by Sergio Gomez
However, that was nothing compared to the pain he felt in his chest. The pain from being rejected by the children, the ones he’d sworn to protect as if his life depended on it (because it did, but that was beside the point). The ones he’d thought of as his saviors.
They hated him now. He could feel it because he was still connected to them.
They wanted to eradicate him from this world.
The look in their eyes flashed through his mind—as vividly as if he were still back on that dreaded street—and he remembered Father’s words:
Lucas, Lucas, my son. This world…it won’t accept you for how you are.
And he’d been right all along.
Accepting that truth seemed to take the last of the energy he could muster. He stopped walking, fell to his knees, and stared out into the trees. Trees as far as his eye could see, so many trees.
“Father…” Lucas muttered. “How I wish you were here—”
Out from behind a tree, a figure emerged. The figure had the same height, the same size, the same slouch as Father, too.
Could it be?
Lucas couldn’t believe it—even though he himself was something unbelievable, he couldn’t believe Father was back.
The figure stepped forward, and when it was out underneath the shadows Lucas saw it wasn’t his creator.
No, no. The being standing before him was even better than Father.
“My son. Do not lose hope,” the figure said.
Lucas rose to his feet, in great awe.
It was the True Father himself.
The horns, the tail, the immense size, the power exuding from him. There was no mistaking who it was.
“I-it’s you. It’s really you?” Lucas said.
The True Father grinned. “Indeed. I told you I would appear to you in a time of need.”
“Y-you did?”
“Yes, right before you handed your soul to me,” the True Father responded.
Lucas nodded, though he wasn’t sure he understood the words. He couldn’t remember a time before being trapped in the dark world.
“I’m a man of my word,” he grinned again, “despite what they say.”
“They?”
“The ones who’ve rejected you.” The True Father pointed a thick, red finger with a nail as long as a knife out past the trees. “The plagues.”
Lucas glanced over his shoulder, then turned back. “Right. Them.”
“The children have betrayed us, my son. You know what that means, don’t you?”
Lucas shook his head.
“You are a human soul, Lucas. Just like the ones that exist on this earth, but you’ve given yourself up to me in the afterlife, for a second chance—out of your own accord, mind you. This right now, is your second life.”
“W-who was I in my past life?”
The True Father shrugged. “I have many souls giving themselves to me every day—I’m sorry to say, but it is hard to keep track. Know this, though, you have my powers aiding you. Something the other souls don’t have.”
“Yes,” Lucas said.
“Those children that brought you back—they had a chance to join us, help us rid the world of the plagues that infest it. Instead, they’ve rejected you—rejected us. They’ve chosen their side, now they have become plagues themselves.”
“And I must eradicate them?” Lucas asked.
“Precisely.” The True Father turned away from him, as if he were about to go through a door to another room. “Before they eradicate you.”
“How, though, True Father?” Lucas stepped closer to him. “I am hurt, lost, exhausted. I’m alone, and there are five of them.”
“There is one more you’re forgetting about. Open your heart, and you will find her.”
“Find…her?”
The True Father began to descend through the ground, as if he were in an invisible elevator that went through the Earth, but seconds before his head disappeared under the surface, he said: “Find Momma.”
As he spoke the words, Lucas felt a connection open up between him and another person. It was the person who’d started the ritual to bring him back to life.
And she was near.
He would wander around the wilderness without a purpose no more.
Chapter 4
Dwayne Smith woke up for the fourth time that day. He was still drugged up on morphine, but he felt better than he had the first days in the hospital. Like his mind was battling for normalcy and it was finally winning.
There was a new vase of flowers and a card that hadn’t been there before he’d fallen asleep, so he knew it hadn’t been brought to him by any of his kids.
Whoever the visitor was must have known what they were shopping for, because the arrangement was big and colorful and varied and worked to cheer him up. If only a little, but in this moment a little counted for a lot.
Dwayne wasn’t really a flower kind of guy (and had no idea what any of their names were), and never thought he’d see the day when a bedside decorated by flowers would warm him. Then again, he never thought he’d be put in the hospital because of a cursed dummy.
There was an assortment of other presents behind this newest addition of flowers which included bottles of alcohol (for post-recovery, of course), chocolates, cologne, and fruit arrangements. The presents had come from friends and family who’d heard of the attack.
They’d heard he had his gut slashed open, and his intestines had to be stuffed back into his body, and his stomach sewn closed—all of the gory detail. He was sure of that because details like that had a way of traveling through the grapevine. But they hadn’t heard of who, or in this case what, had attacked him.
That, he was even more sure of.
Tamika came back from where she’d gone, carrying a tray of food that filled the room with the scent every cafeteria seemed to have regardless of what they’d cooked.
Her face was puffy from lack of sleep and bags were beginning to form under her eyes, but she was as beautiful as ever to him. She set the tray on a table next to the one where all the gifts were, then walked over to him and began to pull the eating table from the side of the bed.
“How was your nap, love?”
Dwayne reached out and touched her arm as she pulled the table across his lap and said. “I love you.”
