Twisted Little Things and Other Stories Read online

  The soldiers would be fine. No-one'd hurt them.

  ***

  Bringing the car to a halt at the edge of a rough, bumpy road just outside town, I peered at the trailer parked nearby. After double-checking the GPS app to make sure I was in the right place, I got out of the car just in time to spot Lucas over by the trailer, frantically digging a hole in the dirt. I'd expected to find him whimpering at a fence, but instead he just seemed to be searching for something.

  “Really, boy?” I muttered, heading over toward him. “Did you have to come all the way out here?”

  As I got closer, I saw that the trailer was a rundown, battered old thing, with faded paint and dirty windows. For a moment I actually thought it might have been abandoned, but then I spotted a couple of neat trashcans arranged along one side, and I realized that while the exterior of the place looked all beaten-up, the windows revealed neat curtains and what appeared to be a set of crystals hanging from the ceiling. Nearby, more crystals had been hung from the branches of several trees, and now they were catching the sunlight as they turned in a gentle breeze.

  A moment later, the door opened and a middle-aged woman stepped out. She was wearing some kind of shawl, and I was already picking up on the smell of incense. The hippie vibe was pretty damn strong.

  “I figured someone'd show up to collect him sooner or later,” she said with a smile, looking down at Lucas as he continued to dig a few feet away. “He seems pretty determined.”

  “Lucas, get over here!” I hissed, before turning to the woman. “I'm sorry, he's being tormented by the scent of a lady dog. Do you have one?”

  She shook her head. “Just me here.”

  “Huh.” Reaching Lucas, I saw that he was still digging keenly, having already managed to get a couple of feet down into the dark, dry soil. “I thought I'd find him pining outside someone's gate,” I continued, “not frantically digging in a garden.” I glanced around, but it was clear that there were no more trailers or houses nearby.

  “There must be something down there that he really wants,” she pointed out. “He showed up about twenty minutes ago and got straight to work.”

  “I'll get him out of your way.”

  “Maybe you should just let him finish. He'll only try to come back otherwise, and he's not hurting anyone.”

  Looking down at Lucas, I couldn't help feeling that my dog was looking particularly dumb. He had his head buried deep in the pit, and every few seconds a faint, pig-like snorting sound emerged.

  “Would you like a drink?” the woman asked.

  “Oh, no, thank you,” I replied. “I really don't want to disturb you.”

  “Nonsense. You're the first person I've seen since I arrived.”

  “I'm fine, thanks,” I told her. “I really just want to get my crazy dog home.”

  “I've only been parked in this spot for a few weeks,” the woman said after a moment, still smiling. “If there are any dead bodies down there, they're nothing to do with me.”

  “I don't know what's gotten into him,” I muttered. “I was so sure he was pining after a lady again.”

  “Allie,” she replied.

  I turned to her.

  “Allie,” she said again, holding out a hand for me to shake.

  “Oh. Michael. Michael Anderson.”

  “Nice to meet you, Michael. As you can probably see, I'm really just passing through town. Or rather, passing by the edge of town.”

  “You live on the road?”

  “Something like that. I like to keep moving.” An awkward pause settled for a moment. “Not that I'm a fugitive or anything,” she added suddenly. “I'm not running away from anything, I just... I like to keep going, see different places, that sort of thing. I prefer not to get too tied down to one area.”

  “Sounds like a good way to get about,” I replied, although I immediately realized that was kind of a dumb way to phrase things. Still, I figured I should be polite, even though I thought the nomadic lifestyle sounded kind of stupid. At that moment, however, her wind chimes began to whistle again, and I couldn't help but laugh.

  “You find something funny?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “No. Absolutely not.”

  “What's in your car?”

  “I'm sorry?”

  “There's something in there,” she continued, turning and looking toward the car. “Sorry, I don't mean to sound weird, but sometimes I pick up on...” She paused, clearly lost in thought. “There's definitely something in your car. Something that shouldn't be there.”

  Even after just a couple of minutes, I had the woman pegged as something of a hippyish kind of person, and the last thing I wanted was to get into a discussion about crystals and healing auras.

  “Come on, Lucas,” I said, turning to see that the dog was still digging like a maniac. “Let's get out of here and leave this nice lady alone. I'm sure she has things to be doing.”

  “You should get them out of your car,” she continued, with a hint of concern in her voice. “Both of them. Destroy them if you can, but don't take any risks.”

  I turned to her. “Them?”

  “There are two. I don't know what they are, but there are two of them in there. They're very similar to one another, but they're not quite the same. They've picked up something from the world, something that seeped into them and stayed there. Not something whole, either. It's more like... a fraction of something that was once much larger and more powerful.” She turned to me. “Why are you driving around with those things in your car?”

  “Well...” I paused. “I don't know what you're talking about, but -”

  “You must know,” she replied, interrupting me. “You can't have not noticed them. No matter how closed your mind might be, you can't possibly ignore something that's this powerful.”

