"How bad is it going to hurt?" Kevin asked his mother from the backseat.

"Let’s see…." Kimberly said. She nodded, staring out at the road. "On a scale of one to ten..."

But for some reason, she left the thought incomplete.

They sped through an intersection and pulled into the parking lot a few blocks off from the center of town. The offices blended in with the white tenements that lined the streets. These buildings here reminded Kimberly of pictures she'd seen of old prisons. Alcatraz, yes. That was its own island orphaned out in the ocean. Out in the docks in San Francisco, there were those machines where you paid a quarter. You could use binoculars to gaze through the mist and look out at the old metal foundries.

One day, she would take seven-year old Kevin there. They would go to the zoo. They would go to the bowling alley. and the arcade. Today, they would go to the dentist.

"I don’t believe you,” Kevin said as she parked the car. “They’re going to take my head off. I know it. They’re going to crack me….”

“Well, if they cracked that head open, maybe there’d be more room for homework,” Kimberly said.

She unbuckled the seatbelt and dug through the glove compartment. She fished through their hoard of trash: a Happy Meal toy of the snowman from Frozen, an expired credit card, a Poland Spring bottle full of cigarette water. Then she took her wallet and looked at Kevin. She tried to smile.

"Remember that time you got your knee scraped on the slide?" Kimberly said.

“That was my knee,” Kevin said. “In your mouth, there’s more pain receptors. I know that. I learned it in school…”

“Well, maybe they’re teaching you too much there, Kevin…”

"No. They taught me to be scared. If things are bad, you’re supposed to be scared of them. I’m not going—”

Kimberly rolled her eyes. “Kevin, just—” She gritted her teeth. “Work with me? Please? Just for today. They’ll give you a grape lollipop. After this, we’ll go to Fuddruckers.”

“No," Kevin said. "That place is shit."

“It’s not shit,” she said. “You like Fuddruckers. And what are you doing, swearing at me like that? It’s the television. I know it. Those adult cartoons…”

“They’re going to crack me, Mom,” Kevin whined again. “I know it. They’re going to take my head off with the pliers…”

“Enough,” Kimberly said. “Out of the car now. I won’t ask you again…”

She went for the seatbelt. Kevin’s hands grabbed it first and pushed her off. He turned the other way, trying to lock himself into his car-seat. Then came the waterworks. Like the levies had broken, tears and snot poured down Kevin’s face He thrashed back and forth and tugged at the seat belts, holding them like a climber with a broken carabiner.

“We don’t even have health care!” Kevin yelled. “You told me you gave it up—“

“Yes, but adults have a special way of dealing with things,” Kimberly snapped. “Adults don’t get scared of these things. Now straighten up and be an adult…”

She wrested with the complicated ritual of unclipping Kevin. She hauled him out of the car and dragged him across the parking lot.

In front of them, like heaven’s gates, she could see the black arch that led to the back entrance. Here, they would find the office: Dr. Vivienne Taylor, a name that had been recommended by a brochure in her mailbox. Kimberly hadn't been planning on going. But after last week, where she'd chipped her tooth on her walkway, she'd come to terms with the truth: she hadn't taken Kevin to the dentist yet.

Inside the brochure, Kimberly had marveled at pictures of smiling children of all races with glittering mouths of braces and retainers. Kimberly liked seeing children smile. It was odd, a kind of jealousy since she rarely smiled herself. When she drove to her job at Circuit City in the morning, she would drop Kevin off at Early Birds; that was the Lakeland Elementary School’s child care program for early rising parents. The pool was split between double-incomers and divorcees. When Kimberly dropped Kevin off, she would watch him waddle through the morning haze with his lunch box and overcoat. There, like a fleeting laugh while playing hide-and-seek, she’d allowed herself to smile in the car.

It was something that never happened around Kevin. Back when her son had scattered peas and carrots as an infant, mush all over his plastic tray, Kimberly thought she had smiled. As he’d gotten older, any sign of affection had become a rare occurrence. In Kimberly’s mind, children existed in two ways. In her father’s eyes, it had been to be bathed, fed and looked after like livestock. But through the cheery Full House episodes she’d watched growing up, she’d learned that children existed other ways as well.

