Horror - Short

This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are fictitious and any similarities to actual persons, locations, or events is coincidental. This work cannot be used to train artificial intelligence programs.  No AI tools were used in the writing of this story.

All rights reserved. Winnebago Indian Motorhome by Tonka Copyright © Eddie Generous 2026

WINNEBAGO INDIAN MOTORHOME BY TONKA

The silver bell jingled from the top left corner of the heavy wooden door of Cooper Collective as Josh Dolan hipped his way back to the sidewalk, the two-foot box held against his chest, hands pinching the nine-inch-wide ends. His eyes bounced up and down from the street to the Winnebago images on the box. He shifted the box to his left forearm and dug his keys from his right pocket.

The box slid into the passenger’s seat and he hurried around the front end. He’d left his cellphone stuffed in the cubby behind the shifter, auxiliary cord attached and music still running on random. He turned the key, but not far enough to jog the starter into life. For a moment, there was no music, only the ominous rustling of paper before the piano and horns picked up in David Bowie’s Dollar Days.

The song was an ode to the eventual and a dying man’s recognition that the ultimate conclusion was beyond his control. Like the lines of Bowie’s bucket list could go unticked, no trouble.

“But not this one,” Josh said and touched the wrinkled and soft Winnebago box, thinking of his own bucket list. He’d inherited a 1974 Winnebago Indian Motorhome by Tonka as a boy, played with it for three summers before his father dragged him from bed, shouting that the house was on fire and they had to get out.

Strangely, he’d forgotten all about the toy until a few years back when he and Claire admitted they’d been facing down their own eventual. He moved into the den and she said nothing. They ate no more than three meals together a week. They hadn’t had sex since she went off the pill.

She wanted a baby—not a child, a baby, of that he was certain. A cat didn’t fill the void and the one they’d taken in lasted only a year before a Honda Civic made crow food of the thing. The book club, the knitting, the yoga, the tea outings, nothing scratched that particular itch. He’d tried to get her into other hobbies and in the process, got himself into nostalgia. There were posters and records. He had a small collection of reissued horror movies from his childhood—available for the first time since their VHS releases.

The Winnebago was better than perfect. As a kid he didn’t have either the husband or wife dolls, didn’t have the box, and his Winnebago had been rusty with paint nicks and chips. This one had the husband, the box, and was showroom mint.

He turned the key and the music silenced for a second before reconnecting. The blinker clicked, but before he could pull into the Sunday afternoon traffic, the music silenced again while his phone trilled a ring.

Claire. She had a work thing in Vancouver for a few days. That she was calling suggested abnormality. Typically, it was a single line of text that came with no expectation of response.

The shifter went back to park and the blinker ceased blinking. “Hey?” he said.

“Is this Josh Dolan?”

The voice was that of a man and Josh sat up straighter in his seat. “Yeah?”

“Your wife is Claire Dolan?” The voice sounded every-man normal, not aggressive or snobbish, no out of place accent.

“Yeah, why?”

“She collapsed this afternoon during a…conference, I guess. At the Radisson.”

“What?”

“I’m a nurse at Vancouver General. She collapsed shortly after lunch and hasn’t regained consciousness. We need to know if she’s on any medication.”

The world beyond the windows of Josh’s Chevrolet Sonic darkened to nothing and the atmosphere in the cab grew harsh. “No, I don’t think so…not since she went off the pill.”

“Any prenatal medications?”

Josh closed his eyes and sneered at the impossibility. “What? No. Why would she?”

“Oh. Um. According to her bloodwork, she’s pregnant.”

Indignant, Josh blurted, “That’s impossible we haven’t had sex in like two years,” and then immediately blushed as an echoing facsimile of his voice said you haven’t had sex, you, you, you; who knows what she’s been doing, who she’s been doing, who, who, who. “Oh. Wow. How pregnant? I mean, can you tell how long?”

“No. Hmm, well.” The nurse cleared his throat. “She’s been unconscious for nearly two hours, but so far we know nothing. You’re in Kamloops, correct?”

