by Dean Koontz
Lightning crackled across the dark sky.
Crisp leaves blew across the roadway, and a few scraped over the car’s windshield before spinning off into the darkness.
He would have preferred to be snug at home on a night like this. Besides, he had business magazines to read, bank accounts to balance, potential investments to explore and evaluate. He usually worked fourteen hours a day, seven days a week, and he was uneasy when he was not working.
Perhaps Victor would have approved if Isaac had owned a real toy factory, a huge operation with a thousand machines stamping out dolls and miniature trucks and a hundred other products at the rate of one every two seconds. There was money in big-time toy manufacturing, and Victor thoroughly approved of money. But Isaac had earned very little from his toys, barely enough to keep himself fed and clothed. He made toys for the pure love of it. Such a waste. Such a pity.
Now the property of Leben Toys belonged to Victor, for he and Isaac were the last living members of their family, and Victor was determined to make the business finally pay off. First he would inventory the stock and all of Isaac’s tools—and sell everything. The rambling old house of many gables, in which Isaac had lived and worked, would have to be demolished. It was no doubt a creaking, drafty place that needed new wiring and plumbing, and it must cost a fortune to heat those high-ceiling rooms.
Eventually the four surrounding acres could be subdivided, and a dozen suburban homes could be erected at a fine profit. He had often tried to convince Isaac to use the property for this purpose, but Isaac had a sentimental attachment to the toy factory and had not known what was best for him.
Victor, on the other hand, was prepared to sell to the highest bidder.
2.
A STONE FOOTBRIDGE, FITTED with domed lamps at both ends, crossed the swift-flowing stream that ran in front of Leben Toys. Amos led the Oddkins across the bridge while Gibbons told them the history of the structure.
“Erected in the summer of 1786, one year after the house was built,” he said, raising his reedy voice to compete with the moaning wind. “The great Thomas Jefferson walked across this bridge on two different occasions. Years later, Abraham Lincoln came by to purchase a few toys for the children of some friends. Abe was so taken with the natural beauty hereabouts that he spent the day fishing from this little bridge. He didn’t catch anything, but he said it wasn’t the catching that interested him anyway; it was the fishing itself that he enjoyed.”
Gibbons was interrupted by the arrival of a big dog.
A very big dog.
Big and mean.
As Amos led the Oddkins to the end of the footbridge, a black and tan mongrel appeared on the stone footpath in front of them. It was half again as tall as Amos and must have weighed three times as much as all six of the Oddkins put together. It wore a heavy collar from which dangled a short length of broken chain. For a moment the dog looked startled. Then its eyes narrowed, and it growled deep in its throat.
The Oddkins froze.
The hulking mongrel peeled its pebbled black lips back in a snarl, revealing yellow teeth. Sharp teeth. Huge teeth.
Amos desperately thought, Uncle Isaac, if you wanted me to be the leader, why did you make me so small? Why didn’t you make me six feet tall?
The dog lowered its head, flattened its ears against its squarish skull, and looked from one Oddkin to another.
“We’re finished,” Skippy said miserably.
“I’ll deal with this monster,” Patch said, bravely drawing his rubber sword.
“We’ll be torn to pieces,” Skippy said.
“Not when the beast realizes he’s up against an elephant,” Burl said proudly. “He hasn’t noticed me yet, but when he sees me, he’ll put his tail between his legs and run for his life.” Burl stamped one small velour foot as if he expected the stone bridge to shake and the night to echo with the impact.
“Torn to little pieces,” Skippy said.
Lightning flashed, and thunder exploded in the heavens, but the brute was not fazed by the oncoming storm. It advanced one step, then another, growling continuously. Saliva drooled from one corner of its mouth.
“Stay calm,” Amos told his friends while frantically searching his mind for a plan to defend them from the mongrel.
“Little tiny pieces,” Skippy said.
“Are you afraid, rabbit?” Patch demanded.