As a single mother knocked up at sixteen, Kimberly’s life for seven years had been a series of Post-It notes and to-do list. The child, like a laboratory experiment, was to be checked on routinely. The child was to be poked and prodded by the family doctor. The child was to receive Hot Wheels for Christmas, though he would have to settle for the small-scale package in accordance with the family budget. Kimberly had done everything for Kevin....everything except the dentist.

“All that soda you drink,” Kimberly sighed, dragging him along. “I kept telling you. Now you’ve rotted your teeth out…”

“I’ll pray to God to kill you for this,” Kevin sobbed. “I’ll pray every night. I’ll tell him you’re a bad mother…”

“Good,” Kimberly said softly. “I’d like the feedback.”

They reached the black gate. With a deep breath, Kimberly shut her eyes and unlocked the hatch. Then she dragged him down a long, cobblestone pathway. The white door was a few feet ahead on their left.

“I just don’t like this,” Kevin said quietly. “I’m sorry. I don’t like this place…”

“What’s not to like?” Kimberly said, trying to smile. “Look, it’s going to be quick. Painless. And they actually have different flavors of toothpaste. In fact, yes, I think they even have chocolate…”

He seemed to accept that, mulling over the strange idea. When they reached the door, Kimberly knocked twice. On the outside, she waited patiently to greet another adult. On the inside, like the frightened child clinging to her knees, she tried the truth that the dentist’s office wasn’t a very nice place.

The door opened…and standing on the other side, grinning with a Botoxed face and beach-blonde hair in a bun, was a doctor in a white coat.

‘Well, look at that,” she said, looking down at little Kevin. “This must be—”

“Little Kimberly Jessup! Why, look at those pretty shoes. Did Santa bring those to you for Christmas?”

Kimberly smiled at the doorstep. She looked down at her red slippers. She liked wearing them because they made her feel like Dorothy. Any day now, a tornado would come and whisk her away to a far-off land.

For now though, she lived in the suburbs of Tehachapi with white picket fences and sprinklers and men in suits walking out of Porsches with their briefcases. She had been dissuaded from going to the dentist in the city. In her mother’s words, "none of the immigrants there knew what they were doing." Luckily, there was a home office right down the street, and it was run by none other than their family friend Doctor Pratt.

Doctor Pratt was part of her mother’s book club. Every week, they would gather in the kitchen and bring casseroles with recipes that minded their waistline. As they discussed Atlas Shrugged and The Scarlett Letter, Kimberly knew better than to interrupt. Children were to be seen and not heard. At eight years old, children were full of thoughts that they couldn’t even articulate. She was encouraged to watch Nickelodeon in the living room, a sterile white place with bubble-wrapped furniture. In a constant state of renovation, the Jessups’ house had taken on the illusion of a museum. Things were to be looked at but not touched, accepted and not lived in. Kimberly’s mother, an English professor at a local college, had always spoken highly of her daughter. Kimberly knew how to set silverware, for example. Kimberly had been tying her shoes before she turned two-and-a-half. All the while, her mother had looked down at the derelicts: the girls bussed into college from the inner city on scholarship. In her mother’s words, they were lucky to “not have little piggies to deal with.”

Doctor Pratt had found little kinship with Mrs. Jessup. She was a fat, jolly woman with short, grey hair. A girl in Kimberly’s class, Caroline, had told her that Doctor Pratt had short hair because “she was a dyke.” When Kimberly had asked her mother what this word meant, she’d been denied supper, dessert and told to go to her room.

While the other women debated eighteenth century literature, Doctor Pratt would encourage Kimberly to crawl over on all-fours. Like a little puppy, she’d hide beneath the table. Pratt would offer her a secret Jolly Rancher from the bowl above. Then Kimberly would scamper off, nursing the blue sucker in her lap. Between Kimberly and Doctor Pratt, the relationship seemed almost Peter Pan-like. One day, Pratt would climb through her window in the middle of the night. She would take her away. They’d fly off with fairy dust, free from this domain of bubble-wrapped furniture

Just last week, the book club had been discussing The Crucible. They’d gotten side-tracked talking about infidelity and ended up on young people. Kimberly had been beneath the table waiting for a Jolly Rancher.

