by Derek Landy
“Mr Shanks,” said Amber, “I’m here because I’ve been told you know of a man who tricked the Shining Demon – did a deal with him, then went on the run.”
There was a pause. “Ah yes,” came the voice from the window. “Indeed I do. I met him many years ago. Interesting fellow.”
“Do you happen to remember his name, or where I might find him?”
“I remember his name, yes, and I also know the town in which he was born. Would that be of any use to you in tracking him down?”
“Yes,” said Amber. “Very much so.”
There was a moment of silence from inside the dollhouse. “How nice,” said Shanks.
“Are you really tiny?” Glen asked suddenly, his curiosity overcoming his fear. “Can I see you?”
Milo put his hand on Glen’s shoulder to shut him up.
Amber glared, grateful to Glen for allowing her to focus on something she could scorn. Reluctantly, she looked back through the window.
“Sorry about that,” she said. “This man, could you tell me his name?”
Shanks said, “Forgive me for asking … Amber, wasn’t it? Forgive me for asking, Amber, and forgive me for being so crude, but what exactly is in it for me?”
She frowned. “I’m sorry?”
“If I tell you what you came here to learn, what do I get out of it?”
“I … I don’t know. What do you want? We can’t release you.”
“Why not?”
“Because you’ll kill people.”
“And?” said Shanks.
“And it’ll be my fault.”
“And this would upset you?”
“Well, yes.”
“You are a curious girl. Tell me this – why do you want the man you seek?”
“I just want to talk to him,” said Amber, aware how pathetic this sounded.
“About the Shining Demon?”
“Yes.”
The man in the window moved slightly, and the light almost hit his face. He was wearing a short-sleeved shirt and a tie. “You want to make a deal? Or you’ve already made one and you’re having second thoughts? Maybe I can help you. Release me and I’ll speak to the Shining Demon on your behalf.”
“I’m sorry, Mr Shanks, but you’re not getting out.”
“Then what else do you have to offer me? I am trapped in a dollhouse – what, apart from freedom, do you think I require? A pet?”
“We could get you a cute little convertible,” said Glen. “Maybe throw in a Barbie if you’re feeling lonely?”
Amber froze, awaiting Shanks’s response.
“Your friend is very rude,” he said eventually.
“I’m sorry,” she responded. “And he’s not my friend. Mr Shanks, you’re absolutely right, there is nothing I can offer you. We’re not releasing you. You’ve killed innocent people before and you will do it again. I can’t allow that to happen.”
“Then we are at an impasse.”
“I guess we are.” She bit her lip. “So why not just tell me? You’re not getting out, right? So we’re not going to be making a deal here. If we’re not going to make a deal, there’s nothing you have to gain from this situation. And, if you have no chance of gaining anything, then you won’t have anything to lose by telling me what I want to know, will you?”
A low chuckle. “I see your logic. Cleverly done, young lady.”
“Thank you.”
“But you’re wrong about me not having anything to gain. You see, I’ve been stuck here for … I actually don’t know how long.”
“Thirty-one years,” said Glen.
“Really? Well now … thirty-one years. Imagine that. In that case, I’ve been stuck here for thirty-one years. I can’t go insane and I can’t kill myself because I’m already dead. So I’ve been sitting here for thirty-one years, and I only rise out of my bored stupor when that door opens and little Heather Roosevelt pokes her pretty head in to make sure everything is still in place. Oh, but she’s not a Roosevelt anymore, is she? She got married. She won’t tell me to whom, but I saw the wedding ring – for as long as it was there. She’s getting old, though, isn’t she? Every time I see her, she is less and less like the troublesome teenager who trapped me in here in the first place.
“But here I sit. Bored. I don’t need to eat or sleep. I don’t age. I feel each and every one of those seconds as they drag by, too many to count, too many to keep track of. I haven’t spoken to anyone in all that time. I talk only to myself these days, just because I like the sound of my own voice – as you’ve probably guessed. I haven’t talked to anyone and I haven’t interacted with anyone until you three walked in here.
