by Christian A. Larsen
And you thought ventriloquist dummies were dummies.
It was awful dark in there, that steamer trunk. Willie’d been locked inside for so long, he could almost smell the yellow coming off the crinkled newspaper wads that held him in place. If he could smell. But he couldn’t. Not really. Not when there wasn’t a drunk or a kid or someone’s cracked old grandmother to terrorize, because when they exhaled that fear, brother, it was like giving old Willie mouth-to-mouth, seeping from those rabbit-quick heartbeats into his body, all the way from the hand-carved cowlick of his painted-on hair to the cotton batting in his shoes.
Willie loved that feeling.
