12.5

Luna looked at him in dismay.

‘I’m Jason Pullman. Sam and Polly are my kids,’ the man said. ‘Or at least they were. They’re in their early twenties now, if I haven’t completely lost track of time.

‘When things started going wrong, I made the decision to put them out of their misery. The things I saw of the world outside these walls were not things I wanted my poor babies to be a part of.

‘So, one night, after a lot of soul-searching, I decided that I was going to make sure they never got to experience the brutal place that this world has become.

‘I went into Polly’s room first. She was fast asleep. It should have been easy. It was easy… at first. I shoved the pillow over her head. She started fighting.

‘Looked up at me.

‘The look of betrayal in her eyes was far worse than anything I have seen outside of these walls.

‘She began to gag. Began to squirm. And… I—’ His voice cracked beneath the weight of his emotion. He wiped a tear from his eye with the back of his hand. ‘God help me… I couldn’t do it.

‘I wish I had been able to. Because this,’ he held his arms out to indicate the squalor of the world at large, ‘is not a place worth living in.

‘When she woke up, she cried out, Dada, just like she did when she was a toddler. It seemed I’d inadvertently solved the problem. She was no longer aware of the horror of our situation. She was no longer scared, well, no more than your average toddler was before.

‘I did the same to Sam, the next night. I waited till he was in the bath and overpowered him. Again, I couldn’t bring myself to finish him off entirely. I think I went a little too far with him, cos he seems to understand even less than Polly does.

‘So, in a way I got what I wanted. They were both innocent; toddler minds trapped in adult bodies. They had no idea what was going on in the rest of the world. Which was kind of what I was trying to achieve. So it was a victory of sorts.

‘And, on the plus side, I have my babies back. They want me, they need me, their little eyes light up when I enter the room. I missed that feeling when they grew up. It’s nice to have that again, no matter how I achieved it.’

Luna looked him up and down.

Her skin was crawling, her mind struggling to process the fucked up story he was telling her.

‘I know, I’m an utter bastard,’ Pullman said. Tears were streaming down his face now. ‘But I did it because I love them. And I do. I love them more than anything in this whole world. And haven’t I done them a favour in the end? They play in here, making their dolls. They’re happy. They just don’t have any idea what is really going on. Is that so bad? Am I so bad?’

Luna looked at Polly too.

Tears welled up in her eyes and ran down her cheeks, falling onto Polly’s belly.

‘The clothes, the beds, the toys, I made them from scratch. Something to occupy my mind in the long days and nights. They are the same as the ones they had when they were kids, only bigger. Just like them,’ he said, smiling sadly at Polly.

‘Why Luna cry?’ Polly said.

She pulled herself up to her knees and hugged Luna’s legs.

‘Don’t cry,’ she said. ‘Dada make it all better for you.’

After hearing this, Luna felt like her mind had shattered into shards.

The place reeked of despair and insanity.

‘I did this because I loved them,’ Pullman sobbed. ‘I loved – love – them more than anything in all this big wide world. But it’s time I let them go.’

Luna sniffed sadly.

Looked over to him, sobbing his heart out, the white-knuckle grip he held on the doorframe the only thing that prevented him from collapsing.

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‘I understand,’ she said, and dug the shard of mirror into the side of Polly’s throat.

Polly’s eyes filled with terror and she slumped to the floor, crying.

Pullman raced to her, held her tight in his arms, gently stroking her hair and face.

‘It’s ok, sweetie,’ he said. ‘It’ll only hurt for a moment. Then it’ll be gone. It’ll all be gone.’

His body shook with sobs as he held her convulsing body.

Both he and Luna were silent until Polly finally fell still.

*

‘She never slept a full night after what I did,’ he explained, wiping his eyes with the back of his sleeve. ‘She always had nightmares, but she didn’t know why. I’m not surprised. The dolls were Sam’s idea. He said if she had someone watching her sleep she’d feel safe. And it just kind of went from there.

‘Deep down I guess they always knew, cos Sam never liked to go in the bath after what happened. I guess his subconscious held onto part of it. That’s why the poor bugger smells so bad.’

He let out a pathetic little laugh.

‘Ain’t this just the saddest damned thing you’ve ever heard?’

Luna nodded.

‘Will you take care of Sam for me too? I don’t think I can cope with seeing him leave too.’

Luna looked at him. A broken man who had tried to do his best for his kids but got it spectacularly wrong somewhere along the way. She felt as though she should have felt some degree of hatred and revulsion towards him but all she felt was pity.

She nodded, wiping a tear from her eye.

‘Thank you,’ he said.

Before she could even respond to him, he had dug a shard of mirror into his throat.

He wrapped his arms around Polly and their blood mingled in a vast pool on the floor.

Still, he stroked her hair, his daughter’s wellbeing on his mind even as his life began to pool beneath him.

Finally his hand fell away, his entire body quaking now.

Luna stood in mute horror, trying to comprehend what she had just seen.

Her entire body shook with the force of the rage and grief she felt.

How normal lives had been shredded by the deeds of the spineless bastards in power.

She watched until Pullman’s body fell still. His eyes were locked on those of his daughter, even as the life faded from them.

Luna tore her eyes away, remembering that Sam was on his own in the kitchen.

*

She went through, her nerves on edge.

The bloody shard of broken mirror was still clutched tight in her hand.

She left a trail of blood in her wake.

Sam was sat with his back to her at the kitchen table.

His head was bowed, he was seemingly in a daze.

When she got closer, she noticed that he was looking at an alphabet book.

His bloody finger traced the letters, his mouth silently uttering the name of the colours.

It made her skin crawl, even more so now that she knew the reason for his childlike state.

He looked up nervously when he saw her.

His eyes grew wide when he saw the blood on her hand, but he didn’t say anything.

‘Sam,’ Luna began, her voice faltering. She had no idea how to break this devastating news to him.

His face looked up at her, round, pale, docile. Like a lobotomised moon.

‘Sam,’ she again began. ‘Your Daddy and Polly are—’

She broke off, unable to continue. Tears cascaded down her cheeks and plopped onto the tiled floor below.

She took a few deep breaths and tried to compose herself.

‘Sam… your Daddy and Polly are… are… dolls now.’

He frowned as if he had understood.

He was silent for a moment that stretched out for an eternity.

When his mouth finally opened she couldn’t believe what he said.