Chapter Twenty ~ Who Will Love Me Now?

"Children have no fear of their dolls coming to life, they may even desire it"

-Sigmund Freud

My lips, red rose lips deliciously kissed to the point of soreness, are cracked, splintered and stitched with thorns of dried blood. I keep them closed, holding Slappy in my arms as Richard enters the kitchen for breakfast. He attempts not to look at me, the memory of the night before still fresh and disturbing in his mind, my innocent skin touched by his dazed mouth. But he sees my soiled lips, and nearly drops his coffee. Slappy, in my arms, has my blood upon his lips, too. A smile pressed against my poppy-colored blood. Horrified, Richard stares at me, it takes all of the patience in the world for him to gather his courage, to sit down across from me at the table, to look at my bloodied mouth, and not be revolted.

"Carrie," he begins, gripping the cup in his fingers, they turn bright red from the heat. "We must talk,"

I remain silent, my mouth plush with scars.

"Last night, I thought of how I should try to help you. I thought of how to put an end to this,"

Slappy tenses in my arms; his movement has become an eternal heartbeat within my body. Still, I do not speak.

"Carrie, you are still ill. Very, very ill my love. You invent things, you place your imaginings inside your dummy, you pretend he is real. You do this in order to forget the trauma you experienced under Madame Louisa's care,"

Care? That woman, able to care for a child? I feel Slappy seethe with me, united we are in our lust for revenge.

"I think you should go back, Carrie, into psychiatric care. I would be with you, this time. I will regulate the treatments you receive, and communicate with your doctors in order to achieve success. It will not be like the care you experienced before, I promise you that. No one will attempt any sort of treatment upon you unless they have my ultimate permission,"

I grow cold under his gaze. His eyes are tired of me, tired of drawing me in, of the madness that looks back at him. He can no longer see the innocent girl he loved so long ago. He is ready to be rid of me. Richard abandoning me, the fear is like a horrible blanket of poison covering me, suffocating me. I never wanted him to give up. I only wanted to be with him, to regain our lost world. And his final thought of me is to send me back to the place he knows will ruin me, to lock me away there, forever. Slappy slips tenderly down my lap, between my legs and onto the floor, the thud of his head comes to me like a sound from underwater.

"Carrie? Are you alright?" Richard's voice, too, is slimy and quivering, rising from a water grave.

The tears sting my lips bitterly, my raw mouth burns and I shut it tight. Richard, stricken by grief, tears himself from the table. Standing at the back of my chair, his hands are tremulous with fear as he gently touches my shoulders. And the tears gush onto my tongue as my lips rip open. I scream and the fresh scars split at the seam, blood leaks from my lips and dots the linen tablecloth, little hells in the snow. I crawl beneath the table to where Slappy is, and scream.

"Carrie!" Richard loses his patience, overturning my chair, reaching for my legs. I kick his hands away just like a child would. "This is outrageous!" his palms slam down upon the table, I see underneath as it trembles, wishing it would fall down and crush me to death. He takes his coffee and hurls it at the wall, the cream inside splashing and soiling the velvety wallpaper, crumbs of china scattering over the floor and under the table where I fall silent, weeping and clutching Slappy.

"Carrie, we will discuss this further tonight. I am already late, as it is. You are behaving the way a selfish, rotten child would behave. It is humiliating. You are not the only one in pain,"

I see his shining black shoes disappear from the room, and the violent slam of the front door stops my crying. I hold Slappy's icy hand in my own and look it over, wishing on his still fingers that I could go back.

"Please, Slappy, I want to go back. I want to go back to the orphanage, to when I was a little girl. Please, Slappy, use your magic. Please take me back. I want to go with Richard, and Vanessa, when they come. I want to go back and I want to go home with them. I want nothing terrible to ever have happened to Richard. Please, Slappy," I whisper so fiercely into his frozen fingers that I am startled when they move.

"I'm beginning to agree with your Doctor, you are behaving like a selfish, rotten child," his cackling voice is like a sliver of glass, embittering the quiet under the table. "What about my happiness?"

I start to cry again from the cruel look flowering in his eyes. "I don't want any of this, I just want to go back,"

"You don't want to punish Louisa? You don't want to have our revenge? You don't want to marry me?"

"I just want to be a child again, I want Richard to—"

Slappy's hand is heavy and brutal as it collides with my mouth. The scars burst again, a tiny river of blood splashes onto my wrists as I bow my head in shame.

"Richard is not important! Think about what you need to do. Think about what you promised me,"

"Slappy, not you, too. Please don't hurt me," I wept, my hair covering me, protecting me. I want to feel as small as a child, hidden in the forest of my hair.

"I'm sorry, my bride. Forgive me, but you promised today would be the day," I can feel his eyes pierce through the nest of my hair, his tone isn't forgiving.

Halloween. Today is Halloween. The day Slappy and I will travel to Rose Hill Orphanage. And the day our marriage will be consummated.

"Do not forget what we have planned. Do not forget what we must do. Louisa is the pinnacle of your suffering. She is the one who kept you from the precious world that Doctor promised you. Don't you want to hurt her? You finally have the chance, and I will be with you, I will be with you,"

My wet mouth twists with fear. I feel sickened by Slappy's words, and consumed. I never imagined I would have the strength to return to the orphanage, but dreaming of the world I could have shared with Richard warms me, and the thought of Louisa paying for it brings me a satisfaction that burns. I let my hatred bloom, it is so warm and beautiful. Slappy's lips are pressed to mine again, a kiss to harvest the fire.

