The Toymaker

by Sergio Gomez

  Scott recognized Jenna’s SUV immediately despite how unexpected this visit was.

  Of course he did, he would have recognized the “Devil’s car” anywhere. A joke (sort of) he’d come up with at the end of their marriage because not only was it red, but when it pulled up to the house it meant he was in for another round of screaming. The nights when they didn’t argue were few and far between in the days before they officially separated.

  And now, here was the Devil’s car back in his new neighborhood. Already he could feel the argument he was in for brewing. He only hoped that she wouldn’t do it in front of Jack and Maria.

  As the three of them climbed out of the Toyota, Jenna climbed out of the SUV.

  She started up the driveway to Jack.

  “Sweetie, get in Mom’s car. Me and your dad have a lot to talk about.” She put her arms around him and started steering him down the driveway.

  Scott was at the driver side of the car, too stunned to move. Maria was standing at the front of the car, in between the end of the driveway and the porch steps. Scott motioned to her, telling her to go inside, that he would deal with this.

  This kind of stuff was between him and Jenna, but Maria still didn’t like leaving him out here by himself. She climbed up to the porch, and waited there to make sure she didn’t have to interject somehow. There was a blaze in Jenna’s eyes that was making her uncomfortable.

  “Jenna, what are you doing here?” Scott finally said, meeting her and Jack down the driveway. He was trying to keep the edge out of his voice, but the fact that she’d driven down here was crazy. The fact that she was taking Jack was unacceptable.

  He wanted nothing more than to explode on her, but not out here for the whole neighborhood to see.

  Jenna pushed Jack further toward the car and then rounded on him. “I got your voicemail, Scott. That’s what I’m doing here. That nasty one you left me about our son being vegetarian? That one.”

  “Yeah, and? That made you drive up here?”

  “My son lives under my roof, you understand? He only visits yours. He follows my rules, and you need to respect that.”

  Scott lowered his voice. “I would appreciate it if in the future you talk to me about that sort of stuff before you make your decisions.”

  “Oh yeah, because you’ve always been so involved in his life, right, Scott?”

  Jenna knew how to twist his emotions and set him off. He could feel the rage taking control of him, and his voice was about to come out at a volume that would escalate this into something else.

  Not in front of them. He thought. Trying to keep his cool to not subject his son and fiancée to this.

  “Get in the car, Jack,” Jenna demanded.

  Jack looked at Scott, and Scott shook his head.

  “Go inside, Son. Me and your mother have a lot to talk about.”

  “No, we don’t. We’re going home.” Jenna put her arms back around Jack and started walking him toward the car.

  “Jenna, stop this.” Scott followed behind her, then grabbed her by the shoulder to stop her.

  She spun around, and slapped his hand away, using her nails like claws to cut open his skin. “Don’t touch me.”

  Scott pulled his hand away and wiped the blood gushing out from the small wounds with his other hand. “Jenna, what’s gotten into you?”

  “You are what’s gotten into me, Scott. Moving out here and then leaving me voicemails where you’re cursing at me. All while my mom is in the hospital. What the heck kind of person are you? You think I want my son around someone like that?”

  The disturbance in the air was so strong. Lucas had to hurry. One of the boys who’d summoned him, Jack Roberts, was in distress. Lucas didn’t like it.

  He didn’t like it one bit.

  He charged down the street, in the direction of where his help was needed.

  Everything that happened next seemed to have happened in slow motion.

  As his mother was guiding him down the driveway, and yelling at his father, out of the corner of his eye he saw Gina at the end of the street. She stopped, her mouth hanging open at the sight of something that obviously disturbed her more than his parents arguing.

  Jack shifted his focus over to what was holding hers, and saw something moving at a speed that made it blurry.

  Blurry, but he still knew what it was.

  It was Lucas. Mr. Gibson’s dummy.

  He was heading straight for him and his mother. No one was controlling him, though. He moved all on his own.

  Tommy Marino had been right. They had awoken something in that tunnel, and that something was here.

  Even stranger than all of that, there was a gun in the dummy’s hand. And it was aimed at his mother.

  The woman was too distracted with whatever fight she was engaged in with the bald man to have seen him coming. But Jack Roberts saw him, and he was just as shocked as the rest of the people who’d seen him. The ones who died. The ones who were gone. The plagues he’d eradicated.

  Lucas stopped and aimed the gun, but he didn’t have a clear shot because the woman was holding on to Jack Roberts. There was no guarantee he wouldn’t accidently hit the boy.

  He’d only shot a gun once—minutes ago when he killed the Sheriff, and that had been from point blank, pretty much. But from here, he didn’t trust his aim.

  That was okay, he had the knife.

  With his good arm, Lucas put the gun back into his pocket and switched it out with the knife. This felt better already.

  He wasn’t far from striking range, but he needed to act quickly before she noticed him coming.

  The plague had to be cleansed from the world. He had to make life safe for the children.

  It was the only way he could live.

  Gina couldn’t help but run back into the trees, back to the safety of her friends. Mr. Gibson’s dummy was alive and getting ready to attack someone at Jack’s house.

