A Nest of Nightmares Read online

  ‘Dollburgers?’

  ‘Just like hamburgers. Only, of course, made out of dolls.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘People don’t eat dolls, and dollburgers are just tiny hamburgers, like what Mommy made on my last birthday, which you feed to dolls.’

  ‘But dolls don’t eat – people do.’

  ‘You pretend,’ Karen said, exasperated with him. He was shaking his head.

  ‘I don’t care what you call little hamburgers – but I happen to know about dollburgers. People eat them, and they’re made out of dolls. There are people who just love them. Of course, they’re illegal; so they have to sneak around, looking for houses where little girls have forgotten to put their dolls safely away. When they find abandoned dolls, they pop them into a sack until they collect enough to grind up into dollburgers.’

  ‘That’s a story,’ Karen said.

  Her father shrugged. ‘I’m just trying to warn you so when you lose a doll you’ll know what’s happened to it and maybe you’ll be more careful in the future.’

  Her mother came to the table. ‘No dollburgers in this house. Pancakes though. Karen, get your plate if you want some.’

  Karen suddenly remembered where she’d left Kristina. Of course – last night before she went to bed, she and Kristina had been lost in the wilderness and had crawled into a cave to rest for the night – Kristina must still be in the cave.

  ‘In a minute,’ she said, and went purposefully into the living room.

  The bridge table was the cave, but there was no doll underneath. Karen dropped to her hands and knees. Kristina was gone. Something gleamed in the corner by a table leg, and she picked it up.

  A blue eye gazed impassively up from her hand. There were some shards of pink plastic on the carpet. Kristina?

  ‘Karen, do you want pancakes or don’t you?’

  ‘In a minute,’ she called, and carefully picked up each tiny piece and put it in her pocket. She looked at the eye again. Kristina’s eyes were blue. She put the eye in her pocket.

  ‘Daddy,’ she asked over pancakes, ‘do the people – the people who eat dollburgers – do they ever just, you know, eat dolls? I mean, right where they find them?’

  Her father considered. ‘I suppose sometimes they get so hungry that they might just crunch up a doll right there, with their teeth,’ he said. ‘You never know what they’ll do.’

  ‘I’m sure Kristina is perfectly safe,’ said her mother. ‘I’ll help you find her after I do the dishes.’

  After breakfast Karen went up to her room and examined the eye and the pieces of pink plastic, the last remains of Kristina. What Daddy had said about the dollburger eaters was real, then, and not just a story like the grizzly bear in the cedar closet.

  Karen had the attic room. Her closet was actually the attic itself – without wallpaper, beams bare overhead and decorated with bits of discarded furniture and boxes of old clothes. She kept her toys there, and it was home to all her dolls. She took Kristina’s eye there, climbed onto a rickety chair, and put it in a secret place atop a ceiling beam. It would do better than a funeral, she thought, since there was so little of poor Kristina left.

  The dolls watched her steadily from their places. Karen looked around at all of them from her position atop the chair, feeling queen of all she surveyed, giant queen-mother to all these plastic, rag, and rubber babies.

  Hard-faced Barbie sat stonily beside doltish Ken in front of their dream house. Her clothes spilled out of the upstairs bedroom; two nude teenagers (Barbie’s friends) sprawled in the kitchen.

  The bride doll sat next to Princess Katherine where she’d sat for months undisturbed. There was dust in her hair, and the shoulders of her white gown looked grimy. Princess Katherine’s crown was bent, her green dress stained, and her lower right leg secured to the upper leg with Band-Aids and masking tape.

  Raggedy Ann, Raggedy Andy, Aunt Jemima, and Teddy­bear slouched together in the rocking chair. The talking dolls, Elizabeth, Jane, and Tina sat grimly silent. The babydolls had been tossed into one crib where they lay like lumps. Susan, bald and legless, had been wrapped tenderly and put in the blue plastic bassinet.

  Karen looked at the top of the old dresser, where Kristina used to sit with Beverly. Now Beverly sat there alone. Karen felt tears in her eyes: Kristina had been her favourite. She suddenly felt uncomfortable standing above her dolls, felt that they were blaming her for Kristina’s disappearance.

