The boy watches the sun set, dreading the darkness that follows. He begins to glance periodically at the old clock on the wall, its hands edging towards the night so threateningly. He plays with his dinner, a catch in his throat, as his mother watches him in worry. She does not know why her son is paler and more withdrawn with each passing day. He hasn’t told her or his father. He wants to be brave, not the silly little coward his friends had made him out to be when he told them two days ago, when it began. Still, as bedtime prowls, his heart beats faster and his knees grow weaker.

That night, he feels heavy. He shivers under the sheets and watches the shadows of trees against the streetlights dance on his walls. He thinks he sees glowering eyes. He thinks he hears someone. He stays in bed until he feels suffocated, like he may die if he spends another moment in the room- if there is really a sixth sense, it is screaming now. He jumps out of bed and stumbles into the neighbouring room, into the arms of his sleeping parents. His father doesn’t stir, but his mother wakes when she feels her trembling son crawl into bed next to her. Tears well in her eyes and she hugs him close, wondering if he’s being bullied, and whether he needs to see a school counsellor or a therapist. There isn’t enough room on the bed, she waits until his breathing calms to a regular rhythm. When she feels sure he’s asleep, she slips out of the bed into his room.

She is pale the next morning, and quieter than usual. She isn’t sure why. The next night is the same. Her son crawls in. She tries to wake her husband up this time, to see if he will move instead, but he grunts and rolls over. The following morning, they watch her clutch her steaming coffee mug until it turns cold. She stays at the dining table for the better part of the day. Meanwhile, her son hasn’t told her what bothers him, and she toys with the idea of therapy and dealing with bullies, an unconnected yet unsettling feeling lingering in the back of her mind. Two pairs of eyes shoot worried glances at the clock when the sun sets that evening. When her son crawls into their bed once more, she decides to sleep on the couch downstairs. She can’t say why, the instinct doesn’t reveal a reason she understands. When the sun rises, her husband walks downstairs to find her on the couch and asks her why. She shrugs. She isn’t as pale as she was the previous morning, though she’s stiff from an uncomfortable night of sleep.

The irritated father, sympathetic of his wife, has stern words with his son. He forbids him from disturbing his mother henceforth. The parents are undisturbed for a longer while that night, but that ends when the boy nudges his father awake, tears streaming down his cheeks. His father sighs in lethargic defeat and trudges to sleep in his son’s room that night. The mother and son don’t notice a change in him the next morning. He’s only a little more tired than usual. He silences some inexplicable nagging in the back of his mind with ease. He grumbles on the way to his son’s room when he’s disturbed yet again that night, and the night after that. After a lengthy discussion with his wife, they decide to explore options for therapy. He decides to exchange rooms with the boy until he’s better again. On the fourth night, he chuckles and wonders out loud why he seems to be the only one who can manage to catch a good night’s sleep in his son’s little room. His face falls when he hears a reply in a grating whisper. “You’re my favourite.”

#horror

The tension in the courtroom was almost tangible, like the thing that only Joan Stolas could see looming over her brother. When he glanced over in her direction, so did it. His cold eyes, as gray as the jail cell walls he was about to be booted into, stared at nothingness. Joan remembered when those eyes were a warm brown like hers, full of youth and wonder. That was before it latched onto his shoulder like a cancerous tumor and pulled him into a life of crime.

Tumor. Cancer. Those were the first words that she learned because of how Seth was born. Until he was about 13, Joan’s brother had sickening growths on both his legs that prevented him from being able to play tag or try out for sports with her. Their parents had decided that amputating was far too risky (and on top of this, expensive) and that they would wait and see how his condition progressed. The family grew up fearing for when he would get his wish of meeting Hugh Jackman as Wolverine on his "last day" at age fourteen, Joan carrying more burdens than the average older sibling because of this. Fearing for when she would have to live on without him. Every night, she prayed to whoever out there would listen. Then, those wishes for Seth came true before the day of judgement. Joan retold that fateful night to every news station over and over, how he walked all by himself to her bedroom. How he showed off his perfectly normal legs to her right after she had been crying on the floor, surrounded by torn diary pages and blood from self-inflicted cuts. They had saved each other then.

