Shock Totem 1: Curious Tales of the Macabre and Twisted Read online

  Kevin flicked away leaf fragments from the polyester fuzz bleeding from Snowflake's face. “It was that damn bear, wasn't it?” Snowflake didn't need to answer; Kevin already knew. That's how connected they were. “An eye for an eye, pal,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. He placed Snowflake's trunk in his hand and smiled at the gentle, reassuring movement he felt against his palm. He set Snowflake down on the table and left with his family for the holiday meal at Grandma's house.

  But as soon as the door lock clicked, Snowflake looked over his shoulder toward the living room where the basket and Boo Bear were. The worn fur around his one remaining eye bunched over the black marble in a menacing glare.

  • • •

  Snowflake rummaged through the pile of stuffed animals with his furry trunk, raising the protests of those he tossed out of the basket in his one-eyed search. The newer toys murmured their displeasure, while the older, wiser toys moved out of Snowflake's way. Some even pushed the newer stuffed animals into his path, perhaps hoping he'd accept their offering, but he wasn't interested in any of them. He wanted Boo Bear, and as clever as the old bear might be, he couldn't hide forever. Snowflake would find him. Oh, yes, he certainly would.

  But the old bastard wasn't there. Snowflake had cleared every toy from the wicker basket and Boo Bear wasn't among them. Snowflake crouched on the edge and squinted down at the blurry sea of toys below him, his head bleeding aged yellow stuffing. He jumped down to the floor and jabbed his trunk at a shivering tiger doll. “Where is that fucker Boo Bear?” he demanded. The tiger shook its head, covering its eyes with its bright orange paws.

  Snowflake turned his fixed his glaring marble-eye on the rest of the animals huddled against the basket. Some were missing parts; bits of fur or skin which Snowflake had taken as needed to repair himself. As a baby, Rodney had been hard on his toys, and he was only getting harder on them as time passed.

  But that's how boys were...well, except Kevin. Even as a child he'd always been very careful with Snowflake, for the elephant was the first and only Christmas present Kevin had ever gotten from his parents, who died a few days later in a car wreck. No, it was the other kids who damaged him, pulling his legs in tug-of-war, or using him as a football. But Kevin and Snowflake got their revenge; they rigged tree house ropes to come untied and left gates ajar so the most feared dog in the neighborhood chased the other boys home from school. Kevin even learned to sew, so he could repair the damage everyone did to his favorite toy. He had so few friends growing up and even fewer people he could talk to; that was why Snowflake had chosen to break the unspoken rule and reveal to Kevin that he was more than just thread and stuffing. He and Kevin had been through so much together, for so many years...

  And Snowflake wasn't going to let some hand-me-down rag-bear get one over on him now. He and Boo Bear hadn't gotten along from the beginning—Snowflake thought perhaps it was jealousy because Rodney preferred him and his music box to the stinky bear—but he had to admit: Boo Bear was much cleverer than he'd first thought. After years of trying to hide Snowflake from Rodney or pushing him out of the wagon at the park, the new dog must have seemed like a miracle. What better way to get rid of the competition than by feeding him to a slobbering beast?

  But Boo Bear had underestimated him, and Rodney's devotion to him.

  Snowflake abandoned the other useless toys and set his nose to the floor. He followed the trail of cigarette scent into the living room, squeezing under the sofa and crawling on his belly to the other side. He was about to head into the hall when he heard the scratching of Velcro on the hardwood floor. He turned to see the sneaky bear dashing across the room to the stairs.

  Trumpeting, Snowflake bounded after him, his mismatched legs making for an ungainly gait. As he turned toward the stairs, he slid sideways and slammed into the wall. But he didn't stop. He took the steps as quick as the dog might. Boo Bear crawled up the stairs like an infant and was only about halfway up when Snowflake caught up with him.

  Snowflake pounced. He wrapped his trunk around Boo Bear's torso and squeezed as he pulled backwards. Boo Bear clung to the stair’s runner with the Velcro on his paws; but it finally gave way with a shredding sound, leaving the runner marred with torn fibers. They tumbled down the stairs, bouncing and cursing each other. When they hit bottom, they flew apart and spun across the hardwood. Snowflake hit the wall again and Boo Bear slid up against Cheryl's sewing basket.

