by Stephen King
Still, despite her relative newness, her lack of favour with Him, Sophie was the leader. She was a prim, rosy-cheeked doll. Her hair was wound in tight black curls and she was dressed in a polka-dotted pinafore, with a large straw hat that tilted upwards. Sophie looked around the group for ideas.
‘Baalllll?’ said Annie-In-Rags, in that drawl that so annoyed Sophie.
Bunny hopped up and down with excitement, but Sophie just fixed her hard little eyes on Annie’s huge face. Before Sophie could offer one of her withering put-downs, Naughty Rupert interrupted.
‘Oh ball is boring. We play ball all the time. Let’s go on an adventure!’
Bunny looked confused, though Annie wasn’t bothered at being contradicted. ‘Adventooor!’ she said.
Nobody said nothing. He had arrived only last Christmas, but he claimed to be an antique, when he deigned to talk at all. He was a wooden marionette, pierrot-style, clad in clothes of royal blue paint. Far too clever for his own good, thought Sophie. She barely admitted to herself that she envied his shiny limbs, his rictus grin.
‘No,’ said Sophie flatly. ‘Must you be so stupid? She might see us if we leave the room.’ She paused, then said, ‘Hopscotch. We’ll play hopscotch.’
Naughty Rupert tilted his head to the left. ‘Hopscotch? Sounds boring.’
Sophie didn’t miss a beat. She took one step forward and threw her plastic fist hard into the bear’s head, which flew back, then snapped forward, then back again.
‘I’m not hearing any better ideas, Rupert,’ she said, then added, ‘dearheart.’
The other toys all looked at their feet. Even Bunny’s enthusiasm was dampened momentarily. ‘Hopscotttt,’ said Annie-In-Rags. They trudged towards the plastic mat laid out at the foot of His bed. But, before they could start, Nobody piped up.
‘I’ve an idea,’ he said. All the toys turned to look at him. There was no defiance in his voice, just plummy assurance. ‘Let’s have an Unpicking.’
‘An Un-what? Never heard of it,’ said Sophie. She turned back to the hopscotch sheet. But the rest of the group were looking at Nobody.
‘Haven’t you?’ he said. ‘There’s nothing to it, really. And it’s fun. Certainly more fun than . . . hopscotch.’ The tiniest hint of acid trickled into his words.
Naughty Rupert chuckled. Annie’s eyes darted between Nobody and Sophie. Bunny did a little jump.
Sophie was defeated.
‘Well. Go on then. Tell us the rules,’ she said, as if her permission was needed.
‘Oh. An Unpicking doesn’t have rules. And we don’t need any balls, or mats, or skittles. We do need someone to be the Baby. I think Bunny would make a good Baby.’
Bunny did a dance, ears flopping up and down. Nobody advanced in an ungainly gambol. He came right up to Bunny’s face. He moved his head about. Inspected Bunny’s fat body. Bunny’s limbs spun manically. He hadn’t noticed Nobody’s dangerous tone, or the strange stillness that blanketed the room.
‘And then all we need,’ said Nobody, fingers plucking at a loose thread dangling from Bunny’s underarm, ‘is a way in.’ And he pulled sharply.
Bunny gasped in shock or pain, still not sure as to what kind of game this was. But then the other toys were about him, fingers of cloth or wood or plastic tearing out stitches, grabbing fistfuls of stuffing: a silent frenzy of fabric.
TWO . . .
By the time they were done with the Unpicking, all that was left of Bunny was a tangle of thread, some folds of empty fur, and balls of the foam that had given him form. The other toys sat about on the carpet, drained from the activity. Annie-In-Rags absent-mindedly twirled one of Bunny’s ears about her wrist, humming a three-note melody. Nobody lolled on the floor, knocking one of Bunny’s eyes back and forth between his glossy four-fingered hands. Even Sophie seemed at an ebb, limbs awkwardly arranged, eyes staring upwards at the glow-in-the-dark planets on His ceiling. Only Naughty Rupert seemed perky. He pattered a soft tattoo on the carpet with his paws, then he chuckled to himself. Annie gave him a look, but then she saw that Sophie and Nobody were not paying Rupert any attention. In fact, they seemed to be deliberately not looking at him. She thought it best to follow suit.
