Daniel was a man of great confidence. A natural leader and a loyal friend, there weren't many that thought ill of Dan Freeman. He took pride in the fact that he could think on his feet, and he was ever the high achiever, some say that Dan had developed a knack for being exceptional, and others would admit to thinking that he was born ready, for whatever life might have to throw in his direction, so it was not out of character for Dan to be driving through the outskirts of town to one of his favourite make-out spots with his date, Jacqueline MacKenzie. Of course, she had enjoyed their movie date, and Dan knew it. He was brimming with confidence, although he had enough grace to cover for himself, lest she misinterpret his body-language as "arrogant".

The travelling became more battered and brutal, of which the rain pummelling down on the car and road did nothing to improve. Thunder rolled through their ears, lightning launching through the sky silhouetting the trees on the side of the road, capturing the violent angular branches and torturous shapes in a mere instant before flicking out to the nothingness of moments before. The car's wiper blades slashed across the front windscreen with speed and aggression. As they travelled further from town, the buildings became smaller and spread over a wider distance. The scattered lights on the side of the road were either too dim, flickering violently, or were victims of vandals, and had been shattered completely. It was becoming increasingly more difficult to see the road ahead, so it was somewhat with relief that Dan turned the car into the large patch of earth (or mud, to more accurately describe it), and parked outside the old abandoned toy warehouse, the Little Chickadee's Emporium of Wonders. The large iron gates harboured an impressive rust infestation, to the extent that holes had been eaten out in seizable chunks. Beyond those gates stood the building, itself. Massive for a toy store, but quite the child, when the term "warehouse" is thrown around. The sign had faded, the building was falling apart. Some holes were patched up crudely using old sheets of scrap metal, a sure-fire sign of shoddy workmanship. But Dan wasn't here to go sight seeing, well... not that site anyway. So, Dan turned the ignition off and turned towards Jacquie, a grin spreading across his face. She returned the grin, and added her trademark penetrating glare that was oh so seductive. They were lost in each other's eyes, and, leaning in, breathing deeply, they prepared for the embrace...
THUD!

The two lovers snapped out of their trance, upon realizing that something had dealt a forceful blow to the rear end of the car. Jacquie was quick to jump. It wasn't hard to tell that she was on edge. Dan wanted to stay in the car, but he knew she wouldn't calm down until she knew what the noise was. So, with their jackets held over their heads to shelter the rain, they got out of the car and inspected the back of the car. The dent was relatively small, and there was nothing to show what had actually hit the car. In fact, the only thing that lay out of place near the car was a small ribbon, that looked like it had fallen delicately to the ground.
"W-what the hell was that?" Jacquie asked, a little freaked out.
"Beats me" Dan responded. In all honesty, he didn't care, he was only interested in her. It was that lack of awareness that meant that he didn't notice the minute microphone pinned to the ribbon on the ground. Nor did he notice the sleek new security cameras that were perched atop the fence...

An estranged man sat in the dark confines of his office, watching one of the many screens in front of him, listening and watching, feeding off their every move.
"Beats me" He heard the trespassing youth say.
"Yes it does" he said to himself, allowing a malicious cackle echo through the room.
He watched as the strangers returned to the confines of their car. The rain continued to bucked down, the increasingly frequent lightning illuminating the sky, followed shortly by the thunder rolling through the night, the ribbon-microphone clipping and distorting the sound.
Dan had, yet again, become oblivious to his surroundings, so it was to his great annoyance that Jacquie continued to show her irritation at him, and her imaginative fear of what might possibly be outside. Dan held her arm gently, leaning closer to her, trying to lull her into the security of his arms, but she couldn't, she had a dull lurching feeling in her gut, like there was something outside. Another flash of lightning and crack of thunder and she was never coming back from this tense anxiety. She saw what looked like little people, children, silhouetted against the lightning, and they were all surrounding the perimeter completely.

"There's definitely something out there" said Jacquie "let's go, let's go back home, please".
"C'mon, there's nothing out there, and if there was, it couldn't get in the car anyway. Shh... just calm down, it's just the weather" Dan had guessed that any attempt to pacify would be useless, but he tried regardless.
It was rather unfortunate that Jacquie was so paranoid, convinced there was something (or things) out there. They WERE outside, and they would come up to the car and do something utterly unimaginable to them lest they leave immediately. Dan continued to attempt to comfort her, but every moment he moved closer, she shuffled further up against the car door. Wild eyed, Jacquie looked everywhere but at Dan, trying to keep track of where these creatures were. She let out an ear piercing scream, only to have Dan jump out of his skin and split his skull on the car roof.
"Argh! Jacquie!" Dan winced and clasped both hands over his head.
"Dan..." She said in a shaking whisper "it's... it's in the car" she was staring in the rear view mirror at the little creature in the back seat she could only describe as a robot child-doll, possessed with the gleaming red eyes of Satan himself.