  Snowflake bared his toothless mouth—oh, what he would give to have Buster's sharp fangs to chomp into his enemy right now!—and charged. With his hind legs, one pink and the other gray, he pinned Boo Bear to the floor. He flipped the sewing basket open with his trunk.

  When he pulled out the heavy steel scissors—dropping them handle-first onto Boo Bear's face—the other stuffed animals shrieked and began scrambling back into the toy basket, knocking each other aside.

  “Help me!” Boo Bear howled. Snowflake adjusted the scissors so he could operate them with his trunk and a foreleg. “He's crazy! Somebody get him off me!”

  “An eye for an eye, pal.” Snowflake pushed the point of the open scissors into the fur under Boo Bear's left eye. While the bear screamed for him to stop, he worked slowly and methodically, cutting the fabric in a circle around the eye. The eye fell to the floor with a clink!

  The toys in the basket cried.

  Boo Bear wailed.

  “You insane bastard! You cut my eye out! When Cheryl sees this—”

  Snowflake thrust the scissors through his throat and up into his head. “One missing eye is the least of your problems, pal.” He lowered the top blade so it clamped tightly against the bear's fabric. He then dragged Boo Bear toward the kitchen.

  “Where are you taking me?” Boo Bear gasped. He tried to dislodge the blades from his neck with his paws.

  “It's a surprise.”

  At the back door, Snowflake lifted the blocker on the dog door. When he turned to take the scissor handles again, Boo Bear had crawled away, though the heavy blades dragged him down. Snowflake pulled him back over and shoved him out the dog door. He then lowered the wooden slat, leaving just enough room to yank the scissors back through. He closed it down the rest of the way while Boo Bear pounded at it from the other side.

  “You might want to quiet down,” Snowflake called to him. “The dog will hear you.”

  Boo Bear immediately ceased his pounding.

  Using some boxes, Snowflake climbed up to the counter and onto the windowsill overlooking the back garden. In the summer colorful flowers grew in the beds, but now the winter-kill had turned everything gray and dead.

  He spotted Boo Bear trying to traverse the yard quietly, for Buster was asleep in his doghouse. Boo Bear headed for the gate to the front yard. Snowflake cranked the window open with his trunk and called out, “Buster! Look what I have for you, boy!”

  Boo Bear froze. He stared back at Snowflake with a frosty one-eyed glare. Behind him, the dog raised his head and looked straight at him. Buster watched Boo Bear for a moment, his velvety ears perked up.

  Boo Bear ran for the gate, and just when he reached it, Buster dashed from his house and snatched him up into his jaws. Buster bounded off across the yard; his tail fanned the cold air and he shook his head furiously. He took the bear's head in his mouth while standing on his body, then gave him a good hard tug. It didn't rip Boo Bear in half, but when Buster dragged him off to his doghouse, the bear's body was horribly stretched. Buster settled down and began chewing away at Boo Bear’s head, starting at the hole Snowflake had left in his face.

  To Boo Bear's credit, he didn't cry out or curse, just took it in silence (like toys are supposed to), even as Buster emptied the stuffing out of his noggin and ate it.

  Snowflake cranked the window shut, then jumped off the ledge to get a needle and some thread. It wouldn't be too difficult to bully one of the other toys into sewing his new eye on for him.

  • • •

  Rodney was half-asleep when Kevin and Chery
l got home from dinner. Kevin carried him upstairs to his bedroom. Snowflake sat on the racecar bed, good as new, which made Cheryl give him a second look when she entered behind them. “Did you take him with you to my mother's and have her fix him?”

  “The Toy Fairy fixed him,” Kevin replied as Rodney brightened up and hugged Snowflake to his chest. “Didn't I tell you he would?”

  “Look, momma,” Rodney said. “The Toy Fairy gave him a shiny new eye.” He then yawned and jammed his fingers in his mouth.

  Cheryl, the question still in her eyes, looked from Snowflake to Kevin, and left the room.

  Kevin tucked Rodney under the sheets and put Snowflake next to him. He kissed Rodney's forehead and squeezed Snowflake's trunk. “Good to see you back as you should be, buddy,” he whispered. He closed the door as he left the room.

