Plushie

The was no moment of awakening. Sleep simply loosened its grip, giving way to that familiar state between dreaming and consciousness where thoughts refused to settle. He lay motionless on the sofa, his eyes still closed, listening to the muffled murmur of voices somewhere beyond sleep, voices that overlapped one another. Some were too distant to understand, little more than indistinct conversations carried on an invisible breeze. Others drifted close enough that individual words almost formed before dissolving again, dozens of voices, speaking at once without becoming loud.

He had grown used to them. For the first few weeks he had searched for their source around his flat, convinced a neighbour had left a television on, however in the end, he stopped trying. Whether the voices were real or not no longer mattered. They came every night, lingering at the edge of sleep until the morning stole him away. As he stirred, silence followed, the only sound in the room with him being the gentle pats of the rain against the living room window, accompanied by the faint hum of the TV tuned to a dead channel. The old house creaked as it settled, timber expanding and contracting with the changing temperatures of outside.

His eyes finally opened. The world outside was still deep in the night, the only illumination coming from the amber streetlamps outside spilling carefully through the gaps in his curtains. Everything sat exactly where it should be, the coffee table parallel to the sofa, a small table to the left of the sofa housing a small lamp. The floor also remained littered with yesterday’s leftovers. A half-finished take-away strewn across the table and spilling onto the floor, a small chair burdened with dirty clothes, and an overflowing shelf of DVDs, CDs, and books that had long since run out of room. Nothing had changed while his mind was captured by sleep.

He rubbed a hand across his face. Sleep hadn’t come easily in weeks, and when it did, it didn’t stay for long. His head throbbed with the familiar pressure behind his eyes, as though someone had tightened a belt around his skull during the night, and every blink felt heavier than the last. He rolled to the edge of the sofa and lay there for a moment, watching the TV static as it illuminated the room. As he lay there in thought, the silence was suddenly broken by the distant sound of a child laughing. It was brief, and bright. The kind of carefree laugh that you would find on the playground. His head snapped toward the living room door. The sound had come from somewhere within the flat, he was certain of it. He waited, hoping to hear it again, but only the sound of the rain outside persisted.. He let out a slow breathe through his nose.

“Right…” the word disappeared into the empty room.

He stood, his joints protesting, and shuffle slowly into the hallway. The flat wasn’t large, it had just enough that a man on his own would need. A bedroom, bathroom, living room, kitchen, and a small crawl space that sat above the hallway. As he searched his house, every room remained how he remembered, with nobody but himself residing within the house. In an attempt to forget it, and thinking of going back to sleep, he shuffled into the kitchen and poured himself a glass of water. In one go, he drained half the glass before leaning against the counter. After a moment of thought over what could have caused the laugh only moments earlier, he surrendered to his exhaustion and moved toward his bedroom. As he made his way to his room, he remember the TV still on, filling the living room with a bright static. He moved back into the room, looking for the TV remote to put an end to the soft blanket of grey snow drifting lazily across the screen. As he searched, he found himself drawn to the TV. There was something strangely hypnotic about it, the endless shifting pattern almost convincing his tired mind that shapes were moving somewhere beneath it. Before long, he found the remote, and moved to switch of the television, but was stopped by the sudden sound of a dull thud overhead. His eyes lifted to the ceiling, the sound had come from the attic, the small crawl space above the hallway that ran throughout the entire flat. As he listened, another sound was heard. A faint scrape across the floor of the attic, as though something had been dragged slowly across the old wooden floorboards. While it was not abnormal for the house to settle on its own, with pipes being knocked and floorboard being creaked, something about the distinct sounds of rhythmic footsteps and the undeniable sound of something being dragged couldn’t simply be forgotten about. Rain tapped against the window, and the television still buzzed with its static, and he stood in the living room, staring at the ceiling above him, listening, and waiting.

