Last Free Chapter

Chapter 3
“Dire Doings at the Circle J Toy Store”
     It is amazing how quickly the impossible can be forgotten.
     By the time T.D. was passing the coat factory he was more involved in slowing back down to a walk rather than a jog than in wondering about his sanity.
     He just stopped thinking about it.
     Wonderful things, these human minds, they could stop working with the mental flip of a switch. Politics proved that, year after year.
     Now he was at the corner of the mall about to make the turn that put him on the last half of his walk. It was much sooner than usual.
     But then he usually walked, not jogged.
     He had been jogging just to forget…
     He made himself stop before he went back to the Popcorn thing.
     For a while he hoped it was some kind of “Candid Camera” show or something. But, no one jumped out to get him to sign a release. So, that wasn’t it.
     Damn it, he was thinking about it again.
     What the hell was it that was happening?
     Nothing. Nothing had happened.
     The real world was stretching out before him.
     There on the right was the indoor amusement park area. Coming up on the left was the bookstore. Then the Circle J Toy Store, and then his mall door for the bar.
     Maybe he had a stroke or something?
     Why was he making such a big thing out of this? Surely this kind of thing happened to people everyday. A radio was on somewhere and he misheard a disc jockey somewhere, and thought it was some one there who wasn’t really there.
     It was that simple. That voice came from somewhere, and he just hadn’t been able to discern the origin.
     Simple as that, he knew it.
     Why be an idiot about something that simple.
     Now to go into the evil basement armed only with a flashlight.
     Isn’t that what the dolts in horror movies did? Ignore your best instincts and walk into the trap the monsters had waiting for us?
     Monsters?
     He stopped and laughed at himself.
     Now who is talking nuts?
     It was a noise, nothing more.
     He was relieved to be able to put it in perspective.
     He stood before the Toy Store and smiled. He was tired and spooked. He was a rational man and he didn’t need to make himself crazy.
     “Monsters” he mumbled under his breath and laughed.
     He walked to his door, used the key and entered the bar to get things ready.
     “Monsters” said Captain Flashfire, the fireman doll on the shelf of the Circle J Toy Store.
     “Monsters” said the high pitched voice of Sheera, the fashion model doll, from her perch on the wall.
     “Monsters?” said Bevo the happy monster from some TV kids show.
     Then the three dolls began to laugh. It was not a happy laugh. It was an aggressive laugh.
     It was a laugh that was joined by every toy in the store.
     Then, someone came through a door somewhere and they were all hideously still.
     You could hear a pin drop anywhere in the mall.
     For the present, but only for the present.

(c) copyright 2004 C. Wayne Owens