Child’s Play 2

by Matthew J. Costello

  But again he wasn’t going to be able to reach it. He stopped—right in the station wagon’s path—and then bounced backward, falling on his rump.

  She passed him and again hit the brakes.

  She threw the car into drive and charged him again.

  Now she was close. Now there was no time left for the little bastard to get out of the way. She was heading right for him.

  And she saw something delicious in his face. Something wonderful, something that made her smile.

  Fear.

  That little creep is scared.

  He backed away, then moved left and right, trying to avoid the wheels of the station wagon. But Kyle kept swerving, making it hard for him to dodge them.

  Until the car was almost on top of him.

  Kyle used the wagon’s hood to aim the car. She heard a thud.

  But she hadn’t been looking ahead, beyond Chucky, to the curb, to the construction ditch by the side of the road.

  The car bounced up, on the sidewalk, and then it tilted, sliding into the ditch before it hit something that wouldn’t move.

  Kyle tried to turn the steering wheel, but her head had shot forward as the car stopped. Great red blotches swirled before her eyes. It was quiet. Her head throbbed.

  I got him, she thought. I got him.

  But then there was another voice, suggesting that you can never really get someone like Chucky. She shot up and looked at the rearview mirror.

  She saw him. Getting up once again, the indestructible Charles Lee Ray. A never-say-die kinda guy.

  She fumbled for the ignition, and grasping it, she went to start the car.

  It didn’t start.

  “Come on, come on, come on,” she said. She kept turning the ignition. The idiot lights would flash on brightly, and the engine would turn over with a sick grinding noise and then cough.

  She took her foot off the accelerator, trying to clear her head. I’m flooding it, she thought. I’m flooding the engine. She turned the key again and again.

  She watched Chucky pick up the switchblade. It glowed red, reflecting the wagon’s brake lights.

  She looked up, and now Chucky was nowhere to be seen. Kyle looked at the door locks, all of them open. She looked all around, expecting Chucky to leap up from anywhere and jab the knife—her knife—into her body.

  She slammed all the locks down, grunting as she reached.

  She waited, still trying the car engine, hearing the starter click more and more feebly as she drained the battery.

  Until she realized she had been sitting there for a long time.

  Waiting.

  He’s not here, she thought.

  She looked out the broken windshield and saw a familiar place. Just a little way up the street. She hadn’t even realized how close they were.

  There it was . . . the Children’s Crisis Center. She smiled at the thought. Does this qualify? Is this a crisis enough?

  He’s gone for Andy, she thought.

  She said his name. “Andy.”

  But I know how to get inside quicker. There are other doors, other ways—ways that Chucky wouldn’t know.

  She reached over her left shoulder and pulled up the door lock. And then slowly, feeling how her body ached, she popped the door open.

  She stepped out, into the ditch, her eyes fixed on the Children’s Center, looking for a sign of Chucky running to the building. The street was deserted. She went to slam the door shut.

  She turned, and there he was.

  Chucky—standing on the roof, a muddy, scraped-up kid who had been playing in the streets too long. He grabbed her hair and pushed the knife against her throat, grinning.

  She moaned.

  And Chucky, using her hair to force her head tight against the blade, said, “Olly-olly-oxen-free.”

  Andy heard Mrs. Poole’s steps in the hall. One of the kids had cried out in his sleep. They always did that here. This was a place where kids cried, where they had nightmares.

  He heard Mrs. Poole saying good night. Sleep tight. Trying to act as if she cared, as if she were a mom. But that’s all it was . . . an act. It was really just her job.

  He lay there, feeling how heavy his eyes were but not knowing whether he would be able to sleep. He wondered whether he should get up and check the door again, check that the chair was still wedged against the doorknob. Though he guessed that wouldn’t stop him. Not Chucky.

  Nothing could stop Chucky.

  And if I do go to sleep, he thought, how long will it be before I cry out, before I scream for help?

  He lay there, listening to the building, the tiny sounds, the creaks, the knocks, the terrible stillness of a building filled with sleeping kids.

