Fetch

by Scott Cawthon

  “No! No, don’t call her,” Oscar said, and they both looked worried again.

  “What if your brain shorted out or something?” Raj said.

  “I’d still be smarter than you,” Oscar murmured.

  “He’s fine,” said Isaac.

  Oscar tried the light switch by the door. “Dead.”

  Isaac tried the remote for the television, but the screen stayed dark. “Nothing.”

  “Well, I guess that settles it,” Raj said, heading for the living room where their sleeping bags were. “We have no choice but to get sick on Scorching Hot Cheese Knobs and knock out tomorrow night’s plan.”

  Raj and Isaac headed for the living room, but Oscar lagged behind in his room. Halloween—for a precious minute, he’d forgotten that he wouldn’t be able to go trick-or-treating. As the clouds swept away from the moon, Oscar looked across the room and saw the blackened scorch line beginning at the outlet and traveling up the wall.

  “Great,” Oscar muttered. “Something else to apologize for.”

  He was already formulating his explanation to his mom when he swore he saw a flicker of movement from the Plushtrap Chaser, still miraculously plugged into the fried outlet.

  “Was that you?” he said, but the ugly green rabbit merely stared back at him, the glow of moonlight making its buggy eyes seem to shimmer. Oscar closed his bedroom door so he wouldn’t have to look at his series of mistakes.

  Just as the door clicked shut, Oscar swore, beyond all reason, that he heard Raj’s voice from the other side of the door.

  “Lights out,” it said, with the faintest trickle of a giggle on the end of the sentence.

  Oscar flung the door open, his eyes moving straight to the Plushtrap.

  “What did you say?”

  “Huh?” asked Isaac, already down the hall on his way to the living room.

  “You heard that, right?”

  “Heard what?”

  Oscar turned back to his room. “C’mon, Raj, it’s not funny.”

  “What’s not funny?” Raj asked, poking his head around the corner at the other end of the hall.

  Oscar shook his head. “Nothing. Never mind.”

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” said Isaac, and Oscar conjured another laugh.

  “Stupid storm’s making me hear things.”

  In the living room, Raj and Isaac had torn into two bags of chips and were slurping Electric Blue Fruit Punch at a record pace.

  Isaac belched. “Okay, so if we start here, just over the train tracks, we can work our way south,” he said.

  They were studying Raj’s glowing phone, opened to a map of the town that centered on the split by the rail line between the east and west side. It wasn’t lost on Oscar that they lived on the wrong side of the tracks, a joke that was a little too on-the-nose to make even with his friends.

  “No, we need to start south and work our way north,” said Raj.

  “But we’ll waste all our time in transit,” argued Isaac, punctuating his point with another loud burp.

  “Dude, I could smell that one,” said Raj, scooting away. “And we’ll move faster between houses if we’re not already weighted down by candy. It’s all about aerodynamics,” he said.

  Oscar had been watching the plan hatch from the kitchen while he quietly crumbled. The boys finally noticed him standing there.

  “Fine, Oscar can break the tie,” Raj said. “Where do we start, Oscar? North or south end of the tracks?”

  “I can’t go.”

  Raj let his phone drop to the floor. He and Isaac exchanged a look, and Oscar tried hard not to believe they hadn’t seen this coming. But Oscar was forever having to skip out on plans when his mom called on him. Her Little Man.

  “It’s my mom,” he said unnecessarily. “She needs …” He couldn’t even bring himself to finish.

  “Eh,” Isaac said, putting on his best act. “It’ll be lame anyway.”

  Raj played along as usual. “I bet the full-size candy bars are just a myth.”

  Isaac nodded. “And we’ll split the stash three ways.”

  Oscar knew they were lying about it being epic. He knew they’d divvy their haul with him. He knew they were disappointed. But he’d never felt more grateful for his friends.

  “Whoa, is that a white streak in your hair?” Isaac said, pointing at Oscar’s head, pivoting the conversation.

  Oscar reached for his head. “Seriously?”

  Isaac chuckled. “No, but I’m sure you fried a few brain cells back there.”

  Raj cackled. “Not that you could afford to lose any.”

