From: hebert@ucbeh.san.uc.edu (Matt Hebert)
Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn
Subject: [VampQ] Tales by the Campfire: Matte's Halloween Offering
Message-ID: <1993Oct19.212855.4909@ucbeh>
Date: 19 Oct 93 21:28:55 EDT

==============================================================================

[ADMIN: Another installment of the distraction

                        [VampQ] Tales by the Campfire

   This one was written by:

                        Bret Rudnick   (Tomonobu Fujiwara)
                                    and
                        Matt Hebert    (Matte Kudasai)

   Synopsis: En route on their quest, some odd tales are being shared around
   the fire.  Tomonobu has just finished an engrossing rendition of his
   _Fox Fire_ tale for Matte, and she returns the favor.  This is only an
   aside, and is not integral to the [VampQ] thread.

   _A Child's Nightmare_ is copyright 1993 by Matt Hebert.  It was originally
   written in some unidentifiable gibberish, and later translated into English
   with some help from Bret Rudnick.]

==============================================================================

    As Tomonobu finished his fantastic tale of woodland spirits, Matte
suddenly realized her mouth had fallen open and she risked catching some of
the fat moths which were darting around the fire.  Quickly coming back to
herself, she attempted to cover for her embarrassing lack of grace.  She
coughed and pressed a hand to her still bruised chest.

    "Wow.  That's a marvelous tale.  I've never had much to do with nature
spirits.  I guess I'm too urban or something.  I've never had a chance to
spend much time in the natural wilderness.  But ever since I was a child, I've
been fascinated by wild creatures and the forces that bind them.  It's not a
very widely documented area of study, though, and I've always felt a little
intimidated by it.  I guess I specialize in the forces associated with the
humanoid races."

    She adjusted the contents of her pipe and pulled a long draw from it.  A
clumsy, unstable smoke ring floated toward the fire as she exhaled.

    "But I've found plenty of fascinating things among the cultured races. 
Some incidents, in fact, were a bit more than fascinating.  I still get bad
dreams about them sometimes."

    "Don't worry, Little One," Tomonobu said quietly.  "Bad dreams are only
dreams.  It's the monstrous things _you_ run into that make me nervous."

    The young lady smiled at the ground.  "I can't thank all of you enough for
saving my life."  She blushed a little as the handsome warrior smiled back in
return when she finally raised her face from her hairy, bare feet.

    She hurried on with the conversation, and she threw herself into her
story, leaning on her professional strength.  "One event that got me
especially rattled happened early in my career, just after I started to
exorcise for a living."


                             A Child's Nightmare

    When I was young, I had a friend; a little girl who lived in my building. 
We were quite close and shared all of our secrets with each other.  Her name
was Bonnie, and she was a very friendly and energetic child.  Bonnie lived
with her mother; her father did not live with them and she never spoke about
him.  Neither did I ever ask her about him, though I often wondered what had
happened.

    Of course I was dying from curiosity about it, but this was the only
subject that made Bonnie go quiet.  When some store clerk or lady at church
would mention fathers, Bonnie's face would turn sallow and she would stand
perfectly still.  Her eyes seemed to focus on something beyond our perception,
and she appeared on the verge of terror.  It was obvious to me, though I was
only a child, that this subject was much less important than my friend's
happiness, and I never pursued the topic as long as I knew her.

    As often happens between childhood friends, Bonnie and I lost touch over
the years.  But one day after I had moved away from my parents and was out on
my own, I ran into Bonnie at the market.  We were both very excited, and we
hugged each other tightly.

    "I can't believe it's you!  What have you been doing, how have you been!" 
The questions poured out from each of us, and it was several minutes before
our excitement abated to a point where we could sit down and actually hear
what the other was saying.  We were overjoyed at seeing each other again, and,
since there was obviously a lot to catch up on, we decided to go have lunch at
a small shop near the market, abandoning our other plans for the day.

    Among other things, I discovered that Bonnie was now a single parent.  She
had a young son named Kyle, and the two of them lived in a small set of rooms
over a busy store, not at all far from where the two of us had grown up.

    When I told her that I was now in the "boogie business," as she put it,
she laughed loudly and made several joking comments.  But beneath her
amusement I sensed an uneasiness, an unaccountable concern, even a dread. 
Shortly after I disclosed my occupation, she seemed to suddenly remember an
important appointment and hurried out of the cafe.  Her abrupt departure left
me at a loss.  Fortunately, however, she had already told me where she and her
son were currently living, so I decided to pay her visit soon.

    But two days later, before I was able to stop by and see them, Bonnie
arrived at my flat unannounced.  I was extremely glad to see her, but she
didn't smile or share my good humor.  I invited her to sit down and talk to me
for a moment.  She tacitly accepted and began to stare out the window, still
without showing any signs of warmth or happiness.

