Doll House

XV. The Road (Pt. II)

 "I guess we walk from here," the Overall Man said, echoing the woods. He scooped up the doll and the bear and set off, a toy in each hand, towards the house at the heart of the woods.

Behind them, footsteps, that no one heard, because no one listened. They didn't expect footsteps, so the girl walked behind them and they remained oblivious to her presence. Sometimes, she stepped on a twig and broke it. A quiet sound, muffled by wind and whispers, but a sound nevertheless.

Only the bear sensed something, a dream or perhaps, a lingering nightmare – images of an old wooden door creaking open, of eyes lurking between two trees. Of silence. It was the girl's dream, her last nightmare before the voices got her, and it haunted the forest the way all the dreams of humanity do. But he had no way of knowing that – he didn't recognize the house, it had been too long, and besides, he didn't know the girl.

And it could be just about anyone inside that house having those dreams. But it wasn't. She was right behind them, her breath almost against the old man's clothes. In another life, she would've been glad to see them, but now she was just angry. At the Overall Man. At Miss Francine. At the other children. At Tara, most, for abandoning her.

In another life, she would've been glad. In this life, she would make them pay. She would make them all pay.

Behind them, the girl walked and waited for someone to open the door.

But the old man walked slow. He tired easily and had to stop often. His heart was not what it used to be and at short intervals, it seemed as if a darkness descended upon him. That his head grew... strange. Woozy, as if he couldn't quite hear the forest, just see it.

So, every five minutes, the Overall Man would sit down on a tree stump or sometimes, on the ground itself.

"Is it long now?"

"Not quite, but not near. And then, we'll have to walk back again and all the way into town. This will not be an easy journey."

It was clear that any resolve he'd felt when they'd left the car had by now deserted him.

"Do you really live that far away?"

"I do, love. Another contraption of theirs," he said shaking his head at the trees. "Nobody lives even remotely close to the woods. Suppose they didn't want the extra attention. The dangers that inevitably come with humanity."

"Why though?"

"I don't know yet, it's what I've been wondering myself. What's the point of all this, of this isolation? Of those children up there? Because I doubt it's just some strange coincidence."

"Maybe they need them, whatever these things are."

Despite the old man's tired feet, his shortness of breath and his weariness, it was the bear that fared the worst of all on this journey. And he was beginning to see just how he'd been wrong in wishing to come here.

The woods were a cradle of nightmares, and they – whatever they were – fed on the bad dreams inside people's minds. They'd been feeding on them for a long time, stealing boogeymen to build up this forest, to build up their strength. It was, the bear realized, not a good place to be for folk like him. The nightmares got to him and he'd begun hearing voices, like the ones he sometimes heard in the night from the old man's room. But where those had been a trickle, these were a waterfall.

"Perhaps," the old man conceded. "But why? What can they do with those children?"

"Dream," the bear said darkly.

"That's a curious thing to say, my friend."

"It isn't. Nightmares beget nightmares."

And the bear would say no more on the subject, for as soon as he'd spoken these words, the voices had grown even louder inside his head.