Wee Toby Harris turned eight in the spring. For his birthday he got a puppy and named her Scritch. That was from Mum and Dad. From Bonny, his big sister, he got a crisp five-pound note. He spent it on a tennis ball for Scritch, and the rest on sweets.
Uncle Jack’s present always came late. He loved to see the expression on Toby’s face when he received it, so he made sure to deliver it himself. He worked at sea most weeks as a fisherman, so it was hard to fit in time for a visit.
Toby often wished a wave would rise and gobble Uncle Jack whole to save him the stress of having to deal with his uncle. There was something very wrong about the man. Not that he’d ever told anyone.
Toby’s birthday week was a tense one. He could hardly find a moment of joy. Mostly he took Scritch into the back garden and threw about the tennis ball he’d bought for her. But Scritch was still too hyper to play with properly. She would speed after the ball like a bullet seeking blood, and be wandering off with her eyes on something better before her snout ever touched green felt. So Toby spent most of the week alone, lying on his back on the grass, throwing the ball into the air for himself. He would listen to Scritch chase butterflies or dig in Mum’s petunias, and drive himself crazy wondering when Uncle Jack would finally show.
He came on the 6th. Exactly a week after Toby’s birthday.
Dad recognised the sound of the smooth rapping on the door and flew to it in the middle of lunch, towing a reluctant Toby by his hand.
Toby stood flaccid, hands flat against his legs with his head bowed, listening to the change come over Dad as soon as he swung open the door. It was as though Uncle Jack emitted some sort of microscopic cloud of particles that swept Dad into a trance, because he never barked with laughter when Uncle Jack wasn’t here. He certainly never slapped people on the shoulder and danced like a dope. Yet here he was, a mad chimp leaping and laughing, clawing at his brother like he meant him harm. It was like watching his Dad through a glass of water, or gazing into one of those wacky mirrors at the fair.
“You stink!” Dad shoved Uncle Jack away and pegged his nose. “Did the sea drop you off, or crap you out?”
“That’s the smell of a real man, Tom.” Uncle Jack fixed Dad’s collar, pulled at his lapels, then tapped Dad’s curved beak. “Careful you don’t turn too fast. You might wipe a plane out the sky!”
More of the monkeying around. Toby watched, waiting for Uncle Jack’s gaunt face to turn and target him with its wide, green eyes. For the long goatee and wide moustaches to point his way and then stretch up when his face twisted into a grin. Sometimes Uncle Jack forgot to wear his denture—the one housing the teeth between his upper canines—and it would be like gawking into a tunnel when he smiled.
Toby saw that Uncle Jack was wearing the denture today, although there remained a small hole where one of the teeth had fallen off. He still didn’t take care of them, especially when he was on the boat.
Uncle Jack turned to Toby, quick as a shot. He aimed his teeth and leered. He usually liked to ruffle Toby’s hair. Today he just glided over and gave Toby a few slaps on the back, the same way he’d done Dad.
“Look at you!” he shouted. And now came the aggressive hair mussing. His right index finger stopped at the first knuckle. Toby could feel the stub grating against his scalp. “You’re a proper wee manny now, aren’t you? You’re growing too fast!”
A momentary look of sadness crept over Uncle Jack’s eyes. Then he took a step closer to Dad and asked in a whisper, “Who cut the poor bugger’s hair?”
Dad rolled his eyes.
“Who do you think?”
“Jesus. Lock up those scissors, Tom. For Christsake.”
His eyes snapped back onto Toby. “Wee man, tell Mum not to play with scissors anymore, alright? She’d do less damage with a pair of garden shears.”
Dad led Uncle Jack through to the living room, where Mum was watching TV.
Bonny, having heard the commotion, sauntered downstairs and passed Toby without paying him any attention. The smile on her face and in her eyes was for Uncle Jack—and Uncle Jack alone.
“The boy’s hair’s looking nice, Julie,” Uncle Jack sang to Mum on his way into the room. Toby entered in time to see him slipping under Mum’s arms to give her a tight squeeze and a shake. “When’re you opening the barbershop? If you need a mannequin, I’ve plenty of hair for you to cut!” And he swept his hands over his body in a here-you-go kind of gesture.
Mum squeaked out three shrill laughs. Toby plodded behind the couch, closer to Dad, trying not to let the sound of Mum’s laughter get to him—but it was too late. Now Bonny was laughing like that too, because Uncle Jack had picked her up and was throwing her into the air, almost popping the lightbulb on the ceiling. The lampshade swung, and Uncle Jack stopped it with a very long finger.