“Me?” Skippy said, offended. “I’ve got a heritage of courage, you know. Was old Br’er Rabbit ever afraid? Was Bugs Bunny ever afraid?” To prove himself, Skippy stepped forward, straight toward the dog, almost into its long shadow. “Hey, you ugly brute!”
The dog faced Skippy. Lightning flashed again, and for an instant the hound’s eyes turned silver.
“You look as dumb as a post,” Skippy said. “Too dumb to deal with the likes of us. You’d better scoot out of here before we tie your tail in knots. Fact is, I’ll bet the closest you ever came to a brainstorm was a light drizzle.”
The dog glared.
“Stop it, Skippy,” Amos said.
But Skippy, who had dreams of being a stage comedian, was on a roll and reluctant to stop. “In a battle of wits,” he told the mongrel, “you’d be unarmed.”
The dog stared.
“Ah, but brains aren’t everything. In fact, in your case, they’re nothing at all.”
The dog blinked.
“Skippy …” Amos warned.
But the rabbit pointed at the dog and said, “I hear you’re so dumb that when you wanted to raise a litter of puppies you planted a piece of dogwood.”
The foul-tempered beast lowered its head farther and barked ferociously at Skippy.
“Eep!” the rabbit said, and he backed up so fast that he fell over Burl.
Getting to his feet and brushing off his vest, Burl shouted at the mongrel: “I’m an elephant, you know!”
“Ummm,” Gibbons said, putting one finger aside his long snout, “perhaps we’d be well advised to retreat to the house, find a bit of food, and make a peace offering to this creature.”
“He’ll pounce on us before we get halfway back,” Patch said. “Maybe I should whap him on the nose with the flat side of my sword, put a little fear into the varlet.”
Amos was angry with himself for his failure to think of a way to scare off the dog. He poised for a headlong rush at the animal, hoping to startle it into flight.
But suddenly Butterscotch trotted past Amos and addressed the mongrel: “Shame on you. You’re no credit to our species.”
The black and tan dog snarled again, and foamy spittle flew from his lips.
Butterscotch said, “A dog is man’s best friend. A dog should be noble, true, affectionate, and kind. Did your mother teach you no manners? If you were a pup of mine, you’d have learned a thing or two about polite behavior. Shame. Oh my, yes, shame on you.”
The beast stopped snarling, cocked his head, and looked puzzled.
“Just imagine what your poor mother would think if she could see you now,” Butterscotch said. “She would be embarrassed for you and ashamed for having failed to raise a good dog.”
At first Amos could not understand what trick Butterscotch was up to, but after a while he realized that she was not up to any trick at all; she was being sincere. She was genuinely embarrassed that a dog should behave as he did. In her soft, gentle voice could be heard sadness, dismay, and a scolding note. “A dog that is not a credit to his mother is a sad, wretched thing indeed. Your mother gave you life, after all. Mothers should be respected and cherished. Every act of your life should honor your mother instead of shaming her.”
Butterscotch’s deeply felt emotion and stern disapproval seemed to be getting through to the vicious mongrel. The big dog was no longer growling. He licked his lips and blinked and looked sheepish.
Trotting off the end of the bridge and onto the stone footpath, Butterscotch brazenly circled the beast, looking him up and down as if she were a judge and as if this real dog were a low-life scou
ndrel about to be sentenced to prison. The mongrel turned in place, watching Butterscotch as she boldly circled him. “Broke your chain, I see,” said Butterscotch. “Ran away from home. You haven’t given a thought to the worry you’re causing your master. Oh, no, not a thought for such things in the selfish head of a bad dog like you. Off on your own adventures, thinking only of yourself, eager to chase poor frightened cats and terrorize a few stuffed animals not even half your size. Your poor mother. Oh, dear me, your poor, poor mother. I feel so sorry for her.” The mongrel made a curious whimpering sound.
Amos and the other Oddkins watched Butterscotch with astonishment and awe.
Completing a full circle of the beast, Butterscotch said, “Well, you might be able to tear us all to shreds. But that doesn’t make you a big shot. That just makes you a bully, a discredit to your mother and your litter, a discredit to the entire noble race of dogs.”
