"Morning, sweet-face."

Glen smiled up at his mother, but it was a weak smile. His eyes were bloodshot and sunken, the skin already greying around them. He often had trouble sleeping, and it was no surprise to Jennifer that he had slept fitfully all night. He coughed, his wiry frame shaking as he did so, his large, heavy head bobbing against the pillows. Jennifer stroked his hair and hugged him.

"Poor baby... you're ill... too ill to go to school."

"No, mummy," he whimpered, pausing to cough throatily. "I want to go..."

"No, I won't hear of it. You're going to stay here and get well."

"Um... Jennifer?" Neil shifted, embarrassed. "Are you sure? I mean, I can't take the day off..."

"That's alright. I'll stay with him." She took her phone from the coffee table and began dialling. "I'm gonna call your school and tell them you're not coming in, and then I'm going to call the people on set and tell them that I have more important things to do today." She smiled, bent over, and kissed Glen on the forehead. "You get some rest, sweetie."

"Oh... ok, mummy..." Glen wriggled further into the couch, pulling the blankets up around him. Neil followed Jennifer through to the kitchen, and leant quietly against the cool black granite surface of the kitchen counter, watching her as she spoke animatedly into the phone, securing both herself and her son the day off. Eventually, she hung up the phone and smiled at him. He smiled back, holding his arms out to her. She hugged him gratefully, burying her head in his shoulder.

"I wish I could stay here and look after the poor guy."

"It's ok, Neil. You don't have to feel bad."

"Even so... his sister runs away, and now this? The poor kid."

"I know..." Jennifer sniffed, stepping back and looking up at him, sniffing. "Glen's such a sensitive child... He's just as strong as Glenda, but... he has so much compassion... I don't want him to ever lose that. He can't ever lose his hope. Because then I'll lose mine..." Her eyes were sad, but she refused to cave to her emotions, giving her a sense of grim determination. She crossed to the cabinet, grabbing a tall, clean glass from the shelf and filling it with water. "I've been in a place before where I felt like I had no hope. And I'm not ever going back there. So we're going to wait for Glen to deal with these... "events"... in his own way. And then, when he's dealt with them, we'll figure out what's going to happen next." And with that, she returned to the living room, donning her best breezy smile for the drowsy Glen. Neil watched her go, lost in his own thoughts. Sometimes he got the feeling there was a lot more to her life than she would ever tell him.

He continued his thoughts, through saying goodbye to Glen and Jennifer, and through dialling his phone as he left the house. He was too busy to even consider that he was being watched. Yet, across the street, through binoculars, Glenda could see her mother's boyfriend clearly, and she could tell that there was something on his mind.

"He's leaving the house!" She called back to her father, who was leafing through one of the executive magazines he had found hidden in the couch caddy.

"How's he look?"

"Like a douche, as usual." Glenda replied, sipping from her milk. "He's on the phone to someone. He looks worried. And he keeps looking around like he's worried someone's going to overhear."

"Really?" Chucky looked up, moving swiftly over to Glenda and taking the binoculars from her. He saw Neil unlock the car and throw his briefcase to the passenger seat, and he could tell Glenda was right.

"That's a good eye, kid. See the way he keeps looking back at the house when he's not talking? That doesn't just mean he don't want to be overheard. That means he doesn't want a specific person to overhear." Chucky handed the binoculars back to Glenda as Neil drove off to work. "Looks like Neily-boy might just be keeping secrets from someone..." Chucky trailed off, stroking his chin. After a while, his eyes glinted, and his face twisted into a gleeful smile, a chuckle that sounded like gravel going through a card-shuffler emanated from his throat. "Hey kid, I know you want to see your mom suffer, but how would you feel about adding in a little psychological torment?"

Glenda stared at him blankly for a moment, before smiling.

"You mean, like, making her go crazy?"

"Well not quite to that extent, but essentially, yeah."

"How?"

"Ehh. I got some ideas." Chucky waved vaguely. He sat on the floor, staring out the window. Now was the annoying part. They had done all they could for phase one, but here they needed to wait for the right moment before phase two. He looked over at Glenda, who was still watching the house through binoculars, her brow set in determination. A thought struck him.

"Hey kid... you do realise this is gonna break up your whole family, right? Even if we don't kill all of them?"

"Don't care." Glenda shrugged. "I hate mom. Glen's a douche. Neil's nothing."

"Really? You don't have any... I dunno, regret? Sympathy?"

"Nope." Glenda sniffed, derisively. "They lied to me. They all lied to me, and now they should pay." She put the binoculars down, stood quietly, and turned. "Do you want anything from the kitchen?"

"Nah, I'm good." Chucky watched her, carefully. After closer inspection, he had come to the decision that the kid was a lot more messed up than he had originally suspected. He wasn't going to probe, partly because he wanted to respect her privacy, but also because he was still dragging his feet about actually committing to the role of "father". He'd work his way there, if he wanted to. First teacher, then mentor, then father. There was a crash from the kitchen, and Chucky sighed, standing and walking through to see Glenda looking like a startled cat at the remnants of what was once a drinking glass, but was now shattered across the kitchen floor. She looked at Chucky, guilt in her eyes.

There was a pause.