In the bed, underneath a duvet of multicoloured balloons floating in an azure sky, He let out a soft sigh then turned to His other side.
Naughty Rupert chuckled again, then abruptly stood up. He was famously nimble, not constrained by harsh joints like Sophie or Nobody, and his feet were large enough to provide some balance. He stalked towards the door. It was open a sliver. Light from the upstairs hallway stabbed a knife of yellow on to the carpet. Rupert wedged a paw between the door and frame, gripped the jamb with his opposable thumb, and, with all his might, pulled the door open a crack more.
‘What are you doing?’ hissed Sophie. ‘If She’s still awake, She’ll see, and then we’ll all be for it.’
Naughty Rupert smirked at her. After Nobody’s plan for their evening’s entertainment had gone so well, Sophie knew her authority had been diminished. He slipped through. The other toys, nervous now, hurried up to the door. They watched as Rupert stole along the hallway, moving quickly, glued to the flock wallpaper. The door at the other end of the hallway was also ajar, but beyond was darkness.
Sophie, Nobody and Annie-In-Rags watched Rupert from the doorway. Their manifold forms were tense with fear. Sophie’s apprehension was so sharp she couldn’t tell it from excitement. Never before had a toy left His bedroom in the night, except the time, back at the old house, when Big Ted got carried away at hide-and-seek. He had fallen down the dumb waiter and, on his attempt to return to His old bedroom, been set upon by the ginger tom, Winston.
Naughty Rupert reached the top of the stairs. Each stair was half his height, but he leapt down the first like a circus acrobat, then another, then another. The stairs were made of dark wood, polished and gleaming in the light from the hall lamp. Rupert didn’t stop at all, though his furry feet slipped once or twice. He reached the landing, turned to go down further, and disappeared out of sight. The other toys waited. They listened. They heard nothing.
‘Maybe Winston’s got him,’ said Nobody, with a tremor. The toys waited some more.
Nothing.
Not a sound.
Not a peep.
Until . . .
A soft bumping from the bottom of the stairs. Then again, and again, a fraction louder each time. Naughty Rupert reappeared on the landing. He was bringing something with him. It was a plastic Tupperware box with a label on it that read SEWING, though, of course, none of the toys could read. On top of the box was a pair of black-handled scissors. Rupert dragged the box across the landing behind him, then lifted it up each stair, following behind with an awkward vault.
The others were agog at his audacity. What a brave toy! What a naughty toy!
But then, with two stairs to go, Rupert made a mistake. He placed the sewing box on the penultimate stair. Aware that the other toys were watching him, he put a flourish into his leap upwards. His paw slipped. He grabbed out. His paw found the sewing box, but he only succeeded in pulling the box back with him. Then it and Rupert tumbled down, down, down. Rupert’s slide stopped halfway. The box and scissors clattered past him before coming to rest on the landing. Annie moaned in dismay before Nobody slapped his hand over the gap in the denim that functioned as her mouth.
From the dark, in Her bedroom, She spoke. ‘What is that noise?’ The toys heard Her getting up. ‘Oliver. If I catch you out of bed again, I swear you’ll wish you’d never been born.’ In horror, Sophie, Nobody and Annie turned to look at Him, but, mercifully, He was sleeping just as soundly as before. Still, Annie-In-Rags wasted no time scuttling back to the safety of the toy chest, and then, Sophie noticed with a grim satisfaction that undercut her dread, so did Nobody. Only Sophie, alone, stayed at the crack of the door.
From Her bedroom, She emerged. She wore a silk dressing gown, once fine, but now with a rip at one elbow and stains on the lacework. There wa
s a lit cigarette in one of Her hands that she waved like a dagger. ‘Where are you?’ she called. She moved down the hallway. Sophie, exiled during the daytimes, had not seen Her in some time. There was something different about Her, Sophie thought. Black circles had spread like mould around Her eyes, and pale brown spots crept up Her hands and arms.