The mongrel whined and hung his head.
“Ashamed? I should think so. If you have any hope of redeeming yourself and one day bringing credit to your loving mother, I’d advise you to put your tail between your legs right now, slink home, lick the hand of your master, and do what you’re told from now on. In time there might even be a place in the pastures of Heaven for you, though right now I think you’re destined to spend eternity running on sore and bleeding feet through a much hotter place than Heaven.”
The mongrel turned from them. With his belly nearly dragging on the ground, he crept away. Twice he looked back, and twice Butterscotch gently but scornfully told him to get along. In twenty steps he disappeared into the darkness under the leafless, wind-rattled trees.
Butterscotch returned to her friends and said, “Please forgive him for his uncouth behavior. Perhaps he was mistreated by a mean master or tormented by ill-mannered children. Of course, no matter what he might have endured, there’s absolutely no excuse for his rudeness.”
“You’re amazing,” Amos told her.
“I doff my hat to you, brave lady,” Patch said gallantly. But of course his cavalier’s hat was sewn to his head, so he nearly pulled himself off his feet and nearly threw himself to the ground when he attempted that chivalrous gesture.
Butterscotch blinked. “Whatever are you talking about?”
Burl stepped forward, putting his stumpy hands on his broad hips. “I can tell you right now that I’d be very proud if you’d been my mother.”
“If she’d been your mother,” Skippy said, “you’d be a dog instead of an elephant.”
“To be her pup,” Burl said, “I suppose I could give up my trunk and my dreams of the veldt.”
“Genetics is an interesting subject,” Gibbons said, leaning with both hands on his cane. “If Butterscotch were Burl’s mother, perhaps he’d be not an ordinary pup but a dogephant. Or an elephound.”
“We’ve got a mission,” Amos reminded them. “And we’ve no time to waste.”
Suddenly the wind picked up, shrieking in the trees.
“Follow me,” Amos said, hurrying off the footbridge, along the stone path, toward the dirt lane that led down to the paved highway.
3.
A MOMENT AFTER CLIMBING from the cellar and crawling into the night through the exterior door of the coal bin, Rex heard a dog barking. As the other Charon toys struggled out of the hole behind him, Rex said, “I’ll wager it’s cornered our little friends. If we can find the dog, we’ll find our prey as well.”
The barking stopped before they could get a fix on it. But the howling wind sounded like a hound at times, leading them repeatedly in the wrong direction.
“Stinger!” Rex said at last. “Fly high and find the Oddkins, then report back to me here.”
The bee said, “Yes, yes, yessss, I will do it, yesssss,” in a shrill little voice that sounded not unlike the high-pitched whine of a dentist’s drill. He swooped up into the windy night with a furious thrumming of metal wings.
4.
VICTOR BODKINS TURNED OFF the highway onto the dirt lane that led to the toy factory. A few dead leaves, harried by the wind, tumbled across the road, and dry grass shivered at the verge. From both sides, huge oaks, stripped of all foliage, reached their barren limbs toward one another, forming a tunnel of sorts.
Isaac’s house was still out of sight. However, having drawn this near to the place, Victor felt a sudden deepening of his sadness. In no hurry to reach the house, he slowed the car, for the task of sorting through Isaac’s belongings would be depressing.
“If only you had grown up,” Victor said, as if his uncle could hear him. “If only you’d faced the fact that there’s no magic in life, no wonder. … If only you’d given up your childish belief in miracles and in the goodness of other people. … If only you’d learned that life is hard and cruel, maybe we wouldn’t have been such strangers to each other. Perhaps we could have been closer, more like an uncle and a nephew ought to be. Ah, Isaac, you were such a hopeless dreamer.”
He drove around a bend and saw six small creatures crossing the lane. For an instant he thought they were ordinary animals, a pack of cats or squirrels or raccoons, but then he blinked and got a better look at them. They were stuffed animals, toys.
Toys!
Victor saw a teddy bear in a blue sweater, a dog, a rabbit in a vest. He saw a cat in a cavalier’s costume. An elephant wearing pants held up by suspenders. There was another creature he could not quite identify.
