He threw the stuffed raccoon across the room. It impacted against the wall with a squeak before collapsing to the floor. Will ran a hand over his face. First a video playing scenes he didn't remember that couldn't be turned off and then a stuffed animal talking to him. He was losing his mind. That could be the only answer.
To his horror, Ricky Raccoon levered himself up onto his chubby legs. His head turned up so that the masked face looked squarely into Will's. "Please remain calm," the raccoon said in the raspy voice of a late night prank caller. "Let me explain."
"Explain? You can't talk. You can't walk either. You're not alive!"
"You're right: I'm not alive. Not in the sense you would understand. Or at least not here. It might help to think of me as an avatar."
"Yeah, that's great, I've got an avatar in my room," Will said as he slid away from the desk, towards the door. "Well, good luck with that."
He burst through the door, running towards the living room. As he picked up the phone, he stopped himself. Who could he call? The police would think he was making a prank call; if they sent a car it would be to lock him up. His mother's reaction would be only slightly less angry; she would only send him to her therapist. Maybe he could call Earl and ask him to get his dad's video camera so they could record the walking, talking stuffed raccoon. The avatar as it called itself.
Before he could dial the phone, he let out another scream. Ricky Raccoon stood by the telephone. "You don't have to be afraid of me. I'm not here to hurt you."
"I'm not afraid of you. You're made out of cotton and polyester. Probably made by some ten-year-old in China."
"You must listen to me, Will Denton. We don't have much time."
"Why's that? You going to turn back into a pumpkin at midnight?" Will looked around the living room for a weapon, but there were only the stack of videotapes, his mother's potted plant, and Carl. A goldfish wouldn't be much use against even a stuffed toy, though maybe if he broke the bowl, the glass—
Then Will saw what he needed: the duffel bag he had brought from his father's house. "So, um, what exactly are you doing here?" he asked, edging over towards the bag.
"I've come for your help. The Bloc is its most serious crisis. You're the only one—" Ricky didn't get the chance to finish as Will swept him into the open duffel bag. Will zipped the bag shut and then ran to the front door. He flung the bag as high as he could into the air. The duffel's shoulder strap caught a branch of the pine tree in the front yard. The bag hung suspended in the air like a bizarre piñata.
That was the end of that. Will settled onto the couch, but he couldn't bring himself to turn on the television. Instead, he watched Carl make leisurely circuits around the bowl until he fell asleep again.
#
He woke up later to the front door banging open. His mother came through the doorway, her face haggard and hair mussed as if she had stayed up all night. "Looks like you've been busy," she said as she tossed her keys into the bowl next to the door. "Didn't you get any sleep at your father's?"
"Sure, lots of sleep. I just thought I'd take a little break from studying. A little power nap."
"Did you at least manage to feed Carl before you took your power nap?"
"Yes."
"Good." She went into the kitchen, opening the freezer to inspect the box of waffles. Satisfied with this, she returned to the living room to begin what she thought was a covert sweep of the carpet for any offending crumbs. Will waited for her to turn up something, maybe a bit of Carl's food. She finally leaned down to kiss his cheek. "Did you have a good time?"
"It was fine," Will said, always trying to remain noncommittal so as to be neutral in the war between his parents.
The inquisition went on from there, with Will providing his usual answers. Once his mother was satisfied he and his father hadn't been smoking crack or buying prostitutes, Will asked, "How was work?"
"Exhausting." She went on to describe the painstaking process of turning over a four-hundred-pound man for a sponge bath. Then came the ordeal of dealing with an old man suffering from emphysema, who started hacking up blood. "Though this nice man did ask for my phone number—after he pinched my rear."
"Come on, Mom."
"What? I thought it was very flattering. Don't you think it's about time for your old mom to start looking for someone? Then you could have a stepfather."
"Great, just what I need."
She smoothed down his hair as if he were still five years old. "What are you going to do the rest of the day?"
"I've got to study. There's a test in geometry tomorrow."