The scrape never came again. He put down the remote and moved back into the hallway, standing beneath the attic hatch for almost a full minute, listening. Somewhere outside, a car passed through the wet streets, its tires hissing across soaked tarmac before fading into the distance. He exhaled. Old houses made noise, which was just a known fact, and he had lived here long enough to become accustomed to such noises. But still, there was something scratching at his mind that he just couldn’t shake. He glanced once more at the ceiling before turning back towards the living room. While focussed on the attic door, he hadn’t noticed the TV turn back to normal. A re-run of a daytime quiz show filled the screen instead, with contestants applauding beneath bright studio lights. He frowned, he didn’t remember changing the channel. Perhaps he had placed the remote down somewhere that had nudged a button, or perhaps the signal has simply returned. Either way, he found himself drawn back to the attic door, as if it called to him, or as though something beyond it demanded his attention.

“…You’re being ridiculous…” the words sounded far more convincing in his head than they did out loud.

He grabbed a chair from the small dining table in the kitchen and positioned it carefully beneath the attic door, giving it a firm grip and slight wobble to ensure its safety before climbing aboard to reach the hatch. As he climbed, he extended his arms, placing his had upon the wood door. It was cold, but not unusually so considering the weather and the likely hood of drafts inside the crawl space. He hesitated, before giving it a heavy push, allowing light from the flat to spill into the darkened space. The wood complained as he slide it over to one side, giving him room to stand up straight and poke his head into the newfound hole. He looked around the crawl space and found nothing but darkness. Not even the light from below him was able to penetrate it. Muttering under his breath, he returned to the kitchen, rummaging through a drawer until he found a small torch. It took two sharp slaps against the palm of his hand before the light flickered to life. It wasn’t bright by any means, but it was good enough. As he climbed back into position, the beam cut through the darkness with ease. Dust could be seen gently dancing through the air, undisturbed for who knows how long until this moment. The light caught webs in distant corners, and illuminated the thick layer of dust that covered the floor of the attic. Lining the edges of the space lay boxes, stacked in uneven columns beneath the rafters. Holiday decorations, old books, and a suitcase that he had all but forgotten even existed. Nothing was immediately out of place. He swept the torch across the room and found no sign of life, no wild animals that weren’t where they belonged, no obvious source of the noise. He almost laughed at the thought that he had been uneasy about nothing in the end, and ultimately chalked it up to sleep deprivation as the cause of his concern.

Satisfied, he descended back into the hallway, however, has he moved the torch to his other hand to reach for the hatch, the light caught something. A small box, smaller than the others, with noticeable floral decals drawn on the sides. He didn’t recognise the box, although he didn’t recognise half of what resided in there anyways. Regardless, he reached over, pulling it toward him. The box itself was old, and the colour had faded over the years of however long it had been hidden up here. There were no labels, or writing on it outside of the poorly drawn patterns of flowers and vines around the sides. He lifted the lid, and inside rested a teddy bear. Small enough to be held under one arm. It fur had once been a warm honey brown, though time had dulled it to something closer to grey. One ear sagged lower than the other, and the stitching across its stomach had begun to split, and it eyes were small, black and glass. Just looking at it, he could tell it was once a toy that had been loved beyond repair. As he stared at it, he found himself experiencing an inexplicable feeling. He thought, perhaps, recognition, but the thought didn’t sit right with him. It was more akin to familiarity, as though he had passed it somewhere before, maybe in the window of a rundown charity shop, or a relative’s house from when he was too small to remember. His brow furrowed, and the thought of where he knew the bear from disappeared before it had finished forming. He reached into the box and lifted it carefully into his arms. The stuffing inside had settled with age, leaving the bear limp in places. He turned it this way and that, trying to find a stitch, a tag, or a name scribbled on in marker, but he found nothing to identify it. A child’s toy, long since forgotten, and nothing more. As he looked back to the box, ready to return it to its original place, he spotted that beneath it, lay a photograph. He set the toy aside and lifted it free. A polaroid, the white border had yellowed with age, and it had curled slightly in the corners. The image showed the attic, the same sloped roof, the same beams overhead, the same boxes arranged against the walls. He instinctively looked around, almost everything matched. His eyes returned to the photograph. In the centre of the image sat the teddy bear, exactly where the box rested when he first saw it. It was obvious that it had been taken years prior, the cardboard on the boxes was less worn, but the composition was near identical.

