Tub Toys by C.L.Hernandez

I am thrilled to have had so many stories from C.L. Hernandez as part of this project!

Tub Toys

“I think she might have to get drownded,” Casey said to her toys.

The water in the tub was cool; the bubbles had long dispersed. Six-year-old Casey sat dripping, knees to chest, and her curly blonde hair clung to her head in a wet mass. Her bath toys sat lined up along the edge of the tub in an orderly fashion, gazing back at the little girl with their painted-on eyes. Water dripped from the plastic feet of a slender doll with a shock of impossibly orange hair. The blonde child liked the sound it made when the drops hit the water in the tub.

A pudgy bald clown with pink shoes sat next to a rubber comic book hero with a missing arm. The tub toys smelled like soap and mildew, and their once bright paint was faded and cracked, but Casey still loved them. They had to stay in the bathroom though, Mommy said so. The child’s smooth brow creased as she remembered this.

She didn’t like Mommy much. Her Real Mommy wouldn’t have minded if Casey took the soap- scummy toys out of the bathroom. Real Mommy had been nice and always smelled like baby powder and cookies, but she had to go to Heaven to help the angels. That’s what Daddy said, anyway. Then he

married Deanna, and made Casey call her Mommy instead. It wasn’t fair. Deanna was stupid, and her butt was fat. She was full of dumb rules and stupid chores, and she called Daddy names sometimes.

Casey’s pudgy hands curled into small, tight fists, and she held them close to her body under the cool water. Tiny white teeth clenched together, hard, and she drew in a deep, quivering breath. A bottle of yellow baby shampoo slid to the edge of the tub all by itself. It splashed into the water and floated like a dead plastic fish. The little girl swiped at her runny nose and watched it bob up and down. “Yep,” she said to her toys. “Drownded.”

“Casey! Get out of the damn tub!” Deanna Lucas glared at the ceiling, and rolled her lips into her mouth. That damn kid was doing it again. With an irritated huff, she poured the last of the wine into her glass. “Forty-five minutes,” she said against the rim of her wine glass. “She’s been in that tub for forty- five minutes, Steven. Are you going to talk to your kid? Because she sure won’t listen to me.”

Steven rolled his head from shoulder to shoulder as he blew out a long breath and observed his wife. “She’s a kid, Dee. Let her have fun. What’s the worst that could happen? Wrinkly fingers? A bath tub ring?”

His wife’s icy blue stare told him there were far worse consequences in store. Deanna’s pink-and- white acrylic nails tapped an impatient tattoo against her wine glass, and she lifted an elegantly groomed eyebrow, an action even more irritating than her voice.

The legs of his chair scraped the floor with an anguished sounding squawk when Steven stood up, and he swallowed down the acerbic words that wanted to form on his tongue. His hand gripped the newel post hard enough to make his fingers hurt, but he managed to keep the agitation out of his voice as he called up to his daughter. “Casey, get out of the tub, kid. You’ve been in there long enough.”

Casey watched the shampoo bottle as it floated on the surface of the soap-clouded water. This was the second time today something weird like this had happened. She was in her room earlier, sulking and angry with Mommy for making her eat yucky salad for lunch. Her hair brush had lifted itself from the dresser and flown across the room like a bristly blue rocket. She had been surprised and a little thrilled, but she hadn’t been afraid.

She picked up the shampoo bottle and set it back on the edge of the tub, then pulled the rubber stopper from the drain. “Okay, Daddy,” she called back.

Her solemn blue eyes regarded the tub toys, lined up in a row next to the shampoo: the wild- haired doll, the portly clown, the one-armed comic book hero. “I command you.” The little girl’s voice was barely above a whisper, yet still full of authority. “I command you to make Mommy get drownded!” When the orange-haired doll turned its head, it made a low, rubbery, squeaky sound, like when Daddy squeegeed the car’s windshield. The painted-on eyes gazed sightlessly at the little girl for a moment, and the molded lips curved into something resembling a smile.

Casey snatched a bath towel from the rack as she leaped from the tub, and she ran, naked and dripping, down the hall to her room.

“My tub toys are alive,” Casey said against her Daddy’s neck when he came into her room for a good night hug, “I saw it. My dolly moved. She smiled at me.”

“Oh wow!” Steven feigned extreme interest as he smoothed his daughter’s still damp hair away from her forehead and pressed a kiss there. “That’s kinda’ weird. Were you scared?”

She shook her head against the floral print pillow case. “Nope,” she said, then in a whisper, added, “They don’t like Mommy though. They don’t like staying in the bathroom.”

“I know honey, but they’re all full of water and mildew. They have to stay in the bathroom. You know the rules.”

The blonde child’s sigh was one of utter despair, but she nodded and agreed. She would do it because Daddy said so. “Okay, Daddy.” She hugged her father tightly around his neck and breathed in his Daddy smell: cigarettes, and coffee, and aftershave.

Mommy came in next, but her hug was loose and perfunctory, her kiss a cold little pebble against Casey’s cheek. “She feels warm, Steven,” she said, as if Casey wasn’t there at all. “She’s probably getting sick. Great.”