Josh didn’t hear this, wasn’t sure how he felt. “I’m coming. Driving. If she wakes up and is going to leave, tell her to call me.” He hung up as the nurse began speaking.

He pulled the shifter and streaked into traffic. A truck, one not exactly cut off, but close, honked at him. He took a left at the lights and hopped onto the highway.

—

Two hours into the trip, he stopped in Hope for gas and coffee. A man coming from the storefront, on his way to the Jeep parked in front of Josh’s Sonic, slowed as he pocketed a fat, brown leather wallet, looking into Josh’s car. “Hey, I had one of those as a little guy.”

Josh, in a state of mild shock, said, “Do you have the wife? I’d like to get her for the husband.”

The man jerked his chin in a bird-like reaction and said, “Huh?”

“The wife for the husband. The dolls that go with the camper. You know?”

The guy pouted his bottom lip and shook his head slowly. “Man, I had that toy back in the ‘seventies, maybe nineteen-eighty. I don’t remember anything about it beyond that the wheels squeaked like a bugger and my little sister broke the awning, oh, and our cat stole the dogs.”

“Dogs?”

“Sure, it came with two dogs. Now that I think about it, might’ve been kids, too.”

“Kids?” Josh scrunched his face. “Would you sell them to me?”

“Man, I told you, I had them when I was only little.” The man was shaking his head much faster now, eyes wide, as if to say ain’t you listening? You wack job! “Real small. Back in the ‘seventies.”

Josh tutted at this and finished his transaction at the pump.

—

“She’s still out, sir.” This nurse was not the nurse Josh spoke with over the phone. This nurse was a woman. She double-checked that the contact information on file was correct. “We’ll give you a ring when she awakes, you can stay, too, for a little while.”

“I’d like to see her,” he said. Deep down, a thought, one probably belonging to the owner of that echoing voice, suggested that he’d know who had impregnated his wife once he saw her face.

“Yes, of course.” The nurse stood on the ledge of her stool and pointed down the hall. “Three-two-nine. Please be quiet, there are three people in the room with your wife.”

Josh began walking, quickly. The waxy floor shined and the dull white walls bounced a soft blue hue onto the nurses and visitors and the milling patients. The place was busy with motion, but most were respectfully hushed. In 329, Josh passed two very elderly women and a teen surrounded by what appeared to be her family. Tears streaked through a powdery foundation on their way to the teen’s jawline and abrupt end to the makeup. A curtain circled the only remaining bed and Josh peeped around. It was Claire, but he had no idea who’d put the baby in her and immediately forgot the strange inclination.

“Claire?” he whispered and then shook her by the big toe of her right foot where it peaked the bedsheet like a tent pole. She didn’t move and the beeping machine kept a constant rhythm. He sidled up to the nightstand next to her and opened the drawer. Her purse was not inside, nor was her phone. He shook her once more before returning to the nurses’ station in the hallway.

“Where’s Claire Dolan’s things? Her purse, cellphone?”

“We have them?” The woman he’d most recently spoken to rose to her feet.

“Somebody called me with her cell, so you must.”

The woman disappeared behind a partition and returned swinging a bulky plastic bag by a string. “Claire Dolan. Here you go.”

Josh leaned against the island’s countertop and began digging with fingernails into the tight knot on the drawstring—made tighter by how the nurse had swung the bag. She was no longer looking at him, but had Facebook open on a desktop computer, eyes turned onto the blue grey glow.

The knot finally let free and Josh dug around the bra and blouse, the slacks and shoes. He found the purse and then the cellphone. He held both in his right hand and the bag in his left, as if unsure how to proceed.

“Squeeze tight for me,” a janitor said behind him and Josh leaned in, letting the bag fall back onto the countertop, solving his conundrum by needing space for a garbage cart. “Thanks, bud.”

Josh transferred the phone to his left hand and opened the purse. The Radisson key card and sleeve were in with the cash in Claire’s wallet. “Only one Radisson here, right?”