The toys froze, startled by his appearance. The roar of the pre-storm wind had evidently masked the sound of his car.
Victor tramped on the brakes and stared through the windshield in disbelief.
The toys stared back at him.
Isaac’s toys. No doubt of that.
Victor remembered the teddy bear from his last visit. And the unnameable thing, dressed like a character out of Dickens, had been in Isaac’s workshop for as long as Victor could remember. Isaac had called them Oddkins.
The elephant turned to the teddy bear and appeared to speak to him. The other toys also turned to the bear as if seeking guidance. I’ve lost my mind, Victor thought. The cat’s tail plumed in the wind.
The elephant’s ears lifted tentatively like a pair of kites testing the air currents. The bear shook his head and motioned with one arm for the other toys to follow him. They hurried across the road, into the darkness under the trees.
5.
THUNDER BOOMED, AND THE churning masses of black clouds were briefly revealed in a zigzagging bolt of lightning. The storm would break at any moment.
Stinger plummeted down from the night sky, halted in midair, and hovered in front of Rex. “Thissss way, thissss way, I’ve found them, thissss way.”
Like a pack of hungry, frenzied rats, the Charon toys scurried across the dead lawn, over the footbridge, along a stone path.
They encountered a large black and tan dog trailing a length of broken chain. It slunk out of some shrubbery, eyed them curiously, then seemed to want to be friends. It whined, wagged its tail, and appeared to be in need of approval and affection.
“Out of our way!” Rex commanded.
The dog did not seem to understand. It whimpered and wagged its tail more energetically than ever.
The plastic cigarette in Lizzie’s holder suddenly lit, although no match had been touched to it. She cast a sly sideways look at Rex. He nodded. Lizzie smiled and pushed the hot end of the cigarette against one of the dog’s paws.
The mutt yipped in surprise and pain.
Gear grabbed one of its floppy ears and yanked hard.
Rolling its eyes at the robot, the dog leaped onto its hind feet. Gear was lifted off the ground, but he held fast.
Jack Weasel giggled hysterically.
Rex stepped in front of the terrified dog as it dropped onto all fours and finally threw Gear off. The marionette pressed a button on his sleek black cane, and the knife popped into sight. “Out of our way, you stinking mongrel!”
At the same moment Stinger swooped down with his needle-sharp l
ance extended to three times its normal length. He stung the dog on the right flank.
Howling, the mutt fled.
“Thissss way, thissss way.” Buzzing under the low-hanging branches, Stinger led his comrades along a narrow dirt path through a short stretch of woods. Rex, Lizzie, and Gear had no trouble with the wild terrain, but Jack Weasel had some difficulty pulling himself along the rutted track.
They came to the edge of a dirt lane, where they hid behind thick weeds. Rex saw no sign of the Oddkins, but a car was stopped nearby, and a tall, thin man was climbing out of it.
6.
WITH HIS RUBBER SWORD in his right hand, Patch was the last in the procession of Oddkins as they made their way through another arm of the woods, onto a narrow meadow, and down the open grassy slope toward the main highway. He repeatedly looked behind them, guarding the rear, and he almost wished that some evil toy would appear so they could engage in a satisfying fencing match.
Though the others dreaded the journey to the city, Patch rather looked forward to it. He liked action and excitement. He was a scaler of walls and leaper of gulfs, a swordsman without superior. Isaac Bodkins, his creator, had given Patch a taste for adventure, and now Patch was looking forward to this night’s encounters with danger.
However, he was not looking forward to getting his clothes dirty. He had never imagined that adventuring could be such a filthy affair. Already, his boots were dusty and scuffed. He took some comfort from the fact that, as a cat, his night vision was better than that of his friends, so they could not see the mournful condition of his boots as clearly as he could. But somehow he had also acquired a spot of dirt on the left sleeve of his cream-colored shirt. And bits of grass and dead leaves clung to his trousers. He longed for a chance to stop and groom himself, but Amos led them through the woods and down the open sloping meadow without pause.