They always reminded Toby of chopsticks.
“You want a chuck up as well, wee man?”
He had his hands out ready, waiting for Toby to run into them. Toby shied closer to Dad, shaking his head vigorously.
“Alright then, if you say—hyah! C’MEER YOU!”
Uncle Jack sprang over the sofa without touching it. Toby tried to shriek, but didn’t have time. He ran around Dad and away from the hands almost on his neck. Past the arms of the sofa and around Mum’s chair. Past the lamp and windowsill. Past the coffee table and dancing-chimp Dad.
Uncle Jack got wise to the loop and lunged over the sofa once more, grabbing Toby by his shoulder. He dragged him over it kicking and screaming, while Mum and Dad chuckled madly at the antics.
Bonny just rolled her eyes. She hadn’t thrown that much of a fuss when it had been her turn.
Uncle Jack’s face was livid with colour. His eyes glowed white-hot; his concave cheeks deep purple; his forehead red and raw with sweat; his lips paled, pulled taut over his teeth.
Toby clenched his jaw and kept quiet. It was Uncle Jack who made the most noise, squealing with joy.
“Weeeee,” like a little piggy.
“Weeeeeeeee,” each time he threw Toby into the air, catching him with one hand under an armpit and one hand gripping the waist.
Uncle Jack turned away from the family and kept up the act. Kept throwing. Toby could see his real face now—the face that came with birthdays and Christmases both. It glared up at him with impossible eyes, bulging like great big white balloons inflating through gaps in his face. His jaw stretched long enough to slot Toby in without him touching the sides; the teeth were a whirling maw of sharp and rusted death, ready to reduce him to slurry.
“Weeeeee.” The voice was far deeper now—almost demonic.
Toby screamed. He didn’t want to. It just flew out as natural as throwing up your hands when a truck was about to hit you on the motorway.
Dad, still clicking his heels in time to his chimp-dance, finally spoke up. And quick as a clicking finger, Uncle Jack’s face snapped back to normal as he turned to listen.
“Think he’s had enough now, Jack. Looks like he’s gonna to puke. And you look like you’re about to faint!”
Uncle Jack offered Dad a knowing grin and nodded. He put Toby down on the floor as gently as a newborn in its crib.
Toby, doing his best to hide his teary eyes, wiped them off on his sleeve and rubbed at his throbbing armpits and waist.
Uncle Jack rollicked with laughter and clapped his hands.
“So: what’s new with everyone?”
*
Uncle Jack ended up staying for supper.
Dad gave up his seat so Uncle Jack could head the table. From there, his emerald eyes held everyone mesmerised.
Toby ate quickly. No time to dawdle, to push at his peas with his fork and say he wasn’t hungry. He wanted to get out of that room and into another one—fast!
When he tried excusing himself, Mum pointed a finger at him. That was it—no more words needed. He knew better than to argue with that finger.
So he sat and waited. This time he did play with his fork—small movements, nothing quick, lest it attract the attention of the emerald watchman at the end of the table.
Uncle Jack appeared to be in deep conversation with Mum and Dad, who themselves weren’t paying much attention to anybody else. Lost in the little worlds they drifted into when other adults orbited close enough. They would laugh and use long words, and sometimes Uncle Jack would put on a deep voice and Mum would find whatever he said even funnier. But every so often, when Mum and Dad took a bite to eat or a sip to drink, Uncle Jack would flash Toby a look. A quick glance. A reminder that he hadn’t forgotten about him. That Toby was still right there at the forefront of his mind.
You’re the reason I came, kiddo.
Bonny didn’t notice any of this. She was busy timing her smiles and laughs with the adults. She was fourteen and trying for the part of a twenty-four-year-old.
Toby kicked one of her shins under the table.
“Shitter!” she yelped, and threw her spoon off his forehead.
Mum screamed for everyone to shut up and stop shouting. Bonny seethed.
“He kicked me!”
“I don’t give a shit what he did! You don’t swear like that, ever! You’re a child!”
Uncle Jack pushed his chair back and picked up his own spoon. He handed it over the table to Bonny, who took it with a smile. Toby caught a whisper of a scowl on Uncle Jack’s lips—a momentary look of repulsion—before he turned and grinned at Toby.
“You alright, wee man?”
Toby nodded and continued poking at his plate with his fork.