But as soon as those tumors "miraculously" disappeared from Seth’s legs, the first thing that he did was kill. It didn't take long for the news articles about his pitiful condition and its overnight fix to be replaced with the names of his victims. The first person he stabbed was their youngest brother Gabriel, and Joan saw everything. By the time he was caught, it was Seth's twenty-sixth birthday and he had murdered 13 people, most of which were the doctors that didn’t do much for him when he was in a wheelchair. When Joan saw him for the first time in those 13 years behind bulletproof glass, he looked straight at her and blinked the last of the melanin in his eyes, revealing a blank stare. It, weighing down his shoulder so subtly that everyone thought it to be poor posture, mirrored this gaze. The police had to take her away when she began screaming, louder than she had when Gabe was murdered. She knew that the color in Seth’s eyes, and the color in his life, had been drained by it.

Joan had first seen it the day Seth could walk again, but assumed it to be nothing more than a shadow, a trick of the light. Now, it was the same size as him, an embodiment of his vantablack sins perched like a devil on his left shoulder. Joan could hardly see its face, but could tell that it was smiling at her back whenever she hesitated to speak on the case. Whenever she glanced at the balancing shadow, it would tap its claws on the table and tighten its hold on Seth’s neck. Joan hated it.

Joan had already earned a fair share of concerned looks from the other jurors (including her own family) when she stared over her brother’s grease-matted head, so she quit this pointless game quickly into the trial.

Most of the trial had gone by in a blur, especially since everyone was in agreement over Seth's fate. Even his defense attorney looked ready to surrender his uphill battle. Everyone on the same side, except for me. Her thoughts reflected her silence on the matter. Only I know the truth.

She had decided that she would drop the act toward the end of the trial, then execute her plan. The plan to get rid of it.

"Now, are there any last words from the jurors before the verdict is determined?" The judge's hand, trembling so slightly that only Joan noticed, was reaching for the gavel.

She had a good eye for nuances, which was the other reason why she was the only one in the room who could see it. The other reason would be her final words to the jury.

Joan had been counting in her head. 11, 12, 13-

"Actually, y-yes." Joan's words came out raspier than she wanted them to (after all, she had not had any of her glass of water these past hours), but she quickly recollected herself. "I have something to say. I believe that Seth is completely innocent."

She hadn't expected such theatrical responses, but her mom audibly gasped and one of the victim's family members spat out his water. To top it all off, her father fainted and Seth actually looked taken aback (but only for a few seconds).

After he was recovered, the court went quiet with the repetitive knock of a gavel.

"Is that so?" the judge remained emotionless, but his hands were shaking slightly more. "Miss Stolas, please elaborate for the eleven opposing jurors."

Joan stood up. "Your honor, mom, dad, the families of Drs. Nakir, Ramiez, Samya, and Zachary, this is going to sound unbelievable, I understand..." She faltered for a moment, tears pricking the corners of her eyes when she saw their expressions.

"Go on," the judge said. "I've heard plenty of bizarre stories."

"Yes, your honor. That being said, my brother is possessed. He is innocent, but the demon in his hold is definitely not."

The room briefly erupted before the gavel went down again. Joan hadn't noticed how silent the courtroom could get when no one spoke, but now even the judge was quiet. I’m sure he hasn’t heard this one before.

She continued. "13 years ago, I, like many others, was wishing for good health for my brother Seth Stolas. With the little free time I got between school and taking care of him- this was when I was sixteen-, I began to research ways to fix his condition.

"However, I wasn't researching cancer treatment methods like my parents and doctors, and not even alternative medicine. I was trying to find a... supernatural method of saving him. I was so moved by what I found that I stopped praying to God for Seth's wellbeing. I was sending my wishes to Hell."

Joan looked up to each of the other jurors. Her parents' faces showed anguish over the lack of supervision they had over their daughter. Everyone else was a mix of confusion or blatant fear.

She looked back down and went on: "The spirit I became acquainted with is named Barbas. He is a Goetian Great President of Hell, with the ability to cure any man's ailments. That night, I summoned Him in a fit of desperation. He ran to my brother's room as a lion before I could stop Him, as I was already regretting everything, from the blood sacrifice I had to do to the personal pages of my diary I had to rip to show Him. I was… I was thinking of everything but the consequences- what I had to give in exchange for Barbas’s services.

“In return, He demanded that my brother be the host of one of His soldiers, a demon from His 13th legion. That demon, resting on Seth's left shoulder to this day, is the reason why he murdered.”

Tears were running fast down Joan’s cheeks now, but she finished her story. “When I see him with... it today, I can barely recognize him. That’s not my brother, s-so pale with the eyes of a ghost! Your honor, that man is already a prisoner in his mind, a prisoner to something… to the promise of a normal life I wanted for him! Please try to understand."

A few of the other jurors were crying, either for or with the Stolas siblings. The defense attorney seated near Seth had looked hard into his clouded eyes before scooting his chair a little away from him in alarm. The gavel resonated before the court burst into chaos once more.