The nurse didn’t look at him. “Yep.”

“Better take this back in case she wakes up and wants her bra or purse.”

The nurse looked then, reached for the bag and tied the knot, then yanked the bag by the strings as she returned it to whatever lay beyond the partition. “You going to be weird about that phone?”

Josh put Claire’s phone in his pocket. Right then he understood a gossip mill had gone around to the on-duty nurses about his conversation, about Claire’s infidelity. “No. I’m just—no.”

—

The urge to investigate the phone was strong, but parking tolls ran by the minute at the hospital. He searched out the hotel on his phone and let Google lead him to his destination. Her car was at the airport in Kamloops—she’d flown on the company dime—and the Radisson was right by the airport.

He didn’t go to Vancouver often, but little changed with any visit. It was a drab and dirty city. Everything was old and disorganized. Half of the houses appeared empty with mossy roofs and crumbling masonry. Windows boarded up, doors broken open. He’d heard there was a squatter problem, looked more like there was a problem with land investors driving market values beyond liveability—something else he’d heard.

Once nearing the airport and the hotel, civilization thinned out. Long buildings and gas stations and outlet shopping filled his peripheries as he drove, mind throbbing with that nettling need to know.

He parked at the Radisson, next to a pair of Enterprise rental Mazdas and a lamppost. He stepped out, got halfway across the expansive lot, and turned around. He jogged to the car and grabbed the Winnebago box. Door kicked closed, he started out anew.

The room number was on the sleeve around the key card. He rode the elevator to the eighth floor and found Claire’s room. He set the box on one of the two queen beds and withdrew Claire’s phone from his pocket. All he had to do was wake it up, look at the messages, and know the truth.

“Ugh,” he said and set her phone on the nightstand. He read the instructions at the base of the landline telephone, just below the number pad. He dialed zero and it rang three times before a young sounding woman answered. He explained that he needed to register a car to his wife’s room.

That done, he picked up the phone. He touched the button on the side and swiped the lock screen—she didn’t password protect, and if she had, it would be her childhood phone number, her pin for everything. He swiped once more and his thumb hovered over the loaded message box. His heart quickened its pace—did he still love her, did he care, what the hell was she going to do with the kid? His eyes hovered away and settled on the Winnebago.

The phone returned to the nightstand and he withdrew the huge tin toy from the box. The husband figurine was on his back, arms out, knees bent. Josh put him behind the wheel. A smile played across his face.

From his pocket, he took out his cellphone and snapped a shot, ignoring all the messages and calls he’d missed while driving—he’d put it on silent when he saw Claire’s mother’s number pop up.

He lay back and turned to face the TV. They didn’t bother with cable at home, so watching bad television was always a treat when on the road. He found Jeopardy! and grabbed his phone. He sent a text to his superior and explained that he wouldn’t be in for at least a few days: Claire’s sick in the hospital.

Before Trebek broke from play for the show’s first sponsor, Josh picked up the Winnebago Indian Motorhome by Tonka and set it on the bed next to him.

—

Josh opened his eyes. He’d slipped down and curled on the spacious bed, the motorhome’s passenger’s window was eye level. The little man behind the wheel was pale, wore blue pants and a yellow and grey sweater.

“Almost dressed like me,” Josh mumbled into the stiff white bedsheet. His t-shirt was yellow and grey, but those distinctive ‘seventies’ lines…

Josh rolled to his back and reached for his phone. He had several text messages and a handful of missed calls—all the calls came from Claire’s mother, none from the hospital. He dug into the front pocket of Claire’s suitcase and found her phone charger. The zipper around the main compartment seemed to tease him: look in me, I’m hiding her lingerie, I’m hiding all the good stuff she saved for the other man. Teeth clenched, jaw strained, Josh jerked the zipper around three rounded corners and flipped the lid. Plain underwear, plain undershirts and bras, yoga pants, slacks, blouses, the bag with her toiletries, everything went to the floor until all that remained was a lacy, silky, red teddy.