Dan slowly turned around, staring wide eyed at the back seat of his car.
"Holy shit, Jacquie! It's got a knife!" Dan spoke with an urgency in his voice.
Jacquie turned in her seat, fear taking full control of her actions. She started towards the back-seat when Dan began to laugh mischievously.
"Fuck you, Dan." The doll was nowhere to be seen. But his little prank had loosened her up a bit, and she let a small smile creep onto her face. Maybe it was just paranoia after all, she thought. But maybe the doll was hiding in the boot of the car, which she would have figured out, had she looked hard enough to see the lock of hair jammed in the uprights between two of the back seats.

Dan saw this ease of tension in Jacquie and milked it for all it's worth. The thunder had stopped, for the meantime, and the rain had certainly lightened up, so Dan got out of his car and started running towards the warehouse.
"Dan, what are you doing now?" she asked, with a hint of annoyance in her voice.
"Come on, let's go inside, Jacquie!" he replied in a playful tease. He ran towards the fence, planning to slip through one of the numerous holes in the fence.
"No, Dan... stop it..." she stepped out of the car somewhat reluctantly, perhaps hoping to get Dan and bring him back.
Soon, Dan was through the fence and jogging towards the battered down warehouse. Jacquie felt somewhat annoyed, and still slightly on edge. Staring up at the massive building, with its faded and battered sign, she couldn't help but imagine this place in its prime, full colour to the clown's head that served as the store mascot. Plastered on the sign, the clown's head was now lifeless and drained of all colour, a vandal's work showed a rough hole through his nose.
Dan noticed her looking at the clown. "Haha, I remember Krinkels the Clown. You know... my father used to work here when I was little." Dan said, with a slight sentimentality in his voice.
"I-is that why you wanted to come here?" The forceful wind and rain made standing outside the warehouse bitter cold beyond belief.
"Yeah. Do you mind if we go inside?" Dan was really milking the sympathy card for all it was worth.
"Or what, we run all the way back to the car... again? Yes, now we're here it'd be pointless not to have a look around" Jacquie pulled her jacket around herself tighter and made for the door.

She pushed open the age-old door, an expected creak whining out from the rusted stiff hinges. There was a little light coming through windows high up on the wall, cold grey moonlight spilled onto the shop floor. There before them stood many empty shelves, some had fallen over, others had been completely broken apart. There were still the occasional pieces of junk lying around the place. The usual empty buckets and bags, a few broken chairs, some bins tipped on their side. There were still a few toys and dolls lying around, a lot of trolleys, some were half filled, just sitting in the isles. They started to wander through the isles, just looking at the state of the shop,it looked like it had been deserted in mid-use, rather than shut down from a manager's decision.
Dan ran over to one of the trolleys and said to Jacquie "hey, come here, hop in!". He had that mischievous look in his eyes.
She obeyed, a little cautious, a little excited and rebellious, but all caution was erased from her mind when he started pushing her in the trolley down the aisle faster and faster, going deeper and deeper into the store. She let out a whoop of excitement, and laughed as if this were the most wonderful night of her life. But it was a short lived game.

They had reached the back of the store, and Dan had slowed down to walking pace, a little short of breath. He wheeled Jacquie out into the stock loading bay to find the back doors flung wide open, and a delivery truck parked for a delivery. It took only a moment to see that the truck had been abandoned too. It sat there, collecting rust, its wheels stolen a long time ago. Jacquie pulled herself out of the trolley and the pair of them walked down to the vehicle to check it out. Dan wandered around to the driver's side of the truck's cabin and wrenched the door open. He let out an agonising and fearful cry when the half decayed body of the driver fell out of the seat onto Dan.

Jacquie, who had just opened the back doors of the truck, ran over to him, and started anxiously talking and crying, once she realised what was lying atop of Dan.
"Oh, God! I knew this was a bad idea. Dan, who is that? Who is that!? We need to get out of here, Dan, we need to get the FUCK out of here!" the tears were flowing freely, and she continued with her uncontrollable blubbering, while Dan lay in shocked silence, with the corpse atop of him. Near the back of the truck they heard a sound that made their hair sit on end. The sound of a lone music box rang through the night air, piercing their ears like knives. Dan heaved the body off himself and got to his knees, looking towards the source of the sound. It was a box with spider-like mechanical legs, and a spinning crank. It was a jack-in-the-box. It was just a child's toy, but who put it there, and why? It walked closer, and Dan and Jacquie moved farther away. It continued to play its song, and it appeared to be... laughing? The song came to an end, and the music box plucked its last note, before ceasing movement. For a single moment, there was silence, only to be broken by an eruption of fire and shrapnel. The box was a bomb. Dan was quick to ball up and protect himself, only sustaining light scratches to his back, but Jacquie was not so lucky. Down she fell, several sizeable chunks of wood and metal protruding from her body.