  Then the bell began ringing.

  He shot up in bed.

  The bell was loud, ringing terribly clear and fast right outside his door. He heard it echo through the whole building, the ringing rumbling from other floors.

  Then he heard the screams of the kids. Running down the halls, their screams joining, turning into one more terrible sound.

  It’s the fire alarm, Andy thought. The fire alarm. The building’s on fire and I have to get out of it.

  He slid off the bed and moved to his door. In the darkness he didn’t see the chair at the door, and he bumped into it. He pulled at the chair but was surprised to feel how strongly it was locked under the doorknob. The kids’ screaming, and crying too, filled the hall outside now. He could imagine them, especially the little ones, not big seven-year-olds like himself, falling on the cold floor and lying there, waiting for someone to get them.

  He pulled at the chair again.

  And it moved, popped away. It sent Andy tumbling backward. He hurried to open his door. And when he did he saw the big kids, the teenagers, smiling. And some of them looked at him and yelled, “Fire drill!”

  Andy looked left and right, and then he sniffed the air. I don’t smell any smoke, he thought. I don’t smell anything burning. And I know what burning things smell like because I smelled Chucky burn. I know what that was like.

  He hesitated a moment and then joined the stream of kids running down the hall to the stairs.

  A few of the floor counselors held the hands of the really little kids, holding them tight. The bells kept ringing.

  Andy walked to the staircase. He saw the line of kids disappear, hurrying down to the first floor and out the door. He grabbed the railing and followed them.

  He was halfway down when he looked at the bottom of the stairs, where everyone was rushing out the door.

  Someone was standing there.

  Right at the bottom.

  Waiting for him.

  It was Kyle.

  He said her name as he took step after step down. “Kyle,” he said.

  And he saw who she had with her.

  He saw Chucky, held tight, his head right near her shoulder.

  He stopped moving.

  But Grace Poole came from behind him and grabbed his hand. “Come on, Andy. Let’s get down and see what’s going on here.”

  She tugged at his hand. He grabbed the railing. As hard as he could.

  Mrs. Poole turned and looked at him. “An-dy! Come on. We have to get out.” She tugged at him. “Out of the . . .” And again. “Building!”

  And this time his hand slipped off the rail, and she pulled him down the remaining steps, down to Kyle, down to Chucky.

  Mrs. Poole didn’t see them until she was at the hallway.

  “Kyle?” she said, looking up. “Kyle, what are you doing here?”

  Andy tugged against the woman, but her hand was locked on his.

  “What is this? What are you doing here, Kyle?”

  Kyle didn’t say anything. Andy saw a bloody mark on her head. Then he looked down at the broken glass at her feet. Mrs. Poole looked down and saw it too . . . and she looked back at the smashed glass window of the fire alarm.

  She dragged Andy a few steps closer. “You did this, didn’t you, Kyle? You came back her
e, and did this.”

  Mrs. Poole turned and told some of the counselors to get the children back inside. Then she pulled Andy along as she pushed Kyle into her office.

  Mrs. Poole moved closer to Kyle, and Andy wriggled on her arm, trying to squirm away. “Please,” he muttered.

  Kyle shook her head.

  Andy froze, watching her. Knowing what she was going to say.

  “He did it,” Kyle said. Nodding toward Chucky.

  “Wh—what?” Mrs. Poole said. Then, angry now, “What are you talking about? Is this your idea of a joke?”

  Andy watched her take another step closer to Kyle.

  Kyle was standing as if she were a statue. He saw Chucky—perfectly still. In one of Chucky’s hands he held something next to Kyle’s neck, something thin and black.

  “Your case worker will hear about this, Kyle. I can guarantee that. Just as soon as we get everything settled here.”

  She reached out and grabbed Chucky.

  “Give me that!” she said.

  Kyle moaned, “No.”

  Andy slipped out of Mrs. Poole’s grasp as she pulled Chucky from Kyle, not noticing that Chucky held something in his left hand.