He swallowed. She’d never…never in the whole time…

The clothes returned to the suitcase and the zipper closed. Josh plugged in his phone and took Claire’s bag of toiletries to the washroom. Working in that same state of mild shock from the day before, Josh stepped into the washroom and stripped. He removed towels and hung everything he’d worn over bars—steam cleaning. The shower ran and Josh sat and stared blankly at the running water until the room fell under a heavy fog, despite the effort of the small ceiling fan. Water temperature lowered, he stepped in.

—

Fingertips and toes gone to raisins, Josh came to and turned off the shower. Dried but not dressed—he hung the damp clothes in the open closet—and smelling of Crest Whitening and Secret antiperspirant, he went to his phone. No new messages.

“What the hell?” Josh spun and looked around. “Hello?”

The Winnebago’s awning was open and the little man sat in a lawn chair, next to him was a beer cooler and a few inches from that was a hibachi grill, tiny hotdogs roasting. How the…? Where did…?

“Well, ain’t that something?” The roof of the motorhome had been slipped out and stood on an arm as an awning, leaving the top wide open. Inside was the bench seat in the kitchen area, set on the table, revealing a storage compartment. The salesman at Cooper Collectables didn’t even know about this, how cool was that? “But, who…?” He gave his head a little shake, lips pursed. The simple answer was obviously the right answer, a bed-turner came in and couldn’t help themselves, had to play.

And how could he be mad, they’d revealed a secret?

He put everything away and put the man back behind the wheel. The toy returned to its box and he placed it on the desk, somebody would come in to make the bed when he was gone.

Before he left, he spun Claire’s cellphone beneath the index finger of his left hand, the little blue light at the top blinking, pregnant with message. He put it in his pocket.

—

“No change,” the nurse said. This was a different woman, short and wearing the intrigue all over her face. “And she hasn’t had any other male visitors.”

“What?” Josh said, but knew, got it clear as a mountain stream.

“Some women from her conference, but no men.” The woman’s eyebrows disappeared behind her curled bangs.

Not thinking, no reason to do so, but doing so anyhow, he leaned in close and said, “I found lingerie in her suitcase. I’ve never seen her wear it.”

The nurse curled and tilted her head while straightening her back. Her eyes wide and her mouth in a tight pucker. If an illiterate’s audio dictionary existed with photo explanations, this expression would define the word SCANDALIZED.

—

Nothing better to do, Josh went to the theater in the mall. He thought maybe something horrific or at the very least something thrilling. Nothing showing until four, he went to a toy store and looked at all the plastic junk. By noon, he was back in his room with a large pizza and a plan to watch the very worst television had to offer.

“What in the hell?” The Winnebago Indian Motorhome by Tonka was back on his bed, out of the box. He set the pizza next to the TV and crouched to look at the man in the little bedroom, mounting a little woman, her legs spread in a V. Both the man and woman wore pants. “What in the hell?”

Someone was…the simplest answer…the same person who’d entered when he was in the shower had the toy at home, or parts of it anyway, and was filling out his accessories. He should be mad at the invasion upon his privacy and belongings, but how could he be?

The hibachi was back beneath the awning by the cooler, and Josh said, “Better hurry or those dogs’ll burn.” He then sat back and grabbed the TV remote, found the show Relic Hunter and settled in.

—

Josh awoke in the early evening from a pizza coma. The stink cloud of expelled gas seemed to eat the light and for a few moments, Josh had no idea of where he was. He leaned to his left and found the lamp switch. Halos blinked away, his eyes settled on the motorhome. The man and woman sat beneath the awning, next to the hibachi and cooler. A grey cat sat next to the woman.

This was too much. He lifted the landline receiver and dialed the desk.

“You tell whoever came into my room that it’s not cool to screw around with my stuff.”

“Excuse me?” It was a man minding the desk. “Sorry?”

“Someone came in my room and moved my things.” Josh’s grip on the phone was white knuckle tight.

“I’m sorry, sometimes housekeeping has to move—”

“I know that! But tonight, tonight somebody came in and played with my…things!”