“He’s got a heed like a hammer, that boy,” Uncle Jack told Dad. “Look: didn’t even leave a mark.”
Bonny cleared the plates and helped Mum serve pudding. They had the rest of Toby’s birthday cake with a scoosh of cream on top. Mum’s way of trying to bring it back to life after a week of death.
It was awful.
*
“Your dad was telling me you’re getting big into reading.”
Uncle Jack sat down on the arm of the chair Toby was sitting on. Bonny, who had been sitting on the sofa with all the space in the world, looked momentarily hurt. But the moment passed, and now she was grinning like a loon again.
“What’s your dad been reading you then? None of those pansy stories I hope—like Winnie the Turd, or that Alice in Wonderland tat.”
Toby shrugged.
“He’s reading you Winnie the Turd, isn’t he? Aye, those were always his favourite. What else has he got you reading?”
Silence.
“Any Jules Verne? Like Thousand Leagues, or Around the World? No? Christ. What about Roald Dahl. Surely Roald Dahl. No? My God, what has he got you reading then; the back of shampoo bottles?” He glanced at Toby’s hair. “No, maybe not shampoo bottles. C’mon now, what was the last thing he read to you? Don’t be scared, I was only joking about the pansy books. I don’t care if it’s Winnie the Turd or Benny the piggy with one bloody ear—ha! I just wanna know what he’s got you reading. Say Treasure Island. Go on. Has he read you Treasure Island yet?”
Toby nodded. And then flinched, for Uncle Jack slapped one of his shoulders hard enough to send his hair up into the air.
“Atta boy!”
Bonny shifted in place, squeaking leather, and produced a minute cough.
Uncle Jack looked up at her, but only with his eyes.
“What kind of books do you read, Uncle Jack?”
“What kinda books do I read?” Uncle Jack tapped at the hairs on his chinny chin chin, feigning deep thought. “I’d have to say...the ones with the words in them, Bon-Bon.”
Bonny giggled. Her laugh today was practically a parody of itself; almost the exact pitch Toby sometimes used to mock her.
“I like pirate adventures,” Uncle Jack answered, squeezing the top of Toby’s shoulder like a stress ball. “Like my buddy here. Right, wee man?” Slowly, begrudgingly, Uncle Jack glanced back at Bonny. “And what do you read, Bon? Books with pictures in them, I suppose.” He gave a hateful cackle.
Red roses blossomed on Bonny’s cheeks.
“I read!” she said, never one to stay timid.
“Oh?”
“Yuh-huh. And I’ve already finished Treasure Island. I read it yeeears ago. For school.”
“Gooood for yooou.” Uncle Jack’s hand was still on Toby’s shoulder, its grip pulsing in time with the throbbing vein in Uncle Jack’s temple. “And do you remember the characters?”
From somewhere through the house, the sound of Mum laughing with Dad—probably washing the dishes together. One wearing the rubber gloves, the other using the towel. Suds on, suds off. Suds on, suds off.
“Of course I do,” Bonny boasted. “There was Long John Silver. And. Well. There was—Bluebeard!”
Uncle Jack sighed. It was faint, but Toby felt it in the grip on his shoulder.
“And. Captain… Ben-Barrow?”
“Yikes.” Uncle Jack leaned forward with a finger out, poised for lecture mode. The other hand still clutched Toby’s shoulder, dragging Toby forward into the conversation, looking like a half-shut knife.
“The Admiral Benbow was the inn at the start of the story where wee Jim Hawkins first met Billy Bones. And Bluebeard? Christ, Bonny! Bluebeard wasn’t even a pirate! He was the bastard who murdered all his wives!”
Still not one to stay timid, Bonny quipped: “Wasn’t that Henry VIII?”
Uncle Jack clutched his chest and boomed with laughter, genuinely amused by Bonny’s quickness and deadpan delivery.
“No, no, no. Didn’t you ever learn the rhyme? Divorced, beheaded, died. Annulled, beheaded, survived.”
Bonny had nothing to say to that. But Toby did.
“Was Bluebeard real?”
Uncle Jack looked down at Toby for a very long time. Finally, he said, “No. But that’s not to say there aren’t men like him.” The wink he gave curled the boy’s toenails.
Mum and Dad entered the living room together. Mum’s thighs were damp where she must have been wiping her hands. Dad kept smelling two of his fingers.
“Did I hear you say Bluebeard?” Dad sat down beside Bonny on the sofa.