Dan didn't hesitate, he got back to his feet and picked Jacquie up, carrying her back towards the store, placing her gently back into the trolley. The shrapnel appeared to penetrate deep. Blood dripped freely from the large cuts, leaving a warm red trail as Dan pushed her towards the front of the store. It was only now that he noticed that the rain had stopped, and he walked fast, eyes darting around the store, in case the bomber was still around. Nothing. He reached the front of the store believing that he was alone with Jacquie, they had no idea of the man sitting in the upstairs security office was watching their every move on camera. Dan gave the door a tug, anxious to get Jacquie out of here, and to a hospital safely, but the door stayed firmly shut.
"No..." He cried out, "NO! Get out of here, we need to GET OUT!" He pushed and pulled the door with all his might, but nothing would move the thick, heavy sleeper that had jammed the door closed from the outside.

Footsteps. Dan heard some. Light, quiet, but definitely, there was something else in the store. His feet were rooted to the ground, but he twisted every which way, searching for the source of the sound. It wasn't until he heard a spray paint can fall flat that he glimpsed the silhouette of the offender he was after, duck behind a wall. He was upstairs, and it looked like he had nowhere to go. The can of spray paint had started rolling, down towards the checker plate steel staircase. It fell down the first step to a loud clatter, which reverberated throughout the building. Another step, and another, and it somehow rotated around the corner step and down further still, to the bottom, where it rolled to a stop at Dan's feet.

He left Jacquie at the front door and tore off up the stairs. It was just around the corner. He took a few steps towards the edge. A few more... a few more. And there it was, compressed into the corner, a little doll like creature. Dan grabbed it by its neck, and felt a cold shiver run down his spine, it was made of metal, a robot, simply painted to resemble a doll. Knowing it might explode at any moment, like the jack-in-the-box, he threw it over the second story balcony on to the hard concrete shop floor, where it landed with a sickening crunch. He made his way back down the stairs, to see that a group of these "dolls" (he noticed there were bears, too) approaching in on Jacquie, following the trail of blood to her, licking it up as they went along. At this point, Jacquie had seen them too, and started screaming. And then, with fear and madness emblazoned in her eyes, she pointed wildly into the opposite corner of the store, at another second floor room. There was a window in the room, overlooking the shop, horizontal blinds tilted open, and there stood a man with the appearance of the store mascot, Krinkels the Clown. He had in his hand the PA system's microphone.
Watching the toys closing in on Jacquie, he leaned in to the microphone and laughed menacingly. "Dear valued customers" he spoke with a milky smooth tone. "I would like to thank you all for choosing to shop at the Little Chickadee's Emporium of Wonders this evening, and I do hope you're having a magical shopping experience."

The words rang in Dan's ears, so much so that he hadn't noticed that Jacquie was still screaming, and now was being torn apart by the vicious robotic toys. Bits of her flew through the air in a bloody mess, showering the toys in her blood. It was too late, she couldn't be saved. So Dan made the gut wrenching decision to leave her and make his way towards Krinkels' office.
He spoke again, this time with some aggression. "There is no use, Daniel. I control them. They can control you. If you try to control me, you will end up like her." he cackled again. "Come on, I just wanted to have a little... fun, why won't you play this game with me?"
Dan continued to run across the store to the office. He was climbing the stairs to the office.
"There's no use Daniel. There's no easy way out, here. You can try to kick the door in, but then I'd have to kill you. But I don't want to kill you, then there'd be no one to continue the game. Don't forget to tell all your friends".

Dan was shaking with rage. He kicked at the door.
"I told you not to do that" Krinkels said in a sing-song voice. He opened the door and threw a small spider toy at Dan's face. He staggered back, grabbing at the thing on his face.
Racing down the stairs, he struggled with the mechanical spider. It gouged into his face, and it was only with a deep tearing of his skin that he pulled the thing loose and ditched it over the racking towards the centre of the store. But now the dolls and bears had finished with Jacquie and were now chasing after him. He raced through the loading bay and out around the truck. Knowing that these small robots couldn't possibly keep up with him, he accepted the cold wind as a small victory, the fresh drops of rain cleansing his face of dirt, blood and tears.

Cramming himself roughly through the fence and into the front seat of his car, he sped off down the road, the rain picking up into a heavy downpour. But he didn't care, he was safe. The half eaten body of Jacquie was freshly implanted into his mind, and he drove to get away from it all. He drove faster and faster, faster and faster.
"You will never escape me" The doll had crawled from the boot through the back seat and shocked him into veering off the road, crashing into a tree.