“Tonight?”

“Yeah, or maybe this afternoon. I was sleeping and they moved my toys!”

“Your toys?”

“What? Yeah, toys. What does it matter what?”

The person at the desk sighed audibly. “How long are you staying? I can put a note—”

“My wife is in the hospital,” Josh said, letting his grip loosen and his head fall back onto a pillow.

“I’m sorry, sir.”

“She’s pregnant, but it isn’t mine.”

“Okay.”

“She was going to see him sometime this week. I found her lingerie.”

“Uh, that’s not…what do you need me to…what room are you in and I’ll make a note—”

Josh cradled the telephone. His pocket suddenly seemed on fire and he heard that voice, he’s calling, calling right now, now, now. He grabbed Claire’s phone and swiped past the lock screen. No incoming call, but there were dozens of missed calls. Aside from Claire’s mother was a contact labelled Pharmacy. Pharmacy had called her fourteen times.

“Pharmacy?” It had to be fake. Josh lifted his face and looked at the motorhome. The barbeque had been packed away—how? how!­—and the people and cat had retreated inside. The husband and wife in the bed, flat on their backs and the cat curled up on the driver’s seat. “But.” The cat was hard plastic, immoveable, and hadn’t been curled before. The thing sat upright before. Josh wiped his eyes and jaw, his guts began clenching and he hurried to the toilet. Claire’s cellphone in his hands, elbows on his knees, ass on the toilet seat, he expelled something hot and awful, but not as hot and not as awful as the traded messages between Claire and Pharmacy.

—

“Mr. Dolan, visiting hours are over. There’s been no change, come back tomorrow.”

The nurse was a man this time, tall and muscular. Josh wondered if this was him. Somehow. He pulled Claire’s phone from his pocket and dialed Pharmacy. It rang six times before reaching an automated mailbox.

The nurse was frowning at Josh. “So come back tomorrow?” he said, making it a question and a demand.

“You have your cellphone on you?” Josh said.

The nurse grabbed his pocket. The cellphone shape stuck out on the leg of the man’s light blue scrubs. “Why?”

Josh sneered and spun on his heels, made for the elevator. Instead of heading back to the room, he returned to the theater. The latest of the Fast & Furious franchise was about to begin and he sat just in time. Usually, the movies dealt with high octane cars that nobody ever owned in the real world, but this one…The Rock was behind the wheel of an old, white with green accents, Winnebago motorhome.

“Hey baby, you get rid of that loser yet?” he said and raised his right eyebrow.

Claire came from the back in the red lingerie and purred, “Soon.”

Josh squinted tight and put his hands over his ears. The end credits were rolling by the time he opened his eyes. He looked around the dim seating area. The sparse crowd made for the exits. He inhaled a deep popcorn and candy breath before rising to his feet and following the designated route.

With each step, the fog of shock drifted over him. At the snack counter, he bought a bag of Snickers Bites and a blue slush Fanta, in the parking lot, his car shifted into gear, in traffic, a left-turning cab driver flipped him off for running an orange, in the lobby of the hotel, a beautiful woman invited him for a drink at the bar while she rubbed her breasts on his arm, in the elevator, a man asked him if the hooker tried to get him too, in his room, he stood over the motorhome in the dark with Claire’s cellphone in hand, he flipped the main light switch and was not surprised to see the woman in the bedroom and the man asleep on the bench behind the kitchen table. The cat was gone.

He clicked open the last message from Pharmacy and typed I thought we were meeting?

He set the phone on the nightstand and grabbed the comforter blanket from the bed he hadn’t used and cocooned himself next to the Winnebago Indian Motorhome by Tonka, careful not to disturb the sleeping man and woman. For hours his eyes remained pinned, trying to catch movement in the lifeless toys before he finally drifted off.