  She looked down. Then she saw it.

  “What’s this? What in the world is this . . . thing?”

  “No!” Kyle yelled. Andy backed away.

  And Chucky came to life. He turned and looked right at Mrs. Poole. His fingers worked a latch at the end of the black thing, and a blade popped out, cutting right into Mrs. Poole. She gagged.

  “Amazingly lifelike, isn’t it?” Chucky said.

  He pulled the blade out and jabbed it in again, faster and faster and faster, while Andy watched, stumbling back, tripping on a chair, falling against the wall.

  In and out, and in and out, until the woman staggered around the room, grabbing at the air.

  Chucky used his free hand to hold onto her blouse, which had suddenly changed from a starched white to a gummy red. Mrs. Poole spit at the air, trying to say words.

  She tumbled toward a big gray machine in the corner.

  A copy machine, Andy knew. Her head slammed down on the flat surface of the machine, and she must have hit a button, because the machine shook and began making clicking noises.

  Papers began flying out of a slot in the end of the machine, piling up until they started slipping out of a small tray, dropping to the floor.

  They were pictures of Mrs. Poole’s face. Andy could see the pictures. They showed one big eye open. And lips pulled back from teeth, and great big blackish specks that—he knew—in real life were red.

  Someone grabbed his hand.

  Kyle.

  “Come on!” she said. She pulled him toward the door. Andy let himself be pulled, not really sure where she was taking him.

  After all, there’s no point in running, he thought. We know that now, don’t we? Just no point.

  “Come on!” Kyle yelled again.

  Kyle ran out of the office into the hall, pulling Andy behind her.

  25

  Andy saw Chucky’s small red sneaker kick the door, and slam it shut. It banged on Andy’s hand, separating him from Kyle.

  The door slammed shut.

  Then Andy felt the bloody blade against his throat. And he thought, This is Mrs. Poole’s blood. It dripped on Andy while all the time the copy machine kept whirring away, belching up pictures of the nice woman’s head.

  Chucky reached up and locked the door.

  There’s no way to escape Chucky, he knew. No way at all.

  He heard Kyle pounding on the door, screaming, “Andy! Open the door! Open the door!”

  The blade, the trick blade that popped out from nowhere like magic, pressed against his neck.

  And Andy stayed perfectly still.

  Kyle kept pounding.

  “Okay, sport,” Chucky hissed in his ear, “we’re going to have a little game of ‘Chucky says.’ You understand?”

  Andy nodded. Then he heard something, in the distance but growing louder.

  Sirens.

  He saw Chucky look at the window. The sirens were right outside. A red light flashed on and off, on and off in the room.

  “Shit!” Chucky cursed.

  It’s not nice to curse, Andy thought.

  Chucky shouldn’t do that. It’s just not . . . nice.

  The copy machine kept shaking and grumbling. The red light flickered on and off. Chucky turned to Andy, his face sneering. “Goddamn it.”

  Kyle kept pounding.

  Chucky tilted his head to the open window. “Chucky says, ‘Move your ass.’ ”

  Chucky directed Andy with the blade, guiding him over to where Mrs. Poole lay slumped. He had to step in a red pool on the green rug. It looked almost blackish. Andy stopped moving. He stood there and watched the woman’s lifeless body.

  It looked like something he might see in a museum. Some stuffed animal in the African Hall.

  Chucky slapped him.

  “Snap out of it! You act as if you’ve never seen a dead body before.”

  Andy reached up to the open window and grabbed the sill. He pulled himself up, helping by Chucky pushing from below.

  Friends to the end.

  Hidey-ho.

  The door was a solid piece of wood, and Kyle’s pounding was doing no good. She looked down at the doorknob, at the lock, and had an idea.

  She ran a hand through her hair and pulled out a bobby pin. Then she crouched in front of the lock. She bent the pin into a probe and began to dig around in the lock.

  Just like they do in the movies, she thought.

  But her fiddling did nothing.