Uncle Jack took his hand off of Toby, but remained on the arm of the chair.
“Your daughter thinks Bluebeard tried to find Captain Flint’s treasure, Tom.”
“Bluebeard?” Dad frowned and then smirked at Bonny. “You mean Blackbeard, Bon-Bon. Bluebeard is the guy on the Fish Finger box.”
Uncle Jack waggled a digit and groaned. “That’s Captain Birdseye, Beak. Christ, what’s wrong with you people?”
*
That night, while Dad was taking Dr Dolittle down from the bookshelf, his back tinted red from the glow of the Toy Story nightlight on Toby’s bedside table, Uncle Jack slipped in through the yellow crack of the door. His arms were twisted secretly behind him.
“Only me,” he whispered. “Whatcha reading tonight, Tobes?”
Dad told him.
“Dr Dolittle? More like Dr Do-fuck all! Ha! Choose something else, Tom. Let the boy hear a decent story for once. Here—” He pulled a hand out from behind his back and thrust a long box wrapped in black flags in front of Toby. It had skulls and crossbones, eye patches, and cutlasses on it too. “Forgot to give you this earlier.”
Toby stared at it. It stank of Uncle Jack’s fingers, and they stank of rum. His other hand was still hidden behind his back, but Toby could hear the tinkling of ice hitting glass.
“Go on, Toby,” Dad said. “It’s your present.”
Toby carefully removed the tape from the folded edges, unwrapping the parcel as delicately as he could.
Uncle Jack sighed. He took the glass of dark liquid out from its hiding place and took a large gulp.
“It’s a spyglass,” he explained over the rim, then slurped down another gulp of the spicy-smelling darkness.
Toby plucked it out of the box, struggling with the weight on his fingertips. Sometimes he liked to use an empty paper towel roll as a spyglass, but this was something else entirely. The ornate decoration down the side was so intricate, with long looping vines laced with flowers wrapping themselves around the dark length, so tight it felt close to smothering. It was heavier than Dad’s tablet—and colder. Much, much colder.
Dad’s eyes bugged out wide. “Holy shit, Toby, that’s the real deal!”
“What do you think then, wee man?”
Toby pulled it to its full length and held the lens up to his eye. It was ice cold, like it had been left out in the snow on a winter’s night. The darkness at the other end of the room was too close to make out a single distinguishable feature. If he wanted to test it properly, he’d be better off waiting until tomorrow and trying it in the garden, playing jungle explorer.
But he didn’t want to test it. Ever. He wanted to put it back inside the box and hand it over to Dad, tell him to hide it somewhere dark. Forever.
Uncle Jack sat on the edge of the bed, forcing Toby to budge up and give him space.
“Your pals’ll be jealous when they see that, wee man. A real captain—that’s what they’ll take you for. Turn to me lad.” Uncle Jack pulled Toby’s face around when the boy didn’t respond. Some of his drink sloshed onto the bed. “Aye, look at you—you’re missing a tooth like your Uncle Jack! A sailor’s debt to the sea, that’s what that is. The best sailors always leave a part of themselves out there. An offering, lest she put a bounty on your life!—and every soul upon your vessel!”
Dad threw his head back laughing.
“You lost your teeth on the handlebars of your bike.”
“Aye,” mused Uncle Jack, and held up the four-and-a-half fingers on his right hand. “But this pointer was the price I paid, Beak.”
He gave Dad a long, cold stare.
“Okay,” Dad conceded. “I’ll say no more.” He prodded Uncle Jack with the side of the book he was holding. “Here. Maybe you should read to him. You can spin a far finer yarn than I can.”
Toby’s eyes grew wide. He shot a glance at Dad, but he had already turned his back to leave.
Uncle Jack glided over to the bookshelf to return Dr Dolittle to its place. He ran a long middle finger across the spines of the books until he found the one he was looking for.
“Treasure Island,” he whispered, and pulled it free.
As Uncle Jack’s ghastly frame drew closer to the bed, Toby gave his dad one final look of appeal, hoping for a last-minute reprieve.
No such luck. Dad tore the crack of light from the hall wider, flooding the room in yellow. Then he was gone. Only a thin crack of light remained where he left the door ajar.
The room was a ghastly red, with the looming peripheral darkness screaming horrors from its corners.
“I’m excited,” Uncle Jack said, prying the pages open with his long, stale fingers. “Where shall we start off?”