Then She noticed Rupert lying on the stairs, dazed and still. ‘Oh Oliver. When will you grow out of these silly jokes and be a proper young man? Why must you make it so hard for me?’ She glared at the door of His bedroom. But, just as Sophie was about to squeal in terror, Naughty Rupert actually moved. He sat bolt upright. He cringed. And, then, he started to scarper down the stairs – as if his six-inch legs could outstrip those of a fully grown woman.
She looked at Rupert, brow furrowed. Took a step down the stairs towards him.
Too fast.
Her back foot caught in a flap of carpet. Her mouth got halfway to a scream as She flew the length of the upper flight, sailing clean over Rupert. With a sharp snapping sound, She crashed in a tangled heap on the landing. Her neck was angled hideously. Her bloodshot eyes went as glassy as Nobody’s. Everything was silent again.
As if nothing had happened, Rupert carried on down the stairs, gathered the sewing kit and scissors from about Her still body, and recommenced the laborious journey upwards.
In the bed, He hadn’t stirred at all. His strawberry-blond hair fell in ringlets about His pillow.
Sophie stayed where she was. She was fascinated by the way She lay. She looks like me, Sophie thought, me when I make myself still when He opens the toy chest. But somehow, without truly understanding why, Sophie didn’t think that She could make Herself move again, no matter how hard She tried.
Sophie was still engrossed by the sight of Her body by the time Rupert had got his treasure back to the bedroom. Annie and Nobody had rejoined them, too.
‘Now,’ said Naughty Rupert, with an evil giggle, ‘Let’s make Baby all better.’
THREE!
Naughty Rupert started the work, but the others soon joined in. Ears and arms and legs and eyes were reaffixed, clumsily sewn together. The needle was too big for the toys to manipulate properly, so Sophie made Annie hold it while she pushed it through, and Nobody pushed it back again from the other side. It took a long time, and when they stopped, the first glimmers of dawn were visible through the curtains. The toys had never stayed out so late before.
Now, Bunny was able to move again. But they hadn’t sewn him back together the way he’d been. His ears were fixed to his shoulders. An eye had been attached on to his groin, which Annie found hilarious, and even Sophie couldn’t help tittering at. Stuffing was glued to his head – mad, candyfloss hair. And he only had one leg, a pathetic empty fold. He still had that grin, though he couldn’t stay upright, even when Nobody helped him. He just lay on the floor, spinning around in an ineffectual circle.
The toys watched him. Unspooled thread and needles were scattered about the room.
‘Funnnnn,’ said Annie, and, for once, the other toys agreed with her. But though the evening’s events had been exciting, as exciting as anything they’d ever done, there was still a restlessness to the toys, as if they hadn’t really been sated, as if this night had only increased their appetite for more.
‘Ball?’ suggested Naughty Rupert. But from the weariness of his voice it was obvious his heart wasn’t in it.
‘No,’ said Sophie. ‘Something else.’
But what else? Annie shrugged her doughy head. Nobody tried to suggest a game of Chinese whispers, but he couldn’t pique anyone’s interest – he squandered his best shot too early, thought Sophie. Even Rupert seemed dejected – the climb had taken it out of him. All three looked to Sophie. She knew her moment had come.
‘An Unpicking. Another one.’
The toys looked from one to another, suddenly alert. Nobody and Rupert turned their heads towards Annie, but she was not as foolish as Bunny, and she scrambled away. Besides, she was the biggest, and who could say that she wouldn’t take the head off one of the others, even if they did all gang up on her.
‘No,’ said Sophie. ‘Not one of us. Him.’
And they all fixed their attention on Him, their freckled one-time master, eyes twitching in dreams. They rose as one. Gathered needles, scissors, toy drumsticks. And, without a mutter, without a whisper, they took their makeshift tools, and they circled His bed.
LA MORT DE L’AMANT
STUART JOHNSTONE
STUART JOHNSTONE
Stuart lives and works in Edinburgh. He was selected as an emerging writer by The Edinburgh UNESCO City of Literature Trust and appeared at the Edinburgh International Book Festival in August 2015. This, he considers to be simultaneously the most amazing and terrifying experience of his life.
He has had short stories published and is working on his second novel. The first was considered and promptly rejected by some of the most prestigious literary agencies in the world!
