12.2

The sounds of bones bouncing off the tree trunks again struck their ears when the wind returned.

Luna looked up and was sure she saw what looked like the bones of a child suspended high up in the trees.

‘Really, can we please go somewhere else, lads?’ she said. ‘This place is creeping the shit out of me.’

They looked around. Pretty much everything here seemed intended to chill the blood.

The tall trees, with what looked like bleached bones suspended from their higher branches.

The eerie, childlike letters in a rust-coloured substance which could only be dried blood, daubed upon the walls of the house and the stone walls that formed its perimeter.

Again the wind came, filling Luna with a sense of utter horror as the bones again began to knock into each other.

Her entire body trembled.

She seemed to shrink into herself like she had in the dozer.

‘It’s just the aftermath of seeing your best friend die,’ Woody said.

They reached the outer wall of the house’s main garden.

‘This is creepy as shit,’ Luna said.

There were several windchimes made of bone knocking together in the wind.

The noise went right through Luna, making her jolt every time she heard it.

She raised her hands to her ears, desperate to blot out the sound.

‘Seriously, guys, we need t’ get the fuck away from this place. It’s not right. It’s not right. It’s not r—’

Woody put a comforting hand on her shoulder. She moved violently away, making his hand drop.

‘I mean what the fuck is this shit, like?’ she said, pointing to a doll – which had blood red lipstick smeared crudely around its mouth and most of its face – hanging on the wall next to her head.

As the wind blew, the doll’s hair ruffled against Luna’s fingers.

She jolted, tore the doll from the wall and hurled it into the grass.

Yu carnt leev, said a sign in blood on the wall. Cum ant playy. Dowent leev us on ow oan.

She started again when she saw the sign. ‘Am I the only one seeing this shit? I mean for fuck’s sake what are we doing here?’

‘It’s fine,’ Woody said.

Timmy the Grimmy looked disturbed too.

‘Come on, I bet it’s the comfiest bed around,’ Woody grinned.

He pushed the barn door open and three smells assaulted their nostrils; superglue, paint and blood.

Spiders had spun their webs in the corners of the barn.

But something much darker had been going on.

A carved up body of a girl lay on the floor, blood matted into the straw beneath her.

It seemed she’d been dead for some time.

Luna jolted, looking like she was about to burst into tears. ‘See…’ was all she could manage.

Woody put an arm around her shoulder and tried to lead her inside.

She shrugged it off, went to push him away, white-knuckled fists pounding his chest over and over until she finally broke down.

He held her and this time she didn’t resist.

‘She’s gone,’ she sobbed, her head pressed hard into his chest. ‘And I’m never gonna see her again.’

‘I know, I know,’ Woody said. ‘There was nothing any of us could have done.’

‘Can we please get out of here?’ she pleaded, her voice taking on a child-like whine.

He shook his head, met her eye. ‘There’s nothing for miles around. We just need some fuel and we can leave. I bet there’s no one even here.’

She shook her head, lost in her sorrow. Her chest heaved.

Woody lit a cigarette and shoved it into her mouth. She inhaled deeply.

‘Thanks,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry for freaking out on yas.’

Woody just nodded and smiled sadly. ‘We’ll all miss her. But we can’t blame ourselves and we can’t spend longer out in the open than we need to.’

Luna muttered agreement, her tears hidden behind a cloud of smoke. ‘Lemme finish this before I go in. I’ll be able t’ cope a bit better, like.’

They moved inside and even Timmy the Grimmy began to back away to the door.

Woody approached the body cautiously, Luna lagging behind him like a nervous puppy.

He started when he saw that the corpse’s face had been crudely painted in garish colours.

‘What the fuck?’ he muttered.

The door to the barn slammed shut and some nightmarish apparition appeared, shoving a heavy wooden beam across the door to keep it locked.

Luna mourned her decision to put out her cigarette as she would have gladly burnt to death in here rather than look at the man and his macabre dwelling again.

He was big; roughly the size and bulk of King Solomon, but emanating weirdness and hostility instead of warmth.

Death hung thick in the air.

‘Why you play Sam’s doll?’ the big figure pouted, his pet lip out like a child.

Timmy went to draw his gun, but the figure raised one hand and grabbed him by the scruff of the neck.

He lifted Timmy one-handed and slammed him face first into the wall of the barn.

There was a sickening crack and blood began to pour.

He again slammed him into the wall.

A split appeared in the front of Timmy’s forehead.

Blood sluiced down his skin.

The figure reeled back, amazing them with its strength.

Then he slammed Timmy into the wall hard enough to burst his skull like an egg.

Blood showered all over the barn’s ominous inhabitant.

Luna was so stunned that she forgot the gun on her side.

Woody not so much; his revolver was out.

Bullets were flying through the air towards the figure but he was moving out of the way with unnerving speed.

He disappeared behind a wall of hay bales.

‘This is one fucked up place,’ Woody said.

‘I tried t’ fuckin warn ya,’ Luna snapped, shaking her head incredulously.