"You're fuckin' clumsy, you know that?"

"You... aren't gonna yell?"

"I don't give a shit, Glenda, it's not my house. C'mon." He grabbed the dust-buster from the kitchen counter, and started clearing up. "Pick up the bigger pieces or it'll break." Glenda did as she was told and picked up everything bigger than her thumbnail. She smiled.

Janine Weiss was thirty two, single, and, frankly, too old for this shit. She had, after months of relentless flirting and poor advances, caved in and agreed to meet with Jeremy Trebeck, her boss, for lunch. It had not been with any intention of a relationship, although knowing her, it may have blossomed. But he had stood her up. The bastard had left her standing outside one of the most pretentious restaurants in the city, and now she was pissed. As she marched up the block, clutching a scrap of paper in her fist, occasionally referencing the address written on it, she was filled with contempt. Never piss off an executive assistant, she thought. Even if we're not called "secretaries" any more, we still have connections.

She knocked on the door, but it opened as soon as she came into contact with it. The tool had probably passed out drunk.

"Jeremy?"

Distantly, she heard a voice mumble a curse. She stepped inside. No one in the front room... she closed the door behind her, and locked it with the keys in the bowl.

"I locked the door for you." She called, not sure where he was. "One of these days, you're going to get yourself killed, you know that?"

Meanwhile, in the bowels of the house, Janine's voice drifted through to the games room, where Jeremy, delirious from lack of food and human interaction, suddenly sprung to life. He had all but given up when Janine's voice reached him, but, like an angel of mercy, she gave him new hope. His renewed struggling and yelling put unexpected pressure on the ties, meaning they started to give...

"Jeremy?" Janine called, checking the upstairs rooms, which were all empty. "Jeremy, you owe me an explanation." She tried downstairs again, heading through to the kitchen. There were a few shards of glass on the floor, and an abandoned dustbuster. She had bent over to pick it up and return it to the counter, when Jeremy, looking haggard and bruised, burst from the next room, tearing a gag from his mouth.

"Janine! Run!"

The image and command were so jarring with what she had expected that, even though her survival instinct told her to do so, her common sense was reasoning that it had to be a misunderstanding. That was when the weight hit her in the back of the neck; five pounds of screaming, kicking, biting fury that attacked her like a mad banshee. She tore at the deafening noise, her fingernails scratching what felt like plastic until she found hair, and pulled the weight free, throwing it against the kitchen wall. She staggered slightly, looking at her assailant. A... a doll? The doll stood, coughing, shoulders heaving with rage, face contorted in anger, her red ringlets bouncing around her head and making her look manic. Janine turned on her heel and ran for the door as the doll pounced at her. She scrambled for the keys, but they had gone. She looked around in blind terror, trying o see where her assailant was, to know if she had the time to escape.

A terrible, painful scream cut through the house.

"Janine! Janine!" It was wracked with sobs. "Get out while you can! Tell someone!" Janine stepped back from the door, confused, only to trip over something unseen.

"Sorry, Janine..." the voice was as twisted as the face it came from, which loomed over her as another doll stood on her shoulders, pinning her to the floor. That was a familiar face. One that had haunted her nightmares since she'd heard the urban legend as a kid.

"Chucky?" She whispered, wondering if this was all just a nightmare.

Chucky smirked, adjusting his grip on the battery-powered electric carving knife.

"No autographs, please."

And with one swift movement, and a horrible whirr which quickly turned to a wet, grinding growl, Janine's anger, her fear, and her confusion all faded away. Something she had wanted her whole life, Chucky was willing to bet, although he was pretty sure she'd expected something more to do with yoga or tofu.

He returned to the kitchen, throwing the battery powered knife into the sink, where the blood pooled on the stainless steel. Glenda was standing on Jeremy's back, twisting a vegetable knife in his shoulder. Jeremy was sobbing. Chucky sighed, bending down by Jeremy's head, seeing with no small amount of pleasure that the shards of glass they hadn't managed to clean up were now embedded in his cheek.

"Who the fuck are you?" He managed to spit, blood mingling with his saliva.

"Us?" Chucky contemplated for a moment, and then smiled. "I'm Chucky. And that little angel twisting the knife into your spine is Glenda. Why?"

"You bastards! I'll see you pay for this!"

"Uh... no, I don't think you will. Glenda?"

"Yeah?" The savage glint in her eye filled Chucky with equal parts pride and fear.

"You wanna do the honours here?"
Glenda, smiling as though she had just been given the best present ever, dropped to her knees and pulled the knife back, before stabbing him once in the neck and twice in the head. If he wasn't dead, he was paralyzed, and would bleed out sooner or later. A little savage, perhaps, but then we've all had younger, wilder times. Chucky stepped back, sighing.

"Come on. Let's move these bodies."

Glenda stepped down from Jeremy's back, blood dripping from the hem of her skirt, adding to the two dried brown patches higher up. Chucky could tell she was starting to get the adrenaline rush from killing. She was turning into a regular little bloody Mary. She stood watching as Chucky opened the door to the back yard, smiling.

"Thank you."

"For what?" Chucky was more occupied with getting rid of Jeremy. Glenda smiled for a moment and said nothing, before grabbing Jeremy's wrists.

"Just generally."