“Your problem, as I have said, stems from the mistaken presumption that I have nothing to gain by not telling you what you want to know. The fact is, though, I do. I haven’t spoken to anyone until you. I haven’t interacted with anyone until you. But you know what else I haven’t done? I haven’t hurt anyone … until you. You need this information and you need it badly, or else you wouldn’t be here talking to someone like me, but I’m not going to tell you simply because it makes me happy to disappoint you.”
“Wow,” said Glen. “You’re a dick.”
“I suppose I am, Glen, yes,” said Shanks. “I take my pleasures where I can – small and petty as they may be.”
Glen sneered through the window. “Well, why don’t I just reach in there and smush your head?”
“Please do.”
“Glen,” said Amber.
He stepped back. “What? Am I the only one here who is aware of the fact that the big, bad, scary man we’re talking to is, like, three inches tall? Am I the only one amused by that?”
“If you reach in there,” said Amber, “you’ll be opening the dollhouse. He can escape.”
“Where to? A cartoon mouse hole in the skirting board? He’ll still be only three inches tall.”
“Are you sure about that?” Milo asked. “We don’t know how this doorway magic works. You open that dollhouse and he might return to normal size.”
“Don’t listen to them, Glen,” said Shanks from the window. “Reach in here and teach me a lesson.”
Glen faltered. “Uh … no. No, I don’t think so, if it’s all the same to you.”
“Are you a coward, Glen?”
“Only when threatened.”
“Such a shame. My first impression of you was that you possessed a spark your companions lacked. But you have revealed your true nature, and your true nature, I am afraid to say, is a crushing disappointment.”
Glen shrugged. “You’re actually not the first person to say that.”
“You are a coward and a dullard, just like the rest of your countrymen.”
“Ah now, here,” said Glen, “don’t you go insulting my countrymen.”
“What is Ireland but a land of mongrels, wastrels and whelps?”
“Ah, that’s a bit strong …”
“Drunken buffoons stumbling through their maudlin lives, violent and thuggish and self-pitying, a nation of ungrateful—”
Glen laughed. “I’m sorry, pal, I don’t care what you say. You’re three inches tall. My mickey is bigger than you. And that was a pretty blatant attempt to provoke me, but what you’re failing to realise is that Ireland is the greatest country in the world, you dope.”
“Then why are you in America?”
Glen leaned down to grin straight into the window. “Because America has the best monsters.”
There was a moment of silence, and then, amazingly, laughter.
“I like you,” Shanks announced. “I like all three of you. And I will answer your question, Amber – but only to you. Not to your friends.”
“We’re not leaving,” said Milo.
“That is my only condition,” Shanks said.
“Why?” Amber asked. “Why not tell all of us?”
A chuckle. “Because I am tricky. Because I like pushing buttons. Glen may be a delightful buffoon, but Milo here is obviously your protector, and as such he takes th
ings a lot more seriously. Since I am acquiescing to your request, I need to find some way of satisfying my quiet need to torture. Making your companions leave the room is a small triumph, but, as it has been pointed out, I am a small man.”
Amber deliberated, then looked at Milo. He grunted, and left the room. Glen went with him.
Amber shut the door, and moved back to the dollhouse. “Yes?”
“Heather doesn’t know you’re here, does she?” Shanks asked.
“Why does it matter?”
“She has kept this dollhouse in this room for thirty–one years. My prison has many windows, but all I see are walls. She even took the other dollhouses to the local school, so I couldn’t gaze at them for solace.”
“And if I ask her to move it somewhere else? Somewhere with a view, maybe? If you give me the name of the man I’m looking for and the town he grew up in, I’ll ask her. You have my word.” Amber frowned. “Hello? Mr Shanks? Are you still there?”
“A view?” he said, even quieter than before. “You offer me a view?”
“Well, what do you want, Mr Shanks?”
“To be free.”
“I told you, I’m not releasing you.”