Woody’s statement was echoed by the sound of the bone wind chimes in the corner.

Luna ran over to them and did her best to rip them off the walls, but they were too high.

‘Fucking creepy-ass place,’ she screamed. ‘What the fuck were you thinking coming in here, Woody?’

When they looked closer, they saw that dismembered bodies were suspended on wires from the walls, like a psycho’s attempts at making puppets.

The figures were painted in garish colours with a childish hand.

They moved a little in the breeze than ran through the barn.

They all had clothes on that didn’t quite fit – they were put on wrong, like the clumsy attempts of a child putting clothes on its dolls.

Woody again went over to the body on the floor.

‘You no play Sam’s doll,’ a voice came from behind the hay bales.

They looked and saw that there were slits poked in the sides of the hay bales where the man’s eyes watched them.

‘Your what?’ Woody said.

Luna looked upon it with despairing eyes. It was one of the weirdest things she had seen, even in this world of strangeness and darkness.

‘Doll?’ she muttered to herself. ‘What the fuck?’

Then something the man had said seemed to register with her.

The penny dropped. Something inside her told her that she needed to play along if she was to have a hope of getting out of here alive.

‘We’re just looking at… how pretty it is,’ she said, her voice kind and enthusiastic.

Woody looked at her like she was insane too, but she stared at him and nodded as if to say play along. Her thumbs flicked the terrified tears from her eyes.

‘Oh y-yes, I was just thinking how pretty it is,’ Woody said, trying not to baulk at the stench of rotting flesh rising from it. Flies crawled over its livid purple skin.

‘Really?’ the man said. ‘You think pretty?’

Woody began to raise his gun to where the voice had come from, but Luna grabbed his arm and pulled it down.

Again he looked at her like she was crazy, but her gut was telling her to be careful here. Even with her mind reeling from what had just happened to Tia, she was somehow able to think. Luna was a born survivor and her survival instinct had just kicked in, big time.

‘Of course they’re pretty,’ Luna said. ‘I love the clothes you’ve put on them.’

‘You like Sam’s clown? I painted it all by myself,’ the man said, his sing-song voice getting more high-pitched as his enthusiasm and confidence grew.

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Luna looked on the wall.

A man’s body was suspended there, maggots squirming in the empty eye sockets. Crude diamond shapes had been carved loose around the eyes.

The mouth had been ripped open in an ugly crimson smile that went all the way to the temples.

One of his eyeballs had been stuck on the end of his nose like a clown’s nose.

The man’s belly had been slit vertically from groin to sternum and chunks of intestine had been pulled through like buttons.

The skin on the man’s feet had been pulled along his toes to make them look like clown shoes.

‘Oh,’ Luna said, trying to push down the wave of nausea that threatened to rise up her throat. ‘He’s… beautiful.’

‘I did it all by myself,’ the man said. He bounced excitedly on his feet and clapped his hands together while laughing like a toddler. ‘Floppy shoes and a button nose. A big happy smile.’

Woody looked at it, his revulsion plain to see.

‘You no like?’ the man said.

‘Oh I do like it,’ Woody said, swallowing some vomit which had crept up his throat as he noticed maggots crawling in the ragged wound around the man’s throat.

‘Put bang bangs down and Sam show you his other dolls,’ he said, his voice hopeful.

Woody furrowed his brow.

‘The guns,’ Luna said.

Woody nodded. ‘I don’t want to put my gun away,’ he whispered to Luna.

‘I’m out of bullets,’ Luna said. ‘So I’m gonna lay mine down, ok?’

Woody nodded.

‘You tell secrets?’ the man said. ‘Why you no tell Sam?’

‘Sam? Is that your name?’ Luna said.

‘Yeah. Me Sam. Are you my friend?’

‘Yes, I’m your friend, Sam,’ Luna said. ‘My name is Luna.’

The man laughed. ‘That’s a pretty name.’

‘Why thank you, Sam. I like your name too. It makes you sound big and strong.’

Woody looked at her in disbelief.

Sam grinned from ear to ear. ‘Sam is big and strong.’

Luna raised her eyebrows.

‘I can be your friend too, Sam. My name is Woody.’

‘Sam no like Woody.’

Woody almost laughed.

‘Woody make fun of Sam with hushes.’

The whispers, Luna mouthed.

Woody nodded again.

‘No, I was just telling Luna how pretty I thought your dolls were,’ Woody said, reluctantly playing along.

‘Really?’

‘Really.’

‘No porkie pies?’

‘No porkie pies.’

Sam came from round the corner a little.

He was staring at the floor and kneading the hem of his shirt with his left hand.

They noticed that his shirt – a black and white plaid shirt – was covered with thick blood stains. His denim dungarees were similarly pitted. He held a blood-covered scythe in his grubby right hand.

‘Has Woody put down bang-bang yet?’

Woody had the gun hidden behind his back.

‘Yes, Sam, I’ve put it down,’ Woody said.

Sam’s brow furrowed. ‘Where Woody’s bang bang?’