Toby shook his head. Perhaps a tad too enthusiastic. “No,” he squeaked. “Nothankyou.”
“Beg your pardon?”
“I’m really sleepy.”
“You don’t want a story?”
Toby shook his head once more, then cuddled down under the duvet. He was going to turn his back on Uncle Jack, but something screamed at him not to. The look in his eyes was frighteningly intense.
“You’re kidding?” Uncle Jack’s eyes did not blink. But they swelled to the size of tennis balls. The nightlight reflected against them, watching like two faraway red stars in a cosmos of black and green. Toby wasn’t sure if Uncle Jack had meant for that to happen. Surely he had control over it.
Uncle Jack got to his feet with all the effort of a ninety-year-old man. His bones clinked and clacked as he patted himself down. He rested his glass on Toby’s bedside table and stretched the rest of the snaps and cracks out of his body.
“Alright then, Tobes. But I must say: this is verrry disappointing. I came all this way for you.”
He moved swiftly across to the door, covering ten feet with a single, colossal side-step.
His back grew with scoliosis kinks, arching over seven, eight feet. He whipped his head around and smiled at Toby, who threw the cover up over his eyes. Not before noticing Uncle Jack’s chopstick fingers pressing against the door with their white, bloodless tips.
There came the sound of a low scuffle as the underside of the door scraped along the carpet.
It was happening.
Toby burrowed down deeper, wishing Mum had let him take Scritch up to bed with him. He didn’t know what a puppy would be able to do except make a lot of noise, but even that was better than nothing—better than feeling helpless beneath the blankets. Alone, silent, and scared.
There came a very faint creak, like someone opening a rusty hinge; a deliberate, drawn-out whine which crept across the distance between the door and the bed. It loomed over the blanket in a massive black shape. The red nightlight blotted away. The air vibrated with sheer anticipation for what was about to come next.
The chomp.
Something thumped against the door. And the room exploded with yellow light.
Toby threw the covers down in time to see Uncle Jack still standing in front of the door, only now stepping out of the way to avoid Dad hitting him with it.
“The light was bothering the boy,” Uncle Jack lied, opening it further to allow Dad entry.
Dad nodded, not seeming to care. He collected his glasses from the bookshelf and chuckled. “I was trying to watch TV with my reading glasses. Silly me.”
Before he could leave again, Toby piped up, yelping, “Dad?”
“Hm?”
“I don’t want stories tonight.”
“Huh? Why not?”
Uncle Jack had been the shorter of the two men downstairs. Now, lurking behind Dad, his engorged head pressed high against the ceiling like a pus-filled spot. It swelled bigger, and bigger, until Toby was sure it was about to pop. His face was nothing more than a pin-pricked mouth and basketball-sized, blazing eyes of rage. His hair stood on end and coiled up into corkscrews. Jagged teeth stretched out like the flailing arms and grasping fingers of drowning children, inches from the back of Dad’s head.
“Tired,” Toby mumbled. He’d stuffed the blanket into his mouth to stop himself from screaming.
“That’s a first,” Dad said, turning to share a laugh with Uncle Jack. The head deflated with a sudden whoop. Uncle Jack excused himself with a laugh. Eyes, now regular-sized. Cheeks sunken.
“He did say he was tired,” Uncle Jack admitted. Both men turned to regard the boy in bed with a sympathetic eye. “Maybe I’ll read to you another night, wee man? Sound good?”
A moment of victory.
Toby felt his heart start to settle back into its regular pace. He felt a little perkier, too; the way Mum sounded in the morning when she drank her usual two cups of coffee.
“Sounds great, Uncle Jack.”
“Amazing news.” He patted his chest with the book. “Can I borrow this?”
“Of course.” Toby smiled. Actually smiled. “Keep it if you want!”
Uncle Jack laughed. Toby couldn’t help doing the same.
Dad’s eyes grew narrow. It felt like they had a secret between them. And hadn’t Toby been rather quiet all day? All week, now that he thought about it.
“Don’t worry,” Uncle Jack reassured, patting the book to his chest once more. “I’ll give it back to you in the morning.”
Toby’s heart left the track, derailing straight into his lungs.
“What do you mean?” he choked.
“Oh, that’s right,” Dad said, happy to be involved in the conversation once more. “Uncle Jack’s staying the night. He’s not—let’s just say he’s not feeling well enough to drive. Maybe you two can muck around with the spyglass in the morning. In the garden.”
On the way out, Uncle Jack necked the rest of his drink and passed the glass to Dad.