Joan counted another 13 seconds before the judge finally responded. "And do you have a way of proving such a claim in a fashion that will convince all eleven other jurors and myself?"

"Yes," she replied, before hastily adding, "your honor".

As Joan began to walk from her seat toward Seth, a group of security guards also bolted up to block her.

"No, let her go," the judge ordered.

"Yes, your honor," the guards mumbled.

Joan narrowed her eyes, pointing right at it. The defense attorney followed her finger to the air above Seth, squinting as if it would help him see the demon. "Worker of hellebore, you are ordered by your superior, Barbas, and the swear your host made upon the Bible before this court, to speak only truths. So, to start off- are you the one responsible for the deaths of 13 innocents through Seth Stolas?"

It seemed surprised by how direct she was being around a crowd of oblivious mortals. However, the creature kept its cool composure and nodded. The attorney seated next to the accused could have sworn he felt a small gust of wind in his hair.

Joan sighed. "Speak your truths verbally, for everyone to bear witness, please."

Its composure was quickly lost, replaced with an inhuman fury that seethed off of it in the form of a black mist. "Y e s ."

The jurors behind her exploded into a storm of shocked muttering. "Did you hear that-" "This can't be real-" "He had to have moved his mouth-"

Even the judge had no words. He didn’t dare reach for the gavel until the noise became unbearable in the stuffy courtroom.

"Now," Joan said. "You may answer this one visually. Do you look like your superior, a lion who can become a man?"

The demon was dragging its talons on Seth's face till he bled, expressing its now unbridled anger. As its body moved from being ultraviolet blackness (what only Joan could see) and entered the human eye's visible spectrum of light, the mangled hand that injured her brother was now in full view of the jurors.

Apparently, not even Seth had seen it before. He opened his cracked lips into a ragged scream, cut off by the monster clamping another one of its 13 hands over his mouth. This response of horror was shared with everyone else present in the trial, all 13 witnesses of the murders and a few expendable extras.

It was already beginning to see the humans around Seth as expendable. The demon had jumped down from his shoulder and held a few of them in its hold before the judge.

"Don't shoot!" Joan yelled as the first bullets from the security at the door left holes in the walls.

She tore past the decaying wings and limbs of the demon to the judge's podium, where he cowered behind with the gavel in his sweaty fists.

"Your honor!" She gasped. "I need that Bible."

He handed it to her without any questions asked. She could tell that this was definitely a first in his world of criminal law. She stumbled back to find more people, including Seth and a few of the jurors, under the demon's iron grip.

"Hey!" Joan held up the book with open pages, prompting hisses from the creature. "13 years and I had no idea how to get rid of you. But now, I realize it's because I never kept one of these handy!"

With one last burst of energy, Joan ran to the spirit and shoved the Bible in the monster’s chimeric face, ignoring its screams and the searing of its undead flesh. While she had also snuck in a vial of Romanian holy water in her jacket, she was confident that this would be enough to end the demon’s grasp. "1, 2, 3..."

Rotting claws and jaws were scratching and gnawing at her, but all Joan was focusing on was her counting. If she had been allowed to, she would have brought some wooden stakes to fight back more effectively with. "4, 5, 6..."

The demon was getting desperate, knocking over chairs and ripping at the carpeted floor. The screams of the hurt witnesses in the background were mixing with the screams of the damned in her split ears. "7, 8, 9, 10..."

Joan's windpipe began to crack as its last hand closed around her throat, but she felt it loosen as she chanted out those final numbers. "11… 12, 13-"

She let go, and so did it.

When her eyes could finally focus on the room's blinding lights, she saw the charred remains of both the Bible and the demon beneath her feet. Her ringing ears slowly picked up the sounds of the people around her coughing and sobbing.

"He...here." A warm hand helped her up, and it wasn't until she felt a cold, metal band around its wrist that she realized who it was.

She hugged the accused serial killer so tightly that the both of them fell back to the ground.

"It’s good to be ba-” Seth spat to his side, specks of blood staining the torn beige floor. “Ack.” He finished.

"That's probably just from your injuries or the possession, nothing t-"

Joan was cut off by him violently pushing her to the side, breathing shallowly. Her eyes followed down to his legs. It was her turn to melodramatically gasp.

"Shit, man." "Oh, God-" "What..." Dr. Ramirez's son and a few of the other eleven jurors gathered around to see what the commotion was all about.

Just like how Seth's eyes had gone back the way they had been before Barbas, so had the rest of his body. But today, it took a few more people than just Joan to help him up.