  She didn’t know who the woman was, but the way it looked it seemed like the dummy had been going after her. The gun in its hand had been pointed at her—or Jack, she wasn’t sure.

  Either way, she needed to get back to her friends.

  Lucas jumped forward, just as he’d pounced on his other victims, with the blade slashing through the air. Only this time, he didn’t hit his mark. Not at all, because another force sent him flying back the other way.

  A boot right to his face.

  Lucas tumbled into the street, pieces of his already broken arm chipping off as he grinded against the asphalt. He wasn’t sure what’d happened until his momentum stopped and he was lying on the ground staring up at the clouds.

  Someone had interfered to protect the plague—which meant they needed to be eradicated as well.

  Lucas picked himself up to scan the scene.

  The woman he intended to kill was on the ground, with the man standing over her and facing him. Jack was behind them, also on the ground.

  Jack and the woman had a panicked look on their faces, while the man seemed furious. But underneath the fury, Lucas could sense his fear.

  Lucas opened up his connection to Jack Roberts, to read his thoughts.

  The woman was his mother. The man was his father. Doubts began to swim in Lucas’ own mind because he could sense that both of these people were a source of happiness for Jack Roberts—the way Jamie Harper was a source of happiness for Oliver Harper.

  He closed his eyes to dig deeper into Jack’s thoughts.

  The boy was sad about his parents not being together anymore, sad that the family had fallen apart, and distressed that he forced these two to be in contact with one another.

  Lucas opened his eyes in time to see the man approaching him.

  Having read the boy’s thoughts that deeply, he knew what his move was now.

  He didn’t have to eradicate the mother specifically. He only needed to kill one of them. If there was only one in this world, then Jack Roberts wouldn’t have to worry about whether they were together or not.<
br />
  And since the father was the one approaching him, Lucas saw it as the man volunteering himself.

  Easy as one-two-three.

  Lucas got to his feet.

  He stood there, smiling.

  Reaching a hand into his pocket he switched the knife for the gun once again.

  The sight of it made the man freeze in his tracks.

  Scott felt his legs go stiff, as if he’d suddenly stepped into a pit of quicksand.

  Behind him, Jenna was crying, but the sound of his heart thumping ice through his veins mostly drowned it out.

  “Okay, okay, I don’t know what you are or what’s going on, but think about this.”

  Scott felt his mind spinning. Was he really talking things out with some kind of possessed wooden doll?

  “The world is full of plagues, and you are one,” the dummy said, inching toward him. “Your failures have forced your son into a position where he is torn between two worlds. Suffering every day, while you and his mother move on with your lives. Neither one realizing the torture you’ve caused to him because of your own selfish needs.”

  “What the fuck?” Scott scowled.

  “But no more, Scott Roberts. Your son will no longer suffer due to your existence.”

  Scott leapt at the dummy as fast as he could. There was quite a distance between them, it was a farfetched idea, but it was all he could think of.

  It was life or death, either way.

  As he went through the air, he heard the gun go off, followed by pain in his chest.

  Chapter 14

  Jamie couldn’t go further than the Dutch County exit sign before turning around to catch a bus going back the other way.

  Maybe the force that made him turn back to his brother was psychological in nature, or perhaps it was supernatural. Whatever the case, the force that was now guiding him told him this was the right thing to do.

  The bus stopped at the end of the neighborhood, and Jamie climbed down the steps two at a time.

  “In a hurry, huh?” he heard the bus driver say behind him as the doors slammed shut.

  More than you know. Jamie thought, as he tore through the neighborhood.

  Whatever that damn dummy was doing, he could feel its troubles stirring through the air. Something wasn’t right, and something told him Twist was about to be caught up in some weird shit.

  Call it Big Brother intuition, if you wanted to.

  Gina returned paler than usual.

  Tommy and Twist jumped up as soon as they saw her. She was in a rush. Something was wrong.

  “What is it?” Tommy asked.

  Gina put her hand to her mouth, and looked like she was going to cry.

  Neither of them had ever seen Gina cry except for the summer when she’d broken her arm, but here she was on the verge of tears without trying to fight it. The situation was bigger than her tough-girl reputation, it seemed.

  “The dummy, the one Mr. Gibson gave us. It’s… It’s out there.”

  “Out there?” Tommy asked. “Gina, what’re you talking about?”

  “Jack is out there with his dad and some lady. I guess it’s his mom. They were arguing when I was out there, and then I saw the dummy coming at them with a gun. It was covered in…in blood.”

  Twist and Tommy looked at one another, both of them thinking she’d gone bonkers.

  “Tommy, don’t look at me like that,” Gina said. “It was your story. You were right, something was sleeping in that tunnel, and we woke it.”

  “And it took over the dummy?” Twist said.

  “What other explanation do you have?” she asked.

  Once again, the boys glanced at one another.

  “Are you sure you saw right?” Tommy asked.

  “Yes. I’m sure. Go out there and look for yourself. Come on, let’s go look.” She saw neither of them budge. “Come on.”

  Tommy nodded. “Okay, okay, let’s go.”

  As crazy as it seemed, if she was right, Jack was in trouble. They couldn’t leave him to face this all alone.