  I opened my mouth to reply, but in truth I wasn't quite sure what to say. Allie was clearly barking mad, but somehow she seemed to have picked up on my concern about the statues. How she'd managed that, I had no idea, but I figured she must have just gotten lucky with a few vague comments, and now she was reading my body language to wind me up a little more.

  “I see it in your eyes,” she continued. “You know what I'm talking about.”

  “Come on, Lucas,” I muttered, heading over to the substantial pit that Lucas had already managed to dig. I was smiling now, almost laughing, thanks to the severity of her bullshit warning. “Let's get out of here. Come on, boy! We're going home!”

  “You can leave them with me,” Allie said, with a hint of fear in her voice. “The things from the car, I mean. I can deal with them. Contain them. You're taking a huge risk if you keep them around. Trust me, those things are dangerous. Even if they're not actively trying to hurt you, their mere presence will -”

  “They're not in the car!” I muttered. “They're -”

  Pausing, I thought of the two soldiers resting on the box in the driveway. For a brief moment, I felt a chill run up my spine, but I quickly told myself not to let some dumb hippy get into my head.

  “Okay,” I said, turning to her and holding my hands up, “I should head off. I just need to get my dog and go home. That's all. I'm really sorry we disturbed you, but I promise it won't happen again.”

  “You think you'll be safe if you just -”

  “Stop!” I said again, raising my voice a little. “I get it. You think there's something nasty in my car. Fine, whatever. You're wrong, you're being very dramatic, and I'm taking my dog home now. Goodbye.”

  “Don't you sense it?”

  I sighed.

  “I think you do,” she continued. “Maybe not as much as other people, maybe you're just not as receptive, but... Still, you must feel something in the air, something that's slowly reaching out and -”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Can I at least see them?”

  I paused for a moment. “No,” I said finally. “No, you can't see them.”

  “Because you're scared?”

  “Because t
hey're just two dumb little wooden soldiers!” I snapped. “They didn't absorb anything, they're not somehow magically contaminated by something that happened in a room a long time ago. They're just two stupid little toys and they're not even in the car right now! I took them out and left them at home!”

  Sighing again, I realized she'd tricked me into giving her more information. Looking down, I saw that Lucas was still desperately trying to dig deeper. At that particular moment, I was tempted to grab his collar and drag him away.

  “Come on, Lucas,” I continued, no longer even bothering to hide my irritation. “Let's get home and leave this nice lady to smoke whatever's giving her these crazy ideas.”

  I waited, but still Lucas ignored me.

  “Lucas!” I shouted. “Now!”

  Spotting movement nearby, I turned and saw that Allie was approaching my car.

  “Stop!” I yelled, hurrying after her. “Get away from there!”

  “Can't you feel it in the air?” she asked, stopping several feet away and staring at the car. “Seriously, tell me you're not picking up on it. It's coming from your car and it's filling the air, or -”

  She paused for a moment, still staring at the car with tears in her eyes.

  “No, I was wrong,” she muttered. “They're not in there, not anymore. They were earlier, though, and they left a small trace of themselves. If I can still sense that trace now, they must be more powerful than I'd realized.” She turned to me. “Where are they now?”

  “This is bullshit,” I replied, trying very hard to sound calm and collected.

  “Something got into those figures,” she continued, “something awful, and now it's a part of them. It's not their fault, but nothing can be done to cleanse them, not now the evil has soaked into them so completely. They just have to be burned and forgotten about before they have a chance to hurt anyone. Trust me, I have a sense when it comes to these things. I've always been very open to certain impressions.”

  Despite my frustration, I couldn't help but smile.

  “Oh, you have, huh?”

  “All my life.”

  “Did someone put you up to this?” I asked skeptically. “I don't quite get how you could've organized it all, but do you happen to know a guy named Jimmy Wade? Did he hire you to freak me out and piss me off?”

  She paused, before taking a step back.

  “Leave,” she said after a moment. “If you're not going to listen to me, then get out of here, but promise me one thing. Promise you'll get rid of them. Even if you think every word I've told you is a lie, you have to destroy them. If they're really just two tatty old wooden toys, then what harm can it do to throw them onto the fire?”

  I turned to call Lucas, but suddenly I saw that he'd already followed me and was wagging his tail as he approached. For the first time in several days, he wasn't whimpering or whining, and he no longer seemed tormented by the scent of a lady dog. After a moment, I saw that he had something in his mouth, and I crouched down to take it from him.

  A tree root.

  He'd spent all that time digging, just for a dirty old tree root, and now he seemed completely happy and content. His tail was wagging like crazy, and he seemed immensely proud of his discovery.

  “What the hell, Lucas?” I muttered, turning the root over. “Why were you so desperate for this thing?”

  “Different creatures pick up on different things,” Allie suggested. “Just because you don't see the qualities of that root, don't assume that he can't.”

  “What qualities?” I asked, with an exasperated smile. “It's just a root.”

  “Not to him.”

  Sighing, I began to realize the point she was laboring so desperately.

  “So are you picking up mystical cosmic waves from the tree root?” I asked, unable to hide my sarcasm.

  “I'm not,” she said, reaching down and patting Lucas on the back of the neck, “but that doesn't mean he's not detecting something. I'm just not so arrogant that I dismiss the intuition of others.”