The path under my feet is emblazoned with crisp golden leaves. Richard has not had the time to rake them, but I imagine he wouldn't do it himself. He probably has a gardener he calls for that. I walk with Slappy folded in my arms, looking back at the house and chewing my chapped lips so I will not cry. When I return, Richard will send me away. The thought is worse than an entire life spent mouldering at Rose Hill Orphanage.

"Stop thinking about him, let's get going," Slappy snarls impatiently.

I look to Hannah's house; the pale curtains of her bedroom window are drawn. I remember giving her the elaborate dollhouse, and the thought of her playing with it in secret makes me smile. A melancholic smile, but still, a smile for Hannah. She has a chance. I think of her at school, now, in the clutches of her snotty friends. I should have written her a letter before leaving. My heart pounds at the idea but Slappy's body jolts suddenly, a morning jogger is passing by the house with her dog, whose fur is the same gold shade of autumn leaves.

"Morning," she calls, frowning at Slappy. I know how ridiculous I must look standing in the field of leaves, a haunted child clutching an antique dummy to her chest, silent and strange. Maybe she thinks I really am a child, that I've missed the bus to school and my parents have already left for work. Pathetic. The glistening black eyes of her dog look up at Slappy and he whimpers, pulling his owner along.

"Stupid dog," Slappy cackles, and I want to cry. The dog was so lovely, and so innocent, as he runs the cool sunshine illuminates his silky fur. The woman turns back to look at me once more, and then they disappear round the corner.

"Why did you have to frighten him?" I whisper as my feet begin to carry me.

"What are you blaming me for? I didn't do anything to that dog," Slappy hisses back.

"We can't argue like this, Slappy. People will think I am mental," my hair blows gently into my face, sticking to my aching mouth.

"There is nothing to argue about, because I didn't scare the stupid dog. It is nice to know you care more about a worthless animal than you do me, my bride,"

I shut my eyes against the bright sunshine, dreaming of dropping Slappy, of his body shattering into pieces of sawdust against the silver concrete. And in shame I hug him tightly to my chest, protecting him from the cold wind.

Richard's neighborhood dissolves into a quiet town past the silver gate. There is a coffee shop, an ice cream store, a library and a video rental shop. The cosy street reminds me achingly of Miriam and Floyd, the antique store they owned where I hunted through piles of toys like a beast for Slappy. I peer through the window of the video shop, a rosy bloom of shame burns my cheeks as I dream of leaving Slappy there, of running away and never coming back. Of never having to answer to Slappy's wishes, or causing Richard pain.

"Slappy, I never wanted Richard to be so angry with me. I never wanted you to hate him. I don't know what to do, I feel so lost,"

"Stop worrying about him, I have a grand plan to make everything work in our favor. Now we need to focus only on Louisa,"

The pure hatred in his voice frightens me. "You aren't going to hurt him, are you?"

"No, you will still have him, forever, just like you want," I wait until we have passed a coffee shop to look at Slappy, and he grins back, his eyes acrid-green and oily and scheming, always scheming.

"If you hurt him, I will never marry you,"

"You will marry me! You promised, all those years ago! I will not forget!" his voice rises up in a demonic howl. The people sitting outside of the coffee shop give me scornful looks. I want to throw his greedy body into the gutter, but I grasp him tightly and run. The dead street is a golden sea of leaves, as I run they flurry and cling to my black stockings. My wet eyes look desperately at each sign I pass, hardly remembering the way back to the orphanage. The orange morning mist has settled and the street begins to come alive. People stop to stare and I ignore their scathing faces. Even from store windows, their faces are like pumpkins behind glass, menacing Jack-O-Lanterns laughing at the pitiful girl cradling her weird dummy. I want to sink into the dry, wispy pit of leaves but I keep running. The cold air stings my lungs, I can feel my heart blackening, a rotting diamond.

"Slappy, I, I can't remember where…"

"There!" he growls, and I nearly drop him in surprise.

The black building is half burned away, rotting and frozen in a fire-damaged nightmare. Putrid boards hang awkwardly round the house, windows shattered and gaping. Ivy and weeds choke the porch steps in a tangle of dried brown ribbons. The garden where I had sat so long ago with Richard and Vanessa is now a casket of leaves and ashes. There was a dying smell in the air, a moldering sweetness. The blood blush of the leaves seemed to taunt me as I stepped across them, slowly, my grip around Slappy's middle becoming tighter and tighter. I felt dizzy and sat down upon the little bench, burying my face into Slappy's tuxedo.

"This isn't the time to get cold feet!" he hissed, his voice as dry as the dead leaves.

"Slappy, seeing this place again, I, I remember everything. I remember sitting here, with Richard and Vanessa. Don't you?"

"I remember you keeping me from ripping the bastard's hand off," he cackled.

"And I remember the fire. Just there is where they held me as I screamed for you. And there," ignoring him, I pointed to a patch of weedy grass. "Is where Madame Louisa laid on her stretcher,"

"She is still here,"

"Slappy, how can she still live here? Look at this place, it's crumbling into dust,"

"I know she is still here,"

I said nothing, staring up at the spectral house and feeling hollowed out from the inside with fear.

"It is time to go inside,"

"The door is chained, look," if we couldn't get inside, then I'd never have to remember, I'd never have to smell the haunted hallways of my childhood, or see Louisa's face again.

"Through the window, then," Slappy ordered.