Once everyone, including the weakened Seth, was returned to their seats, the judge adjusted his broken glasses and cleared his bruised throat. "Now does anyone else have anything to say before we reach our conclusion for this... lovely afternoon?"

Another bout of silence.

Dr. Samya's sister got up so fast that her chair fell behind her, and she winced from her wounds. "I'll be the first one to say it: your honor, the truth is now as clear as day. Seth Stolas is obviously innocent due to being under the influence of... well, I'm not quite sure how it will be explained to the press... but even so, no one can say that this… handicapped man was responsible for so much death now."

Next was Dr. Zachary's nephew. "I agree, your honor. In a way, even though my uncle was killed so brutally all those years ago... seeing the real thing responsible for it get what it deserved was satisfying and takes away some of the grief. I say that we let Mr. Stolas, who also didn't deserve to go through such pain all this time, walk- I mean go- free."

One by one, each of the other jurors rose and said similar things. Even Joan's parents said that they forgive their son, but their daughter... could this be an example of involuntary manslaughter? A new trial would have to be set for her.

They’re never going to be able to look at their “Satanic” daughter the same again. Joan cringed at the thought.

Eventually, it came time for the judge to announce the verdict. "The decision from the jurors has been voted unanimous: Seth Stolas was compelled by a supernatural being to take into killing..." he sighed audibly, continuing. "But to the general public, he has been deemed physically incapable of performing such murders and will be given intensive care for his physical condition. As far as the press knows, the real serial killer is still being investigated, and we have been more than mistaken for accusing Stolas of such acts.

"The final verdict has been decided: Seth Stolas is a free to go, and financial aid will be provided to him for his treatment."

Despite everything going in his favor, Joan couldn't meet Seth's eyes anymore. After all, she had brought a lifeless limbo upon him for the past decade, and now returned back to square one in a hospital bed.

And along with this, Joan’s own punishment, whether it be imprisonment in her life or afterlife, was going to take its toll on her sooner or later.

***

The gavel’s echoing tap is all too familiar to her now. “Joan Stolas’s verdict has been decided: she has been charged with involuntary manslaughter in place of her brother Seth Stolas and will face a sentence of 13 years. If her cultic actions have ceased and she is no longer deemed a danger to society, she may go on parole in half this time. The jury is now over, all may leave except Miss Stolas.”

Joan let herself be taken away without any commotion. The night before her trial, she realized that jail will only be the beginning of her worries. Being locked up means preventing her escape the wrath of Barbas and his cronies, then who knows what the hell they will do to her.

But she had to accept this fate, because Seth had gone through everything while she had gone through nothing. If the concrete floor of her cell broke into a pit of fire and clawed hands reached out to drag her in, so be it. All that matters now is that her brother has been given life-saving surgeries that will let her see him on his feet in no time. Partially robotic feet, sure, but better than striking another deal with the devil.

So now she waits behind bars, replaying the day she convinced an entire jury of her blood’s innocence then defeated a demon in the same room in her head.

#theholdout #randomhouse

How do you explain something your own mind is struggling to believe? Something you believe is true but you can’t pull together enough information to convince yourself? I was so stuck in my head, trying to remember every expression, infliction, and nuance while I looked at my notes, that as I sat at the table there wasn’t a single part of me that was uncomfortable with every person in the room giving me varying levels of disbelief and disgust.

My notes started to blur together as re-read and re-read them. Is it possible to know you have more than enough time to get something done but you still feel like everything is caving in on you? Maybe it’s because I was the only person in the room who seemed to be trying to look past the surface of what was being presented. Everything on the surface said she was guilty. Everything the witness said made her seem guilty.

And it was that ‘seem’ that held me back from just agreeing with everyone else. It wasn’t till I looked up and really took in how everyone was behaving that I realized that I wasn’t the only one who wasn’t as confident with the story the prosecutors were pulling together as they wanted us to be. Hell, I wasn’t even that confident in the story the defense was trying to spin.

Nothing seemed to fit into place. I needed to remind them to be critical, that we were here to judge her because we were and are her peers because it’s our job to think about this crime in the context of ‘we could have done something like this’. If we are her peers than we could have done something like this. It didn’t seem fair to pretend like we were so much better than her till we really took at the facts and the narratives that we are being fed. Few things in this world can be taken at face value especially when it’s coming to you via a third party and not the actual person who actually, maybe or maybe not, experienced it.