‘I overhear the girls in my classes,” Kimberly’s mother was saying. “Just out of high school and the things they’re talking about— ”

“Well, let’s not pretend we were different here…” said one of the others, a woman named Harriet. She licked the spoon of Greek Yogurt she was eating. “It’s generational, I think. We were like that. Some of us were worse.”

“But there’s so much drug use,” Kimberly’s mother replied. “This one boy recently, they arrested him for selling heroin out of his dorm. I’m just disgusted.”

“I don’t know,” said Pratt, smiling over at her. “Maybe we’re a bit jaded now”

“I didn’t get into anything like that,” Kimberly’s mother said quickly. “I finished college in four years.”

“With help,” Pratt said simply. “And with the child and all—”

“We’re drifting off-subject,” Kimberly’s mother said quickly. “Please, let’s discuss the book…”

Pratt had unwrinkled the sour candy under the table and handed it to Kimberly. She’d crawled away like a mouse, vanishing behind a corner and popping the green gem into her mouth.

And how ironic it was now. After their black market of underground sweets, Kimberly was seeing Doctor Pratt for a dentist appointment. She stood on her doorstep, smiling, twirling her foot against on the mat.

“What’s wrong?” Pratt asked. “Cat got your tongue, is that right?”

Kimberly wasn’t sure. When it came to Pratt, she became bashful and quiet. In the corner of her eye, she spotted an old, bag lady walking down the sidewalk. She was fishing through a garbage can, probably searching for some bottles to recycle for cash. Quickly, Doctor Pratt ushered Kimberly into the house.

“Come in, come in. The neighborhood’s sure changing, isn’t it? Let’s get you into my office. Nice and safe in there now…”

“Thank you, Doctor Pratt,” Kimberly managed. She struggled with the words, trying to make them heard. “My mother also said…she said to borrow some milk from you…”

“Well, that’s not a problem…and I think you’ll stay and visit for a little bit. I have a treat for you.”

With that, Pratt guided her inside. If Kimberly had paid attention, she would have noticed four different locks on the door.

Kimberly sat in the waiting room. She watched the goldfish swim in the tank. Every time they went back and forth, they would hit the wall and traverse the other way with a squirt of bubbles.

Kimberly glanced at the clock. She thumbed through paparazzi magazines on the counter. Angelina Jolie was being snapped by the photographers in a parking lot. Kim Kardashian had his arms slung around Kanye West. It made an excellent alternative to staring at the door.

Kevin had vanished. With no fuss, he had been whisked away with the carelessness of a broken car at an auto-shop. In her head for some reason, Kimberly could hear the same sounds: the twerking of wrenches, the manic drill of a buzz saw....

"Excuse me?" The receptionist said. "I have to ask why you're tearing up our magazines..."

Kimberly looked down. Indeed, she'd been ripping through Kanye West's face. With any more force, she would have legally separated him from Kim.

"Nerves," Kim said. She didn't feel the need to say anything else.

"Oh, I understand," the receptionist said. She was blonde like the dentist, even a similar face. Kimberly wondered if it was a family business. "Some of the parents float, y'know. They hover over the children. This mother last week, she ripped through all the tissue paper..."

"I'm not nervous," Kimberly said quickly. "I'm just watching television.”

“The weather channel," the receptionist laughed. "Glad you're entertained.”

Kimberly glanced up, confused by the jab of sarcasm, but the receptionist wasn't looking at her.

"Well, they'll be out soon," she said to Kimberly, flipping through the papers. "Vivienne is quick, you know. Quick and efficient..."

"As long as she doesn't give him head-gear or something," Kimberly said, forcing a laugh. "Or I don't know, maybe you'll pull all of his teeth out..."

The receptionist gave her a strange look. " Why would we do that?"

"God knows," Kimberly said quickly. "Jesus. It's hot in here. Can you turn on the fan?"

The receptionist nodded and flicked a button. The ceiling fan spun the air into a brisk circle. Once, twice. After a moment, Kimberly felt like she was being hypnotized by it and looked away. Minding her paperwork, the receptionist paid her no attention at all.

"It's funny you said that," the receptionist said after a moment. "Collecting teeth. We're not the ones who do that..."