I trembled walking through the coffin of leaves, the sound of crisply broken vegetation drowned out the pounding in my ears. All of the windows were smashed; I only had to chose the simplest to crawl through. My dress hung on a shard and ripped as I followed Slappy inside, the pale-rose shred of fabric reminded me of the marionette dress I'd worn as a child, here in the sitting room where Richard had told me to wait for him. I wrapped my arms around myself; the cold was horrible, trickling into my veins like disease.

"There's no time to take a stroll down memory lane," Slappy was already ascending the cobwebbed staircase to where my room had been.

I walked in a daze, peering into the kitchen, the dining hall, all darkened and covered in silence. It was like being in a tomb, the house trapped in a premature burial. I shuddered looking into the laundry room, where Julia had struck my head with a broom, and where Slappy had murdered her. I could hear his footsteps above me, his shining shoes clacking on the floors which had not been swept for a decade.

Shivering, I climbed the staircase of my youth, each step pulling me gently back into a dark childhood. Touching the banister made me gasp with fright, it was shrouded in soft cobwebs that clung to my fingertips. I brushed them against the hem of my dress but still felt soiled, dirtied, sinful.

"Where are you?" Slappy called, and his voice nearly sent me spiraling back down the stairs.

"Please, don't shout," I said weakly, my voice as faded as the long-spun cobwebs. "Slappy, I'm so frightened,"

"Come in here,"

I followed his voice into the playroom, where he sat rocking back and forth in the old rocking chair, the very place where we had first met.

"It's so cold here," I began to cry.

The deep scarlet wallpaper had been burned and blackened. It peeled away in slim bloody strips. Ripped from the walls where Rhonda, Peter and Harold had crouched, a little corner where their flamed bodies had been, attempting to protect one another. The carpet was smeared and coated with ash, and shreds of curled wallpaper crushed inside of the fibers. The shadowed air was oppressive, they had all died here, burned alive, and they were still here, in the peeling bones of this house. All because of Louisa and her wicked ways.

"Stop crying," Slappy scolded me.

"I remember we were playing here, when it happened. When Madame Louisa started the fire,"

"It was not play, it was our wedding,"

"Slappy, I don't want to be here. It hurts," I crouched down upon the filthy floor, covering my face. Rhonda, Peter, Harold. I remember us starving, I remember Slappy gathering melted snow for us to drink. We suffered together, but the fantasy world we had built was not strong enough to keep us all alive.

"Think of who kept you in pain. Think of who killed your friends. Think of who pitifully attempted to be rid of me,"

"Madame Louisa," I whispered, peeking up at Slappy through my tear-stained, cobweb-entwined hair.

"She still lives here, Carrie. She's bedridden, and she is weak. She's ripe for the beating,"

"How can she live here, Slappy? How does she eat? How does she survive?"

"She has her ways, and others blind to her deplorable ways that come to help,"

"She's been here all this time," I spoke softly to myself, it was so hard to believe. That disgusting woman being waited upon like a queen, held up in her bedroom of shadows and wickedness. Who would come to her aid? They deserved to be punished as well. I felt blood flare in my veins, pulsing through me like wild, encroaching ivy. Giving me a mad, desirous energy. "What are we going to do to her?"

"Whatever you wish, my bride. If you need any suggestions, I've been saving up some good ones for quite awhile now," Slappy's green eyes were starry and wretched, and insatiable, just as mine were.

"Let's go," I couldn't bear to be in the phantom playroom anymore. I wouldn't dare to look in my old bedroom, either. My skin crawled as I passed the closed door, once white, now a murky and lonely gray. The wood chipped and smudged with ashes.

The door to Madame Louisa's room was pure white, a fresh coat of paint that had been applied after the fire. Staring at it filled me with a delicious rage. She did not deserve that color. The children's doors covered in smoke, and the witch's door cleaned from sin. I imagined her sitting in her silken bed, maybe with a box of chocolates or a magazine. She would have forgotten all of the children who lived here. Remorse had never punctured her heart, memories had never encircled her head at night, keeping her awake and aching from regret. She fancied herself wasting in elegance, taking her precious time to languish before death, but I wasn't even going to let her have that.

I pushed open the white door and she was propped in her bed, just as I had dreamed. She did not hold a box of chocolates, or a glossy magazine. She had been staring at the back of the door, seeming to know I was on the other side. The fragile, chalk-boned old woman glared into my hateful eyes, and then she saw Slappy walking towards her bed. Her thread-bare limbs began to tremble.

"You horrible creature! You bobble-headed doll of hell! You devil-possessed wooden puppet! Don't come any closer!" she spat at Slappy, and I couldn't help but laugh.

"And you!" her voice crackled like silver pine. Her finger, pointed at me, was the color, texture, and scent of rotten eggs. "I know what you've come for. I knew you would return one day,"

"And you know that you deserve to be punished," I stepped closer to her bed, there were piles of newspapers and rose-embossed plates of a half-eaten breakfast.

"No, it is not I who deserves punishment, wretched girl. It was always you. You were sinful the very first day you came to my orphanage. I could smell it on you. The other children could, too. I relished in their treatment of you. I encouraged it. You needed the sin beaten out of you. It's my only regret in life I couldn't finish the job,"

I gritted my teeth, trembling from the cold. "I was a little girl; I was all alone in the world. How could you ever think a little girl deserved to be so mistreated? How can you still believe that? What is it that I ever did to make you hate me so much?"

"Carrie, do not cry! Do not allow yourself to be weakened by memories! Remember what we came for!" Slappy's eyes were so hard, I swore the green had grown darker. I looked at him and could only remember all the nights I clung to him in bed, crying after whatever abuse I had endured from Louisa.