The idea for ‘La Mort de L’Amant’ came from a debate he had with his university lecturer while studying creative writing. She maintained that clichés should be avoided at all costs. Stuart argued that, in fact, they had their place. In ‘La Mort de L’Amant’ he aimed ‘not just to embrace them but to use these lovely quirks of language, or southernisms’ to form the spine of the story.
STUART ON STEPHEN KING
‘Easily the two most influential books for me growing up were Stephen King’s The Stand, and Richard Matheson’s I am Legend.
I was drawn to the bleak and absorbing worlds created in both and the complex nature of the characters’ struggles. Both books I have gone back to time and time again; truly inspirational. It was no surprise later to read in On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft what a significant influence Matheson was on Stephen King.’
LA MORT DE L’AMANT
As rare as Louisiana snow, she used to say.
Texans like their little sayings and she just kept rolling them out. One after another on a conveyor belt of clichés; one for every occasion. Southerners think they add colour to a conversation but he reckoned they were more like stabilisers on bicycles, just there to prop up lazy communicators.
Well hell, he should have bought a lottery ticket today, he thought, tracing a swirl into the frost on the thick wooden handrail with his finger. He wasn’t sure what a snow cloud looked like exactly but the sky had an attitude about it, like it was really pissed. Meaner than a wet panther, she would probably have said.
He hugged his jacket to himself and pulled up his collar to stop the sharp morning breeze getting at his neck as he peered over the edge. The roar of the river falling on to the rocks was deafening. Louder than . . . something-or-other she would have said. A cold gravity-defying spray made its way back up to the bridge from the bottom and collected on his closed eyelids and cheeks. He breathed in the wet invigorating air and considered how refreshing it was, how the heat of the south seemed to slow everything to a lazy hazy blur.
But not this morning.
The sound of tyres on dirt snapped him from his damp reverie. He opened his eyes and turned to see a patrol car approach up the dirt track and park behind his truck. He pushed his hands into his jacket pockets and smiled at the young officer, who was housing his nightstick in his belt as he stepped from the vehicle.
‘Mornin’,’ the young man said.
‘Morning to you, Officer.’ My God, he thought, they really are looking younger all the time. This kid can’t be much older than twenty. The policeman was short and thin but the starch in that dark blue uniform added stature. He wondered if his mother had ironed that crisp shirt; it was impeccable. The gold star on his chest was as bright as the toecaps on his shoes and if he was old enough to be shaving he’d gone right to the bone. Shiny boy, he thought.
‘How ’bout this weather, huh?’ the young man said, approaching and leaning forward a little, not disguising the fact he was trying to get a good look at the older man’s face.
&
nbsp; ‘Yeah, it’s something.’
‘Cold enough to freeze the tit off a frog. You know I reckon it might just snow, can you believe it?’
‘I was just thinking the same, Officer.’
The young man stopped short of the wooden bridge, his thumbs tucked into his utility belt, and watched the older man looking out over the edge. An awkward silence settled between them. The older man was the first to break.
‘Is there something I can help you with, Officer?’
‘Actually, sir, I was kinda wonderin’ that myself.’
‘I’m not sure I follow.’
‘I mean I was wondering if there was something I could help you with?’ the young man said, his voice rich with genuine concern.
‘I’m fine, thank you. Just enjoying the view,’ said the older man, nodding at the precipice in front of him. His hands were tucked snugly into his jacket pockets, the fingers of his right hand nervously tracing the lines and curves of the cold metal within.
‘She’s something, ain’t she? Hell of a view. The name’s Charlie by the way. Well, it’s Officer Daniels but Charlie’s fine unless my boss can hear. She doesn’t like us gettin’ too familiar.’ Charlie laughed. ‘Are you sure you’re okay, mister?’ he said, stepping up on to the bridge to get a good look at the older man.
‘I’m fine, really. Couldn’t be—’
‘It’s just that you look like you’ve been crying.’ Charlie’s hands shot out defensively. ‘Not that there’s anything wrong with that. Hell, if my girlfriend puts on a sad movie I’m like to bawl like a baby stubbed his toe.’