Tamika smiled as she finished pulling the table out, then bent over and kissed him on the forehead. “I love you, too.”
“My nap was good,” he said, answering her question. “How are the kids?”
“Worried,” she said, walking back for the tray of food. She returned and set it in front of him, then started stirring the mashed potatoes. Only soft foods for her man for a while. “We’re all worried.”
“I know, I’m sorry,” he said, and then partly because he meant to and partly because he was drugged up he began to cry.
Tamika put the spoon down and reached out to wipe the tears from his eyes. “Stop. Stop it, Dwayne.”
He nodded and tried to compose himself. At least she was keeping strong.
“They’re going to catch the guy who did this to you,” she said. “I know they will. And he’ll get his, Dwayne. I know it.”
The guy. Dwayne thought, remembering that she didn’t know the truth, either. As much as he wanted to correct her, at the moment, he didn’t have the strength.
“I hope so,” he said.
“They will,” Tamika reassured him. “Now, eat up.”
Dwayne smiled. “Did I ever tell you how much I love you?”
“Yes,” Tamika said, then looked at the morphine machine behind him. “Many times, actually, but I’m not sure how much of it came from your heart and how much came from that baggie over there.”
He knew if he laughed it would hurt, so instead he smiled.
“Now eat up,” she said, handing him the spoon.
After the last bite of potatoes, he’d been ready for real food. Turkey. Rolls. Even corn would have been great, and Dwayne hated corn. All of that
was going to have to wait, though, until his insides were healed up and moving like they should.
He’d managed to convince Tamika to promise to head home after he finished his dinner. To spend time with the children on Thanksgiving and try to relax and not worry about him. He knew the last part would be next to impossible, because if the positions were reversed it’d be impossible for him not to worry.
This was what he signed up for, though. Kind of, anyway, because killer dummies weren’t a normal part of it—but the danger was. That part most definitely.
Tamika took his tray away and put it back on the open table. Before heading out the door, she turned to him and said, “Get a good night’s rest tonight, okay?”
“I’ll try.”
“I love you, Dwayne.”
“I love you, too,” he said, as she headed out of the room.
He heard the murmur of his wife and another person outside the room talking. Then a magazine or a paperback being shuffled and stored into a bag, followed by footsteps going both away and toward his room.
The ones going away belonged to his wife of course, and the sound of that made him feel lonely. She’d used up all of her personal days at the clinic to be here all day, every day since he’d been at the hospital. Sleeping by his side, fetching him water, helping him to the bathroom, and so on.
He wondered what he’d done to deserve such a woman in his life, and he started to cry again.
Dwayne was wiping at his eyes when the visitor came into the room.
“Hey, there, Deputy Smith. How are you holding up?” It was Doctor Gary Brown, the man who he owed his life to.
Doctor Brown sat down on the chair Tamika had been using.
“I’ve had better days,” Dwayne said, finishing rubbing at his eyes. “I know I’ve said it before, but thanks again for saving me. And thanks for the flowers, I guess.”
“The flowers were my wife’s idea,” Doctor Brown said, smiling weakly. “And I wouldn’t have been on the scene if you hadn’t called me in to evaluate Jamie Harper, so in a way you owe him.”
“I guess so,” Dwayne said, then turned his head to look out the window.
Doctor Brown reached into the plastic bag he had with him and took out a newspaper. He handed it to Dwayne.
There was a photo of the PA Police Commissioner at a press conference on the front cover, with the headline: A BLOODY DAY IN DUTCH COUNTY—6 DEAD, 1 INJURED. The “1 INJURED” was, of course, him. But seeing it vague like that in print made it less personal somehow.
There was no mention of a dummy. And if it wasn’t in the headline, that meant there wasn’t any mention of it anywhere. Of course not. He’d been incredulous when they thought it’d been a masked rabbit killer, why would anyone accept the report of a walking, talking ventriloquist dummy.
He knew the State Police had taken the surveillance video from the sheriff’s station. They had to have seen that dummy running through the place. Maybe they were sitting on it until they could explain it. Frankly, Dwayne wouldn’t blame them. If they released that video everyone would think they faked it. What, with how computers were nowadays, anyone could do that. It wouldn’t be hard. And anyone—like him—who insisted it was real would be sent right into the loony bin. He couldn’t put Tamika through that. Not after the scare of him almost dying.
“I’m sure you’ve seen stuff about the day of your attack—right? The others who were killed, I mean.” Doctor Brown asked.
He was shocked when Dwayne shook his head. “Not much. Just what’s on the television news. Tamika’s the only one besides my children who’ve been allowed to visit. Said she’d rather one of my colleagues tell me about it when I get out of here.”
“Oh,” Doctor Brown said, “Well, then. I hope she deems me worthy.”
“The man who saved my life? I’d say you’re more than worthy. Go on. Tell me what’s going on.”
Doctor Brown nodded. “Well. To start with, Officer Humboldt’s dead. As well as the Sheriff. He was stabbed and then shot in the head.”
Dwayne nodded. That much he knew. There was no way Sheriff Harris wouldn’t have come by to see him by now. So he’d asked about it, and Tamika had grudgingly told him that much. “Shot by…by who?” he asked, bracing himself to hear that the dummy had taken another victim.