"Shut your mouth, you puppet of hell. Who cut your strings? Who gave you life?"

"I've never had strings," Slappy's mouth tightened into a menacing slash of a grin. "But if you would like them, I'll gladly oblige,"

I watched in horror as Slappy jumped onto the bed, brandishing rope out of thin air. He smirked and tossed off the moth-eaten quilt from Louisa's decaying body. Quickly he smothered her wrists and ankles in the thick rope, tying her limbs to the bedposts, so she was splayed before me, moths fluttering beneath her withering skin.

"Your call, my bride,"

"Bride? You sick, perverted girl. Filthy whore! That's what you've been your entire life, and what you will always be. A stained, twisted whore making love with her dummy. Oh, Jesus help me. Be with me. Keep me pure from their filth. Do not let their sin touch me,"

"How about you chew on this for awhile, you old crone," said Slappy, and a knotted rag, conjured from nowhere, appeared in his hands. He forced it into her praying mouth and chuckled. He turned to me, awaiting, his eyes a forest of evil.

"I don't want to do this, Slappy," I whispered. I could see light flood Louisa's eyes, she was relieved I did not want to hurt her. But I wasn't protecting her, I was protecting myself. I thought of myself as a little girl, no matter how badly she hurt, she'd never pass her pain on to others, even if they deserved it tenfold.

"How can you say that? Look at her, we've got her strung up like a turkey ready to fry! We've got her hanging above the abyss!"

"Slappy, no,"

He hopped down from the bed, his gaze so murderous and severe I sank down to the floor before him.

"Didn't you hear what she just said to you? She's tortured you all your life, and still wishes for you to suffer, and you don't want to make her pay for that?"

"Slappy, look at her! She'll be dead before sunrise if we're lucky. I don't want to be here, I don't want to do this. I thought I could, but I can't. Please, let's leave her here like this, won't that be enough?"

Slappy looked long and hard at me, and then his hand gripped so tightly round my arm I whimpered and collapsed from the pain. "Get up," he grunted in my ear.

"No Slappy!" I begged, throwing his rough weight off of me. "I don't care how evil she is, I don't care what she deserves. I don't want to be the same as her, I don't want to do this,"

He stood looking over me, there was something so starved inside his wooden body, he was insatiable. Like the night I'd seen him in the attic, when he had killed Mr. Grammel. And the night of Halloween when I was small, when Julia had spied upon us in my room. "You just don't want to get your hands dirty," he said with disgust, he was humiliated by my weakness.

"That isn't it, at all. This isn't what I want, tracking down each person who ever hurt me, and hurting them in return. I want to move on, Slappy. I don't care anymore," I stared back into his gleaming eyes, my entire body trembling.

"Liar!" he roared.

I fell backwards as he pulled out a kitchen knife, it glimmered in the gelid shadows of the room, merely seeing it pierced my heart with dread.

"Put this in her heart," he threw it at my feet, it clattered on the floor, the sound so loud I clamped my hands over my ears. "Do it!"

"No!"

"Then you will let her get away with it. You'll let her get away with snatching Richard from you. You'll let her get away with abusing you as a child. You'll let her get away with murdering Rhonda, Harold and. You'll let her get away with separating us for so many years,"

My head felt so hollow and poisoned. I buried my fingers into the split halves of my brain, racking it for an answer, for an escape. I curled my knees under my chin and started to hit myself, slapping my own deranged face, my skin white with terror. All the while Slappy kept his eyes on me, smiling, wishing. I reached for the knife and gently coiled my fingers around its smooth handle, and glanced up at Madame Louisa, pale and stretched before me. She was an offering to be rid of my past, I could give her to death, and he could give me back a blank slate, a world where she had never existed.

"Do it now, Carrie," Slappy whispered, his voice was now seductive. I smiled back at him and tapped the knife upon the rotten floorboards, the tip made pretty little crescent chips into the russet wood. Like a child I wanted to carve my name, carve out 'Carrie loves Slappy', or 'Carrie was here'.

Louisa began to moan and weep, and her pitiful cries revolted me, incited me. All the times I had sobbed after her hand had struck me, when my own stomach had shrunken to a bowl of needles from starvation because of her neglect. I would never be cured of the misery she had inflicted upon me, but killing her would soften the pain.

I dragged myself from the floor, slowly, my eyes narrowed onto her writhing body. I could hear Slappy's whispers in my ear, enticing me. I could even hear Rhonda, Peter and Harold playing upstairs, their calls mournful and fading. Killing Louisa would set them free.

I gulped in a breath of air and shuddered horribly as I raised the knife, as I plunged it down my shaking hands flinched and instead, stabbed her in her rising belly. Realizing what I had done, coming down from the dazed, tantalizing high, I listened to the blood bubble up from her wound, a sick, awful sopping sound. She began to cough and blood leaked out through the cracks in her gag, staining the front of her yellowed nightgown. An extraordinarily haunting regret swept over me.

"Slappy, Slappy," I drew the knife from her stomach and dropped it to the floor, my entire body convulsing.

"You have to finish it!" he didn't care I was going into shock, my skin felt so cold, my veins had gone thick and frozen, and even though I trembled from sudden chill I could feel the heat in the room, too, that phantom bog coming back to suck me under. The mud made the same deathly sounds as Louisa's clogged mouth.

I sank in a dreamy haze to the swampy floor, and before my eyes were savagely closed I saw Slappy climb back into the bloody bed, the knife clutched in his glazed little hand, going up and down, up and down. He turned to me and his smiling face, coated in red, pulsed with life.