  Snowflake sighed and turned on his music box. He wrapped his trunk around Rodney's wrist, squeezing gently. He was so glad the boy was home again.

  Rodney was deep asleep when Cheryl came back upstairs practically yelling. “Look at this!” The light was still on in the hallway and Snowflake saw her shadow under the door.

  “Is that Boo Bear?” Kevin asked.

  “I found him, out in the backyard...only a wet scrap of fur left.” She was crying.

  “We must have left the dog door unlocked,” Kevin said, his voice sympathetic and soothing. “I'm sorry, Cheryl. It's my fault. I didn't remember to close it off—”

  “It was closed off! I was just down there. The slat was in place when I went to give Buster his food.”

  Kevin paused then said, “It must have been up when we left...and he came in and it fell down all the way when he went back—”

  “Did my mother fix the damn elephant or not?”

  After a moment's hesitation, Kevin said, “Of course she did, Cheryl. Toys don't repair themselves.”

  They retired to their bedroom. The discussion continued for a little while but it was too muffled for Snowflake to hear clearly. Once the house fell silent, he snuggled up against Rodney and went to sleep.

  • • •

  Footsteps in the hallway stirred Snowflake from his slumber. He knew it was Cheryl, from the telling shuffle of every other step. She went down the stairs to the kitchen.

  Snowflake leaped from the bed and nudged the door open. He went to the edge of the stairs. Cheryl stood just inside the kitchen, dialing the telephone. He sat at the top, watching her chew her thumbnail while waiting for someone to answer.

  “Dad? Yeah, it's Cheryl. Can I talk to mom? No, we're all okay; I just need to talk to her.” She paused for a moment before saying, “Mom? Yeah, I know it's late, but I have to ask you something. It's really bugging me. Did Kevin give you Snowflake to fix tonight? No, it's a dumb little stuffed elephant—Rodney's favorite. The dog tore its eye out before we left this afternoon, and Kevin said he gave it to you and you fixed it.” She paused again, her long fingernails drumming on the countertop. “He didn't? Okay. I'm sorry I woke you up.” She said goodnight and gently hung up the phone.

  She remained in the dark for a moment, standing very still. “He lied to me,” she finally muttered. “The bastard lied to me!”

  Snowflake turned back to the bedroom, sure she was going to come back upstairs any second, and indeed she did. She came right into Rodney's room just as Snowflake slipped under the blanket next to him. She went to the bed, her face hidden in darkness as she stood staring down at them. Snowflake lay still.

  She took hold of his trunk and pulled him carefully out from under the blankets. She tucked him under her arm and went out the door, closing it quietly behind her. She glared at her own bedroom door as she passed it, then hurried down the stairs.

  In the kitchen, she yanked the knife drawer open. “Lie to me, you bastard,” she said as she pulled out a large, gleaming knife. She threw Snowflake onto the cutting board and plunged the blade deep into his soft gut.

  Snowflake remained quiet, though. Even as she hacked into him over and over, each jab more angry and vicious than the last. Somehow it kept missing the music box, and if he could last through this attack, Kevin could sew up his wounds and everything would be okay—

  And then the blade hit the metal box, with its tiny gears and springs so precious to him. He actually gasped but the sound was lost in the sudden music bursting forth from his innards, at first normal, then becoming slow and warbled. The sound seemed to surprise Cheryl for a moment, but she refocused and targeted its source with the blade repeatedly until it stopped altogether.

  Snowflake felt only shock and sadness. She'd killed the last remaining thing of that beloved gift Kevin's parents had given to him so long ago. Snowflake would have wept, had he any tears.

  Cheryl took him out to the garage and threw open the trashcan lid. She started to toss him in, but stopped. All at once, the fury came back. She ripped his stomach open and tore his guts out in great handfuls. “Give my favorite toy to the dog, will you? Just wait 'til you see what I've done to yours, you lying jerk!”

  When she found the remains of the music box, she took it to the work bench and smashed it with a hammer. She hit it over and over, and as one last snub, she shattered the eye that once belonged to her beloved Boo Bear, flattening that side of Snowflake's already lopsided head. Finally, she pitched his remains in the garbage, burying his bits and pieces under a bulging garbage bag that smelled of rotten chicken and coffee grounds.