“There is more than one way to be free, Amber.” Shanks stood with his hands clasped at his chest, his face still in darkness. “I’ll give you the name of the man you seek. I’ll tell you where to find him.”
Amber frowned. “And in return?”
A hesitation. “In return, you find a way to kill me.”
She had to be honest – she hadn’t been expecting that. “I’m sorry?”
“I’m never getting out of here,” said Shanks. “Don’t you think that’s unnecessarily cruel? I know I’ve done bad things, evil things, but surely you understand that nobody deserves an eternity of this? Heather would gladly kill me if she could.”
“I’m … I’m not killing anyone.”
“Then get your protector to do it. He looks like he’d even enjoy the opportunity.”
“This isn’t why we came here.”
“But you’d be doing the world a favour!” Shanks said. “What if I escape? The first thing I’m going to do if I ever get out of here is kill Heather Roosevelt. Then I’m going to kill her parents, and all of her friends. Then this entire town. So do the right thing, Amber. Find a way to finish me off now, while I’m vulnerable.”
She shook her head. “We’re not killers. We’re not like you.”
“Please,” said Shanks. “You’d be putting me out of my misery.”
“You’ve murdered innocent people,” said Amber. “You deserve your misery.”
“Then I’ll give you something more!” Shanks said. “I’ll give you his name, his address, and I’ll even tell you how to get to him tonight.”
Her heart beat faster. “He lives close?”
“No. He lives in Oregon. But distance doesn’t mean a thing when you’ve got my key. It’s on the wall behind you. See it?”
There was a single nail in the wall, and hanging from that nail was an ornate brass key. Amber took it down, tracing her fingers over the intricate etchings along its side. The head of the key was shaped like a lock.
“Heather hung it there to taunt me,” said Shanks. “Always in sight, always out of reach. But that key can get you where you want to go instantly. Do we have a deal?”
Amber looked back at the dollhouse. “I’m not going to kill you, Mr Shanks.”
“Then get Buxton to do it! He might even know how!”
“Buxton?”
“Gregory Buxton,” said Shanks. “I first met him in the town of his birth, a bland little place called Cascade Falls. That’s who you’re looking for, and that’s where you want to go.”
“How do I know you’re telling the truth?”
“See for yourself! Put the key in the lock of the door there. Turn it twice, but keep saying his name in your head, his name and the name of his town.”
“Gregory Buxton,” she said, turning to the door, “Cascade Falls.”
“Try it,” said Shanks. “Keep saying that, turn the key, open the door and walk through. That’s all the proof you’ll need. But then, once you’ve spoken to him, promise me you’ll do as I ask.”
“I’ll … I’ll talk to Milo about it.”
“We had a deal!” Shanks shouted from behind her.
Amber didn’t turn. “I didn’t agree to anything.” She put the key in the lock, repeating Buxton’s name and the name of his town over and over in her head. She twisted the key and heard the door lock, then turned it again, heard the tumblers slide and settle. Then she opened the door and stepped through, but at the last moment the corridor became a dimly lit hall with a grand staircase and long shadows. The door shut behind her with a crash that reverberated through the floor itself. She spun. The door was now white and it didn’t have a handle. She pounded on it. It was thin wood that shook under her fist.
And then Shanks’s voice came drifting down from upstairs.
“I told you I was tricky.”
AMBER LURCHED SIDEWAYS, a fast-moving terror spreading outwards from the back of her neck to her fingertips and toes. She ran from the hall, seeing now how fake it all was, how flimsy the walls were. She skidded into the kitchen, with its table and chairs and stove and fridge, and her foot caught on something and she went stumbling, nearly falling over a sofa. The architecture was crazy. It made no sense. One half of this room was a kitchen, the other a living room.
She heard Dacre Shanks coming down the stairs.
“I fibbed,” he called. “I tricked you. You can use the key, but only I control where it leads. I admit it, I played you for a fool. In my defence, though, you were an easy target.”
