The Toymaker

by Sergio Gomez

  Despite that the remote was an important object in his life, at that moment he didn’t care about it.

  “Wh-what did you say?” he asked.

  Lucas turned his head. The movement was natural, not herky-jerky like when a wooden dummy was being moved by a hand, but like the wood had taken on the properties of real, living flesh. Something organically alive, something like muscle and skin.

  “No need to sacrifice anything for me to come alive,” Lucas said. “I already am.”

  It was a trick of both the tone of the dummy’s voice and his eyes, Raymond knew this, but it didn’t change the fact that he thought he saw the painted-on smile on his face grow.

  “You’re…alive?” Raymond felt tears coming up into his eyes. He reached up and wiped at them with the sleeve of his shirt.

  Lucas rose out of the seat. His wooden feet thumped against the hardwood floor like someone had just set a piece of furniture down.

  The movement of him getting out of the sofa was just like the movement of his neck. Oddly organic, yet sturdy and rigid because the dummy was still made of wood.

  “Yes, Father. Thanks to you, I’m alive.” Lucas took two clunky steps forward with his arms outstretched in front of him.

  As cumbersome as the gesture looked, Raymond recognized what this was. A father and son seeing each other after a long episode of separation. It was like those military videos where the kid runs across the airport to embrace his father returning from his tour.

  He’d seen a dozen of those videos on talk shows. They always stuck with him too, because when he watched them he desperately wanted that kind of love in his own life.

  Now, it was happening to him. His son reaching out for him. In that moment, he was no longer a sad, lonely old man, but a father.

  He let the tears run down his eyes.

  Raymond stepped forward to meet Lucas in the middle of the living room, bent down on one knee, and hugged him close.

  “I’m a real human,” Lucas said.

  There was warmth coming from the dummy. He felt it for sure. No trick of his mind.

  Perhaps it wasn’t a warmth like human body temperature—but it was a warmth of love that he felt. And that kind of warmth, was just as real.

  “Yes, Son. You are.” Raymond kissed Lucas atop his head.

  He could still smell the hot glue underneath the wig when he brought his face close enough, but he didn’t care.

  Chapter 9

  They’d all gotten bored of losing to Victor after he beat all of them several times in a row at Street Fighter and moved over to the eating area instead.

  They were all gathered in front of the glass display of pizzas. Jack, Victor, and Tommy all but had their noses pressed against it. Meanwhile, Twist and Gina hung in the back, both of them staring down at the ground.

  “Pepperoni or sausage. That is the question,” Victor said.

  “Why not one of each?” Tommy said.

  “Hm,” Victor thought about it, but sometimes too much cheese bothered his stomach. He turned around to ask Oliver what he was going to get, and saw the bummed look on his friend’s face. “Twist, yo, what’s up?”

  Tommy and Jack turned to look at him too. Him and Gina both had the same look, like a stray cat gives you when they hope you’ll spare them some leftover Chinese from your fridge, or maybe even just some fresh water.

  “Spent my last dollars on tokens,” Twist explained, pointing to the machine that converted your dollars into tokens. Then, with a weak laugh to try not to sound so pathetic he added, “No point in looking.”

  Victor waved him over. “Tell me what you want. My treat.”

  “Nah, that’s alright—”

  “Shut up and tell me or I’ll get you one with anchovies and olives,” Victor grinned at him.

  Twist laughed, then went in between Jack and Victor to pick out his slices.

  Tommy realized the same thing was bothering Gina, and sidled up next to her. “I got you, Homeschool. Any two slices you want. I’ll make sure they’re pipin’ hot.”

  Gina bumped her shoulder against his. “Such a gentleman.”

  “I sell cigs and firecrackers just so I can buy pretty girls pizza,” Tommy said, bumping her back and flashing her his best Marino grin.

  “If you were any smoother, they’d call you butter,” Gina teased.

  “Call me whatever you want, Homeschool.” He laughed, then they walked up together to join the other kids.