  • • •

  There was no repairing him this time; not really. Oh, Kevin would be able to put his stuffing back in and sew his gut together, but the most precious part of him was gone, damaged beyond repair. The music box would never play again. Snowflake thought about gathering his stuffing and trying to escape the trashcan, but what good would it do? Without his heart, he was nothing. So he just lay there, wondering how long it would take to die.

  Rodney cried all day, his shrill voice audible even in the garage. And Snowflake heard Kevin and Cheryl arguing; Kevin demanding to know where the elephant was and Cheryl denying everything, for a while anyway. Eventually she told him what she'd done, even said it with pride. She screamed about how she'd smashed his childhood friend's heart with a hammer.

  “Just as you've smashed mine,” she yelled after Kevin as he hurried into the garage. “Have your way! Screw that little whore you work with—do it in our bed if it makes you feel better—but I'm gone, and I'm taking Rodney with me. You will not lie to me anymore!”

  Snowflake heard Kevin’s desperate footsteps coming towards the trashcan. “I'm not having an affair, Cheryl,” Kevin shouted back. He threw aside the trashcan lid and dug through the garbage until he found Snowflake's limp body. On his face was that same intense look Snowflake had often seen when Kevin was a child and careless adults thought to rid him of that freakish, patchwork elephant that he “dragged around like a little girl.” Or when the other kids threw Snowflake into creeks or nailed him to fence posts.

  But this time, that look turned to devastation as he lifted Snowflake from the trashcan. “No no no no.” He clutched the stuffing and bits of music box machinery to his chest. Cheryl came through the door. He gave her the same cold look Snowflake had given Boo Bear when they'd left for dinner. “You're going to regret this, Cheryl. Snowflake is going to get you for this.”

  “There you go, talking like a lunatic again. You should consider getting some mental help, especially if you ever want to see your son again.” She stormed out, slamming the garage door behind her.

  “No, you're the one who'll never see him again.” Kevin looked around the garage, a wild look in his eyes. Then he sat down at the workbench. He laid Snowflake's remains out before him. He fingered the smashed music box with quaking hands. “She's not taking Rodney from us,” he said, wiping away tears. Snowflake touched his hand with his trunk, invigorated by Kevin's determination. “An eye for an eye, pal,” Kevin said, his voice hardly above a whisper. He went into the house, then returned with the sewing box and started putting Sn
owflake back together again.

  • • •

  Snowflake spent the next couple of days sitting under the workbench, hiding among the spider webs and mouse-droppings, waiting, planning. From the garage, the house sounded much calmer than before; it was a false calm though.

  Saturday morning, Kevin came to throw out some trash and called for Rodney to zip up his coat. “We're off to the movies, pal,” he said. When Snowflake came close enough to the front of the workbench to see him, Kevin glanced at him briefly and nodded, then whispered, “The dog door is open. Don’t let Buster see you.”

  And Cheryl would be alone in the house.

  “Have Rodney back by four,” Cheryl warned from an open window. “My dad is coming to pick us up and he won't stand for any funny business.”

  “Of course, dear,” Kevin said, smiling. He loaded Rodney into the minivan.

  Once the garage door lowered, Snowflake ventured out from under the bench. He quietly crossed the yard to the back door. He climbed through the open dog door, then eased it shut. Kevin had done a superb job of reassembling him; his stitching felt strong—just like his will—but Snowflake couldn't help noticing how light he felt inside, so much emptier than ever before. It saddened him.

  He would take care of that today, though.

  As Snowflake came into the living room, the other toys gazed at him from the basket. “Cheryl said she threw you away,” a stuffed platypus called to him.

  Snowflake didn't reply.

  He opened the sewing basket with his nose and pulled out the scissors, his weapon of choice. The other stuffed animals all ducked down out of sight, but he ignored them and dragged the scissors up the stairs to the landing.

  He stopped outside Kevin and Cheryl's bedroom door. It was cracked open and he heard Cheryl talking to her mother on the phone. “I knew it for months, and he kept denying it, telling me he was working all those late nights. He was off with that woman...I know it. And he still won't own up to it! But I’m through with his lies, mom. I'm through with him. I'm not going to let him stomp on my heart anymore.”