    Eventually, she told me that Kyle had been having nightmares.  Of course,
she had consulted several doctors in town, but none of them could prevent the
dreams.  In fact, most of them failed to see the situation as a matter for
concern at all.  "Oh, I expect they'll pass eventually," the doctor would say,
and he would lightly pat Bonnie on the bottom and send her on her way.

    But they didn't pass.  They had been going on for over a month now, and
Kyle had discontinued his studies because of them.  He remained home all day,
and when he spoke coherently, all he could talk about were the visits he had
received from "Tommy."

    Bonnie told me that she was becoming desperate and hoped that somehow I
could help.  Not at all sure that I could assist in a case like this, I asked
her to describe what had happened.  After taking some moments to calm herself
and collect her thoughts, she continued, providing some sketchy information.

    Kyle seemed to be in a trance for the last two weeks.  During the day, he
would sit in the house or outside on the steps in a blank, vacant state.  More
and more frequently during the night, however, he would wake up from a
nightmare, screaming.  As Bonnie bolted awake out of dreams of her own,
troubled sympathetically by the nightmares of her son, she would rush into her
son's bedroom.

    There she would find him murmuring to himself nonsensically, and soaked in
a cold sweat.  Bonnie would rock him and press him to her breast, murmuring
consoling nonsense of her own.  But as the days passed, her comfort was less
and less helpful, and his normal, happy nature was less and less evident.

    Concerned for Bonnie's well-being, as well as for that of her son, I
pressed her about this nonsense that Kyle spoke after waking from his
nightmare.  I asked her to tell me more about "Tommy."

    Apparently, Kyle's nightmares revolved around a character who called
himself "Tommy Dockin."  The little boy told about how Tommy would wait under
his bed or in his closet until his mother had put out the light and left the
room.  In the darkness, Tommy would speak to him about how evil Kyle had been.

    Tommy knew about the time Kyle tied his white mouse's tail to a toy boat,
which was then set adrift, burning.  He knew about the time Kyle peeked
through the keyhole at his mother and a man naked in bed together.  Kyle
related these and other things to his mother absently, as if he were simply
thinking aloud, and seemed to feel fear or concern only from his memory of
Tommy Dockin and not from any punishment by his mother.

    Early on, Bonnie had told Kyle to try not to listen to Tommy when he
spoke.  She knew he was a good boy, and even if he had done some unkind
things, they were not worth torturing himself over.  Kyle agreed to try this
after the first few nights, but Tommy Dockin's voice would not be silenced so
easily.

    As Kyle tried the tricks his mother suggested, Tommy's comments and his
raspy, clotted voice initially faded.  But this only brought about a worse
situation.  Tommy now apparently crept to the entrance of the closet to speak
through a slightly open door; or to the very edge of the area under the bed to
whisper up at him.  From there, the creature's voice was stronger, and Kyle
was forced to try harder to ignore it.

    The increasingly powerful voice caused an increasingly negative effect on
poor Kyle.  He slipped further and further from the real world, though his
mother was sure he was still trying to drown out Tommy Dockin's voice.

    In the small hours of the morning, that very day Bonnie visited me, Kyle
again woke his mother with a shriek.  But when she went in to comfort the
child, she noticed that his ear was bleeding slightly.  It was just a small
cut, and could have happened in any number of ways.  She patched it up, and it
did not seem to bother the child very much.

    But a comment Kyle made in his ramblings that morning caused Bonnie's ever
increasing fear to burst the bounds of her sanity.  Kyle mentioned something
about Tommy now whispering things directly into his ear and promising to eat
him because he was a bad child, the product of a bad family.

    I was horrified by what I had heard from my old friend.  She had suggested
something on a level I had never encountered before.  My experience with
spirits had, until then, been confined to hauntings and poltergeists.  The
thought of some creature stalking a small child, torturing it every night, was
more than I had ever expected to deal with.

    But the pleading look my friend gave me when she was through convinced me
to try.  It was with a mixture of reservation and professional excitement that
I met Bonnie at her home late that afternoon.

    When I arrived, I found that she was much stronger than she had been at my
flat earlier that day.  I was very heartened by this, and the thought occurred
to me that this whole affair might merely be the result of an overactive
imagination.  Quite often this is the case, and I chided myself for allowing
my emotional attachment to Bonnie affect my initial professional assessment.

    The tiny scab on Kyle's ear was hardly visible and certainly did not carry
the significance I had imagined earlier that day.  I sighed inside, partly
relieved and partly disappointed, thinking the whole affair would probably
come to nothing.  I nearly left my friend alone that night, sure that I was
not really needed.