  By the time they heard the gunshot, it was too late for them to turn back.

  Chapter 15

  Dying. Gunned down, by a dummy.

  Of the ways he thought he might die, this had never been one of them.

  He could feel the wound spilling blood on Dudley Street. It was a sensation that was both cool and hot at the same time. Cool, he guessed because the autumn air was seeping into his body, but hot because of the profuse amount of blood coming out of the wound.

  The curtains in his vision were threatening to close, and each second the blackness in the corner of his eyes encroached further.

  He heard the dummy’s wooden feet stomping toward him.

  Coming to finish him off.

  The whole street seemed to have frozen around Jack.

  Maria watched in shock from the porch, not even able to process the last minute. Her fiancé, the love of her life, had been shot by a dummy that was walking and talking on its own.

  Next to Jack, his mom was shrieking and crying.

  When Jack was finally able to move, he let out a scream that felt loud enough to rattle the windows of the surrounding houses. “NOOOOOOOO!”

  Lucas stopped, and looked over at him, wondering at the change in the boy’s emotions.

  “What did you do?” Jack said as he ran to his father’s side. “What did you do?”

  His voice wasn’t loud anymore. It sounded weak and pathetic to him, because he’d put everything he had into the scream. Hoping in some way that he could transfer enough energy to his father to keep him alive until the ambulance came to save his life.

  But Jack knew that only happened in comic books and movies, not in real life. In real life, when there was a bullet near someone’s heart, they were going to die.

  He wrapped his arms around his dad, not caring that he was getting blood all over him. Scott had enough energy to roll over, to face his son one last time.

  “Dad, Dad. Get up! Get up, please.”

  Scott lifted his arm up, and let gravity guide it to go around Jack’s back. “I love you, Jack.”

  “Get up, Dad. Get up, please,” Jack cried. “You have to take me to see Leprechaun 4. You promised. Please, get up.”

  He buried his head on his dad’s chest, the part that seemed the driest, and cried into his shirt. It still smelled like his aftershave and cigarettes, a smell he realized he’d taken for granted up until now.

  “Dad…”

  A shadow fell over Jack, and Jack looked up to stare into the face of the thing that’d killed his father.

  The dummy had blood all over it. His glass eyes, in some strange way, had the emotion of someone who didn’t know how they messed up, but knew they had done something wrong.

  “Jack… I do not understand.”

  Lucas put the gun down, and dropped down to his knees to reach out for Jack, but Jack shoved him away.

  “I thought this was what you wanted,” Lucas said. “It wasn’t. It wasn’t what you wanted…”

  Victor rode onto Dudley Street on his new bike his parents had surprised him with that morning. He had been grinning the whole ride, because he thought his friends would all think it was cool. Maybe even cooler than Tommy Marino’s motorbike. It had been a long ride, but thinking of the looks on his friends’ faces made it worthwhile.

  His grin disappeared when he saw the mess the street was in. He took the headphones off his head, and “MMMBop” was replaced by the eeriness of the scene.

  Nothing he was seeing made any sense.

  Jack was facing off with the Lucas dummy, both of them smeared with blood. Gina, Tommy Marino, and Twist were standing by the sidewalk with panicked looks on their faces.

  On the porch of Jack’s house was his father’s fiancée, who seemed too shattered to move. On the ground, a blond woman was crying hysterically.

  He’d stopped pedaling, but his bike continued down the street under its own momentum. Now he saw that Jack’s dad was
on the ground, blood pouring out from his chest.

  Then, as if to put an exclamation point to the strangeness, Jamie Harper came running onto the street from the other end.

  Victor felt something. Like an earthquake, only he knew it wasn’t that. Pennsylvania wasn’t known for earthquakes, and the ground wasn’t shaking. It was more like something inside of him had moved. His bones, maybe.

  But maybe not, maybe it was something inside of him he didn’t know existed until now.

  He looked into his friends’ faces, who were all spread out on different parts of the street, and knew they had felt the movement too.

  Jamie stopped at the end of the street as he turned the corner, confused by everything in front of him. In the middle of Dudley Street some kid was holding a guy bleeding from his chest, with Mr. Gibson’s magical doll standing in front of him. Two women watched on from 1418. One was on the ground on the driveway, the other on the porch, but both of their mouths were turned into O’s.

  On the sidewalk, that nerdy kid with the bad haircuts his kid brother sometimes hung out with (Rick Tanner or something?) was on a shiny bike that was gliding to a slow stop.

  Across the street was Twist, Tommy, and a blond neighborhood girl he recognized (Tina Bobkin?) stopped by the curb, standing in a line hip to hip.

  He couldn’t see everyone’s expressions from where he was, but he didn’t need to in order to know that everyone was as perplexed as he was about what was happening on the street—even that dumbass doll.

  Chapter 16

  Doctor Gary Brown knew that something was wrong the moment he pulled into the driveway, even before he saw Officer Humboldt’s dead body lying on the ground a few yards from the jailhouse entrance.

  As he parked his BMW, his instinct was to pick up his car phone and dial 9-1-1, but of course, dialing 9-1-1 would ring the phone inside the county jailhouse.