  I began to laugh.

  “Tell me,” she continued, “do you always laugh in the face of mortal danger?”

  “I should go,” I told her. “Seriously -”

  “Is that your way of hiding your fear?”

  “Fear?” I sighed. “Lady, there's nothing to be scared of here! There's just a tree root, and a pair of stupid old wooden toys, and a hippy with an inflated ego. And some crappy wind chimes.”

  “You need to deal with the warning signs before it's too late,” she continued, with increased urgency in her voice. “Those statues are not a joke. You shouldn't laugh at dark things. If you take the warnings seriously instead of laughing at them, it's usually possible to keep yourself safe. But if you insist on -”

  “Fine!” I said firmly, letting Lucas take the root in his mouth again, before getting to my feet. “I get it. I see where you're coming from, but I think it's best if I just get going now. I'm sorry my dog came and dug up your yard, or the space next to where you've parked your trailer, or whatever the hell this place is. Please, if you have any further opinions about anything I might have in my car, I'd appreciate it if you could just keep them to yourself! Thank you!”

  With that, I led Lucas back to the car and loaded him onto the back seat, before climbing in the front and starting the engine. That crazy Allie woman had really pissed me off, and I was starting to wish that I'd kept the soldiers with me so that I'd have been able to show her that they really were just lumps of wood. At the same time, I figured that once I got home I'd just hide them away somewhere until I got a chance to mail them back to the guy in Wisconsin.

  The damn things had already caused enough drama since I'd picked them up. In fact, I was starting to think that maybe I should just dump them, to get them out of the way. If I'd had them in the car with me as I drove home that afternoon, I probably would have tossed them out the window.

  And if I'd done that, I'd still have my family today.

  Five

  “Okay buddy,” I said to Lucas as I let him out of the car. “Go to the yard. And no more whimpering!”

  Calmly making his way across the driveway, he headed to his favorite spot near the door and settled down in a patch of shade. Already, on the drive home, I'd seen that he was completely calm again, as if digging up that dumb tree root had helped him get rid of all his anxiety and concern. He was like a different dog.

  Heading over to the box of books, I leaned down to pick them up, before realizing that there was no sign of the wooden soldiers.

  I looked around, but they were definitely gone. A moment later, however, I felt a faint kick of concern in my gut as I saw that Lucy was playing with them on the ground, next to the garden fence. My initial instinct was to call for her to come over, but I quickly realized that I was in danger of letting that dumb Allie woman's words get to me. All day, those stupid little soldiers had been freaking people out, and I'd actually started believing that there might be something weird about them, so instead I made my way over and watched as Lucy played.

  “Hey,” I said after a moment. “Having fun there?”

  I waited, but she didn't reply. She didn't even seem to have noticed me.

  “Lucy,” I continued, “did you see that Lucas is back?”

  Again I waited, but again she seemed completely fixated on the toys.

  “Hey!” Leaning down, I clicked my fingers near her face, and finally she turned and looked up at me with a strangely blank expression, almost as if she'd just woken up.

  “Are you okay there?” I asked. “I guess I should've known better than to leave those things out, huh?”

  She paused, before looking back down at the soldiers.

  “You realize they're just little lumps of wood, right?” I continued, glancing over at the expensive toys we'd bought for her most recent birthday. “Are you going old-school on me all of a sudden?”

  “I like them,” she replied quietly, her voice barely rising above a mumbled whisper.
r />   “They don't have lights or gadgets.”

  “But I like them.”

  “You do, huh?”

  I waited for a reply, but she seemed to have sunk back into a state of intense concentration, as if the toys were consuming her thoughts.

  “Well, don't break them,” I told her, “and don't get too attached. I have to send them off to a man soon, but I guess you can play with them for now. Okay?”

  Again I waited for a reply, before turning and carrying the box of books to the front door. I couldn't shake the feeling that it was weird to leave my kid playing with toys from a serial killer's basement, but I quickly told myself I was being paranoid. The last thing I wanted was to give in to superstitious nonsense, and as I reached the door I couldn't help glancing back and seeing that Lucy was playing happily. I felt a faint shudder pass through my body, although I quickly put any concerns out of my mind.

  “I've got your books!” I called out as I headed inside. “Straight from Jimmy's personal library!”

  Making my way into the kitchen, I set the box on the counter.

  “I doubt there's much high literature in here,” I continued, opening the top of the box and looking inside. “I think most of these are actually TV tie-ins from the eighties. Three Street Hawk novels, some A-Team and Airwolf... Manimal...”

  When she failed to reply, I turned and saw she was standing at the window, staring out at the driveway with a worried frown.

  “Did you hear a word I just said?” I asked, forcing a smile. “Honey?”

  When she failed to reply, I made my way over and touched her arm, and finally she turned to me.

  “Katie,” I continued, “are you okay?”

  She swallowed hard, but after a moment I saw a long scratch running down one side of her face, from next to her eye all the way to her chin.

  “What happened?” I asked. “That looks deep.”