Looking up, she saw tiny red trails run down her wrist, her arm.
“Naughty.”
And again the doll smashed her. And again, and again, until her hands let go.
No one will hear me now, she knew. No one.
He stopped thwacking her hands and started beating her stomach with the stick, and her wounds, then up to her head.
“You’ve been very naughty,” the doll shrieked, “and you have . . .” Thwack. “. . . to be taught . . .” Thwack. “. . . a lesson.”
She brought her arms up, slowly, to keep the blows from her face, her eyes. But he kicked her arms away as the yardstick kept going up and down, up and down, smacking at her head, her stomach.
After each terrible whack, she screamed. Until she couldn’t scream anymore. And she could only lie there. Her mouth full. Bloody and full.
Her arms lay flat on the ground, useless, and she let this thing, this doll, finish what he was having so much fun doing.
19
Joanne watched Phil walk up to the house as she chewed at her lower lip, imagining how he would react when she told him the latest news. The latest incident involving Andy.
He opened the front door and came into the house, a broad smile on his face.
Which melted as soon as he looked at Joanne.
Slowly, he put down his attaché case and asked, “What’s wrong?”
“It’s Andy,” she sighed. “He’s locked himself in the bathroom.”
“Damn.” Phil shook his head disapprovingly. “I told you this just wasn’t going to work. That boy has too many problems.”
Phil turned and started quickly up the stairs, his face determined.
Joanne followed but even before she got to the top of the stairs, she heard Phil’s heavy knocks and his voice, low, serious. It was Phil’s no-nonsense voice.
“Andy? Andy!” There was no answer. “Andy, what’s the trouble?”
Then—after a long pause—she heard Andy answer. “I’m not coming out.”
Phil sighed and turned back to Joanne. He looked about as fed up as she’d ever seen him. He looked as if he was about to say something to her, but instead he turned back to the door.
“Andy, remember what I told you about locking doors. We don’t lock doors in this house, son. Now come on out.” Phil paused, waited. Then he added, “No one’s going to hurt you.”
Phil waited. Joanne heard a sound from behind her. She turned and saw Kyle, standing well away, watching the scene.
Phil banged on the door again, violently, scaring Joanne. And, she thought, it has to be scaring Andy.
“Andy, you get out here right now!”
He’s going to bust it down, she thought. He can do it. Phil’s big enough, strong enough, to bust the door right down.
But then she heard a tiny click. The door squeaked open. She saw Andy’s eyes, so dark and beautiful, lookin
g out through the crack.
And—so slowly—he opened the door the rest of the way and, looking left and right, came out.
He looked up at Phil.
“What’s this all about?” Phil said.
“Chucky—he followed me to school.”
At the word Chucky, Joanne saw Phil shake his head and push his hair off his forehead. He’s had more than enough of this, she knew. And—maybe—so have I.
“He followed me, and he tried to get me again. So I ran home.”
Phil turned and fixed Joanne with a disgusted look. “Do you know what he’s talking about?”
Joanne nodded. He’s going to love this, she thought. Just love it.
“His teacher called—Miss Kettlewell—and she said . . .” She felt Andy watching her. “. . . Said that she was keeping Andy after school for detention. She said Andy wrote an obscenity on his math paper.”
Andy exploded. “Chucky did it!” he screamed. And again, “Chucky did it!”
“Oh, Christ,” Phil muttered. He reached out and put a hand on Andy’s shoulder. Andy was crying, looking at both of them.
Looking for one of us to believe him, Joanne knew. But that was impossible.
“I’m telling the truth!” he said.
Joanne nodded and tried to smile.
“This way, Andy,” Phil said, and he guided Andy down the hall, to the stairs.
“Go ahead, Andy. Open the door.”
Phil had marched Andy right in front of the cellar door.
“Phil, maybe it’s not such a good idea.”
Phil waved Joanne away. His hands kept Andy locked in position, facing the door. Joanne felt the boy’s horror, his terror at the idea of opening it. “Phil,” she started to say again.
“Please, Joanne,” he snapped. Then back to Andy, whispering in his ear, “Go ahead, son. Open it.”
She watched Andy’s hand slowly rise to the doorknob.
“That’s it,” Phil ordered. “Open it.”
Andy reached out and grabbed hold of the doorknob. He gave it a furious twist.
The door opened with a creak that made Joanne’s skin crawl. She saw Andy step back. She came closer, to look over his shoulder. Down to the cellar.
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