“No, Mommy. I feel okay,” the little girl lied. She had felt yucky all day, and her throat was starting to hurt, but Mommy always got mad at her when she was sick.

“You suck,” Casey said in the dim glow of her night light after her parents left the room. The hair brush spun once in a lazy circle on the dresser, then came to a stop.

Ice cubes rattled downstairs as Deanna refilled her wine glass from a fresh bottle of Chablis. The harsh fluorescent light in the kitchen highlighted the two-inch brown roots in her limp blonde hair. Her lipstick was smeared down her chin, and she struggled to form coherent words. “Thank God she goes back to school tomorrow! I don’t know why you won’t let me discipline her, Steven! Your kid is a brat! A horrid little brat!”

A puff of dust rose from the arm of the couch when Steven slammed his hand down. His other hand made angry stabbing motions as he butted his cigarette in the ashtray. “Enough, Dee.” His jaw tightened as he struggled with his composure, and he ran a hand through his salt-and-pepper hair. “Don’t talk about her like that anymore. The kid lost her mother, for God’s sake. It’s only normal for her to act up now and then. She’s a good kid.”

Deanna flopped onto the couch beside her husband and drained her wine glass in three large gulps before letting it fall to the carpet. “I shoulda’ never married you.” She puffed out her bottom lip and went into an intoxicated sulk. She muttered something else, unintelligible, and her eyes drifted shut. A moment later she was snoring lustily, passed out for the night.

I could say the same about you. Despite Deanna’s unconsciousness, Steven didn’t dare say the words out loud. He stood and stared down at the woman he had so hastily married after Lorna’s death. It seemed like a good idea at the time. They had both been lonely, and Casey needed a mother figure in her life, right?

We all make mistakes, he reminded himself. Grief does weird shit to people, I suppose. He considered covering her with the Afghan that hung over the back of the couch, then dismissed the idea. Screw it. Let her be cold. Steven turned out the light and went upstairs to the bedroom.

Casey lay on her side in the darkness, grateful that Daddy and Mommy were no longer yelling at each other. She heard Daddy coming up the stairs by himself. Mommy must be sleeping on the couch again. Poor Daddy. She closed her eyes tightly right before he peered into her room to check on her; she didn’t want to get in trouble for still being awake. Daddy went into his room and closed the door. Casey screwed her face into the pillow and tried to go to sleep. Maybe she would feel better in the morning.

The little girl was coasting in that pleasantly fuzzy grey area between sleep and wakefulness when she heard the rattle of the doorknob, followed by the creak of the door itself as it opened a crack. Sleep flew away like a frightened bird. Casey sat up and peered into the darkness. “Daddy?”

She saw the gentle glow of the night light in the hall shining through the partly opened door, but there was no comforting Daddy-shadow standing in the doorway. Something scurried across the carpet. Brisk, tiny little footsteps headed towards her bed, and when Casey looked down at the floor, she caught a flash of curly orange synthetic hair.

Her tub dolly was standing there beside her bed, looking up at her with its big blue eyes.

She was sure she was dreaming. She always had weird dreams when she was sick, but she spoke to her doll anyway. “Go to sleep. And you’re not s’posed to be out of the tub. Mommy will be mad.” Dreaming or not, Casey wasn’t afraid; she knew her dolly would never hurt her.

The fat rubber clown followed the orange-haired dolly into the room, and Casey heard the splashy sound of the bathwater trapped in his huge, hollow head. “You go to sleep too,” she told the clown. “I’ll play with you all tomorrow.”

***

“A hundred and one,” Daddy said as he looked at the thermometer. “Looks like you’ll be staying home today, little girl.” He reached down and brushed the damp curls off Casey’s forehead. “Mommy will take care of you while I’m at work, and I’ll bring you a surprise when I come home, okay?” He pressed a glass of juice into her hand and tucked the blankets around her small body.

“Okay, Daddy.” She sipped the juice and winced when it burned her raw throat. “My tub toys can walk around all by their selfs,” she added. “I saw them in here last night.”

“Really? All by themselves?” Steven kept his voice light for the sake of the child, but his face darkened in concern. He knew that high fevers could evoke hallucinations in children; it was a fairly common occurrence, but it frightened him just the same. “Sometimes when little girls and boys get sick, it makes them have funny dreams,” he said. “They seem real, but it’s just your mind playing tricks. Your tub toys can’t really—”

“I found the baby aspirin.” Deanna appeared in the doorway and shook the plastic bottle in her hand; tiny pink tablets rattled. “I guess I’ll have to cancel my nail appointment.” She tossed the bottle to Steven and left the room, her exaggerated sigh trailing over her shoulder.

Tears stung Casey’s eyes, and Daddy’s face blurred and doubled. “She’s mad. I’m sorry, Daddy.”