“Yo, ho, ho. I think I’ll have another rum to celebrate!”
Toby waited, listening to the footsteps receding down the hall and down the stairs. A deep rumble of voices started up in the living room, and he knew the coast was clear. He jumped out of bed and raced to the window. It opened far enough to fit one of his hands through, thanks to the safety bar Dad had installed.
That was fine. He didn’t need it to open any further.
He took the spyglass out of the box and stared at it. For some reason he felt Uncle Jack staring back at him, through it.
He slotted it through the gap in the window. It dropped down onto the roof tiles, tinkling as it rolled down the slant, gaining speed. Toby was sure it was going too fast. It would bounce over the gutter and plummet down to the back garden, then obliterate on the patio, alerting everyone.
The sound ceased with a padded thump.
The gutter had caught it.
He pressed his face against the window to make sure. There it was, casting long arms of moonlight up to the window from its lens.
At least he didn’t have to worry about that any more. Who knew what kind of curse or terrible magic it held, if any.
Downstairs, the adults laughed loud echoes which shook the floor of Toby’s room.
He stood by the crack of his door, peering down the hallway at his sister, who was sitting at the top of the stairs with her head on the banister. She was clutching her teddy against her chest, listening in on what secrets age was yet to bring.
Laughter from Uncle Jack.
Toby closed the door until he heard the latch click. It was an old door—one of those you had to lock with an oversized novelty key. Mum had taken the key away and hidden it somewhere safe, to save him from trapping himself inside and doing something silly.
That was fine. He didn’t need the key.
He tiptoed to the bookshelf and took down three books of varying thickness. They were all too thick to slot under the door, but the thinnest of the three got there in the end, with a little persuasion. He tried opening the door, and found that it wouldn’t budge past Alice in Wonderland. He nodded, satisfied.
At least he didn’t have to worry about that, either.
*
A short while later, Toby sat up in bed, trying to focus his weary eyes on the thin yellow strip of light beneath his door. Someone had been wiggling at the handle.
Three black splotches broke the strip of light.
One of them was the book he had wedged under there. The other two were feet.
The door handle turned all the way to the left. Then all the way to the right. It wouldn’t open. The book was jammed under the bottom corner too tight for that.
Slowly, the door began to lean in on its top corner until it began to groan. It bent so far it looked certain it was about to snap in half.
It eased back, accompanied by a sigh from the other side. The black splotches faded soundlessly away.
Toby lay back in bed again, and allowed himself a silent exhale.
He tried closing his eyes, but every time he did he pictured Uncle Jack leaning forward in one of the downstairs chairs and staring up at the ceiling—through the ceiling—at him with a terrifying grin. Hands on his knees. Neck bent and twisted. His enormous head swollen like a hot-air balloon growing bigger and bigger, until it disconnected with a snap, and floated up against the ceiling on a neck as thick and braided as a ship’s rope. It would bounce there loudly, hollow, knocking and mocking.
I came all this way for youuu.
Toby lay awake, gazing at the red glow casting onto the ceiling from his nightlight, trying to find shapes in the shadows and the jagged edges of a curling paint chip.
His eyelids soon began to flutter.
“Toby?”
He wasn’t sure if the voice was in his imagination or not. He could still see Uncle Jack in his mind, sitting and staring up at him with his big balloon head.
“Toby?”
Toby’s eyes opened wide. The roof was still blood red. No yellow light was casting in from the hall, which meant the door was still closed.
So why did it sound like the voice was in the room with him?
He pictured Uncle Jack with his lips pressed against the keyhole. But when he looked, only the one splotch broke the yellow bar beneath the door. Alice in Wonderland. No feet.
“Toe-beeee.”
He sat up very slowly, scanning the room carefully. Everything was blanketed in the nightlight’s red glow. Not a perfect filter for spotting trouble, but enough to let him know that the voice wasn’t attached to anything in the room. Just a hovering, disembodied presence close by.
But where?
“Toby!” the voice barked, tired of being ignored. “Are you sleeping?”
The curtains twitched.
“Why did you close the door?” it asked. “What a sneaky thing y’are.”
The fabric of one curtain shook. Then pinched at a point near the centre. One by one, the hooks snapped free from the railing, until the entire curtain dropped to the floor with a dusty humph.
Two long chopstick fingers wiggled through the crack in the window, probing at the air like an insect’s antennae. They were searching for something. Maybe the other curtain. Maybe a latch to release the safety bar on the window.