“All day we’ve listened to everyone else tell a story they weren’t really party, putting this murder into a context that might not even match up with what really happened. We watched the defense try and say it was self-defense which doesn’t seem like what happened at all. From the facts alone, she took $7,000 out of her bank account the morning he was killed and had booked a ticket from Chicago to Seattle the week before. Looking at the witness accounts we can see that looked like she was subtly saying goodbye to her friends and co-workers. The prosecutors are saying this was all her planning a speedy getaway once she offed her boyfriend.”

Everyone in the room nodded and gestured for me to continue like they were all assuming that this was me talking myself into agreeing with them. The pure exasperation the had started to fill the room made the back of my neck tingle but I steadied myself with the reminder that someone had to put in the effort to see if there was another way things could have gone.

"At the same time, we also know that the victim, Marcus, and his friend, Theo, are fighting, physically and verbally, because Marcus got Theo's sister pregnant. It was proven that Marcus was the father through a DNA test taken a month after the child was born." I flipped to the third page in my notepad.

"She had asked Theo to drive her to the airport because she knew one) he wouldn't be scared by Marcus and 2) that he wouldn't ask any questions. This does seem suspicious but when you take into account the notably aggressive and persistent nature of her boyfriend it makes sense why she wouldn't want anyone to have any information about where she was going."

Jury 7, Lisa Parker, raised her hand and spoke quickly splitting the once concentrated attention of the other jurors, "This doesn't make her sound innocent. Yes, she may have been in an unfortunate situation but that level secrecy isn't needed. All you are doing is pointing out why Theo had been considered a person of interest earlier in the investigation."

I leaned forward and made sure to look her straight in the eyes, "Exactly, but why was he dismissed from being a person of interest?"

There was a mixture of shrugs and whys that fluttered around the group.

A resisted the slight glimmer of hope that arose in me at the thought that this might be enough to get the ball rolling in a better direction. Well, rolling in the direction that I want it to go.

"He said that by the time he came in Marcus was already dead which was later proven to be a lie that he excused by saying 'he was afraid of saying anything else because the truth was that he had been too shocked to really take in the situation'. When was last time you were soo shocked by any situation that you couldn't remember a single observation or fact like the guy was dead when you walked into the room?"

The first person to break from either zoned out irritation or memory recalling was jury 10, Isaiah Brown, nodded and looked at me with a noticeable shift in his eyes that let me know that not only was he actually listening to what I was saying but that he was starting to agree with me.

"I was in a car crash four years ago. I was disoriented, panicked, and injured but I still remember how long it took for an ambulance to arrive, what song had started playing before I crashed and the name of the person who talked to me while they pulled me out of the wreck, Emma. Sure, memory is fallible but you are right saying that it's not that fallible."

Jury 3, Javier Hernandez, snorted "You talk about it like you had some picture-perfect memory of the crash when in reality, where we live, you remembered some relatively easy pieces of information. Panic can easily make events hard to recall. Imagine having your friend's girlfriend kill your friend, see his dead body, and then be left alone with her, possibly still holding a gun, and tell me how much of that your brain wouldn't try and make you forget leaving you to try and pull yourself out of the mess so no one points the finger at you because you were rightfully angry at him instead of his delusional runaway girlfriend."

"I may not think she's innocent but I sure as hell know that she's not delusional. He was mistreating her and she had every right to be afraid. I just don't think that stopped her from killing him." Lisa placed her hands on the table and took on an 'I dare you' vibe she locked down her eyes on Mr. Hernandez.

He rolled his eyes and leaned back taking a sip of his coffee completely disengaging from the group.

"Look, I'm glad you are starting to see the holes in this case but that doesn't bring us any closer to an agreement or a majority vote." Taking a deep breath I got ready for the argument I knew was coming. "I think Theo Dane is the murderer and that Idina is innocent."

Eyes bulged and people pushed back from the table groaning or already speaking the first things that came to mind.

"I'll give you she may not be a murder but completely innocent is a stretch." I didn't even have time to look to see who spoke before another sentence caught my attention.

"Innocent really? What more evidence do you need besides a getaway plan, motive, and the weapon? Do you want witness testimony from a fly a wall?"

"Okay, no need to be dramatic just because it's not as obvious as it was before who killed him."

"It is very obvious you are all just being persuaded by a mediocre agreement of innocence."

"They are asking us to decide if she's guilty on the charge of murder not if she was an accomplice if you want to argue about that keep your mouth shut."

"HEY!"

Everyone shut up and looked at the foreman, Brett Romano, as he started handing out pieces of paper to everyone on the jury.

"We are redoing the vote to see where we stand. Maybe we don't even half to keep arguing and if we do we need to know how many people we would need for either need for a majority or unanimous vote."