  For the first time that night, Oscar felt settled. Maybe everything would be okay. He didn’t have a Plushtrap Chaser or a cell phone or Halloween. He didn’t have his dad. But he had a mom who needed him, and he had friends who had his back.

  Oscar had just taken his place beside Raj and Isaac on the living room floor when a spear of lightning tore through the sky. The light was so bright, at first Oscar thought his vision had blinked out. But when the light didn’t return, and only the shadows and shapes of his living room surrounded him, he realized the rest of the house’s power must have gone out.

  “Uh, I think maybe you did a little more damage than just shorting out the socket,” Raj said through the dark.

  Oscar stood and felt his way to the window, which was harder to see than before because whatever moonlight that had made it through the storm earlier was gone now, covered by a thick layer of thunderheads.

  “Nah,” he said, pressing his cheek to the glass. “The power’s out everywhere. Lightning must have hit the grid.”

  Isaac snorted. “Bet it’s not out on the east side. Ever wonder how theirs never seems to get hit?”

  “Hang on, I’ll get some flashlights,” Oscar said. “Mom bought a second one after the last time the power went out.”

  “That one lasted almost two days,” Raj remembered. “We had to throw away half the food in our fridge.”

  “Two days with no TV, no games,” Isaac said, shivering.

  “My phone lost charge by the middle of the first day,” said Raj. The boys stared into their memories of the Great Power Outage of May before shaking off the horror.

  Oscar handed Isaac the cheap, lightweight flashlight and kept the heavier one for himself.

  “Gonna have to use your phone flashlight,” Oscar said to Raj. “We only have two.”

  “Sure, go ahead. Run my battery down,” Raj pouted.

  Suddenly, the boys heard a thump coming from the other end of the house.

  Oscar might have been able to dismiss it as his imagination if Isaac and Raj hadn’t reacted, too.

  “Did you get a cat or something?” asked Isaac.

  Oscar shook his head, then remembered they couldn’t see him. He flicked on his flashlight, and Isaac followed suit.

  Another thump echoed from the same place, and Oscar swallowed audibly.

  “Maybe a tree branch against the window,” Raj offered, but he didn’t sound convinced.

  Isaac shook his head and charged forward. “This is stupid.”

  “Hang on—” Oscar said, but Isaac was already halfway down the hall.

  When they rounded the corner, another thump, this one decidedly louder, greeted them from behind Oscar’s closed bedroom door. The house was too dark to detect any sort of shadow from the crack under the door, but the source of the sound was unmistakable. Something was banging slowly against the door in Oscar’s room.

  “So it was a ‘no’ on the cat then,” whispered Isaac, his voice shaking.

  “It’s not a cat,” Oscar hissed, and Raj shushed them.

  As though in response to their voices, the banging stopped, and the boys held one collective breath.

  Then, all at once, the banging started again, this time twice as fast, and with so much force it shook the door.

  The boys slowly backed away but didn’t dare take their eyes off the door.

  “Still think it’s a tree branch?” Is
aac shot at Raj.

  “Not unless the tree climbed into my room,” said Oscar.

  “You guys, shut up!” said Raj, holding up his hand. “Do you hear that?”

  “What is that?” Oscar whispered.

  “It sounds like … scraping,” said Isaac.

  They didn’t have to wait long to find out. There, underneath the doorknob, a jagged hole in the plywood began to emerge, dug by a row of persistent, human-looking teeth strong enough to bite through a butter knife. As they dug, the teeth seemed to change shape, sharpening as they worked.

  “No way,” Oscar breathed.

  “I thought it was broken!” yelled Raj, almost accusingly.

  “It was!” said Oscar.

  “Can we please argue about this somewhere else?” said Isaac, watching the quick progress the sawlike teeth were making on the area around the doorknob.

  “Dude, it’s a toy,” said Raj. “What do you think it’s gonna—?”

  Then, with two more powerful bangs against the door, the bronze knob fell from Oscar’s bedroom door, and it swung open to reveal a three-foot shadow with long, crooked ears. And while the Plushtrap was a mere shadow, its gleaming jagged teeth shone even in the dark.