Amber ran quietly into another room, a room with floor-to-ceiling shelves. Upon those shelves were rows of cardboard painted with the spines of anonymous books. This was the library, and it was also a utility room with a washing machine and a plastic bed for the dog.
She caught her foot again. A crack ran in a perfectly straight line between the dual rooms. It took her adrenalised brain another moment to piece it together. This was a dollhouse, after all. The front was a façade that split somewhere near the middle, and opened up like uneven wings, like the covers of a book, revealing the interior with its collection of half-rooms. Closed up like this, nothing made sense, and everything was folded together at an unnatural angle.
“Amber,” Shanks called in a sing-song voice.
She ducked down in the dark behind a washing machine. Her hands were shaking.
“You’re being silly,” he continued. He was still in the hall, probably trying to figure out which way she’d run. “I’m not going to hurt you. You’re the first person I’ll be able to talk to, eye to eye, in all the time I’ve been here. Come out. Come on. You know I’m going to find you eventually.”
She shuffled forward a little, and peeked round the edge of a bookcase. She glimpsed him, just enough to see the knife he held as he moved away. He was checking the other side of the house first. She’d been given a moment, a chance to think, to put her thoughts in order.
When he didn’t find her over there, he’d come over here, and he’d find her within seconds. So she had to move. Upstairs. That was the way to go. Upstairs would have multiple bedrooms, which meant more places to hide. She gripped the bookcase, getting ready to pull herself up on to her quaking, trembling legs, but her gaze caught on her hand, and she looked at how soft and pink it was.
She’d almost forgotten.
She shifted. She felt that pain again, that peculiar kind of pain as the strength flooded through her and her limbs lengthened and her body reshaped itself. She had horns now, and her hands were long-fingered and tipped with black nails. She forced the fear down and got up off her knees. She crept quickly and quietly back through the kitchen-living room, keeping her eyes locked on the darkness at the other side of the hall.
She reached the staircase. From a few steps away, the banisters had seemed or
nate, but as she ascended she could feel the chips and inconsistencies in the wood beneath her hand. The steps didn’t creak, though, and for this she was thankful. She sank into darkness and then plunged into light, a harsh light that cascaded through the circular window and bathed the second-floor landing in hellish reds and fiery oranges.
Amber moved to the side, into the shadow, and crouched, looking through the wooden railing and down into the hall. Seconds passed, then Dacre Shanks walked into view, crossing from one side of the hall to the other. She watched her enemy, marvelling at how easily the hunter can become the prey. All it takes is a new perspective.
To her right, a half-wall with a doorway leading into a bedroom, the wallpaper a dark colour, a blue or something like it. Maybe a green. Pressed against it, in the closed wing of the front of the house, another bedroom of a lighter colour. It was hard to tell in all this gloom, but it was probably pink.
To her left, the main bedroom and a bathroom with a Jacuzzi and a tub. No shower, though. There was also a toilet and a sink with a framed piece of reflective plastic that acted as a mirror.
Dacre Shanks strolled back into the hall, and raised his head. He was a narrow man, with dark hair turning grey and receding fast from his temples like it was afraid of his face. His face was something to fear. A long nose and a thin mouth and eyes in shadow. “Are you up there, Amber? Did you sneak by me? Oh, aren’t you a clever one? Aren’t you a sneaky one? But you know what you are, most of all? You are fun. You are a fun one. So come on down, Amber. You win our little game of hide-and-seek. I give up.”
He raised his hands in surrender and chuckled.
“I’m waiting,” said Amber.
Shanks swivelled his head to where she was crouched. He couldn’t see her, though. His eyes passed over her.
“What was that?” he called. “I’m afraid I didn’t quite hear you. Old age, you see. I’m not as young as I used to—”
“I said, I’m waiting.”
Shanks zeroed in on her position, and gave her a smile that opened like a wound. “Waiting for me?”
“I’m not like the others you’ve killed,” Amber said. “I’m not going to scream and run away.”
“Ooooh,” said Shanks, and laughed. “A fighter, are we? Heather was a fighter, back in her teenage years.”