  She felt guilt, a heaviness in her stomach, and thought she saw grim indictment on the still, staring faces.

  ‘Poor Kristina,’ she said. ‘If only someone had warned me.’ She stepped down from her perch, shaking her head sadly. ‘If only daddy had told me before – then I could have protected her. When I think of all the times I’ve left some of you out – well, now that I know I’ll be sure to take good care.’

  She looked around at the dolls, who had not changed expression, and suddenly the silence of the attic became oppressive.

  Louisa, Karen’s best friend, called that afternoon. ‘Would you and Kristina care to join me and Isabella in having a tea party?’ she asked in her best society-lady voice.

  Karen assumed a similar voice to reply. ‘Oh, my deah, I would love to, but Kristina has been kidnapped.’

  ‘Oh, how dreadful, my deah.’

  ‘Yes, it is, my deah, but I think I shall bring my other child, Elizabeth.’

  ‘Very good. I shall see you in a few minutes. Ta-ta.’

  ‘Ta-ta, my deah.’

  Elizabeth was one of the talking dolls, always her favourite until golden-haired Kristina had come as a birthday gift.

  Louisa’s little sister Anne and her ragdoll Sallylou were the other guests at the tea party, treated with faint disdain by Louisa and Karen for their lack of society manners.

  ‘Why don’t you let Elizabeth eat her own cookie?’ Anne demanded as Karen took a dainty bite. Elizabeth had politely refused the treat.

  ‘Be quiet, silly,’ Louisa said, forgetting her role. ‘Dolls don’t eat cookies.’

  ‘Yes, they do.’

  ‘No, they don’t.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘They do not.’

  ‘Well, if they don’t, then what do they eat?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Pretend food,’ Karen amended. ‘They have to eat pretend food because they only have pretend teeth and pretend stomachs.’

  Anne shook her head. ‘Sallylou has real teeth, and so she has to eat real food.’

  ‘Oh, she does not,’ Louisa said. ‘All you do is mash cookies in her face so she gets crumbs all over her. Show me her teeth if she has them.’

  ‘I can’t, ’cause her mouth is closed,’ Anne said smugly.

  ‘You’re just stupid.’

  Later, when they were alone, Karen told Louisa what had happened to Kristina and watched her friend’s eyes grow wider. This was no story; it was real and immediate, and the proof was the blue eye now lying on a bed of dust and staring unceasingly at the attic roof.

  Karen’s ears ached from trying to hear movement downstairs. She always lay awake at the top of the house, feeling silence and sleep wrap the house from the bottom up until it finally reached her and she slept. But now every distant creak of board, every burp of pipe, made her tense and listen harder. She’d left no dolls downstairs, of course, but what if those men should not be deterred by stairs but were lured on by the scent of dolls up in the attic?

  She thought of Louisa across the street and wondered if she too lay awake listening. Louisa, she knew, had put all her dolls under the bed, the safest place she could think of.

  Karen suddenly thought of her own dolls, more frightened than she, sitting terrified in the dark attic, listening to the sounds as she did and wondering if the next creaking board would bring a dark sack over th
eir heads, labelling them dollburger meat. It was her duty to protect them.

  She went on bare feet to the attic door, the full moon through her window giving her light enough to find her way. She opened the attic door and thought as she did so that she heard a movement inside, as if perhaps a doll had been knocked over.

  She had to go inside the attic several feet to reach the light cord. Her bare foot nudged something as she did, and when the light came on, she looked down to see what it was.

  Poor, bald, legless Susan lay naked on the floor, and Karen noticed at once that Susan now was not only legless, but armless as well. When she picked her up, small shards of pink plastic fell from the arm sockets.

  Karen felt an almost paralysing fear. They were up here, somehow in the attic without having come past her bed, and already they’d begun on her most helpless doll. Holding Susan to her, she began to gather all the other dolls into her arms. She lifted the skirt of her nightgown to make a bag and tumbled the dolls in there. They were scattered around as if they’d been thrown, none in their right places. Barbie on the floor, Ken in the rocking chair with Raggedy Andy and the bride.