  And was that blood around the edges of the front teeth? How was that possible? Unless the teeth were human and the gums were human, too, but then, would they still bleed? It was all impossible … so impossible he couldn’t bring himself to say any of it out loud.

  Then, all at once, the Plushtrap Chaser ran straight for Oscar, Raj, and Isaac.

  “go, go, GO!” Raj screamed, and they sprinted down the hallway. Oscar heard a small clunk and nearly tripped over whatever it was.

  “In here!”

  The boys darted to the next closest room—Oscar’s mom’s—and slammed the door behind them. Raj shoved the others aside to lock it.

  “Really? You think it can turn knobs?” said Isaac, trying to catch his breath.

  “I don’t know what the heck it can do!” yelled Raj.

  Then the banging began, this time on the door closest to them, and the boys stepped away in unison, watching the door bow under the force of a three-foot bunny.

  Oscar’s eyes widened as he heard the telltale sounds of scraping. The Plushtrap was about to chew through this door, too.

  “How do we stop this thing?” said Isaac. “The switch is under its foot, right?”

  They continued to back away as the scraping grew faster, the rabbit’s skills appearing to improve with practice.

  Oscar looked around the room frantically.

  “Well, we’d better think of something quick, or that thing’s gonna eat through this door, too, and I don’t think we can all fit in the bathroom,” said Raj.

  “Uh … uh …” Oscar was beginning to grow frantic as the chewing sped up.

  “Oscar,” Isaac said, and Isaac shined his flashlight at the hole beginning to form by the doorknob.

  “Quick, climb up on something. The highest thing you can!” said Oscar, and they each found a surface: Oscar on the vanity, Isaac on the dresser, and Raj perched precariously on top of the headboard.

  In no time, the rabbit had chewed through this door, too, and with a loud thunk, the doorknob fell to the carpet. Slowly, the door creaked open to once again reveal the vacant stare and crooked ears of the green rabbit.

  The boys held their breath and waited to see what the Plushtrap would do. It took very little time for the bunny to make up its mind. A machine bent on its one job, it headed straight for the object in front of it, the dresser, and began to drag its jagged teeth across the wood of the wardrobe’s legs.

  “Are you kidding me?” screamed Isaac, watching in horror as the bunny made fast work of one of the dresser’s ornate legs. In another minute, the leg would be reduced to the width of a toothpick.

  And Isaac would topple to the floor right in front of this ruthless rabbit.

  “Think of something,” pleaded Isaac. “Somebody think of something fast!”

  “How else do we turn it off? How do we turn it off??” Oscar asked no one in particular, but little piles of sawdust were forming at the base of the dresser, and Isaac was already starting to slide.

  “The light!” Raj yelled from the headboard, momentarily losing his grip on the ledge and catching himself. “The box said it freezes under light!”

  “My flashlight’s in the hallway!” screamed Isaac, sliding inches closer to the rabbit.

  It took Oscar far too long to remember he was holding the other flashlight.

  “Oscar, now!” Raj hollered, and Oscar regained his senses and flipped the beam on the Plushtrap Chaser, but it didn’t work.

  “Get in front of it!” screamed Isaac, and Oscar scooted to the edge of the vanity and stretched his arm as far as he could so the beam of light shone directly into the bunny’s eyes. Suddenly, the toy froze mid-gnaw as it opened wide for the last chomp on the dresser leg.

  The room grew quiet as the boys gasped for breath, the beam on the bunny shaking under Oscar’s trembling grip.

  “Keep it steady,” Isaac whispered, as though afraid he could wake the beast by sound.

  “I’m trying,” hissed Oscar.

  The dresser was swaying under Isaac, trying to figure out how to stand on three and a half legs, and it wasn’t going to hold Isaac for much longer, with or without the Plushtrap chewing away at it.

  “I’ve gotta get down,” said Isaac, more to himself than to his friends, but they understood. He was trying to gather the courage.

  “It can’t move as long as Oscar keeps the light on it,” said Raj, sensing Isaac’s distrust of the momentary armistice.