“No need to be sorry.” He bent over and placed a kiss on her heated forehead. “It’s not your fault. You just rest up, okay? I’ll be home before you know it.” He glared at the doorway where Deanna had been standing. Already he could hear ice cubes rattling downstairs. “I’ll try to come home early, okay?”

“Hope so, Daddy.” Casey closed her eyes, hoping she would just sleep the day away.

Carrying the bottle of wine, the can of scouring powder, the toilet brush, and the sponge up the stairs without dropping any of them was a bit of a challenge, but Deanna managed to do it. She surveyed the small bathroom as she drank directly from the bottle. It didn’t look too bad, except for the ring around the tub.

“Damn kid,” she muttered aloud as she pulled on yellow rubber gloves and scooped up Casey’s collection of scummy toys. She dumped them onto the rumpled bathmat and entertained the notion of

going a step further and just tossing them into the trash. No, better not. The brat will just whine, then Steven will bitch about it. Not worth it.

She held up a rubber doll by its frizzy orange hair and scowled at it menacingly. God, this is an ugly thing. Damn kid’s got dozens of expensive toys, but she wants to play with cheap crap like this. She dropped the doll, gave the tub a clumsy sprinkle of scouring powder, and wielded her sponge with aggressive, agitated swipes.

A wet hand planted itself in the middle of her back and shoved hard. Deanna pitched forward into the tub, and her head connected smartly with the green porcelain.

“Casey? What the hell are you doing—”

More hands, huge and incredibly strong, scrabbled at her shoulders and throat, and her nose filled with an enormous stench of mildew.

Casey opened her eyes. The chalky orange taste of the baby aspirin still coated her tongue, and her head still buzzed and throbbed with fever. Something had woken her up: a weird, gurgling noise, a lot of thumps and bumps, and the sound of the water running full blast in the tub. She rolled over on her other side. From her bed, she could see across the hall to the upstairs bathroom where the noises were coming from.

What the heck was Mommy doing?

The bathroom door was only open a little way; all she could see were Mommy’s legs. They were kicking really fast, and one of her shoes was gone, and she was making scary gargling noises, like Daddy did when he used the mouthwash. One of her kicking feet hit the bathroom door and it flew open the rest of the way. Now she could see what was happening to Mommy.

“Dolly?” Casey’s voice was a raspy squeak as she lifted her head from the pillow.

Her tub dolly was huge, almost as big as Daddy, and she didn’t look cute anymore. Her smile was ugly and filled with long white teeth, like the vampire on a scary movie she watched on TV once. Dolly’s orange hair moved and wriggled like a nest of snakes, and she made a strange laughing sound as she held Mommy’s head under the running water.

Mommy was getting drownded.

Casey pulled her blankets over her head and closed her eyes as tightly as she could. It’s a sickness dream, like Daddy said, she told herself. My tub toys can’t really get big and scary and make Mommy get drownded! They can’t REALLY! She clamped her hands over her ears so she couldn’t hear the gargling, splashy noises anymore. I won’t be afraid because it’s not real, just like Daddy says. It’s just a sickness dream.

After a while—it seemed like forever—she didn’t hear the scary sounds anymore, just the tick-tock of the big clock at the foot of the stairs.

***

After they put Mommy in the ground, Casey sat in the back seat of the car waiting for Daddy to finish talking to Uncle David. She thought the two of them looked very handsome in their black suits, and she was very proud of her new black dress and shiny black shoes. She even had a little black purse with a silver zipper. Her tub dolly was inside the purse, and Casey took her out to look at her while the grown- ups talked beside the car. The window was open a crack, and she listened to their conversation while she idly toyed with the dolly’s orange hair.

“I guess I really shouldn’t be surprised,” Steven said to his brother as he watched the rest of the mourners return to their cars and switch on their headlights. “I mean, she was drunk after all, but—damn. Talk about a freak accident!”

“What happened, exactly?” David asked, keeping his voice respectfully low, “I really didn’t get the whole story.”

Steven glanced at Casey as she sat in the back seat playing with her doll. “The coroner says that she probably slipped and hit her head on the bathtub while she was cleaning it and was knocked unconscious. She had the water running, and…well…I guess when she fell, her nose and mouth were right under the faucet. She drowned, basically. Casey was home sick that day. Thank God she was asleep when it happened. She never saw a thing.”

It always sucked when grown-ups wanted to talk; they took forever sometimes. Casey kicked her feet up and down as they dangled over the edge of the back seat. She liked the way her new shoes shone in the sunlight coming in through the window. She jumped a little and gasped softly when she heard that low rubbery squeak again, that squeegee sound, and she looked down at the orange-haired doll in her lap. Its head turned slowly on its slender neck, one faded blue eye dropped into a mischievous wink, and the molded lips curved into something resembling a smile.

Bio:

C.L. Hernandez is a literary cryptid who has been occasionally spotted lurking

somewhere in central California.

She was once a multi-published author of unusual horror novellas and short story

collections and has been featured in several anthologies. Sadly, most of her work is no longer in

print.

After a long hiatus, she is clawing her way back to her writing desk and hoping for a

successful comeback.