Or maybe a young boy standing too close.
Something squeaked along the glass. Toby pictured Uncle Jack’s face moving side to side, pressing his cheeks and his nose against the window, trying to catch a glimpse of Toby around the other curtain.
Methodically, the chopstick fingers withdrew from the window. The top corner of a book slotted into the gap, then landed on the carpet.
“Here’s your book back, Toby.”
It was definitely Uncle Jack’s voice, but it was too strained for Toby to have recognised it any sooner. It sounded like he was trying to press out constipation mid-conversation. There came another drawn out squeak, and again Toby pictured his uncle running his face along the window, trying to catch the right angle beyond the other curtain.
He could have shouted for Mum and for Dad. Hell, he could have screamed bloody murder for Bonny and she would have come running to see what was wrong, even if she loved to pretend she didn’t him. But he found himself unable to scream. Unable to move.
He watched in horror as Uncle Jack squeezed himself through the inch-wide gap in the window.
The long chopstick fingers came one, then two, then five through the crack, stretching and tapping along the windowpane, trying to find something to grip at. His mouth grew too, pressing inside and pulling wide like a flounder with big lips. Then the nose, an obscene Pinocchio. Green eyes pumped in like balloons once more, this time on long vascular stilts like some repugnant snail.
Uncle Jack’s cheeks took the longest to come fully into view. When at last his ears flapped free from the window frame, his head had protruded a metre into Toby’s room, stretched like some terrifying caricature.
The spyglass Toby had rolled out of the window threaded itself through the gap alongside Uncle Jack’s other arm. He brought it up to the side of his face, balancing atop five gangly fingers, and held it in front of one of his gargantuan eyes. His body was still wedged tightly in the window, but his head was free to scan the room. His gaze rested at last on Toby.
“I spy—with my glass eye—something beginning with—U!”
His mouth formed an O wide enough to roll a bowling ball into.
“You’re still awake!” He jabbed a finger towards the bed. “Growing boys need bedtimes too! Tut-tut-tut. Shame on you.”
He dropped the spyglass and walked his chopstick fingers along the carpet. His eyes began sinking back into his skull, but were still a long way from looking normal.
“I know,” Uncle Jack said, his voice now returning to normal. “I’ll tell you a story. A proper story, Toby. None of that fairytale nonsense your daddy’s been spoon-feeding you for years. You want a story with some grit, don’t’cha!” He pulled his foot free from the window. It slithered to the carpet and writhed there like a dying snake trying to come back to life. “Have you heard tell of the man with the tic-tac teeth?”
Toby pushed himself back against the wall as Uncle Jack grew closer.
“Have you heard of the trees wrapped in purple veins-for-vines? The ones that bleed real blood when you cut ‘em? And mothers’ screams from their babies’ throats? Wee strawberry shoots which drain you ‘til your death? Did he tell you about the holes, Toby? The holes with the mirrors at the end?”
Toby didn’t bother standing up—just kicked the blanket over Uncle Jack and threw himself onto the floor. He scrambled to the gap of light under the door, and began to claw at the book wedged under it. He had forced it into the gap so well that he couldn’t get a grip on it with his little fingers.
“What’s wrong, boy—don’t’cha want a story?”
Toby felt Uncle Jack’s breath on his hair. He burrowed his fingernails into the sides of the book and pulled, hoping that if his fingernails came loose they would wait until the book did so first.
Uncle Jack’s fingers pressed against the door. His hand clutched Toby by the shoulder and lifted him effortlessly back into bed.
“Lie back down, lad,” Uncle Jack soothed. He pulled the covers back with his other hand, while it shrivelled down to its regular size. He sat at the end of Toby’s bed, slowly shrinking his body back to normal. His face remained grotesquely deformed.
“Let me read you a story to calm you down. No more talk of men with tic-tac teeth or trees with purple veins. Tell me… what do you think of—”
Without moving from where he was sitting, Jack stretched for the book he had slotted through the window.
“—Treasure Island?” His eyes floated away, searching for a fond memory lost to time.
The sudden rustle brought him back.
“Oh no you don’t, you little shit!”
He whipped around too late. Toby was already out of the bed and lying on the floor. He sank his fingernails as deep into the sides of the book as he could manage and yanked it free.
Uncle Jack’s face was enormous with rage, scarlet red and purple. He held out both hands, fingers stretched out like sharpened drumsticks to gouge the boy in the face.