He turned the photograph over. Blank, no date, no names or even a message. A strange thing to keep with an old toy, he thought. Nevertheless, he shrugged. Perhaps whoever had packed it away wanted one last picture before throwing it into storage. He knew people photographed stranger things. His gaze drifted back toward the teddy bear, those black glass eyes reflected the torchlight for the briefest moment, like tiny pinpricks, watching. He almost laughed to himself as he slide the polaroid back into the box, tucking the bear carefully on top, and replacing the lid exactly how he found it. He picked up the torch once more, and gave one final sweep of the attic before descending back into the hallway below. Nothing had made the noise, nothing had been hiding in the attic. He slid the hatch back into place. He never noticed that the box no longer sat where he left it, and the lid was now no longer securely on top. Not by much, but just enough that, had he looked back, he might have sworn it moved.

He stood back in the hallway for a moment, his hand resting on the back of the chair. While his time in the attic had mostly quelled his worries, something about the teddy and the box still sat with him. He had still heard something, even if he hadn’t found the source. He repeated the ideas to reason with himself as he walked back into the living room. The TV was still on, illuminating the room with its soft glow. He watched for a moment if anything to gain a sense of normalcy with the night. He rubbed his hand across his face as he came to terms with the idea that sleep would not be happening tonight. His eyes burned with the sting of exhaustion as he headed into the kitchen. The kettle filled with a familiar rush of water before he flicked the switch. Its low hum joined the sounds already filling the flat. As it boiled, he rested both hands on the counter. The bear. Why had it felt so… familiar? Like a face seen once in passing years ago, or a dream that refused to be remembered. He shook the thought away. It was a teddy bear, and nothing else. As the kettle clicked, from the hallway, he heard something. A laugh, similar to earlier. The sound of a small child laughing. His head snapped toward the hallway. It hadn’t come from the television, nor outside, it was unmistakable that it had come from the hallway. His pulse lurched as he stepped toward and into the hallway. The kitchen light stretched behind him, casting his shadow almost to the living room. He took another cautious step, the floorboards beneath his feet creaking under his weight somehow seemed impossibly loud.

“…Hello?” His own voice barely carried beyond the hallway.

He received no answer, other than the sound of the television show coming to an end. He tried to convince himself that he was simply winding himself up, that nothing out of the ordinary was happening. But as he turned back toward the kitchen, something stopped him. He didn’t hear a sound, nor did he see movement, but instead, he felt the impossible certainty that someone else occupied the space behind him. His skin prickled as every instinct told him not to look back. Ignoring his better judgment, he turned. At the far end of the hallway, someone stood between him and the living room. A silhouette, tall enough that its head almost brushed the top of the doorway. Its outline blurred into the darkness beyond, impossible to judge where shadow ended and it began. It didn’t move, didn’t speak, it didn’t even appear to breathe. It simply watched, with two pale eyes caught what little light reached the hallway. Rooted into the black void of a head rested two small pinpricks of light, unnaturally white against everything else. His whole body locked, his mouth went dry, and he stared. Seconds passed, though they felt like minutes. The sound of the TV still heard from behind whatever stood before him. As the audience on the TV applauded something, he blinked, and in the fraction of a second his eyes were closed, the hallway was empty once more.

His stomach dropped. Nothing stood there. The only life coming from the colours flashing from the television still. He remained frozen as he searched every corner from the hallway for a sign of something. There was nowhere anyone could have gone, especially not in such a short space of time. Slowly, almost against his better judgement, he walked into the living room. The room looked exactly how it had earlier as he stood there, trying to steady his breathing. As he did, the picture on the television twitched. A horizontal line tore briefly across the screen as the sound crackled, the image dissolving into grey static for the briefest fraction of a second before the gameshow returned as if nothing had happened. He frowned at the TV, maybe it had always done that, or maybe the aerial was loose. He looked back toward the hallway, still empty, still void of whatever he thought he had seen.