—

Josh blinked at the light overhead and rolled to his left. He picked up his phone to find more messages from Claire’s mother. He then picked up Claire’s phone to find the same, but also one from Pharmacy: I’m so happy you’re out of the hospital, can I tell people at the conference, we’re all so worried. Second message: And baby if you’re up for a visit I’m more than willing to oblige. The third message was a picture of an average-sized, white, upward-hooking erection. Fourth message: Baby? Fifth message: Claire?

Josh typed How about tonight in my room?

Pharmacy replied immediately: I called the hospital when I didn’t get a reply. I understand this looks bad but please respect our privacy and space.

As if a sour taste suddenly invaded his entire face, Josh vibrated and twisted his head backwards to escape the sensation. His eyes fell on the motorhome. The man was on the kitchen bench, while in the bedroom, the woman stretched out, legs in a V as a new man pumped into her.

A knock landed on the door and a voice said, “Housekeeping?”

Josh tried to shout the woman away but couldn’t form words—only his vowels were working. He slipped from the bed and unravelled the wrapped blanket. Across the stiff grey carpet, he crawled to the door, got to his knees as the housekeeper’s key card opened the mechanical lock.

“Ow!” Josh wailed and flopped his body against the opening door.

“Sorry. Sorry. I’ll come back in an hour. Sorry.”

He remained there, gathering himself until he heard tiny metallic pinging and an even smaller squeak. As far as he could tell, nothing moved in the motorhome, but…he crawled back to the bed and looked through the windows—the canopy had been closed. The woman was in the back with two babies held to her chest. The other man sat behind the steering wheel, he wore a captain’s hat and a matching white sailor’s suit. The husband stood a foot away. He wore a ball cap and a rumpled suit, looking as if a localized storm had drenched him, in his hand was a small leather suitcase, the tail of a plaid shirt jutting from a seam. The wee expression on his wee face was of sorrow and loss as he stared back at the motorhome that was once his.

“She took it from him and gave it to someone else,” Josh whined into his palms, pressed tight to his mouth. He couldn’t let her do it, he couldn’t.

—

No fog now, his mind was clear. He got to the hospital, stepping past three nurses who recognized him from the gossip mill, and into the room that his wife shared with three other patients. The curtain circled Claire’s bed, so they’d checked off one step for him. He unplugged the heart monitor attached to her finger, silencing the beeps of her heartbeat. He then yanked the pillow out from behind her head.

Her eyes opened and her lips smacked. She blinked at him. “Josh? Why are you here?”

He faltered, pillow clutched in his hands. “I’m not letting you take anything away from me. Not one damned thing.”

“It’s already done,” she whispered and smiled a mouth full of gold teeth. “And it feels good.”

Fury roared inside. Outside, Josh exhaled heavily through his nose and pushed the pillow against his wife’s suddenly sleeping face and kept tight a 300-count after the twitching muscles in her arms ceased their languid movements. He grabbed her hair and pulled her scalp forward to place the pillow behind her head. Not a word to anyone, he jetted from the hospital, jogged to his car, drove through the city, parked in the Radisson lot, and hurried up to his room, so focused that he saw nothing outside the narrow path he followed.

Claire’s cellphone in hand, he typed I HOPE YOU CAN SWIM! He grabbed the man in the sailor suit from the Winnebago and charged to the bathroom. The man sank into the great abyss of the hotel’s waterworks when Josh flushed the toilet.

“I hope you can swim!” he shouted and laughed. Licking his bottom lip, mouth open, eyes stretched wide, he ran back to the bed and wrenched the little babies from the woman’s arms—they were really snug in there—and took them to the microwave. He tossed them in and put twenty minutes on the timer. “Gonna be a warm one!” He laughed harder, his chin pressed to the top of his chest in the universal maniac expression. He grabbed the woman and looked around the room. Back and forth, his head jerked until he saw what he needed. He unwrapped a water cup and wound the plastic over the woman’s face. “This won’t hurt, you’re already dead.” As he set the woman on the bed, plastic around her head like a mummy wrap, someone knocked on the door.

“Mr. Dolan, are you in there?” the voice was mannish, deep, and for some reason Josh thought it sounded as if it came from behind a moustache.