Mr. Hernandez bent his neck to give me a very pointed look, "I think we all know how many votes we'll need to get this over with."

God, he is so arrogant.

Once everyone was sitting down he started a 3-minute timer for everyone to calm down, gather their thoughts, and cast their votes.

My hand didn't shake this time as I wrote innocent down. She didn't kill anyone. She was innocent. I knew it, Theo knew it, I just hoped they all knew it too.

Well, everyone except Mr. Hernandez. I think Lisa can be swayed.

JoJo, Angel, and Eugene saw the toilet paper twisting in the elm tree outside the toymaker’s house. White ribbons of quilted cotton, draped through the branches. Fluttering from the crown of the tree like a veil. It was a warning sign. A message from the children of this neighborhood. Stay away from this house. Stay away from the toymaker.

But Eugene saw something that caught his eye; brightly colored toys in the windows, like candy, and a buzzing mechanical robot that was marching in the entryway. It waved at Eugene with itws clamp-like hands.

Eugene ignored the toilet paper drifting in the elm. Ignored the peeling paint, the unruly hedges, and dark shadows within. He ran through the drifting cotton tendrils on short, six-year-old legs, chasing the bright red wind-up robot.

“Eugene, don’t!”

Eugene followed the robot inside—its plastic legs clicking, its wind-up knob buzzing. He ran behind it, right into the dark entryway, and the door slammed shut behind him.

JoJo and Angel pounded on the door, screaming for their brother. They shouted for the neighbors, for the police, for any adult who would listen; help them get Eugene out.

After an hour of running around the toymaker’s house, searching for a way in, their father pulled up in the family van. He got out, and cast them a stern glare.

“What is with the noise out here? Are you trying to call in the National Guard?”

JoJo and Angel ran to their dad and clung to his pants, crying, talking over each other. He shushed them. Neighbors watched from kitchen windows, clutching their phones.

“Okay, hush. It’s okay. One at a time.”

“Eugene is gone!” Angel said.

“What?”

“Eugene.” JoJo wiped his eye. “He went inside, and we can’t get him out. Nobody is answering.”

“Okay, that’s enough games today.” Their dad pushed them toward the van.

“We’re not lying!” Angel insisted.

“I don’t think you’re lying.” Dad said. “Just confused. Eugene came home a few minutes ago. You must have missed him.”

JoJo and Angel looked up at the van, and they saw Eugene sitting in the front seat. He had a frozen, plastic smile on his face, staring out the front windshield.

They got in the van in silence, staring at the back of Eugene’s head. Their dad got in the front, buckled in. He frowned.

“You kids didn’t TP that tree, did you?”

Eugene barely spoke at dinner. When he did, his answers were simple. Mechanical. Happy one-word nothings that made their dad smile. Dad was distracted, watching the news.

“Weird times.” Their dad said. That was his favorite phrase, when he didn’t want to explain what was happening on TV. “Weird, weird times.”

After they brushed their teeth they were marched off to bed. Angel had her own room, the “girl’s room”. She grabbed JoJo by the sleeve before dad could nudge her off to bed.

“What’s with Eugene?”

JoJo shrugged.

“What’s with who?” Dad asked. He had ears like a fox.

“With Eugene. He’s weird.” Angel said.

“Good.” Dad said. “Better to be weird than normal, am I right?” He chuckled, pushing Angel into the pink-and-white room. “One bed time story, then you go to sleep. In the morning I want this bedroom picked up. It looks like Barbie had a kegger in here.”

“Keg-rur?” Angel asked.

“A, uh, a party.” Dad said.

JoJo followed Eugene into the boy’s room. It was all Legos and model planes and army men; staging a beach landing under the bunk beds. Half-spent toilet paper rolls stood in for sandbags. Eugene kicked through them on his way to the bunk ladder, trailing quilted paper. He climbed the ladder and crawled into the top bunk without a fuss. He didn’t even wait for dad to come read them a story.

JoJo sat on the lower bunk. He picked up a plastic superhero in a colorful red cape, and pressed his nose to the emblem on the chest. A child’s meditation.

“What happened in the house?” JoJo asked.

Eugene didn’t answer.

“We tried to follow you, but the door was locked.” JoJo said. “Did you leave through the back door? Was the toy-man home?”

Silence.

JoJo got frustrated. He decided to wake up his brother, if he wasn’t faking it, and get some answers. He stood on his own bed and looked at Eugene’s back. He used the action figure to prod him. First in the spine, then on Eugene’s neck when he didn’t respond. Eugene was still. Silent. Like the dead.

“Eugene!” JoJo shout-whispered.