  They ate together. Laughing, joking. Picking on Victor despite how he’d been nice enough to use the extra money his parents had left him to buy his friend pizza. That didn’t help to make him any less of a punching bag—but anyway, Victor liked the attention.

  He liked being in the company of these kids, even though they were different than him. They were “poor kids,” the scoundrels that his parents’ associates wouldn’t want their own kids to hang around. All except for Jack, maybe. But Victor wouldn’t want to be hanging out with anyone other than Twist and whatever merry band of misfits fell into his orbit.

  None of them could have realized the potency of the bond they were building between them as they sat there in Lou’s Arcade eating slices of pizza. Slurping up pieces of long strands of cheese into their mouths. Talking about their favorite game at the arcade, about how much homework they had to do over the break, and how they were all planning to put it off until the night before. Laughing at how awful the middle school football team was doing. They were so bad this year that their highlight video package had been almost completely shots of Wally the Shark mascot doing a generic tumble routine.

  The dummy, the tunnel at Lake Myers, the story of the witch ritual, all of the bad stuff began to slip farther and farther from their mind.

  For now, it was back to having fun. Back to enjoying Thanksgiving break and being kids.

  But back on Dudley Street, the darkness they’d awoken was getting stronger.

  Chapter 10

  Jack had gone home when his dad called to him as they rode into the neighborhood. Victor had gotten picked up by a taxi—with a bike rack as his dad had requested—five-minutes after that.

  That left just Twist, Gina, and Tommy, walking from the Bobkins to the Harpers. They’d stopped at Gina’s, so she could put her bike back and she’d given them Kool-Aid pouches on the porch, then the three of them walked to Oliver’s house.

  Twist went up the front steps, and waved goodbye to them from the porch. Gina and Tommy waved back to him, then slowly made their way back to her place, where Tommy had left his motorbike.

  “So,” Gina asked. “You buy a girl some pizza. Does this mean we’re dating?”

  She wasn’t sure what she wanted the answer to be, but it just seemed like the right question to ask.

  Tommy thought about putting his arm around her, as a way to make the conversation easier, but then thought better of it. Not here, in public, where she might get freaked out by it. “That’s all I need to do to make things official? Shoot. I would’ve bought you some pizza a long time ago if I knew that.”

  Gina slapped him on the chest and laughed. “What’re you suggesting, jerk?”

  “I ain’t suggesting nothing, Homeschool,” he said. He fished in his pocket and pulled out the Marlboros. “Want one?”

  She shook her head. “Honestly, those things taste like crap.”

  “What do you like, then?”

  “Menthols. But I’m trying to quit, really.”

  “Hmm,” Tommy said. “Guess that means we’re not dating.”

  She slapped him on the chest again—he noted this one was a little harder. “Tell me, Tommy Marino. Were you born such a big jerk, or did you turn into one?”

  “Hey, hey. I’m not the one hitting someone who just bought you lunch.”

  “Oh, get over it. The pizza tasted like cardboard.”

  Tommy smiled, but as his mouth began to curl, Gina reached up and put her lips against his.

  He put his arm around her waist and drew her in cl
ose. They kissed for a few more seconds.

  “Nice,” Tommy said.

  “Let’s not tell the others yet, if we decide to date.”

  “You’re assuming Twist or Jack aren’t looking out their windows. Or your little sister, for that matter.”

  They were half way down Dudley Street, in the middle of the neighborhood, but it was starting to matter less and less if anyone knew about their budding relationship. Maybe being found out would make this all easier, actually.

  “Just…let’s not say anything yet.”

  Tommy shrugged. “Then what’s the point?”

  She looked left and right, sheepishly. “We’ll know. That’s the point, bonehead.”

  Tommy still had the Marlboro between his fingers, unlit. He considered it as he took out his lighter from his other jacket pocket. “So, what’re we going to do? Meet in the middle of the night and kiss on your porch or something?”

  “No,” Gina said. “We can still hang out and everything. We just won’t do any of the hand holding or kissing in front of the others.”

  “You embarrassed about dating a Marino?” he grinned.

  “I have a reputation to keep up.”

  Tommy nodded. “Right. You’re supposed to be a tough chick.”

  “Supposed to be?” she said, raising an eyebrow. “Don’t make me twist your arm up, Marino.”

  “Please don’t.” Tommy said, then put his arm around her.

  They got to the front of her house and sat down on the bottom step of her porch. Gina nestled in closer to him, taking a big whiff of his scent—leather, Marlboro, and hair gel. She remembered just two days ago she couldn’t stand his smell, and now here she was thinking it was the best scent in the world.

  “As my girl,” Tommy said, with the cigarette clenched between his teeth, “let me ask you a serious question, Homeschool.”

  “As my boy, I guess I should let you. Go for it.”

  She was expecting some Tommy Marino wise-crack, so his question caught her way off guard.

  “You think anything happened in that tunnel when we went into it today?” he asked, taking a drag of his cigarette and puffing the smoke out into the air.

  A gust blew by, suddenly making the day cooler. Gina wrapped her arms around herself and nudged in closer to Tommy. “Like, what?”

  “I don’t know. I guess something we couldn’t see with our eyes. Like maybe we woke a ghost up or something. Like Vic was saying.”

  “Like we actually opened up a portal to the other side?” She wasn’t sure if he was running a long con on her or not, but she was staying on her toes. Tommy Marino was a tricky one.

  “I mean, would we actually know or feel anything if we were the portal to the other side?” Tommy went on.

  “Huh?”

  “Does a doorway know it’s a way to get in between two places? It’s just a hole in the wall.”

  Gina sat up and turned to face him. With her eyes glued to the cigarette she said, “Tommy Marino, are you smoking pot?”

  He laughed, then put his arm back around her to bring her back to where she was. “No, no. I’m serious, Homeschool. We might just be the hole between the two worlds. Or maybe just the tunnel is, and we opened up the hole without knowing it.”

  “You really believe that witch stuff, huh?”

  “My uncle doesn’t lie,” he told her again. “He doesn’t joke, he’s never even pulled a prank on April Fool’s Day. But he believes this story.”

  “Why?” Gina asked.

  “He said weird things happen in that tunnel.” Tommy took another drag of his cigarette. “Said I was too young to hear about them, so we left it at that.”

  “How long ago was that?”

  “When I was twelve, or something.”

  “You gonna ask him again?”

  Tommy shrugged. “I haven’t seen my uncle in a while.”

  “Do you think something happened?” Gina asked.

  He shrugged again. “I don’t know, Homeschool. Today was a weird day, though. I know that for sure.”

  “Yeah… I don’t really understand what made me want to go to the tunnel, either. All I know is, I don’t want to go back there again anytime soon.”

  “Even if we have to?” Tommy said, moving away from her enough to look down into her eyes.

  Gina blinked, wishing he’d just let her rest on his shoulder a while longer. “What do you mean?”

  Tommy was running out of words to explain what he was thinking. He smooshed the cigarette against the paved walkway and then rose up to his feet. He was ready to head on out of here, maybe go find his uncle and ask him about the tunnel. “Like, if we’re the chosen ones and have to fight off the evil that came to Dutch County.”

  Gina waited a moment, unsure if he was joking or not. Then Tommy turned to look at her, with that stupid grin on his face he was known for. He laughed, but it wasn’t like their laughter at the arcade.

  “Were you messing with me the whole time, Marino?” Gina jumped to her feet and got in his face.

  “Gotcha!” he said, then pecked her on the lips. “But no—only the end. The rest of it, who knows?”

  “Ugh. I’m going to kill you one of these days, Tommy.”

  “Sure, Homeschool. Sure.” Tommy slid his sunglasses down from the top of his head back onto his eyes. He started walking down the driveway to his motorbike. “See you tomorrow?”

  She was sad to see him go. Even if he was being a jerk. “Yeah. Call me when you get home.”

  Getting on his bike, Tommy grinned at her. “Don’t hold your breath on that one.”

  “Buzz off!”

  He turned on the engine, blew her a kiss, then took off.

  Chapter 11

  Big Bob was waiting for him in the hallway upstairs, between the bathroom and his own bedroom. No escaping him. He stood there, draped in shadows.

  Oliver stared at his dad’s tall, broad-shouldered silhouette. His large, round belly protruded out like the Hitchcock logo. He could see some of the stains on his coveralls from car grease and cheeseburger slop that wouldn’t come out in the wash.

  Twist swallowed. “H-hey dad.”

  Downstairs, the volume on the television went up. A laugh track boomed from the sitcom Wilma Harper was watching. She knew what was coming, but her M.O. was to ignore.

  It all made sense to him now, why mom had been so ghost-white when he’d come home. He thought maybe it was her Crohn’s bothering her, but nope.

  Twist had done something wrong. He didn’t know what, and it didn’t matter. All that mattered was that he was going to pay for it.

  “What day is it today?” Big Bob asked him.

  “Saturday.”

  “And what happens tonight?”

  Oliver thought about it. It was hard for him to keep up with the days when school was off because he didn’t really care, but there was a chore he’d been put in charge of that he forgot about.

  Oh, shit. Jamie’s room.

  He was supposed to have fixed up the spare bedroom in preparation for his brother’s arrival. He’d put it off until today, and with the excitement of the tunnel and Mr. Gibson’s dummy, he never got around to it.

  “I was supposed to set up the guest bedroom,” Twist said in a miserable, small voice.

  “That’s right,” Bob said, his voice booming.

  Downstairs, the TV volume went up again.

  Big Bob’s right arm flashed out from the shadows, the clenched fist huge and looming.

  It smashed into his eye socket with an explosion of pain. Twist fell on his ass, and crumpled into a fetal position.

  “You ain’t done anything I’ve told you to this week,” Bob scolded him, then punched him again.

  This one to the ribs.

  Oliver tried not to grunt out in pain—he knew that would only make it worse. Instead, he cried in silence and tried to tense up for the next one.

  “Next time, do as I say before it gets to this.”

  He struck him again, th
is one to his shoulder. The boy quivered, letting Bob know it’d been a good one. The kind that would leave a bruise.

  Thankfully, he wouldn’t be in school for another week. Any marks would be faded by then, and none of the nosy teachers would notice and ask questions.

  Bob pulled him by an ear, forcing him to his feet.

  Oliver leaned against the wall of the hallway. Tears ran down his eyes and snot ran down his nose. He wrapped his arms around his body, waiting for another punch.

  Big Bob regarded the boy. He was shaking, and scared—as he should be. He supposed an outsider would feel sorry for the boy, as pathetic as he looked, but he deserved this. Brought this onto himself, really.

  Wilma had spent all day fixing the bedroom up because he didn’t. Washing the sheets, sweeping out the mouse shit from the unused closets, mopping the floor, dusting, the whole deal while battling the pain from her disease.

  This boy couldn’t take an hour of his day to help around the house, going out with his little friends to do who-knows-what, and he was supposed to feel bad about punishing him?

  No, sir.

  “Your mother already did it, so don’t bother,” Bob said, walking away from him. “But there’s some laundry in the washroom. Bring it up and fold it.”

  Oliver nodded. “Y-yes Dad.”

  “And apologize to your Mother, too,” he added, then started down the stairs. Halfway down he said, “At least do that much for us.”

  Chapter 12

  “I was trapped, Father. In a world between this one and the dead world. Until today when those children freed me.” Lucas finished his story.

  Raymond was sitting in his recliner, listening to the explanation, and trying to accept it as real.

  Lucas had told him everything about the world he’d been trapped in. It was a lonely place, with nothing but darkness surrounding him. An eternal darkness that stretched on forever filled with screams. Lucas knew there were other souls there, trapped like him, but in a separate place where he couldn’t find them. They were all alone. All trapped in a personal hell where they were neither alive, nor dead.