  Every time she bent to pick up another doll, she was sure she could hear the muffled breathing of the hungry dollburger eaters and feel the pressure of their eyes against her back.

  She began to pray, whispering and thinking, ‘Oh, please, please, please, oh, please.’

  Finally she had all the dolls together, and she stumbled to the door and closed it, leaving the light still burning in the attic. For safety she pushed her chair in front of the door.

  Then she went to bed, arranging all the dolls around her, lying down, falling asleep sandwiched by their small hard bodies.

  She may have dreamed, but she never woke as they began to move closer to her in the night, and she didn’t see the crumbs of plastic that fell from Elizabeth’s open, hungry mouth.

  COMMUNITY PROPERTY

  Ellis had to drive, which meant that Susie got to hold Gonzo on her lap. He hated her for that, among so many other reasons. He felt close to tears at the memory of Gonzo’s plump, furry little body, the warmth of him, the sudden tension in his skinny legs when something outside the window caught his attention.

  Ellis didn’t want to lose his dog. Most of all, he didn’t want to lose his dog to her.

  The house, community property, would have to be sold. The car was his, and he would keep it along with his hunting rifles and stereo system. The dishes, records, and furniture had been, with the help of the lawyers, divided fairly, even if neither party was entirely satisfied. But how did you divide a dog? Unthinkable to sell him, as if Gonzo were no more than a piece of community property like a house or a television set. Equally unthinkable for either Ellis or Susie to give the dog up to the other. It was impossible, and humiliating, to imagine custody of the dog granted to one and only visitation rights to the other.

  His lip rose in a sneer. Visitation rights, with Susie laying down the law to him about when and where? No thanks. Once the divorce was final, he intended never to see the bitch again.

  ‘Don’t hold him like that,’ he said without looking at her. ‘Let him put his head out the window.’

  ‘And have him jump out after some other dog and get hit by a car? Christ, you’d love to hang that over me, wouldn’t you?’ Her voice was dry ice.

  ‘He wouldn’t jump out. He’s a smart dog. You always underestimate his intelligence. He’s wiggling like that because you’re squeezing him.’

  ‘Just watch the road, would you? And don’t talk to me.’

  The animal clinic came in view, and with the sight of it his heart seemed to freeze. His hands tightened on the steering wheel. He wanted to touch Gonzo, to roll him on the ground, to pull his ears, to scratch the white patch on his chest.

  He thought of Gonzo as he had first seen him: a patchwork scrap small enough to fit in one cupped hand. There was a lump in his throat and the taste of salt in his mouth. He couldn’t go through with it.

  Susie let out an ugly snuffling whimper as he turned the car into the parking lot, and the lump in his throat dissolved. Listen to her – you’d almost think she was feeling something.

  ‘We don’t have to do this,’ Ellis said, putting the car in park but leaving the engine running. ‘Just say the word.’

  ‘Say the word and let you take him, you mean.’ Her voice was strangled with tears. ‘Hell, no. If you’re so big-hearted, you say the word and I’ll keep him.’

  ‘This was your idea in the first place,’ Ellis said, and it had been. It was a horrible idea, too. But he could not bear the thought of seeing her win, of losing Gonzo to her. He could stand to lose, but not to see her win.

  She said, speaking for them both, ‘I’d sooner see him die than see you get him.’

  ‘All right,’ he said, and switched off the car.

  Gonzo understood where he was now, and began to struggle in her arms.

  ‘You’ll drop him. Let me carry him inside,’ Ellis said, reaching for the writhing dog. Susie clutched Gonzo more tightly and backed away. Driven by a feeling of unfairness – she’d got to hold the dog all the way here – he followed, but she fled to the doorstep. With bad grace, but not wanting the people waiting with their pets inside to see him struggling with his wife, Ellis opened the door and let her carry the dog in.

  ‘We have an appointment,’ Ellis said to the receptionist. ‘And we don’t have time to wait all day.’

  ‘Um, what’s the problem?’ The receptionist was young and seemed intimidated by him.

  ‘We’ll tell that to the vet.’

  Blushing, the girl went to find a vet.