"You'd better get to it then. Try not to take many more power naps."
"I won't." Will slithered from his mother's embrace to head back to his room.
Before he could get too far, she called out, "Could you get that bag off the tree in the front yard?"
"Yeah, sure." Will tried not to grumble under his breath as he trudged to the front door. The duffel bag still hung from the tree branch exactly as he left it. He considered finding his old baseball bat or the weed whacker from the garage or something to use as a weapon, but then reminded himself that would be acting paranoid. Stuffed animals couldn't talk or walk.
Plucking the duffel bag from the tree, he saw a gash in one side. The bag was empty.
#
Ricky Raccoon had vanished. Will searched the front yard, backyard, and even the garage for his old stuffed toy. The raccoon was nowhere to be found. Discreetly, Will looked around inside the house, everywhere except his mother's bedroom, where she dozed after her early shift. He decided an animal must have cut open the bag, that was all.
The rest of the day went by easily. Will settled at his desk, studying for the geometry test and writing the rough draft for a paper on the causes of World War I. Every few minutes he looked over his shoulder for the stuffed raccoon before reminding himself it had been a dream or delusion or something like that.
His mother picked up on his mood, saying to him over dinner, "Are you feeling all right?" She put a hand to his forehead and then clucked her tongue. "You don't feel warm. What were you and your father doing?"
"Nothing!"
"Don't shout at me, young man. Now hurry up and eat your dinner. I've got to be getting back to work."
"You're going back?"
"I've still got my shift." She patted his arm. "I couldn't turn down the overtime. Money's tight right now and it won't be too long before a certain son of mine goes to college."
"I know." That was three years off, but his mother was the type to plan ahead; she had begun saving the moment she learned she was pregnant with him.
She kissed him on the cheek again before sweeping up her purse and keys. "Don't stay up too late," she said, wagging a finger.
"I know." He had no intention of staying up late. With the day he'd had, a good night's sleep was all he wanted.
He made sure to lock the door before retreating to the bedroom. Then he checked the closet and under the bed as he'd used to ask Tom or his parents to do when he was a little kid. There was no sign of the malicious stuffed animal. Nevertheless, Will made sure to keep his baseball bat next to the nightstand.
Then he closed his eyes to go to sleep.
For the third time that day he was rudely awakened. This time by a blast of cold water into his face. Blinking open his eyes, he found himself looking back at the face of Ricky Raccoon, the stuffed animal's face looking demonic in the red glow of the digital alarm clock.
Will tried to move his arms to bat the raccoon away only to find they wouldn't move. Trying to move his legs met similar resistance. Even his mouth wouldn't work, a piece of tape stretched over it. Will made garbled noises from his throat, which Ricky seemed to understand.
"I'm not going to hurt you," the raccoon said. "I only needed to get your attention."
The raccoon's left arm moved, the mitten-like paw on the end of it touching something on his belt. Will was jerked roughly into a vertical position. He realized he had somehow been strapped to a metal device that resembled a bed frame. "Now perhaps you'll listen to me."
He touched another button on his belt. An image like that Will had seen on the television appeared in the air. "What you saw was not a film. It's real. My people are under attack. Our worlds are being destroyed one-by-one. Millions of lives have been lost, whole planets turned into deserts that won't grow anything for generations. All attempts at resistance have failed. That's why I've come for your help. Only you have the power to destroy them."
"Me?" Will said through the tape.
"That's right. You are one of the Creators, that gives you the power to destroy them. That's why I've come for you." The raccoon leaned forward, one hand reaching out to Will's mouth. "If I remove this, will you scream?" Will shook his head.
Ricky pulled back the tape. Will resisted the urge to scream and thus breaking his promise. "I don't understand," Will said. "What do you mean I'm the Creator? I'm not God. I don't even go to church!"
"The place I come from is called the Bloc of Planetary States. Do you remember it?"
Will stared at Ricky, his eyes going wide. He remembered.
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