"Yeah," Kimberly sighed. "Enough with the graveyard humor. I'm already anxious..."

"I'm not joking," the receptionist said simply. "That's the tooth fairy's job..."

Kimberly tore through the paper. The magazine hung off her lap, the ripped section dangling by a staple.

“Excuse me?” Kimberly said quickly. “Sorry, I think I misunderstood—”

“I just mentioned the tooth fairy,” the receptionist said. “You believe in the tooth fairy still…don’t you, Kimberly?”

Pratt took off her red slippers first.

She peeled them off and called them banana peels, which made Kimberly giggle. Then she took off her white socks. She placed them on the counter and went to the metal tray.

Kimberly had been placed up on the dentist’s chair. Pratt could raise her up and down with a lever on the side, just like an elevator. Surrounded by knobs and dials, Kimberly felt like a train conductor. She watched as Pratt searched through the scalpels and tools on the tray.

“Now, your mother tells me you’re not speaking in school,” Pratt said calmly. “And I always figured you a chatterbox…”

“I…I don’t really talk,” Kimberly admitted. “I’ve never talked to you either…”

“Oh, but you’re always giggling,” Pratt said. “And when you’re laughing, well, then you must have something to say, right?”

This made sense to Kimberly. She listened as Pratt whistled and picked up a mask of sorts on the tray. It was round and green, the kind that doctors always wore in the emergency room. Still, this was thicker somehow. Kimberly watched as Pratt reached beneath the table and pulled out a thin pipe. She connected it into the mask. She flicked a button underneath.

Suddenly, like an animal breathing beneath the floorboards, there was a faint hissing sound.

“Now, being quiet has its drawbacks, doesn’t it?” Pratt asked. “Do any boys give you trouble for it?”

“Yes,” Kimberly admitted. “There’s this one boy who sits behind me …”

She stopped speaking. Pratt had pulled out a roll of duct tape. Still whistling, the doctor pulled off two sheets and stuck them down on Kimberly’s arms.

She taped her down to the armrests. Like she’d been constricted by a snake, Kimberly started to squirm back and forth.

“Now, let's not get restless here,” Pratt said quickly. “I see lots of children and some of them are troublemakers. Now, we don’t know where you fall yet, Kimberly…”

“I’m….I’m not a troublemaker, Doctor Pratt…”

“Are you sure? Because I’m not a fan of troublemakers. In fact, if I found out you were naughty, all that candy I’ve been giving you—”

“I’ll be good,” Kimberly said quickly. She stopped squirming. She stared forward and arced up her back, ready for action. “It’s fine. You can do what you want…”

‘Well, I appreciate the enthusiasm, Kimberly Jessup,” Doctor Pratt said. ‘That makes you a good girl. A very good girl…”

The hissing grew louder.

Pratt picked up the mask and raised it over Kimberly’s face. She let it fall over her mouth and nose. It was like swallowing a room full of cough syrup. Kimberly scrunched her face. She heaved her head to the side…but for some reason, it was lugging an iron weight. She was on a rowboat somewhere, the bay at San Francisco. Steering with an oar was none other than Doctor Pratt.

‘Close your eyes,” Pratt said. “Relax. I’m making it so it won’t hurt…”

She reached beneath the table and pulled out a square and yellow box, ripped and tattered. If Kimberly hadn’t been drifting away, thinking of fairy dust and how the ceiling looked like a great cavern, she would recognize the box of thumbtacks.

“You’re looking thirsty, Kimberly,” the receptionist said now. “Would you like some water?”

Kimberly watched as the receptionist got up and vanished behind the little porthole window into the office. There was the humming of a water color. She returned with a white paper cup that she placed on the desk.

“Well, come over and get it,” the receptionist said.

Kimberly swallowed, trying to breathe. “Could…could you bring it over here?”

The receptionist sighed, “I mean, I do have all this work to do, and if you’re asking me to move—”

“It’s just water,” Kimberly said harshly. “Yes, I’ll drink it. Yes.”

Kimberly walked over to the desk. She picked up the cup. Without taking a sip, she walked back and took her seat. She glanced over at the child’s playpen in the corner, a small area with one of those twisting wires full of thick, colored beads. