The Toymaker

by Sergio Gomez

  Now that he was closer, he noticed it wasn’t just the way he walked that was strange. The kid’s hair seemed to not belong. The hairline was too straight and perfect to be natural. And his skin was glossy, like he was wearing a mask made of plastic.

  What the fuck?

  In the middle of the parking lot, without really knowing why, Dwayne stopped. He called out again, “Hey kid! You lost?”

  No reply.

  The kid kept walking.

  Dwayne started to feel like he was caught in an episode of that lame TV show Amazing Stories his wife watched.

  From this close he could see more of the features of his visitor’s face. The kid’s eyes were glossy, shiny, like someone who’d just got done crying. Except they weren’t glossy or shiny from wetness, but because they were made of material that was always like that. Reflective. Glass.

  They were made of glass.

  There were lines on either side of his mouth that went all the way down to his chin. The hair on his head was stiff, but not because there was pomade or gel in it, but because it was fake hair.

  The sound of the kid’s feet echoed through the emptiness of the lot as he tore faster and faster down the asphalt.

  Click-clack. Click-clack.

  It wasn’t a sound that the sneakers he was wearing should be making, not unless they were loaded with something.

  Wood...

  This was no child at all. It wasn’t even human, it was some sort of doll. The dummy reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out a carving knife.

  Dwayne told his arm to move to get the gun out, but his body wouldn’t respond. He was mesmerized by all of this, and even more mesmerized as he saw the sunlight glint off the knife that was coming toward him.

  Lucas felt the fear from the man before he saw it on his face. A fear that his life was about to end in the coming moments.

  The man opened up his mind to Lucas, and in it Lucas saw three children; two little ones and one about the age of the children that had summoned him. A little further into the mind of the man, he could feel the sadness of the children the moment their father would be taken from this world.

  It didn’t matter to Lucas, though. This man was an obstruction to him and his own father, to him becoming a real human.

  Lucas pulled the knife out and charged him.

  The man’s face went from an expression of confusion to one of terror.

  Dwayne, in a motion he practiced but never thought he’d get the opportunity to use, pulled the gun out, aimed quickly, and fired.

  The bullet missed, because the dummy wasn’t there anymore.

  I’m going mad.

  No, he was sure he’d seen the damn thing.

  Click-clack. Click-clack. Coming from the left.

  Dwayne pivoted on the balls of his feet, gun aimed. But the dummy was already close to him, way below his field of view. By the time he adjusted to aim down at it, it was jumping at him knife first.

  Dwayne tried to step back, but it was pointless. The knife slashed his stomach open.

  He screamed, and stumbled backward as a flash of hot pain flared through his entire abdomen.

  The gun flew out of his hands, and he heard it clatter and fire off somewhere behind him. It sounded farther away to him than it actually was, because he was halfway to his grave before he crumpled to the ground.

  The slash sliced Deputy Smith’s stomach in a way that made his innards come spilling out. The blood shot out of the gash like a water balloon exploding, splashing against the pavement and all over Lucas’ face.

  The man screamed a gurgling cry as he hit the ground.

  Lucas stood back, satisfied at what he’d done. He was drenched in blood. It dripped down his face and soaked his clothes. Father would have a hard time cleaning him up, but that was okay. This was all worth it.

  Officer Humboldt ran outside the second he’d heard the gun go off. His mind could hardly process the scene. Deputy Smith on the ground, covered in blood, on his side in a quasi-fetal position, and there was stuff hanging out from the big hole in his stomach.

  From where Humboldt stood, it looked like raw sausage links coming out of him.

  He felt his own stomach tense and had to fight off the urge to dry heave as he realized those were his insides spilling out of the deputy. Officer Humboldt looked away and shook his head as if that would erase the image burned into his mind, and then reached down to radio Sheriff Harris.

  He barely touched the walkie-talkie on his hip before something was barreling toward him from around the corner of the jailhouse.

  Something child sized, but running at him with the speed of an NFL running back, and with a knife in its hand.

  Now he reached for his gun instead of the radio and pulled it out. He took aim at the thing coming at him.

  It wasn’t a child, he knew that for sure because it was moving much too fast for one.

  No thinking.

  He fired a round off at whatever the thing was.

  The forearm exploded where the bullet struck, and to Officer Humboldt’s astonishment pieces of wood flew all over the place like a table leg that had just been broken.

  The surprise of the sight made him pause for a second.

  This second bought his attacker enough time to get in close. Close enough to make him suffer the same fate as Deputy Dwayne.

  The bullet exploding part of his arm sent excruciating pain through Lucas, but he fought through it and didn’t slow down.

  Now that he was close enough (close enough to smell the fear on the man, even) he slashed at the man’s stomach with the knife.

  This one was lighter, faster, and managed to avoid having his gut cut open. The knife didn’t miss entirely, though, and the man screamed as his thigh took a deep cut.

  Lucas jumped at the man and smashed his shoulder into his sternum.

  Officer Humboldt fell to the ground as if someone had smacked him with a tree branch. As his weight came down on his injured leg, the wound flashed with pain and made the impact of his fall even worse.

  There wasn’t going to be much more suffering for him, though.

  Lucas landed on top of him and jammed the end of his broken arm into his chin, forcing his head upward, then drove the carving knife into the policeman’s jugular.

  More hot blood shot out onto Lucas’ face like a mini geyser, coating his pompadour hair.

  Officer Humboldt’s body twitched as his dying muscles still tried to throw Lucas off, but Lucas kept himself on top, pinning the man until his body went still.

  Lucas hopped up to his feet, the splintered pieces of wood hanging from his injured arm creaked.

  Father was going to have to not just clean him up, but fix him up as well. That was okay, though, because that’s what parents were supposed to do for their children.

  Chapter 9

  He saw the three teens running out of Mr. Gibson’s house, stop when they saw his cruiser, and then sprint around the house and head into the trees.

  Sheriff Harris hit the accelerator and whipped the police car up next to the curb. He climbed out of the car, and had every intention of chasing after them through the woods until he saw they’d left the door to Mr. Gibson’s house open.

  The question of what they were doing in there bloomed in his mind. Even from where he stood, at the sidewalk at the end of the driveway, he could tell it was dark inside from the blinds being down. The darkness made him curious, seemed to be pulling at him.

  Finding the teens and questioning them didn’t seem like the best idea now. His gut was telling him that there were answers in there.

  Sherriff Harris drew his gun.

  Years of training told him to follow his first instinct.

  Okay. Let’s see if I can still trust the old gut.

  It was typical of him to joke around in his head when he started to get nervous, and he couldn’t remember feeling as nervous as he felt now in years.

  Sheriff Harris started up the driveway, his heart thumping in
his chest, the feeling in his gut growing stronger.

  He gripped the gun in his hands tighter.

  It was a ghost standing there. It had to be.

  The ghost of what, though?

  Too small to be an adult, too bizarre looking to be a child.

  The thing’s skin glowed, its hair was messy in a way that didn’t make any sense for real hair. It looked too stiff, like a wig.

  An arm was busted up pretty bad. Like someone had tried to make kindling out of a table leg. That explained the gunshots he’d heard. Maybe. He couldn’t be sure of anything at the moment.

  There was blood all over this thing. Its clothes, its hair, layered across its face. Like someone had sprayed it with a super soaker filled with blood.

  The figure stepped closer to his cell.

  It was like some living doll. Like a puppet without any strings. A deranged Pinocchio…

  He was trapped in here. A sitting duck. His only chance at surviving whatever may happen (and he could feel the danger radiating from this thing) was to scare it away before it harmed him.

  “Hey, whoever…whatever the hell you are, stay away from me. I’m crazy, man. I killed my own stepfather!”

  Fuck, if ever there was a confession…

  Something told him that there was no one here to hear it anymore because the thing at the end of the hallway seemed to be carrying death on it. The same smell that some of the guys in the Army carried.

  “Jamie Harper,” the thing said, approaching him.

  The doll’s feet were heavy, and sounded like someone using a walking cane against the cement floor rather than human footsteps.

  Jamie looked behind it, sure that the rabbit killer would be there, controlling this toy. But there was nothing, nothing except its small shadow that stretched out behind him, the outline of the pompadour coming to a point on the floor.

  “What the fuck are you?” Jamie said, and unknowingly stepped backward.

  The dummy’s mouth moved, as if someone did have their hand in its back and was working it when it spoke. Unless there was a damn ghost controlling it, the dummy was doing it on its own.

  “I’m not something for you to fear. The plagues that were keeping you are gone now. Thanks to me.”

  “What are you talking about? What plagues?”

  This had to be some elaborate joke being played on him by Jarod and the cops. Maybe this was some Dutch County tradition he never heard of, like the way to welcome someone back was by sending them to jail and then having some strange animatronic robot spook the hell out of them.

  As absurd as that would be, it was even more absurd that some ventriloquist dummy was walking, talking, and breaking into the jailhouse on its own accord.

  “My name is Lucas. I am a friend of your brother’s… sort of.” The dummy reached into its jacket and pulled out a key ring. He held it up for Jamie to get a clear view of them.

  Lucas could tell the boy still didn’t believe that this was happening—probably wouldn’t believe it until later, until he had time to process that Lucas was a real human, just different than the ones he was used to.

  “You’re going to have to help me, Jamie Harper. I don’t know which one opens the door.” Lucas stepped through the hall until he was in front of the jail cell, his steps echoing the whole way.

  Jamie’s eyes were as big as saucers and swam from Lucas’ face to the keys in his hand.

  “This is really happening, Jamie. You’re going to be free once we figure this out.” Lucas encouraged him.

  The words brought Jamie reeling out of his mind and back to the bizarre situation at hand. “What about the cops that were in here?”

  “I took care of them for you, Jamie.”

  He wasn’t sure if it was the words, or the way the wood spread out like elastic to make the smile on the dummy’s face bigger that gave him gooseflesh. “Wh-what the hell does that mean?”

  “I’ve been given a second chance at life by your brother and his friends, and now it is my duty to protect them. To make sure that your brother Oliver is safe and happy at all costs. I have rid the world of the plagues that were keeping you imprisoned, and causing him distress. After all, it was the only way to save myself.”

  “When you say rid, you mean—”

  “Those policemen’s souls are no longer in this world, Jamie Harper. I’ve extracted it out of their bodies.” As it talked, the dummy flipped through key after key, trying to decide which one to try first.

  Jamie shook his head. This had to be some hallucination. Deputy Smith or someone had drugged him somehow.

  There was no way he was standing here, talking to some possessed dummy about plagues and his little brother giving him a second chance at life or any of this nonsense.

  But the keys. The keys in this thing’s wooden hand were real.

  Christ.

  “So, which one is it, Jamie Harper?” The keys jangled, making crude music, as he ran a finger over them.

  “It’s the big brass one, right there in the middle,” Jamie said, pointing at it.

  Lucas tried to reach the keyhole, but failed. It was too high up. Looking up at Jamie, he held the keys out for him to take.

  Awkwardly, Jamie put his arms through the bars and twisted his wrist in to insert the key, and then turned it. He heard the lock disengage, then he pushed the cell door open.

  Jamie stepped out, stopping a few feet short of the dummy.

  “What are you?”

  “A person,” Lucas said. “Like you.”

  “You killed the cops with that knife?”

  Lucas looked down at the knife handle sticking out of his jacket pocket, as if he’d forgotten it was there. Then said, “Yes.”

  “And you killed Big Bob, too?” It was more of a statement than a question.

  Lucas shook his head. “No. That was my Father, my creator.”

  “Your…creator?”

  As the words slipped out of his mouth, he realized who and what the dummy meant. The rabbit killer was his creator, and his creator was none other than Mr. Gibson. The neighborhood toymaker.

  Jamie looked the dummy up and down now with different eyes. Of course, the ingenuity, the flawless carving of the wood, the way all of the features on the face were painted on with great care. It was the work of Mr. Gibson, no doubt. He must have really worked his ass off on this thing, too, because he got all the colors right. The mouth wasn’t electric green, for instance, and the eyes weren’t some hideous shade of yellow. Everything looked…real.

  “I see you believe me now,” the doll said.

  “You got me out of that cell. It’s hard not to believe it.”

  “You can leave this town,” Lucas said. It was flat, but somehow commanding at the same time.

  “What?”

  “Leave, Jamie Harper. Never come back so that Oliver never has to be distressed by what happens to you. It will make it easier for everyone.”

  “Just hold on a minute, little doll person. That’s not the way it works. The reason I got thrown into this jail cell was because of what Mr. Gibson did—what your creator did in the first place. You think I’ll just be able to go live my life now that you’ve killed two cops?”

  “The plagues of this world must be gotten rid of at all costs, Jamie. The cost happened to be you being imprisoned. But now, you are free, so please, be out of Oliver’s life. Do not,” and here the dummy paused for effect, “let yourself become a plague. I would hate to have to rid you of this world, Jamie Harper.”

  Jamie swallowed hard, trying not to hear the threat in those words from this runt-sized murderer. The fact remained, he couldn’t just skip town. The law would never stop hunting him down. “You have no idea how this world works, do you?”

  “I know enough.”

  “Enough? What the hell does that mean?”

  “Enough to know what plagues this world.”

  Jamie took a step back, but he came up against the bars. “What makes you so sure about that?”


  “I can sense things that affect this world, that others cannot.”

  “Like what?”

  “When things are causing trouble to those I’m connected with—to the ones who brought me to this world. Those that I must protect.”

  “Me never coming back to Dutch County and never seeing my brother again would cause him distress, I can promise you it would, little man.”

  The dummy had no response for that one.

  Sensing that he needed to press that little advantage, Jamie collected his thoughts. “That’s right. Family members are connected to each other in the same way you think you’re connected with my brother and his friends. The connection is stronger for family. Really. You don’t want to cause my brother stress, you can’t ask me to leave. Or, rid me of this world or whatever.”

  “So then join me and my father. Help us.”

  “Like hell.” Jamie laughed. “I’ll end up back in this jail cell if I do that. Worse, probably.”

  “Then what will you do, Jamie Harper?”

  “Hm, that’s a good question.” Jamie thought this through for a moment.

  The dummy and Mr. Gibson were the key to proving his innocence.

  Sheriff Harris was competent enough (he hoped) to gather the evidence of who the real killer was, and they’d piece it all together. He and the rest of the police force. They’d be surprised as heck when they found that a killer dummy that Mr. Gibson had made was running amok around town, but they’d have to deal with that, and drop any charges against him.

  Even if the Sheriff failed him, the video surveillance would show that a walking, talking dummy had come into the jailhouse and let him out of the cell after killing two policemen.

  It would all be laid out in front of them. His innocence would be undeniable.

  Now, he gave a second thought to running out of Dutch County. Catching a bus outside of town and going up north where no one would know who he was.

  Yeah, that would be a solid plan. Return when the dust settled. They had all the proof they needed, and he could just lay low until it was over. He could phone Oliver from a payphone wherever he would be staying and get the scoop of what was going on with the rabbit killer. Once he told him that it was all good to go, he would come back.