Kay Hanifen was born on a Friday the 13th and once lived for three months in a haunted castle. So, obviously, she had to become a horror writer. Her work has appeared in over forty anthologies and magazines. When she’s not consuming pop culture with the voraciousness of a vampire at a 24-hour blood bank, you can usually find her with her two black cats.
You can read more from Katharine right HERE.
THE TIME OUT ROOM
by
Katharine Hanifen
Joey isn’t a bad kid. He just…forgets, sometimes, to use his indoor voice and to stay in his seat and to think before doing anything that might get him hurt. But he’s a good brother. He’ll play dress-up and Barbies with me and will fight anyone who tries to make fun of my glasses. But he’s been different since daycare yesterday.
Mom and Dad both work, so during summer vacation, we have to spend all day at whatever daycare they can afford until we’re old enough to stay home by ourselves. This time, it’s Sid’s Summer Spectacular, a place that’s mostly for babies and toddlers, with a couple elementary schoolers whose parents also couldn’t afford anything better. It’s run by an old lady whose name is not Sid, so I don’t know why the camp is called that. But she scares me. Looking into her eyes feels like staring into a mirror that sees all the dirt, grime, and naughty things in your soul.
We’re the oldest kids there, so it’s boring, and when he gets bored, Joey gets in trouble. It’s not his fault. Mom says his brain is just a little bit different than most people’s. He started running laps around the play mat and pretending to be chased by a dinosaur. We’re not supposed to run and make a lot of noise, especially when the younger kids are napping, so the old lady sent him to the Time-Out Room. When kids are naughty, they’re taken to that room, and they come back…different. They only speak when spoken to and will do whatever the grown-ups tell them to do. Joey came out of the Time-Out Room quiet and far too still. He no longer fidgeted in his seat or talked without raising his hand or played with the rest of us. And worst of all, Mom and Dad don’t seem to care. Yesterday morning, they called her a miracle worker for making Joey well-behaved.
But I don’t think that’s the real Joey. When I was reading from the fairytale book I got for my birthday, I came across the story of the changeling. Fairies would sometimes steal human children and replace them with fairy children, and I think the old lady who runs the daycare is an evil fairy who stole the real Joey.
Unlike my brother, I’m well-behaved. I tell the truth, wait my turn, and always use my indoor voice. But to save him, I’d have to be a little bit naughty. This morning, I slipped some of Dad’s nails into my overalls pocket. When Mom and Dad leave, I start screaming and throwing a temper tantrum. The old lady’s eyes gleam as though she knows what I was doing, but she still sends me to the Time-Out Room.
It's dark and smells like earth and damp. Closing my eyes, I pull out the nails and hold them between my fingers. Something slithera in the shadows, the sound of scales scraping against the floor filling the air.
“What brings you here, child,” the creature hisses.
“I want you to give me my brother back.”
“But he’s already with you.”
“It’s not him,” I say through gritted teeth. “I want my real brother.”
“But this brother is so nice and well-behaved. Do you have any idea how much of a relief it is to your parents that he’s finally ‘mellowed out’?”
“I don’t care,” I snap, lunging at the serpent with the nails between my fingers and piercing the hard scales. It lets out an agonized wail, writhing and hitting the wall, sending debris crumbling onto the floor. “Where is my brother?” I repeat. “Give him back or I’ll stab you again.”
The serpent sighs and moved away from the far corner, revealing a small tunnel. On the other end is a cave with vine and root covered walls. A body shaped like Joey is bound in the roots, and I run to him, pulling off his binding. When he’s finally free, he slumps bonelessly to his knees and then begins to cry. I’ve never seen my brother cry like that before, and I never want to see him do it again.
And then I become angry at the serpent and the old lady. How many other kids has she trapped? I have no idea, but I need to do something to save them, so I rip off the roots that seemed to house another person. Joey helps me carry them while the serpent makes itself scarce. I’ve seen enough movies to know that just when the heroes think they’ve won, the monster comes back to cause trouble again. This time, the monster is the old lady. The door swings open with her backlit by fluorescent lights of the daycare. After so much time in a dark pit, the light feels like pouring battery acid into my eyes.
“I have cold iron, so you’d better let us go,” I say, pulling out the nails to prepare for the fight.
But none comes.
Instead, she steps aside. “You seem to be a clever girl. Killing you would be a waste. Now, go, please, before I change my mind.”
So, we push past her without looking back, with me, Joey, and the other kids we rescued running out the door as far and as far as we can before the police find us. But when they take us back to Sid’s Summer Spectacular, the old lady is gone…along with the rest of the children that she had not yet replaced.
I’m not sure where they went, but I swear, I see the old lady everywhere. She’s in crowds and grocery stores and restaurants. And every time she sees me, she winks like this is our secret. I just hope she won’t take anyone else.