His brother didn’t move. Didn’t flinch. In the silence, JoJo heard the gentle, motorized whine of a wind-up toy.

JoJo knelt closer, listening. Then he saw it; a tiny plastic knob in the back of Eugene’s neck. It was twisting slowly, like a little gray screw. Like the wind-up plastic toys that came in happy meals and cereal boxes.

JoJo jerked back, fell from the bunk, and bounced up from the floor like he was made of rubber. He sprinted down the hall and slid on the hardwood floor in his socks. He gripped the doorframe of Angel’s room.

“Something’s wrong with Eugene!”

Their dad was on his feet and down the hall to the boy’s room in record seconds. He kicked through the toys and the toilet paper sandbags, and ripped the blankets back from Eugene. Angel and JoJo listened to them exchange soft words.

Their dad nodded, kissed Eugene on the forehead, and left the boys’ room. He knelt by JoJo and Angel in the hall.

“Your brother is feeling under the weather. Maybe a cold, or something. Let him sleep tonight.”

“But—”

“I mean it. Both of you. Let him sleep, or I’ll take away the toys.”

Their dad stood and pointed to their rooms. He waited for them to crawl into their beds, and he shut their doors halfway. JoJo heard his dad’s feet thumping down the stairs, and the TV clicked on again. More weird news.

JoJo closed his eyes and tried to sleep, but the sound of the wind-up knob twisting in Eugene’s neck kept him awake, late into the night. He heard the rain patter against the window. He heard the thunder in the distance, like a cymbal crash.

Angel and JoJo stood outside the toymaker’s house. JoJo was armed with a plastic shield and a pump-action water gun. Angel had her toy wand, which lit up and made enchanted noises when she swished it through the air. She knew it was fake, but she liked to hold it anyway.

Eugene, or the thing that had replaced Eugene, was back at home with a thermometer in his mouth and a wad of toilet paper for tissues. Sick with a cold, their dad claimed. Even in broad daylight their dad couldn’t see the knob in Eugene’s neck. Not even when JoJo and Angel both pointed to it.

The red toy robot gyrated in the house’s doorway, marching in slow, mechanical circles. Toilet paper hung limp in the elm, disintegrating in the yard from last night’s storm; A faded warning for them to stay away.

“Ready?” JoJo asked.

“Ready.” Angle said, wielding the wand like a mace.

JoJo gave the robot a blast of water, knocking it on its back. Its legs peddled in the air. The kids stepped over it, entering the dark house.

Angel gasped when she saw the inside. To the eyes of a seven-year-old the toymaker’s house looked like a tea party come to life. The front room was lined with plush victorian chairs, ball-and-claw sofas, and distressed vanities and dressers with looping brass handles. Everything was cracked, weathered, peeling pink and powder-blue paint.

On every surface of every coffee table, side table, and dresser, were tea sets. Steaming pots and delicate little cups of China on glazed saucers. So many beautiful, intricate tea sets cluttered together. Platters on platters, with pots and cups ready to fall off the corners of the tables.

Angel could smell the chamomile and cookies. She saw the warm steam, and she reached for one of the teacups, but JoJo grabbed her arm.

“Don’t touch anything.”

She looked at JoJo, ready to argue. She just wanted to save a little porcelain cup that was balanced on the edge of the table. But JoJo’s expression was grim.

She nodded, thinking of Eugene. She followed him deeper into the house, toward the kitchen.

The kids heard the buzzing of the toys before they saw them. They turned the corner into the kitchen, and saw a field of wind-up figures that covered a vast linoleum floor.

The kitchen was massive. Easily as large as Angel’s elementary classroom. The black-and-white checkered floor was littered with so many jittering, marching, spinning toys, that it looked like a field of animated confetti. Like sprinkles, there were so many toys. All bouncing off each other, colliding, in a chaotic dance that would have been wonderful to behold, if not for the toymaker who sat amongst them.

The toymaker was a black-and-white island in the middle of the colorful swirling plastic. The back of his head was as bald as an egg, and his skin looked like white wax. He was facing away from them, bent over a little white table. His rumpled black suit was stretched over his rounded shoulders and wide stomach. Like a pear wearing a pianist’s swallowtail tuxedo. He had a screwdriver in his thick, soft hand, twisting violently at the back of a tin soldier.

In the corner of the kitchen, beyond the toymaker, they saw Eugene. He sat with three other children, whom Angel and JoJo did not recognize. They were all silent, sitting in the glow of a television with knobs on the front. Their eyes were vacant and wide, with dark sleepless circles. Cartoon animals danced on the TV, and the children’s pupils tracked their movements.