  The door remained locked even after a few tantalizing clicks inside the lock.

  “Damn it,” Kyle whispered. “Give me a break.”

  She heard the sirens outside. Soon there would be police here, maybe firemen. They could chop the door with an ax.

  But by then it might be too late.

  She heard a different sound from the lock. A more solid click.

  She grabbed at the knob and gave it a violent twist.

  The door opened.

  She saw the empty office. And the open window . . . with the curtain blowing in the cool night breeze.

  “Move your ass, sport. Just keep going.”

  Andy nodded. Chucky was on Andy’s shoulder. He had his legs wrapped around him, and he had one arm on Andy’s neck. His other hand held the blade right next to Andy’s skin, jiggling up and down, scratching with every bouncy step Andy took.

  Andy let Chucky’s legs direct him. This must be what it’s like to be a pony, Andy thought. Kick—go left. Kick—go right. And then—a tiny press of the blade.

  Don’t you dream of stopping, kiddo.

  They passed the kids who were standing on the lawn, laughing now. It was like a party out here with the bright lights from the fire trucks and the scary costumes of the fire fighters who were running in and out of the building.

  Andy saw a little kid crying, looking around for anyone bigger to pick him up.

  But Chucky just kept him moving away from the corner, off the lawn, and down the street. Until the sounds faded, and all he heard was the rustle of Chucky’s Good Guy corduroys rubbing against his neck.

  Chucky gave him a sharp kick. Andy, who had been running, looking down at the sidewalk, looked up and saw a van . . . just ahead.

  The back door was open.

  “There we go, sport.” Chucky whispered in his ear. Then, “Now get the hell inside . . . and hurry.”

  Andy nodded, making the blade scratch his neck again.

  Kyle got to the window and looked out. For a second she couldn’t see anything, just the lawn filled with out-of-control kids and all the firemen. The red lights kept flashing in her face, blinding her.

  Then, all the way across the lawn, she saw someone running away.

  For a second she thought it was an adult. It had to be an adult. Too tall for Andy, or Chucky.

  She
watched the figure for a few more seconds. And she knew who it was. Chucky. Riding on Andy’s back. Using him like some sick animal to carry him away.

  She started to go out the window . . .

  And then hesitated.

  He’s not my kid, she thought, he’s just another kid with no one who cares about him.

  So why should I get bashed around anymore for him?

  It’s not my problem.

  But then she thought, That’s just it. He’s got no one. Just like me. He’s all alone.

  “The hell he is,” she said to herself, and she climbed out the window.

  Kyle had to weave her way through the kids, nearly knocking some of them down, stepping around giddy groups of boys and girls.

  She followed Andy and Chucky to the sidewalk. He hasn’t seen me, she thought. And I know I can go faster than Andy. He’s just a little kid, he . . . he’s just seven.

  She saw them, closer now.

  And she saw the van with the open back.

  Andy ran up to it and popped the back door open further.

  “No,” she said, running full out, as fast as she could, gasping for air.

  Those lousy cigarettes! she thought, fighting for wind, feeling the terrible burn in her lungs.

  She watched Andy carry Chucky into the back of the van.

  And then the door slammed closed.

  A man hurried out of a building and got into the front.

  “Hey!” she yelled at him. “Hey you!” she yelled again. But she heard his door close. She knew he hadn’t heard her. “Stop!” she yelled.

  The engine started up. The lights came on.

  No, she thought. Don’t pull away.

  She was almost to the van. She saw Andy’s face against the glass and, right next to him, Chucky. Leering, grinning at her.

  As the van’s engine revved up.

  She saw the switchblade against Andy’s neck. He’s not crying, she saw. Why isn’t Andy crying?

  The van screeched away, and Kyle staggered to a stop . . . gasping for breath.

  But no, she thought. I can’t stop. I can’t.

  The van disappeared down the street.

  Kyle found Joanne’s wagon where she had left it, in the ditch, looking dead and useless. She saw the windshield, the tiny shards of glass littering the front seat.