While he listened for anything out of the ordinary, he found himself growing increasingly tired of the sound of the television. This pocket of manufactured joy carrying on as though nothing in the world could possibly be wrong. Crossing the room, he picked up the remote and pressed the power button. The sound vanished instantly, and silence settled over the room once more. For a moment, all he saw was his own reflection standing in the centre of the room. Then, he noticed the sofa behind him. Something was sitting on it. The teddy bear, except… it wasn’t. Its fur hung in rotted clumps, exposing dark, split seams beneath. Its head lolled unnaturally to one side, and where its stitched smile should have been, rows of long, yellowed teeth pushed through torn fabric in a grin far too wide for its face. Its pale eyes stared directly at him. His breath caught, and he spun around. The sofa sat where it always had, and the teddy bear sat, rested against one of the cushions. Its stitched smile hadn’t changed, no teeth, no rot, just worn fabric and scratched glass eyes, no more out of the ordinary than it had been earlier. Except… how had it gotten there? He hadn’t brought it down from the attic, and he definitely hadn’t placed it neatly on the sofa. He stared at it for several seconds before forcing himself closer. His fingers brushed the top of its head, soft… cold. Nothing more than an old toy. He let out a shaky laugh, then picked up the bear beneath one arm. Cradling it awkwardly against his side, he headed back into the hallway, and toward the bedroom across the way.

He hated carrying this teddy, but he hated the idea of leaving it in another room on its own even more. He reached the bedroom, and stepped inside, turning on a small bedside lamp as he did. Warm yellow light spilled across the room, pushing the darkness back into the corners of the room. He crossed to the wardrobe and placed the teddy carefully on top of the chest of drawers opposite the bed. He backed up slowly, keeping his eyes on the bear.

“As long as you’re there…” he swallowed. “…then I know where you are.” He almost laughed at how ridiculous he sounded. For some reason, the room felt smaller than he was used to. He walked to the window and parted the curtains only slightly, peering out into the street below. He was met with a desolate sight, rain streaked the glass, and no cars or people could be seen on the streets as a thick fog settled over the outside world. He let the curtain fall as he turned back to the room. As he went to move toward the bed, something caught his attention… the teddy bear was gone. His heart lurched. The chest of drawers now sat empty. He blinked hard and looked again, but it failed to fill the spot where the bear once sat. His eyes swept over the room, across the bed, past the wardrobe, to the chair in the corner. He found nothing. He knew where he had left it, he was certain of it. He turned in circles, hoping it had just fallen to the floor or something. As he did, a quiet thud sounded behind him. He turned, as was met with the teddy sat on the bed, exactly in the centre of the mattress. As he backed away, unsure of what to make of it, the door slammed shut. The crack echoed through the room, causing him to jump violently. He immediately lunged for the handle, twisting it this way and that, desperately trying to pry the door open as panic surged into his chest. He threw his shoulder against the door, the force shuddering the wood in its frame, but the lock stood firm.

“Come on!” His voice cracked.

He hit it again, and again. In his panic, he didn’t notice the room become impossibly quiet. As he struggled with the door, he became increasingly aware of the silence around him. Eventually, he stopped and listened, and he heard… nothing. No rain, not the house, even his own breathing seemed to have been muted. He slowly looked over his shoulder. The teddy bear remained on the bed, but something else stood beyond it. In the corner, furthest from the lamp, where the light couldn’t quite reach, stood the same tall figure, its head tilted ever so slightly, with two pale eyes watching him from within the darkness. He stared as the room seemed to shrink around him. The figure didn’t move as his eye flickered to the bear, then back. Every time he did, he felt as though the figure was somehow closer, yet it looked as though it hadn’t moved. He couldn’t have said why, but something about it just felt… wrong. His pulse hammered in his ears as he told himself to not look away. Every instinct screamed the same warning, but he couldn’t obey them. As he stared down the figure, the light began to flicker, and each time the room darkened, unmistakably, the figure was moving. It had begun slowly emerging from the darkness

– flick –

it was now almost fully exposed.