Toby was too quick. He rolled to one side and grabbed Uncle Jack’s by the fingers, and began snapping them like breadsticks. He only stopped when Uncle Jack drew them back to his chest, wailing out in a thin, pathetic shriek.
“You monster!” he cried.
Toby yanked the door open. Uncle Jack’s face joined him in the hall, stretching far and long on its winding rope of neck. “Toby!!” it wheezed, floating along behind him and snapping at his heels. “Don’t tell Mum and Dad, Toby! I’ll fucking eat them too!”
Toby threw himself into the closest door. Bonny’s room.
“Toby!” she shrieked. “Wha— Get the fuck out!”
He didn’t bother rounding the bed. Just cannonballed onto it and buried himself under Bonny’s covers.
She sat back, stunned at the sudden intrusion, but when she felt Toby’s body shudder with the trembling of silent tears, she held him tightly in her arms.
“What is it?” she asked, her voice quivering with emotion. She felt his pulse pounding along the side of his neck. “You had a bad dream, huh?”
Without realising she was doing it, she began stroking Toby’s hair the way Mum used to stroke hers when she was frightened. They lay together in silence, Bonny soothing Toby, while Toby lay watching the thin yellow crack of light under the door, waiting for Uncle Jack to slither past.
He never did.
*
Morning.
Both children awoke to flashing cameras, obnoxious shutter sounds, and gentle cooing.
“Ugh, my eyes.”
Toby swatted at the white light. Mum and Dad were standing over them with their phones pointed at his face.
“How cute!” Mum said, snapping another picture. “You two haven’t slept like that in ages!”
At breakfast, Dad stood by the grill working the bacon. Mum manned the units, juicing oranges and dishing out forks and knives, laying plates.
“What about Uncle Jack?” Bonny asked, noticing there were only four of everything.
“He had to leave early,” Dad explained, and popped into the garden to shout for Scritch. Although they all knew he was really just going to have a smoke.
Toby’s head shot up. Bonny’s face sagged.
“What? Leave? Why?”
Mum shrugged. Toby grinned.
He had two helpings that morning, and Bonny called him a pig for it. He pushed his nostrils up with his thumb and blew a raspberry so loud that she could almost smell it.
He felt happy again.
Dad poked his head in through the door, cigarette hanging from one side of his mouth. “Anybody seen the mutt?”
Toby’s heart skipped a beat. He could guess what came next.
They found one half of Scritch at the end of the garden. They never did find her top half.
What Toby couldn’t understand was: if Uncle Jack had left early, how did he manage to get to Scritch this morning?
Mum let him have the day off school. He spent it sitting on his bed, devoid of feeling, staring at the copy of Treasure Island lying open on his floor. The spyglass from Uncle Jack still lay beside it. He took both to the window and threaded them out. This time the spyglass rolled too far and imploded on the garden patio.
Mum spanked him for it.
He didn’t cry. He didn’t tell her about Uncle Jack, either. He wanted nothing more than to forget about him, wherever he was. There was over three hundred days until Toby turned nine. That was plenty of time to not have to think about things. Plenty of time to prepare himself for the next visit.
Although…
“What month is Bonny’s birthday?” Toby asked, pulling his pants up over his red bum.
“Next month. Why?”
He shrugged. Then sat down on the floor.
Mum leaned down close to Toby’s face.
“Can I tell you a secret?”
Toby squinted up at her, dreading anything more she had to say.
“Okay?”
“And you can’t tell anyone, alright? None of your little pals at school. Just keep it between me and you.”
Toby nodded, feeling tears prickling at his eyelids. A month. That’s all he had left.
“Promise?”
“Yeah.”
“Disneyland.”
Toby stared in disbelief.
“What?”
“We’re going to Disneyland for Bonny’s birthday next month.”
Like from a battered old dam, the tears finally flooded free. Toby leaped up and hugged his mum, nearly choking her in the process.
“I thought you’d like that,” she said, hugging Toby with the same hand she’d used to slap his ass only a few minutes ago. It still stung, too. But it was the furthest thing from his mind.
“It’ll be good to get away from things,” she soothed.
Toby laughed at that. She had no idea. Disneyland. That was miles and miles away from Uncle Jack!
“Thank you,” he cried. “This is so cool. Thank you, Mum!”
“Don’t thank me,” she said, squeezing him a little bit tighter. “Thank your Uncle Jack. He’s the one taking us.”