He quietly crossed the room and checked the peephole. Two cops, both big, fat men—sans moustaches—and a small man in a Radisson button-up stood in the hallway. Josh flipped the U-lock over the ball and backed away. His plan had no more steps, but this wasn’t how it was supposed to end.

“Mr. Dolan? Open this door.”

The electronic key card beeped and the door pushed open an inch and a half. “He’s in there if that lock’s engaged, right?” a voice said, heavy mannish, but not the same one who’d said Josh’s surname.

Josh began breathing fast, faster.

“Josh Dolan, open this door! We need to talk to you about your wife!”

Faster, faster, hyperventilating.

“I can get it open,” the man from the desk said, his voice was TV show host smooth. “Just take a card like this and close the door a smidge.”

The door moved a hair and a card wiggled against the U part of the lock. The door closed more.

Josh stopped breathing, grabbed the Winnebago Indian Motorhome by Tonka and set it on the floor.

The arm of the U-lock swung, freeing the ball end.

Josh picked up the little man who’d lost it all, tilted his head back, and dropped him down his throat. He fell to his hands and knees, pressing his face hard against the open roof of the motorhome as the door burst open.

The cops charged in, both had hands on their gun holsters. “Where is he?” one said. “Not in the bathroom,” the other said. “Maybe under one of the beds?” the concierge said.

They checked everywhere and decided the U-lock must’ve engaged accidentally.

—

Shauna Amry grinned from ear-to-ear as she stood by the storage unit with the others picking up their winnings from the online police auction. She scored an amazing Winnebago Indian Motorhome by Tonka for twenty bucks, and if it was half as nice as the pictures suggested, she might just flip her lid. Her thirteen-year-old niece had recently gotten right into retro toys—she had a four-foot dollhouse, a horse track, a few cars, a tractor, and the better part of a train set.

The door went up and the three officers got to doling out seized prizes.

An hour after that, Becky Amry was bouncing on her heels, shouting, “O-M-G! O-M-G! It’s amazing!” In her bedroom after supper, she plucked the little man from behind the wheel and a slip of paper fell onto the driveway she’d painted on the dollhouse platform. She picked it up and turned to let the light fall on it directly. “Help I’m stuck in here.” She scrunched her face and set the little sheet aside. “Weird.”

Shauna came up to kiss Becky goodbye. “I’m so glad you like it.”

“I love it,” Becky said.

Becky’s mother shouted from down the hall, “Bedtime!”

Shauna smiled, patted the girl’s dark brown hair, and headed for the door. “Goodnight, sleep tight.”

Becky finished, “Don’t let the bedbugs bite.”

—

The room was dark and the house was quiet as quiet got, which wasn’t very quiet, not since he’d changed. Everything was loud, but he understood the types of loud and saw this as his best chance.

Josh Dolan climbed down the bevelled leg of the table and sprinted from shadow to shadow. He grunted and sweated as he pulled and kicked his way up the dangling bit of duvet hanging from the little girl’s bed. Leaned on his knees, back bent, he caught his breath. It was better that he hadn’t gone to prison, but it had been a long six months trapped in the Winnebago, that toy.

Ready, he continued on, weaving over and under the girl’s splayed and bent arms and up onto her pillow. “Sorry,” he said and wiggled in between her lips.

Becky jerked upright, gagging as the little man that came with the motorhome travelled down, down, down. Her stomach clenched and she ached, hands pressed tight at her bellybutton. She moaned and rolled to the floor. She felt her body slipping, changing…shrinking, but then the pain shifted.

She began gagging anew.

Something was coming, something hard and painful.

She convulsed on three dry heaves before the little toy clanked plastically on the hardwood floor. It was a little brown girl—a tiny facsimile of the body Josh Dolan now occupied. He picked her up and started down the hall, stopping at the first open door. He found a light switch and spotted exactly what he sought. He—no—she lifted the toilet seat and dropped the little girl toy in. Josh cum Becky whispered, “Sorry. I hope you can swim.”

XX