Vanessa's balmy white hands were gentle waves against my forehead. She sat in bed with me, cradling me in her arms as Richard watched from the doorway, waiting for me to wake. My body was a child's body. My head was shattered, but when Vanessa threaded her fingers through my hair it dulled the throbbing pain.

"All the children have been poisoned," his murky voice said, I kept my eyes closed and listened, frowning.

"Except our Carrie. We won't allow her to ever be hurt, will we?" Vanessa's voice was cracked porcelain.

I wanted to tell her she was dead. All of the children were dead. And I was dead, too.

I sat up in the creamy, silky bed and she smiled at me. She looked so beautiful and peaceful, I couldn't bear to tell her we were ghosts. But then I saw her skin change color, it rotted away from her bones and plopped onto my silken pillow, turning it to ash. The entire room turned to smothering ash. I reached for Vanessa's melting hands but she opened her mouth and laughed at me, and it was Slappy's high and cold laughter that emanated from her lips.

I woke again in the silk bed, my body no longer a child's, but sore and cramped and filled with anguish. I remembered the knife pitched into Louisa's stomach and began to retch. Somewhere above my head I heard Slappy sigh with disgust. I tried to control myself but the memory was so disgusting, it was alive and caught under my skin, I watched the veins pulse in my dirtied hands and then vomited over the edge of the bed, onto the graying carpet below.

"What a rookie," Slappy chuckled.

"Where, where are we?" I choked, spitting up the last of it and leaning back into the cool blankets.

"You don't know this room?"

My eyes flew open, taking in the smallness of the bedroom, dark in the late evening. My body sinking into the place etched so long ago within the thin mattress. On the desk by the smudged window sat all the homework assignments I never bothered to complete when Louisa had shut myself and the other children away from the world. From the loose drawers in the dresser flowed my frayed skirts and dresses, and even the marionette costume, still prim and crusted with glitter and dust.

How could he bring me here? I had never wanted to see this room again. I was dissolving into that tortured lonely child; and Slappy only sat propped on the faintly yellow pillow, his bloodstained face glowing and watching in amusement. I hurled myself from the bed but found my entire body felt broken, and weakly I fell onto the floor. My bare knees scraped against the stiff carpet as I crawled into the hall, shivering and trying not to be sick again.

My knees, bare. Where were my stockings? I looked down to see my dress had been removed. I was wearing a child's frock, the uniform we wore as orphans of the house. A midnight blue dress, and a slash of white ribbon across my waist. It was tight, suffocating me. Stiff with dust and age. Slappy had dressed me this way as I lay unconscious in my old bed. I looked up at him hatefully.

He continued to sit so serenely upon my childhood bed, grinning at me as the last of the cold setting sun vanished from the window, casting him in complete blackness.

"No one can stop us now, Carrie," he said placidly. I looked at him in horror and shook my head. "You'll get used to killing, I promise. We have many more to vanquish,"

"No, Slappy. I never want to do that again," I curled against the wall, the soft paper peeled away as I rested my head against it, and smeared my cheek black with silken ashes. But it was cold, it was soothing, and I shut my eyes. "What have I done, Slappy? What will Richard think,"

Slappy suddenly lunged, his wooden hands coiled round my throat. He shook me and shoved my head into the crumbling wall, so that more paper peeled away, falling into my eyes and open rasping mouth.

"Stop being weak and idiotic! We have begun our revenge, and tonight we will be married. Your precious Doctor is invited, of course. For we cannot consummate our love without him," he released me and pushed me, hard, into the peeled wall.

"What," my throat had been crushed under the weight of his hands, and lined with cakey dust. I coughed and sputtered and raked out the damage as best I could. "What do you mean?" it hurt to speak, I could taste blood on my tongue.

"Let's get back to the house, and I will show you,"

I obeyed for fear of being strangled again. Anything to get out of that terrible place. I shuddered thinking of Louisa's body, not wanting to know how Slappy had left her. Her white door was closed, still shining with freezing white light. I began to cry as we crawled back through the window and out into the shade of the gathering night. Stupidly I slashed my dress again, and this time it cut through to the skin, staining my wrist scarlet. I never wanted to remember, I never wanted to think again of my bedroom, the ruby-colored playroom, Louisa's scorn, the dining hall, the attic where Mr. Grammel's bones shone in the black trunk, the laundry room, the morgue where Slappy had gotten the little vial of crystal fluid. I didn't wait for him, I started to run and tears streaked my sweating face. I didn't care if anything happened to him, as my feet carried me home I hoped Slappy would be run over by a truck, or stolen by kids out trick-or-treating. I ran past houses alive with costume-adorned children. They did not know what to think of me. Was the blood on my dress real, or pretend? Green masks hiding their fear. There was a sweet rottenness in the air, clouds of burnt cedar, the scents of glazed apples and plump sugar. I reached the video shop again, still open after dark. The owner stood in the doorway dressed as a villain from a classic film, I couldn't guess his name. When he saw me he grinned, tossing golden wrapped chocolates in my direction.

"Hey, sweetheart! Have some!" he laughed at my back.

My ragged hair was licked by the wind, blowing wildly behind me. I knew everyone I passed took in my beaten face, my wounded arm, my lips brown with dried blood. I didn't care. The only thing that mattered to me was going home and protecting Richard from whatever cruelty Slappy was imagining in his demented little mind.