  “Easy for you to say,” said Isaac, never taking his eyes off the green thing at the base of the wardrobe. “You’re not inches from a freaking wood chipper. And what the heck is up with its teeth? They’re not supposed to be like that!”

  “I think it’s safe to say there’s a whole lot about this situation that ‘isn’t supposed to be like that,’ ” said Raj. “Now, would you get off the stupid dresser?”

  “He’s right,” Oscar encouraged. “So long as there’s light, it’s not supposed to be able to move.”

  “It wasn’t supposed to be able to move anyway, remember?” said Isaac. “How did it suddenly come to life?”

  Neither Raj nor Oscar had a good answer to offer, especially not in that moment.

  “Maybe the lightning? Something about when it was plugged into that socket? I don’t know. What I do know is that the dresser is about a second from collapsing,” said Oscar.

  Isaac nodded, accepting his fate. He was going to have to venture down to the floor.

  Sliding himself as far away as possible from the open mouth of the Plushtrap, Isaac draped one leg over the side of the dresser, then snatched it back, throwing his balance off.

  “Man, come on,” said Raj, the suspense killing him.

  “Hey, you pick which limb you’d rather have torn off,” growled Isaac, and Oscar tried a different approach.

  “Quick and easy, just like a bandage,” he suggested, and Isaac seemed to like that approach better.

  “Quick and easy,” Isaac repeated. Just as Isaac prepared to slide down the dresser, from the far corner of the room—a corner where no one stood—a voice called out:

  “Guys, over here!”

  Not just any voice, though. Raj’s voice.

  Oscar didn’t mean to move the light to the corner. It was instinct.

  “Whoa whoa whoa put it back! PUT IT BACK!”

  Oscar juggled the flashlight in his hands and swept the beam back to the Plushtrap’s gaze just as its teeth prepared to close on Isaac’s sliding leg.

  “Cute trick, Raj. Think maybe you could practice your ventriloquist act some other time?” said Oscar, struggling to regain his breath.

  But Raj simply stare wide-eyed into the corner.

  “It wasn’t you, was it?” said Isaac, holding his nearly sacrificed leg.

  “Oh, come on
. Seriously?” said Oscar. “It can mimic voices?”

  “Our voices,” said Raj, gulping. “To distract us.”

  The damaged wood under Isaac groaned, and he slid to the ground and ran faster than Oscar had ever seen him move. Then he skittered across the floor and joined Oscar on the vanity.

  “Now what?” asked Raj, and Oscar was ready with an answer.

  “We leave the flashlight right here, right on it,” he said. “We barricade the door and call for help.”

  Isaac and Raj thought it over for a second, then silently agreed.

  Raj moved first, inching his way off the headboard and backing toward the door, never taking his eyes from the demented bunny, which, under the glow of Oscar’s flashlight, had taken on a sickly green hue amid the surrounding shadows of the room.

  Then, just as Oscar and Isaac began to lower themselves to the carpet, too, the beam from the flashlight began to falter, flickering on and off in split-second intervals. Panicked, Oscar slapped the side of the light and brought the beam back to life, but only for a second, when it once again failed and reappeared.

  “Oscar,” said Isaac in a low voice. “Is there any chance at all that wasn’t the battery on your flashlight dying?”

  The beam blinked out and reappeared again, but it stayed extinguished long enough this time for them to hear the jaw of the Plushtrap shut.

  “Um …” Oscar started, but he didn’t have time to finish. When the beam flickered out this time, it stayed out.

  “RUN!” screamed Oscar, and he and Isaac clamored for the door, so close to Raj that they scraped his heels with their toes.

  They ran across the hall to the bathroom, and Isaac kicked his dropped flashlight ahead of them. They slammed the door, throwing their backs against it just in time to feel the force of three feet of metal and plush hit the other side. The rabbit wasted no time in running its cracked teeth across the wood, again tackling the area right around the doorknob.

  Isaac dropped to the ground and groped for his lost flashlight, juggling it between his hands before finding the switch and casting the beam toward the door. But they all knew it would only work on the bunny once it had chewed through the door.

  Once they were face-to-face with it.

  “Raj, where’s your phone?” said Oscar.