Greenie's Arc

Chapter 2 of 5

The serger had run for six hours when Greenie heard the scrape outside the loading door. He climbed off the cutting table and pressed his ear to the metal. Something heavy was breathing on the other side. It shifted, and a nail popped out of the doorframe. Jordin froze at the machine. Sawyer set down a bobbin. Greenie opened the catalog to a fresh page and wrote: something is at the door. Do not stop the noise. He tore the page out and gave it to Jordin. Then he slipped through the gap in the wall where the bricks had crumbled, so whatever it was would follow him and not the sewing. In the alley he saw the boy. Maybe eight years old, barefoot, in a hospital gown gone gray at the hem. Steam rose off his shoulders in the cold. When he turned his head, a trash can lid two feet away lifted an inch and dropped. Greenie had heard the rumors from Sawyer weeks ago. A doctor. A basement. Children changed into something that could bend metal by being afraid. Greenie went stiff the way he always did now. Then he made himself move. He waddled into the middle of the alley where the boy could see him and pointed down the street, away from the factory, toward the glow of the convenience store sign three blocks off. The boy followed. Greenie kept ten feet ahead. Every time the boy's breath quickened, a bottle rolled or a fence rattled, and Greenie stopped and waited until the shaking stopped. It took twenty minutes to cover three blocks. The green and orange awning came into view, the window full of plush copies of Greenie himself, grinning behind glass. Greenie tapped the door with his hat. CeeJay Ahuja opened it in pajamas. He was the shopkeeper's son, eight years old, and he slept in the back room some nights to guard the display from the thief who kept leaving upside-down price tags. He looked at Greenie. He looked at the boy behind Greenie, at the steam, at the bare feet. He did not scream. "He's cold," CeeJay said. Greenie wrote on his page: he breaks things when he's scared. Do not touch him fast. CeeJay nodded once. He went to the shelf and pulled down a folded pink and cream blanket from the baby aisle. He walked slow. He set it on the floor between them and stepped back. "It's soft," he said. "You can have it." The boy sat down on the tile and pulled the blanket into his lap. The steam thinned. A candy rack that had been trembling went still. CeeJay looked at Greenie. "I'll keep him till morning. My dad won't come down till six." Greenie wrote one word and left it on the counter: thank you. Then he walked back toward the factory, where two hundred and nine empty bodies still waited for eyes.