  Gonzo had stopped struggling, but he was trembling violently now, and the whites of his eyes showed. A temporary truce went into effect between husband and wife under the watching eyes of all the other pet-owners present, and they both stroked Gonzo, their hands occasionally colliding, and murmured words meant to soothe him.

  ‘Dr Blake will see you,’ the receptionist said when she returned. Ellis had never met Blake before – a young man, he was presumably new to the clinic.

  ‘What seems to be the problem?’ he asked, his manner a nice mixture of cheerfulness and sobriety.

  Silence for a moment, neither husband nor wife wanting to be the one to say the words. Finally, setting his jaw and hating her for making him do it, Ellis said, ‘We want you to put our dog to sleep.’

  ‘Oh? Is he ill? Young dog, isn’t it?’ The vet reached out and Susie retreated, arms closing more tightly about the animal. Ellis hissed her name and she stopped and let the vet take the frightened dog from her arms. She was trembling almost as much as the animal.

  ‘You know,’ said the vet, looking at her kindly, ‘many problems people think are serious often aren’t, really. We can cure many diseases that . . .’

  ‘He’s not ill,’ Susie said. ‘We just want you to, please, put him to sleep.’

  ‘Kill him? But why?’

  ‘I really don’t think that’s any of your business,’ Ellis said coldly. ‘We’ll pay whatever it costs, of course. It’s not as if we’re asking you to do something illegal.’

  The vet stiffened, and Ellis knew he had used the wrong tone of voice. ‘Not illegal, perhaps,’ said the vet. ‘But I find it immoral to kill a healthy young dog for no good reason.’

  ‘But we have a good reason,’ Susie protested. ‘We don’t want him to suffer. He wouldn’t be happy without us – he’d suffer if we gave him away to strangers. But if you put him to sleep – it really would be just like putting him to sleep, wouldn’t it? – he wouldn’t feel any pain, he wouldn’t know what happened.’

  Ellis could see that had thawed the vet a bit. Susie’s earnest, almost child-like manner coupled with her beauty would thaw any man – until he got to know her too well.

  ‘If a dog is suffering, then freque
ntly the best thing is to put it to sleep. But I’m talking about physical suffering – I doubt the anguish he’d suffer at being parted from you and your husband would be great enough to justify euthanasia. He wouldn’t be in any physical pain, and he’d soon get used to a new home and have a long life ahead of him.’

  ‘I think we know what’s best for our dog,’ Ellis said. ‘If you’re not willing to put him to sleep, I’m sure we can find someone who is.’

  ‘I doubt that,’ said Dr Blake. ‘I doubt you’ll find any reputable vet willing to kill a perfectly healthy dog.’ He stroked Gonzo’s trembling flank. ‘Look, if you can’t keep the dog, why not give him away? He seems like a nice, friendly little dog. Why don’t you let me take him? I’ll find him a good home.’

  ‘No. Absolutely not. We don’t want to give him away,’ Ellis said. ‘There’s no point in wasting your time – there are plenty of other vets in town.’

  ‘But if you can’t find one who’ll agree?’

  Ellis shrugged angrily. ‘That’s ridiculous. They gas dozens of dogs down at the pound every day. It wouldn’t be as quick and painless as you could do it here, but . . .’

  ‘But at the pound there would be a chance of someone else finding him and giving him a good home.’

  ‘That’s out of the question. We don’t want anyone else to have our dog.’

  Dr Blake shrugged. ‘I think you better get used to the idea. I think I can guarantee you won’t find a vet in town to go along with you. You’ll have to take your dog to the pound.’

  Ellis stared at the vet. ‘If you won’t make it easy for me,’ he said quietly, ‘think of this: there’s no law that says a man can’t shoot his own dog.’

  Susie whimpered. ‘Oh, he would,’ she said, gazing at the vet for help. ‘He would shoot Gonzo. Please . . . I don’t want Gonzo to suffer.’

  ‘All right,’ the vet said, his lips tight. ‘I’ll save your dog from that.’ Grim-faced, he put the dog on a metal table and motioned to Ellis to hold the dog still.

  ‘He won’t feel any pain,’ Ellis said, as the vet prepared the needle.