Line

Our street was empty, there were only leaves blowing gently in the wind to greet me. All of the lights had been turned off to steer away the children out hunting for candy in the neighborhood beyond ours. It was eerie; a soundless dark street on Halloween night, like all of the joy and innocence in the world had been snuffed out. I felt like those dreams I had heard people telling of having before, where the dreamer is the last being on earth. It felt like standing in the middle of a forest, standing on the top of a grave. There should have been children on every street singing and laughing, chocolate and butterscotch decorating their painted mouths. But there were no children in Richard's neighborhood, not even Hannah, who would have been revolted by the idea of trick-or-treating. The light of her house was silenced, too, her bedroom curtains still drawn like they had been that morning. Richard was not home, either.

I didn't want to go inside yet. I stood rigid, listening for Slappy's glossy feet clacking behind me. Would he be able to find the way on his own? Of course he would, Slappy knew everything. I shuddered and decided to go into the garden to catch my breath.

The roses were so plump and sweet in the radiant, fresh moonlight. The scent of their petals calmed me as I pressed my face into the thick wall of blood red blossoms. They were soft like velvet, sedating me as I breathed them in. I stepped back in a daze. The autumn wind and moonlight so nourishing on my skin. The roses glow, the edges of their lush petals trimmed with silver. All that I have seen, that I have heard, that I have done; it is washed away, if only for a short while, by the crisp ripe wind and light.

And then the rosebushes shatter with noise.

Hannah and her friends, dressed in murky green rags, shriek and moan and burst into laughter as they climb out through the roses, sending a spray of petals to the ground. They glare at me, challenging me to chase them away. Liesel grins and pulls more of the roses from their vine, Rebecca smashes them with her gray boot. I stare hatefully back, but inside I am withering like the roses they've killed. Around their heads they wear diamond chokers that glint in the moonlight. Lifting their tattered green rags, they begin to dance in a circle around me, hissing and giggling into my face. They dream themselves witches, and chant my name lowly as they twirl. Delicate frays of rotted green silk tangle across my eyes, into my hair, around my shoulders, looping at my neck. I am pushed down roughly onto the damp grass and dragged to the small dark pond by the tulips.

"Hannah! Please stop them!" I cry, fighting desperately against the small girls, but they overpower me by far. I can see the moonlight trembling on the smashed roses. "Hannah please! Please!"

"Shut up," Hannah snaps, giving a rough tug on my long matted hair. The diamond choker hangs crooked round her forehead.

Rebecca and Liesel scratch at my skin in madness. Laughing with pleasure, they each pick me up by my arms and drop me into the pond. I slip in like a stone. The pitch black water smothers me, wavering like their green rags when the girls danced. But the coldness awakens me and pierces my blood. It is silent and silky, I look up to see the wavering blot of moon above, feeling again like I am standing in the middle of the lonely street. I swim upwards and shoot out to the glowing surface. Rebecca and Liesel are gone. Where they had danced and laughed and cursed me, Slappy stood. Hannah was sprawled on the grass at his feet, panting with fear.

"Get away from her Slappy," water drips from my hair into my eyes. I remain floating in the pond, gripping blades of blue grass for support.

"You'll take her back now? After how she betrayed you?" Slappy looked down at Hannah's small, frightened face, and kicked her hard in the side. She howled with pain that seared my heart and began to weep, crawling towards me.

I pulled myself out of the water, beads of it sopping from my heavy dress. I reached for her hands but Slappy gripped her round the ankles, dragging her backwards. Hannah kicked him as hard as she could, and he soared into the rosebush, tearing more of the innocent flowers down.

"Carrie I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Hannah couldn't get up, her little white hands still reaching for mine. I bent towards her to scoop her up in my arms and Slappy was back, more savage than ever. He kicked his hard black shoe into my ankle, cutting into the bone. And he laughed, he laughed. I collapsed into the soaking grass and reached for Hannah, but Slappy grasped her by the wrists now, dragging her as she screamed and writhed to the little black pond. Hannah feared pools of water more than anything.

"No! Slappy stop it! STOP IT!" my ankle throbbed with unholy pain, it felt as if there were a chain of sword tips round it, slowly but surely sawing through the bone. But I pulled myself up, limping weakly to where Slappy had forced Hannah's head under the water.

"LET HER GO YOU MONSTER!" I fell on top of him, hoping to crush his skull against the stones surrounding the pond. He only rolled away from me safely. The cold dark water closed over Hannah's scarlet head, she was unconscious. Her crimson hair floating in the cloudy water was so eerie, like she had already been transformed into a drowned corpse. "No," I moaned, plunging my hands in and wrapping my arms under hers, pulling her up though my body howled painfully in protest.

"Hannah! Hannah wake up!" I screamed into her dripping face. Her skin was so pale and chill. I pumped her chest and slipped my fingers into her mouth to breathe into her, but as soon as I touched her lips she shuddered and spewed up the dark water. I pushed her to her side and encouraged her to keep coughing it up. I looked wildly about the dark garden, but I couldn't see Slappy anywhere. Only the moonlight glowed on the massacred roses.

"Hannah, we have to get inside," I pat her back as she sputters up a fragile dribble of pond water. "Hannah, I don't think I can walk,"

She struggles to talk, but her throat is shut tight, her chest rasping and heaving. Her breath tastes like water lilies. She coughs as she stands, touching where Slappy had kicked her and wincing, but able to move. She holds out her hands for mine, and we both start to cry as I take them. I wrap my arms around her neck, softly, and she encloses hers around my waist, supporting me as we walk as quickly as we can to the back door.

"Richard?" Hannah whispers, it is all she can say. I lock the door and pull down the shade before collapsing onto the freezing marble. I press my cheek against it, wanting to kiss the pearly hardness. The cold is so soothing against my aching skin. We are safe for now.

