Episode Details

Long Jawby Manw2FacesI was running as fast as I could, but I knew it was gaining on me. I swear it was trying to step in every puddle so I knew it was running faster. I turned my head to where I could see it. Its arms were limp as they swung back and forth in front of its torso, its disjointed jaw bounced up and down, making an uneasy chattering sound, and its plastic-like face was splattered with mud. How could I have ever let this happen?It all started when my dad came home from work an hour late. Being the realist that I was, I figured he stopped for groceries or something. I guess I was half right when he came in carrying a box about a human child’s size.“You mind helping me with this, James?” he asked.As I went to help him carry the box, I got a much closer look at it. It looked like an antique. The box was made of a very smooth decorative wood and the edges of the opening were made of reddish metal. After we placed the box on the coffee table in the living room, I asked Dad, “What’s in the box?”“It’s a surprise for your birthday tomorrow,” he replied.“How much did this cost!?”“That doesn’t matter. You shouldn’t worry about that.”Expensive. Ever since my mom died, Dad would always buy me far too expensive presents, mostly stuff I don’t need. I really wanted a new mattress for my room. Mine feels like a pile of rocks, and I find it hard to sleep at night because of this. I was still thankful for whatever was in the box, of course, but I have to admit that the thing I was looking forward to most tomorrow was my friends coming over to hang out.That night, when I was lying in bed trying to sleep, I heard a slight tapping coming from somewhere outside of my room. It stopped as quickly as it started, so I overlooked it. I continued lying in bed trying to sleep.Giving up, I turned on my phone to see that I had been trying to sleep for a little over an hour. In about forty-five minutes, it would be my birthday.I began to hear the tapping again. It wasn’t loud enough to wake anyone up, but it was certainly annoying. Unlike the first time I heard it, this time, it didn’t stop, a continuous tap that felt like it was digging into my brain. Eventually, enough was enough, and I crawled out of bed and left my bedroom. I followed the tapping around the house, soon being led to the box sitting on the coffee table in the living room. I sat on the couch and the tapping continued. Not being able to hold back, I began to open the box.I woke up from Dad nudging my head with his foot. I sat up and looked around to see that I had slept on the floor outside the living room. “What are you doing down there?” Dad asked.“I don’t know, I…” I couldn’t finish my sentence as I saw the box laying on the coffee table. That’s when I remembered opening it and seeing two deep brown eyes on a beastly-looking doll that slightly resembled a dog. “What’s in the box?”“That’s why you were sleeping on the floor?” Dad asked me. “Go on and look inside, it's your birthday now.”I stood up and slowly walked toward the box. I opened it to see not a dog, but a ventriloquist dummy, the only resemblance to the doll I had seen last night being eyes. The dummy had bright red lips, cheeks as big as its nose, and dark brown hair made of the same material that the rest of its head was. The bottom jaw was oddly missing from the head, but I did find it under the dummy’s body, which was wearing nothing, with only its bare fabric body. Its plastic head and hands looked like they were held on by tape. The bottom jaw had a big red lip to finish the dummy’s smile and the string that I would pull to open and close its mouth was the same string that held the bottom jaw to the rest of the head. I slipped the string through a hole under the top jaw where I could grab it behind the back