Pieces

The man took her hand, “It’s okay, honey, we will find your mom.”

Doris didn’t stop crying but she stifled it enough to say “Really?”

The man smiled, his face was round and so was his body. He was small for an adult but still bigger than Doris. He wore a button-up shirt, brown slacks hiked up over his big belly. His smile was soft, his eyes were small and black. They looked like two buttons on a teddy bear. His voice was soft and raspy. Doris thought to herself, “This guy looks like Winnie the Pooh.” Maybe that’s why she let him take her hand.

“Come on, darling,” he started leading her. “We’re going to find a security guard.”

Doris felt embarrassed. She knew she shouldn’t have wandered off but her mom was trying to return her stupid brother’s pants at the “apartment store.” So named because that’s where you buy things for your apartment.

It was so boring and she was soooo bored.

Just beyond the invisible line that separates the store from the mall, men in hard hats were building Santa’s Village. She could almost see the workers, big men carrying fiberglass candy canes and gingerbread men.

She wanted a better look, she needed a better look. The only thing better than going to Santa’s Village was seeing it in pieces.

Doris loved putting things together, puzzles, Lego, if it had pieces she loved it. In her Santa letter she even asked him to leave her toys unassembled. She wanted to put them together with her dad on Christmas morning. They would sit on the couch, he would read the instructions and her little fingers would fumble the little pieces until a hundred pieces of molded plastic became Barbie’s Dream house.

She must have looked too long because when she looked back her mom was gone, that was when she started to cry and that was when the man found her.

***

The man walked just a little too fast for her little legs. Doris had to quicken her pace to keep up.

The man scanned around with his eyes as he walked. “Now where are those security guards? They are never around when you need them.”

Before she knew it they were all the way to the other side of the mall. He stopped at the doors.

The man scrunched his face. “Hmmm, what should we do?”

Now he really looked like Winnie the Pooh, Doris smiled, “All he needed to say was… think, think, think, think… and we would be in the Disney movie.”

His eyes widened. He lifted up one finger, “Eureka… I know what we need to do.” His expression was big like a clown or an adult trying to make you laugh.

“We need to go out into the parking lot, there’s always a security guard out there protecting the cars.”

Doris felt a funny feeling in the pit of her stomach, she didn’t want to go outside, outside felt like too far. Her mom was somewhere in the mall, walking through the outside doors felt like going further away.

The man studied her face, “You want to find your mom, right?”

Doris nodded.

“We can walk around the mall for hours or we can step outside and talk to the parking lot security guard and you could be back with your mom in minutes.” Doris weighed her options, something felt funny but she just wanted this to be over. She wanted to be holding her mom’s hand not Winnie the Pooh’s.

She nodded “Okay.”

There was a blast of warm air when they went through the inner doors. Then a blast of cold as they walked out into the dim overcast afternoon. The clouds were dark and heavy, the wind was cold and there were little raindrops that stung as they hit her face.

“Oh,” the man gave a shiver, “It’s starting to feel like winter.”

He gripped her little hand a little tighter, not enough to hurt but just enough to make it so she could not let go.

He looked different than he did in the mall, his body seemed a little less round, not as soft. She didn’t step forward with him. He looked back, “Come on, darling, we just need to walk over to the car park, I’m sure there’s a security guard over there.” He gave her arm a little tug, not too hard just enough to get her legs moving.

They walked towards the car park.

It looked like a cave, all concrete and darkness.

The funny feeling increased. It reminded her of the way Dad would turn up the car stereo when a good song came on. But that was fun, this wasn’t fun.

Doris looked at his hand, she hadn’t noticed in the mall but his nails were weird, longer. Not long like Auntie Tina’s, hers were long, polished and red. His were yellow and pointy. They wrapped around her hand like little hooks, there to catch her if she pulled away.

“I think I’d like to go back inside… I don’t have my jacket.”

He stopped and looked down at her. “Darling, we’re almost there.” His eyes didn’t look like buttons anymore, they reminded her of something else.

“What was it…?” Then she remembered, “Oh yes, the sharks.”

Her teacher, Mrs. Valentine, had taken her class on a trip to the aquarium. She remembered the sharks swimming back and forth. They would have been cute but their eyes made them ugly. His eyes were ugly.

Then they were at the car park. He stepped out of the natural light of day and into shadow and dull halogen.

She tried to stop again, planting her feet hard.

His hand gripped tighter, it hurt now.

She shook her head, “No. I don’t want to go in there.”

She was resolute, her lips pursed, head in a slow shake back and forth. It was the same face she used when there were Brussels sprouts and she wanted to let everyone know that there was no way she was going to eat them. If she could hay seen herself she would see the expression was the same but there was also fear at the edges.

The man stopped and looked back at her. Somewhere along the way he had developed a hunch, or did he always have it? It was hard to say. He smiled a toothy grin, his teeth were sharp, canines clenched tight. Was it a grin? Maybe it was a snarl? She shook her head again.

His raspy voice was deep, warm and inviting. “Come on, darling, it’s just a little darkness.”

The sound of his voice made her eyelids feel heavy, she blinked and somewhere between closing and opening she had started walking. Her feet felt heavy but they were lifting step by step. She didn’t need to think about walking, they were moving on their own. She looked down at her pink runners.

She thought to herself, “What the hell is going on?”