"He isn't home yet, but when he gets here this will all be over. For good," I'm still holding Hannah's trembling hand. Gasping with pain I sit up and pull her into my arms, hugging her so tightly I feel her ribs entwine with mine. Our tears slip down our cheeks at the same time. "We're going to be okay Hannah, I promise. I won't let him hurt you again," I let her cry onto my shoulder as I gently run my hand through her hair. I pick out a rose petal and smile, showing it to her. I wipe away her tears with the soft red petal, like a butterfly's wing.

"Come on, let's get away from the windows," I put my weight onto Hannah's shoulders and we limp into the hallway to wait for Richard. The house is filled with stillness and darkness. I listen for Slappy but don't hear a sound. Hannah and I slide down to the moonlit floor, staring into the black dining room. I can smell the coffee stain still fragrant upon the wall, from when Richard had lost his temper that morning. It seemed that it had happened ages ago. I curled my arms round myself and gasped at the wetness of my dress. Water and blood; I had been bleeding since running away from the orphanage. The fragile lace sleeve of my dress was shorn and bloomed dark, dark red.

"Hannah, I did something terrible today," I confess, and bury my face into my sore knees. Hannah combs her fingers through my hair and I cry at her sympathetic touch. "I don't know if Richard can ever forgive me for what I've done,"

"Heh, heh, heh," a low, sinister cackle sounds somewhere from upstairs, sending Hannah and I crawling into the dining room, over the shattered pieces of porcelain and beneath the table, pulling the chairs in around us.

We breathe so sharply that we cover each other's mouths, I feel Hannah's tears slip between my fingers, knowing she is collecting my tears as well. I keep my eyes frozen to the staircase, heart thrashing, just waiting to see those hard black shoes, and the wretched little body they carry creeping down the steps. But he never shows himself, he only revels in his mad, low laughter. And all of the shadows of the house take the form of monsters, tricking me to whirl my head in every direction.

The laughter and swirling shadows stop as the front door opens and closes, a clean creak echoing through the still, menacing house. "Carrie?"

Rapturous, beautiful release floods my heart at the sound of Richard's voice. I am no longer afraid. "Stay here," I whisper to Hannah, and climb out from the tangle of golden chairs, tucking her back in safely. My ankle still swells with pain but I stagger into the hallway, and Richard's face goes white with shock at my appearance. "Carrie, what happened to your arm? And your leg? My darling, what's going on?"

"Please Richard, you have to get us out of here. Hannah is here with me, too. Slappy wants to kill you," I cling to his jacket and pull him urgently into the shadowed dining room. "Do you see her? Slappy tried to drown her. And he broke my ankle. I was wrong, Richard. He is evil, he never loved me," my words stammer as badly as my injured leg supporting my weight. Richard draws back, holding me at arm's length. His eyes are the same color as the cerulean moonlight pouring through the dim curtains of the house. They darken with concern.

"Carrie," he grips my shoulders, and his lips tremble as a dry sob escapes him. "You're getting worse, so much worse, I'm so afraid,"

"Richard, please believe me! Please!" I clutch at his chest, shaking him desperately, wanting to melt into him, to make him understand. "Ever since I was a child, Slappy wanted to marry me. And he hated you, he's hated you since the very first time you came to the orphanage. Remember? Do you remember how sick everyone got? Slappy tried to kill them, it was embalming fluid I helped him steal from the morgue! And he hated you because you saved everyone, like the kind and good person you are. The kind and good person I love. Richard, Slappy wants to kill you so he can have your body, you have to believe me, please. We have to leave!"

"My darling," he is weeping now, tears glittering in the hollows of his beautiful face. "I don't want to lose you to madness, Carrie," he strokes my cheek, his child fallen from grace.

"I'm not mad!" I shake my head, clenching his jacket, now drenched from my wet dress, tightly in my fists. "Richard, please! PLEASE!" I shriek into his neck, and he embraces me in his arms, crying thickly into my hair. He holds me so tightly I can listen to the fear growing in his heart. "Please believe me," I whisper, feeling his skin shiver, hearing the pulse of his rushing veins. I love him so much, I would stand forever in his arms, even on broken and bloody feet.

"Carrie—"

I draw back sharply, the fear now blooming into my heart. Richard's mouth is open with surprise, his arms around me slacken, and release my body. "Richard? What is it?" I draw his jacket into my hands again, keeping him steady. But he staggers and falls to his knees, revealing Slappy. "God, no, please, please," I sink to the floor to his side, ignoring the hateful dummy circling us, the knife that had killed Louisa glimmering in his hand.

"Hannah stay there!" I scream brokenly, catching sight of her crawling through the dining chairs. I take Richard into my arms and examine his back, an apple-sized hole seeping with blood, driven into the pearl of his spine. "No, Richard," I whisper gently, stroking his head that rests so weakly upon my chest. "Please don't leave me,"

He tries to speak to me but a clot of blood leaks from his mouth, staining the front of my dress. The white lace is now fully red. My blood, and his. Together. Slappy laughs so cruelly as he watches. "Ssh, Richard, don't talk, don't move," his black hair is so slick with moonlight, like cornsilk between my fingers.