Woody waited til he was close then raised the gun.

‘Right here, fuckface.’

Woody pulled the trigger.

But the gun clicked empty.

Luna and Woody looked at each other in terror and dismay.

Woody was so stunned he dropped the gun in the hay at his feet.

The moment hung on a knife edge.

Luna filled the tense silence first, possibly saving both of their lives. ‘Woody’s bang bang is a toy, Sam. He was just playing with you.’

Sam looked at her for a second, seeming to process this.

Then his face lit up in a grin and he again clapped his hands together. He moved in fast, picking up the guns and hurling them off into the hay at the edges of the room.

‘Do you live here on your own, Sam?’ Woody asked.

Sam ignored the question and said, ‘Woody Sam’s friend now.’

He rushed over to them and threw his arms around Woody’s chest, hugging him in hard enough to make his back crack.

Woody’s nose flooded with the coppery tang of blood and a very potent body odour.

‘Thank you, Sam,’ Woody said, trying to hold his breath against the stench.

‘Let’s play,’ Sam smiled.

They had no idea what that entailed, but judging by the bodies – or dolls as Sam insisted they be called – that hung from the walls, it couldn’t be good.

Sam went over to Timmy the Grimmy’s body.

He was still bleeding out, his skull cleaved clean in two and seeping bits of bloody brain into the hay by the barn door.

‘Oh deeds, this doll broken,’ Sam said, shaking his head sadly. ‘Need new noggin.’

Luna and Woody’s eyes fell upon Timmy the Grimmy’s shattered skull and their faces dropped for a second.

‘What wrong?’ Sam said, coming in close to Luna. His innocent, childlike expression simultaneously terrified and soothed her.

‘N-nothing,’ she said.

‘No porkie pies?’

‘No porkie pies.’

He stared at her for a few seconds, the reek of his breath making her nostrils flare, then gently rubbed her cheek.

‘You pretty,’ he said.

‘Thank you, Sam.’

‘You make nice doll.’

Luna’s skin crawled at the thought of what he was suggesting. And it took everything she had to push down her natural reaction to his words.

‘I’d like t’ help you make a doll,’ she said, deftly changing the subject.

‘Ah!’ he yelped, bouncing up and down on the spot like a sixteen-stone toddler. ‘Sam like that. Luna help Sam make doll.’

‘Woody help too?’ Luna asked, glaring at Woody.

Woody bent down towards Timmy’s body.

‘Woody no help too,’ Sam said, pushing Woody aside.

His pet lip came out again.

‘Ok, I will just watch,’ Woody said.

‘Woody watch,’ Sam nodded.

‘New doll need new head,’ Sam said, pointing to the mess of Timmy’s broken head.

Luna nodded.

‘Help Sam find new head,’ Sam said.

Sam placed a big hand between each of their shoulder blades and began to push them down behind the hay bales where he had been hidden before.

Behind there was a double doorway.

He shoved them through these doors.

They felt the power in him.

The corridor was short, but terrifying.

More of Sam’s dolls hung on the walls, along with the sinister bone windchimes.

Sinister stick figure pictures were daubed in blood on the wall.

Next to them were dozens of Sam’s failed attempts to write his name.

The windchimes knocked together ominously as they walked past.

‘This door on the…’ Sam paused, putting both his hands out in front of him with his first fingers and thumbs out perpendicular to each other in an L-shape.

‘L for left,’ he said, nodding and smiling to himself as he pointed to a door on the left.

‘What is this?’ Luna said, her skin crawling as she noticed the door was covered in bloody handprints.

‘Toy room,’ Sam said, matter of factly, and shoved the door open.

The room was dark and they heard sounds of panicked breathing coming from within.

The smell of rot hung thick in the air, mixing in with the scent of blood both fresh and stale.

It was so intense it was like being punched in the nose.

‘Sam, are there people in here?’ Luna said.

‘No pee-pul,’ Sam said. ‘Just toys.’

She dreaded what she was going to see.

Sam flicked the light on.

Blood was daubed across the walls.

More versions of Sam’s name spelt out in finger letters.

Directly in front of them was a long dead dog, its flesh barely visible on the bones.

‘Sam’s first doll,’ Sam smiled. ‘It’s a woof woof.’ He laughed, pulling the strings so the dog twitched and jerked on its hanging.

‘It’s beautiful, Sam,’ Woody said, trying to get back in his good books.

They looked round.

Blood was splattered across the floor in vast dried pools.

It crept up the walls like a tidemark.

Severed limbs and heads were strewn across the floor.

An axe was propped up against the far corner, its hickory handle gleaming with a wet bloody handprint.

The noises seemed to be coming from behind the door at the other end of the room.

Sam picked up the axe and pushed them through the door.

The light was on in here but it was dim.

‘Shh,’ he said, pressing a blood-smeared finger to his lips. ‘Toys peepsing.’

Luna nodded and mirrored his gesture by putting her own finger to her lips.

He laughed at her, his eyes aglow.

The smile died on her lips when she saw the people tied up against the far wall.