She often added swears in her thoughts. She knew she couldn’t say them out loud but thoughts were secret. One time she had let one slip and her mom had scolded her. “Some people swear because they need to say something serious, other people swear to hurt someone else. One is impolite, the other is offensive.”

Doris knew that this was now something serious.

She looked at his hairy arm, it was even hairier than Uncle Gene’s, then the back of his neck, also hairy, then his head. His hair looked wiry and wild, like a toothbrush that needed to be thrown out. His ears poked out of the mess, little points.

He stopped halfway down an aisle and looked around.

“No security guards… nobody at all.”

Doris wanted to pull her hand away, she wanted to run but she couldn’t. Her body didn’t listen to her, it listened only to him. He was Kaa, she was Mowgli. His grip was getting tighter. Not a grip on her hand but his grip on her.

He sniffed the air, “I really thought there would be more security guards out here.”

He snapped the fingers of one hairy hand.

“I know…” He chuckled, “I should just use my phone and call them.”

He patted his pockets, “Damn, I must have left it in my car but that’s okay, I’m just parked right over there.”

He pointed a yellow claw in the general direction of his yet-to-be-identified vehicle.

Then over on the other side of the car park, a car revved a loud rumble, then squealed a high-pitched squeal.

The thing winced in pain. He let go of Doris’s hand and grabbed his big pointy ears. He let out a sharp howl.

“Aroooo!”

The spell was broken. Doris stepped back.

The thing was fully hunched forward now. His hands hung almost outward, almost touching the ground. His legs were skinny now, not a man’s legs, they bent like hind legs. His face was longer now, a snout was topped with a flat nose. His nostrils flared as his breath heaved in and out. Each exhale sent puffs of white where his hot breath met the November air. You could see all his sharp yellow teeth now. A thin string of drool descended from his thin lip to the ground.

This was no longer the face of a human.

Then everything clicked into place like the deck of her Barbie playhouse.

This face was the face of a wolf.

She took two steps back. It was hard to move.

Then when his arms touched the ground as paws, he lunged forward.

She turned and ran back towards the mall.

***

Bobby slammed the door of his car, “That stupid bitch.” He hit his hands on his steering wheel. His face was red, his ears were hot. He wouldn’t have believed it if he hadn’t seen it with his own two eyes. Linda, his Linda, in the food court with Doug Chapman. That was suspicious, but the kiss. Another wave of red came over him just thinking about it.

Yes, he probably shouldn’t have hit him but yes, he also wished he’d got another couple of licks in before the security guards broke it up.

Now he was the one banned from the mall.

He exhaled, “Fuck, what a shitty day.” He turned the key. The engine rumbled to life. Metal music exploded out of the stereo.

Da Dun Dun! Da Dun Dun!

The singer’s voice was a razor blade of hate. “You can take any man”

Da Dun Dun! Da Dun Dun!

“And take away his soul.”

Bobby revved his engine.

The singer’s gravelly voice mixed with the sound of the engine. The song and the machine, a symphony of agony.

“Is he a hero or a god?”

Bobby put his hand on the back of his bench-style front seat. He looked over his shoulder, then checked his mirrors before he hit reverse.

Bobby sang along.

“Till his heart explodes!”

He gunned the engine. 

The song kicked in. He popped the clutch. His tires squealed and smoked as they fought for traction on the concrete.

If it hadn’t been for the music, if it hadn’t been for the engine and the tires, he might have heard the howl somewhere on the other side of the car park.

“Aroooo!”

He turned the corner and hit the gas a little harder.

Then a little girl in pink running shoes ran right in front of him.

“Shit!”

He swerved but behind the girl there was something dark and that dark thing hit the front bumper and went under. There was an audible crunch as “the thing” went under the front tire, followed by a splash of red as it went under the back.

Then the car hit a large cement pillar.

Then darkness.

***

Doris stood just inside the exterior doors. The buffer of warm air felt good on her tingling fingers.

The rain had turned to snow. There were a lot of people outside, real chaos, she couldn’t see the man, or the beast. She didn’t want to look. She had seen the red tire track that followed in a line to the black car smashed against the pole.

Doris didn’t want to be there. She wanted to go home. She missed her Mom and her Dad. She wanted to be wrapped up in a blanket, on her couch, watching cartoons.

She looked outside for a long time. Then she just started walking. She didn’t know why and she didn’t know where. She walked until she was back at Santa’s Village. The men were gone now, the village was ready for Santa, ready for kids, ready for good feelings and magic.

It looked as lonely as she felt.

Then she heard it.

“Doris!”

Her mom came running over and gave her a big hug. Doris started crying hard and her mom hugged her tighter. Then after an amount of time that was both too long and not enough, she pulled back and looked her in the eyes and wiped her tears with her sleeve. “You know better than wandering away like that.” Then she hugged her again, “I was so worried… I thought I’d lost you.”

Doris was hysterical. She tried to tell her mom what happened but the tears and the hiccups made it hard to get it right. The man, the claws, the teeth, it all came out at once and not in the right order.

“Wait, wait, wait, what man?” Her mom looked concerned.

“He wasn’t a man, I thought he was at first, at first he was like Winnie the Pooh but then he wasn’t and he had claws and teeth and I was running.”

Her mom hugged her again, “It’s all going to be okay. Honey, sometimes when we’re really scared our imagination runs wild… oh honey… How about I buy you a pretzel and you can tell me all about it?”

Doris hugged her mom.