"Carrie, I'm sorry," a flow of blood as he speaks, and I am weeping onto his face, dreaming so childishly that my tears will heal him, will wash away his pain. "I'm sorry I didn't believe you," he whispers. "I never would have—made you go back," he grips my body in his hands, coughing as blood rises in his chest. "To that place, where it frightens you so. I—I thought of you all day,"

"Please Richard, please be quiet? It's hurting you to talk," I rest my cheek atop his head, knowing his chest is being drowned by starlit blood. "I know you wouldn't have sent me back. I love you, Richard. I always have, I always wanted to be with you. And I'm sorry, I'm so sorry I screwed everything up," I weep bitterly, clinging to him and inhaling his scent, the living scent that is fading so fast. And I want him to speak to me, even though it hurts, I want to hear his voice one last time.

"I should have believed you, Carrie, I could have stopped this, all those years ago," his chest scrapes against mine, grating through the blood. "I love you, my Carrie. You have been wonderful, you are all I ever wanted,"

I lay him back on the moon-poured floor as he breathes in slow, rasping gasps of air. Hannah has come out from under the table, Richard looks to her, consoling her with a smile, and she sobs uncontrollably. He turns back to me and takes my hands, his fingers are so cold, so drained of blood.

"Now is the time," Slappy chants lowly at my back, and begins to climb the stairs.

"What do you think you are doing?" I snap, clutching Richard's hands, swearing Slappy will not hurt him again.

"Right before your precious Doctor kicks the bucket, I can transfer my spirit into his body. But first, I must break myself to set forth my spirit," his eyes shine hungrily. "You see, there is a moment just before death, where his spirit will rise like a thread I can snatch. I'll cast his spirit somewhere dark, somewhere full of suffering to spite him. And then I can take over," he says this so lovingly, daring to gaze into my eyes. "You will have the face of your Prince, but the soul of your true love. It's just what we planned, my bride,"

"No!" I cry, laying beside Richard to shield his body. "That is never what I wanted," I wrap my arms round his waist, and, knowing Slappy can hear, whisper delicately in the shadows. "Everlasting. True Love. I am yours, Even In Death,"

Richard smiles, his eyes staring at me from another realm, and tenderly I press my bruised lips to his forehead, so smooth and cold, the shade of the stars. Violet velvet. His blue eyes dim calmly with death, and then his soul leaves me forever.

"It isn't that simple," Slappy cackles, and heaves himself down the stairs. Before his fragile body can smash upon the hardwood floor, Hannah sprints across the hall to catch him, and pins him down with her knees, swiftly locking his arms behind his back, and pushing his grunting head forward to keep him from bucking into her face.

"You're too late, Slappy. Richard is dead," I stand up, the pain shooting through my body illuminating me. I am so filled with grief and hatred that nothing can hurt me.

"You bitch! You ruined our plan! You betrayed me, just as everyone in your life has betrayed you. I guess you learned well, Carrie," Slappy squirms urgently against Hannah but she in unrelenting. I know she is enjoying this little moment of enslaving him, a slight taste of revenge for what Slappy had done to her.

"No, Slappy. I'm not betraying you. I'm moving on. You don't love me, you never have. You love control,"

He resists fighting and stares back at me, eyes empty of moonlight. Slappy's eyes cannot reflect light as Richard's did, because Slappy is not alive. He is only a hollow shell of lingering evil. The fairytale that haunted my head so, so long is melting.

"You murdered Julia You tried to murder Rhonda, Harold, and Peter. Children. I don't care how they treated me, Slappy, they didn't deserve that. Hannah didn't deserve it either. All you care about is how to serve yourself, if someone is hurt or killed along the way, you take no responsibility,"

He is growling, heaving with rage and looking at me in such a way it would peel the skin from someone who was vulnerable. Someone who was a tiny, frightened child possessing a malleable heart. A child who had never known love until a beautiful doctor and his wife promised to take her away from the darkness haunting her innocent life.

"You're nothing more than a doll, Slappy. And I don't want to play with dolls anymore,"

"What are you going to do to me, Baby Carrie?" he taunts, but there is panic on his face.

Hannah holds up his kicking body for me to take. He slips so easily into my arms, for the very last time.

"Carrie, please. I love you. I was your only friend in that horrible place. I remember what you said to me. You wanted me to be real. I am real. I know I am real, as real as the shadow because I love you. I am real because your beauty makes me whole. I love you more than that Doctor, I can give you more than he ever could. He died Carrie, he left you! I would never leave you!"

"Carrie, watch out!" Hannah screams, sucking in her breath as Slappy laughs manically and coils his hands round my throat. But I expected his trickery. I rip his arms loose and smash his head with all the force in my aching body against the banister of the stairs. Pieces of him shatter to dust, raining to the floor and cutting my skin. A weird green mist hangs in the air, but as it has no one weak enough to enter, it begins to diminish, sinking back into the pieces of his body till the hallway grows dim with moonlight again.

I sink back beside Richard's lifeless body, weeping and refusing to look at what I'd done to Slappy. I fit myself against his corpse and twine my arms round him. It had been so hard to realize, it had taken so long to understand I was nothing more than a pawn to Slappy. He had stolen everything from me, and now he had taken the love of my life.

"Carrie," Hannah sniffled, laying down beside me and fitting her arms round my waist, so that our bodies filled the hall, Hannah, me, Richard. Two of us weeping, and one to never make another sound.

"We'll bury the pieces of Slappy, Hannah. In different places, so no one will ever be able to put him back together, so he can never hurt anyone again,"

I wept as bitterly as I had done so many times in Slappy's arms. But a part of me was relieved to know it was all over, that the dark fairytale of Slappy and I would be locked in the heart of my childhood forever. I turned to peer at the mangled pieces of his body, and looking back at me was a bright, round green eye. I swear that it winked, and then closed fast with sleep.