“He was killed by Raymond Gibson—you know the fellow. The one who lives on Dudley Street and makes all the toys?”
“Yeah,” Dwayne said, nodding. “I know him. He shot Willy? But why?”
Although, it made sense that a toymaker would be involved with a crazy, killer toy…
This all was starting to make sense. A toymaker. A possessed killer-dummy. Sheriff Harris must’ve thought Jamie Harper’s story had some credibility and gone out to investigate. And in the house, he likely found the rabbit mask.
If only he would’ve been less stubborn, maybe he would’ve gone with the Sheriff. Brian Humboldt would’ve stayed back and still gotten killed by the dummy, but at least Willy would still be here.
One alive is better than both being dead.
Fuck, he thought.
“It was either him, or the mystery killer—or both, maybe one stabbed him and the other shot him,” Doctor Brown continued. “The mystery killer is what they’re calling the person who attacked you and killed the others in the massacre.
They found the toymaker’s dead body in his house. Shot in the chest by the Sheriff. The mystery killer covered him up with a drop-cloth before running out into the street to kill his last victim, apparently.”
“Tell me, Doc, did the paper say anything about a juvenile victim? A teenager?”
Doctor Brown shifted in his seat. Dwayne had put the newspaper at the side of the bed and he grabbed it from there. He stared down at the pages, trying to remember if there’d been any mentions of that.
Finally, he shook his head. “No.”
“Can you do me a favor, Doctor Brown? Can you read the names of the victims to me?”
That was going to be easy. He’d highlighted the names before coming here to talk to Dwayne.
He opened the paper and found the page where the names of the dead were listed. “Robert Harper, Sherriff William Harris, Officer Brian Humboldt, Scott Roberts, Raymond Gibson, and an unknown fifth victim.”
Doctor Brown looked up from the paper.
“Hm,” Dwayne said, then nodded. “Where was the unknown victim found?”
Doctor Brown glanced back down at the paper, and only needed to read one word to remember the answer to that question. “Do you want the grisly details?”
“Yes.”
“Okay,” he said, nodding. “They found trash bags stuffed with chopped up body parts sitting in Mr. Gibson’s house. They think he was planning on disposing of them later.”
Dwayne let out a heavy sigh in response.
“What?” Doctor Brown asked.
“Nothing. Just frustrating that there’s so much mystery in this,” Dwayne lied, because he knew enough now to know exactly what’d happened.
Mr. Gibson had kidnapped Jarod Crimp and taken him back home. That was who was chopped up in the trash bags. There was no way the State Police didn’t know that, either. It was one more fact they were keeping from the public. There must have been a massive investigation going on behind the scenes for them to keep it all so close to the vest like this.
The Sherriff had had enough intuition to go back to the neighborhood instead of pinning it on the Harper boy. He’d gone into Mr. Gibson’s house and found evidence that he was the rabbit killer just as Mr. Gibson and the dummy returned from the jailhouse.
Then at some point there was a shootout, in which Willy took out the toymaker. But the dummy had gotten the Sheriff.
After that, the dummy went outside and killed the Roberts guy. He wasn’t sure what that was about and didn’t much care enough to try to figure it out. It was a wooden dummy killing people. How much logic could there be to it?
“I don’t know how you policemen do it
,” Doctor Brown said.
“What do you mean?” Dwayne asked.
“I feel like I’ve been playing detective ever since I showed up at the jailhouse and found that horrific scene—and found you. And now I’m here, reporting this to the Dutch County Deputy, helping you piece this puzzle together, sort of.”
“I only have one last question, and then we can be done,” Dwayne said.
“Mm-hmm,” Doctor Brown responded, trying his best to sound like it was okay with him.
“Did anyone see where the mystery killer went?”
“Yes. All the witnesses saw him flee the scene into the wilderness,” Doctor Brown said, nodding.
“Thank you, Doctor Brown. I owe you more than I could ever repay you.”
Doctor Brown reached out and put his hand on Dwayne’s forearm. “You’re very welcome. I think that day has changed everyone’s worldview in Dutch County. I think we’re all aware of how close something tragic can be to us now, you know?”
“I understand what you’re saying,” Dwayne said.
Doctor Brown laughed. “Of course, I’m being silly. You see this every day, so I guess I’m speaking from the perspective of someone who has what one would call a ‘safe’ job. What I should say is that this whole thing has certainly changed my worldview.”
Trust me. It’s changed mine, too, Dwayne thought, recalling the moment his life had been threatened by a wooden toy.
He made sure that no nurses or doctors were around to stop him before sliding into the wheelchair. It was a great effort to ignore the immense pain in his abdomen the morphine couldn’t mask, but he was tired of laying here helpless all day. He started his way to the hospital room window, pulling his IV pole with him.
Doctor Brown had left fifteen minutes ago, and Dwayne had been lying in the dark thinking. Mainly about how all of the unexplainable things he’d heard of or experienced in his life he could now attribute to a supernatural happenstance.