    But when I was finally introduced to poor Kyle, whose confused expression
captured my heart, I saw a boy lost to his surroundings and to his mother.  He
was shut away in some box, either put there by his own sense of self-
preservation, or locked away by a supernatural creature for its own purposes. 
Upon seeing this, I was again convinced to help them, regardless if the cause
of their trouble was not in my field.

    That night, we set up a vigil outside the boy's room.  Bonnie had
discovered that waiting within the room caused the boy a great deal of anxiety
and he was unable to sleep at all.  We took turns sitting in the chair,
attentively concentrating on the space behind the door.  Kyle occasionally
groaned audibly, but Bonnie assured me that this was still not the sign that
Kyle was having his nightmare about Tommy.

    The small set of rooms was lit by only a few candles, since there was not
much money in the household.  I sat at my station, long since comfortable with
prolonged nighttime vigils, and looked at my old friend through the open
doorway to her room.  She slept in a rumpled ball on her bed, and the dim glow
from the main room lent hers the atmosphere of a tomb.  When we traded places,
no words were spoken.

    In the middle of her last watch, I brought her a cup of tea, smiling as
warmly as I could manage.  She accepted both the tea and the smile, offering a
weak imitation of a smile in return.  Her face as haggard and the lines etched
by the candlelight were deep and disturbing.  She was engaged in some personal
battle, which the lost time between us kept me from assisting in.

    As I sat close to her, hoping that another human presence might be of some
comfort at a time like this, an intense, shrill scream echoed from beyond the
boy's door.  We both reacted immediately, and the door to Kyle's room was
thrust open a moment after the scream began.  Bonnie, who was much taller than
I and who was in front of me holding the candle, halted abruptly in the
doorway, and a small sound of fear and grief escaped her.

    Aware that I may only have a moment to identify any trace of supernatural
presence, I forced my way past the boy's frozen mother to the open area of the
room.  What I saw chilled me to the bone.

     Kneeling as if in reverent prayer at the boy's bedside was a man with
wild, dark hair and baggy, mismatched clothes.  His back was to us and his
head was bent near the boy's face, which was turned away, a look of discomfort
and pain still distorting its features.

    "TOMMY DOCKIN!"  I put all the power I could summon into my voice, and
attempted to command the creature in the way I did other evil spirits.

    "RELEASE HIM AND FACE ME!"

    The creature's shoulders shuddered slightly at the sound of my voice, and
its wild hair shook as well.  Slowly it turned its head and peered at me over
its shoulder.  Its face was twisted and folded like the bark of an old tree
and was tinted vaguely green.  Its pale eyes were filled with both laughter
and hatred, and narrowed menacingly.  The bloody mouth and chin finally
allowed a smile to form, and from behind the puffy, red lips the glint of
polished iron shown.

    "Ha!  A pint of a person!  A flea has come to pester me!  Flee, flea, for
I have found a meal for me!"  A spray of blood flew from its mouth as it
repeated the labial sounds, and it chuckled to itself with a sound of
collected phlegm.

    I could see that, beyond the creature's horrible face, the face of the boy
was blood stained as well.  His ear was completely missing, and a portion of
his scalp had been eaten away also.  The boy stirred restlessly, but could not
wake.

    "THIS CHILD IS NOT YOURS TO FEED UPON, TOMMY DOCKIN!  RELEASE HIM TO ME!"

    A tiny giggle sputtered from the beast's lips, and another mist of blood
flew from his mouth.  "Oh my, yes, he _is_ mine, too!  He has been a bad boy,
bad enough for me!  I ate his grandpa and I ate his grandpa's grandpa!  Little
tot here is the tasty dessert of a long and tasty meal, and there's nothing
you can do to keep me from it!"

    With that, the beast turned back upon the boy suddenly, and opened its
mouth full of iron teeth wide.  Behind me, Bonnie shrieked loudly.

    Being only a step from the bedside, I quickly reached over and grabbed
creature by the hair, pulling its head back.  The pale eyes of the beast
stared up at me in disbelief as I used the knife I had drawn to slit the
creature's throat.

    It leapt up and danced insanely about the room.  Its hair and limbs flew
in all directions, and it began to intone a verse from a child's simple and
familiar song.

                            Be careful what you do
                          when no one's watching you;

                              Little Tommy Dockin
                              may come a-knockin'.


    Finally, the creature flopped on the ground at the foot of the bed. 
Breathing heavily with excitement and exertion, I slowly stepped toward it. 
Suddenly its eyes popped open and it laughed insanely, its horrible grin
displaying the blood of the child on its metal teeth.

    In a flash, it grasped the foot of the bedframe and pulled itself
underneath.  I immediately leapt to the floor after it, but as I lifted the
bedclothes high, I could see that there was nothing at all under the boy's
bed.


                            *          *          *