– flick –

It now occupied the centre of the room. Panic set back in as he began pulling at the door frantically, not even trying to turn the handle any more. Against his instincts to not look away, he did so to find the handle. As he did, the light ceased its flickering, and when he looked back… the room was empty once more. His stomach dropped as something brushed softly against the back of his leg. He cried out and stumbled back against the door, looking down. The teddy bear lay at his feet, face up, its stitched smile pointed towards the ceiling. He hadn’t heard it fall, nor had he seen it move. His hands shook uncontrollably as he reached for the handle once more. This time, the latch clicked and the door swung open without resistance. At this point, he didn’t even question it. He just bolted out of the room, his shoulder clipping the door frame as he stumbled into the hallway. It was only then did he dare to stop. The hallway remained empty, the bedroom door remained open behind him, allowing light from the lamp to spill across the hallway floor. As he turned to look back, the bear was slumped in the door way, looking directly at him with its crooked neck and limp body. He didn’t know how, nor did he know what was happening, he simply knew that it wasn’t in the bedroom anymore.

The hallway light washed over its faded fur, its glass eyes still staring directly at him. Those two tiny points of white that he had first seen in the attic and thought nothing of, were now staring directly at him, examining him, or at least that is how it felt. His throat tightened, he knew he should run, the front door was only a short distance past the bear, but instead he found himself staring, unable to look away for even a moment. As he watched, one paw twitched, so slightly he almost convinced himself he hadn’t seen it. Then another. The bear’s head shifted by a fraction, accompanied by the dry creak of old stuffing settling inside the worn fabric as it dragged itself forward, slowly, laboured, and wrong. The bear paused for a moment, though its eyes never left him. Then, another movement, a little faster. Its limbs bents where they shouldn’t, folding beneath it as though something inside was learning how to use them. The seams across one shoulder stretched taut, and a sharp pop echoed through the hallway, then another, and another. The stitching began to split, but it didn’t sound like fabric tearing, but rather the sound was wet. Fibres snapped one after another, and the bear lurched forward, this time covering the distance in an instant. The tiny body struck the floor with impossible force as the fabric along its back burst apart. Stuffing erupted into the air, and beneath it, something dark moved. A long, unnatural limb punched through the torn shell, clawing against the floorboards. Another followed, and the teddy bear’s familiar shape collapsed around it, splitting wider with every violent movement. The little stitched smile tore apart with a wet rip, the head folded backwards, and the body came apart as though it had only ever been skin stretched over something waiting to emerge. The thing inside did not simply climb free, it ripped itself into the room, unfolding its impossibly bent joints as it straightened, limb after impossible limb, each movement accompanied by the relentless snapping of thread and the tearing of fabric that sounded more like flesh being torn apart until scarcely anything recognisable remained of the toy. By the time it stood upright, its head brushed against the ceiling. The same figure from the hallway, the same one from the bedroom, only now there was no darkness to conceal it. Its body was impossibly thing, its shape disturbingly human without ever quite becoming one. Fragments of torn plush still clung to it like scraps of an abandoned disguise. Only its eyes remained unchanged, two pale pinpricks of white. Exactly the same as the teddy’s, exactly the same as every glimpse he had caught throughout the night. The creature tilted its head, and it emitted a laugh, the same laugh from earlier that night. The laugh of a small child, bright and joyful, except now something about it seemed sinister, and twisted.

Then it moved. There was no time to avoid it, or fight back, or even scream. The last thing he saw was those two white eyes rushing toward him at an impossible speed, then… nothing.