The buzzing in the kitchen was deafening. Like a mechanical beehive. Angel turned to JoJo, made a shushing motion with her finger to her lips. JoJo rolled his eyes.

JoJo looked at the toymaker, who was cursing softly to himself, eyes down, as he worked on the tin soldier. JoJo began shuffling toward the TV, trying to nudge the buzzing wind-up figures out of his path.

Angel watched JoJo’s progress, gently kicking the little parti-color figures out of his path. She pressed her knuckles against her mouth and held her breath.

JoJo’s sneakers pushed a tiny dancing bear back, which collided against a rainbow octopus, which slammed into a purple plastic dinosaur that stood as high as JoJo’s knees. The dinosaur teetered, and clattered to the floor, taking several other toys with it.

The toymaker looked up, and smiled.

“I knew you’d come. I told Eugene here, you’d come. Didn’t I Eugene?”

The toymaker’s face was slick and round and perfectly smooth, yet his voice and eyes were ancient. His eyes practically glowed green. He used a silk handkerchief to pat the sweat from his soft cheeks and narrow, bald head.

“I suggest you sit.” He said. “Take a toy. Watch cartoons. You’ll like it here. Your brother does.”

JoJo rushed to Eugene, scattering more plastic toys across the checkered linoleum. He shook his brother, who seemed comatose, sitting cross-legged on the kitchen floor.

“I said sit!” The toymaker bellowed. He held the screwdriver in one hand, and a tiny wind-up knob in the other.

The toymaker’s suggestion to pick a toy made Angel glance at the children’s hands. She saw that each of them was holding a plastic figure. Eugene had a little red robot. The other kids were holding a panda bear, and a racecar.

JoJo pointed his water gun at the toymaker, and Angel rushed past him. She slapped the robot out of Eugene’s hand, and for the first time, he looked up at her. His bottom lip trembled.

“Angel, why?”

She waved her sparkling, blinking wand in front of Eugene’s eyes, like she was trying to hypnotize him.

“When I snap my fingers you’ll wake up.” She said.

“You’re a dummy.” Eugene said.

The toymaker took a step toward them. He lumbered, like a bear. His legs seemed barely capable of supporting his pear-shaped body. A toy UFO cracked under his shiny wingtip shoe.

“You’re not being very nice.”

JoJo turned the water gun away from the man, and pointed it at the TV instead. He stuck the barrel of the gun against the vent in the top of the TV, threatening to soak the components inside.

The toymaker hesitated. Smiled. “I can wait. You’ll get bored, and you’ll forget.”

His confidence rubbed Angel’s nerves like steel wool, and she used her wand to slap the toys out of the other children’s hands. They looked up at her, and she saw the spark returning to their eyes.

“Alright, enough of this.” The toymaker said. “Sit down, now, you twits.”

He came toward them again, crushing plastic as he did. Angel dragged Eugene to his feet. He followed her numbly, and She took him to stand behind JoJo, who still held the TV hostage.

JoJo smiled. He lowered the water gun, which made the toymaker pause. The toymaker’s eyebrow twitched.

“What’s dad always watching?” JoJo asked Angel.

Angel smiled too. She reached for the knob on the front of the TV and turned it. The channels clicked loudly. She read the numbers on the dial, and put it on the news.

She knew immediately she had found the right channel. On the screen, a blonde woman with perfect hair who looked like Angel’s Barbie sat behind a desk. She was talking about people dying. People getting sick. People disagreeing. People in the streets, protesting. She told the audience—the toymaker—that they’ll never guess which celebrity was giving away their money to their Twitter followers. And all they had to do was keep watching...But first, a look inside the president’s office, and the strange announcements he made today…

Angel, JoJo, and Eugene edged away from the glowing television, and the toymaker who stood frozen like a statue. They shuffled through the ocean of colorful plastic toys, out of the noisy, buzzing kitchen.

The other children followed. And the toymaker never looked up from the news.

The rain had destroyed the toilet paper in the elm tree. Angel, JoJo, and Eugene spent an hour throwing roll after roll up into the tree, replacing what the rain had taken. The elm was so shrouded in toilet paper by the time they were done it looked like a bridal veil. To warn the other children; Stay away from this house.

The kids left their toys lying on the overgrown lawn as they ran home. Their fear evaporated as they distanced themselves from the old, dilapidated toymaker’s house. As they ran down the sidewalk, laughter bubbled up, and they giggled and held up streamers of toilet paper. Like a victory run. All the way home. To dad, and the sick toy that was still lying in Eugene’s bed.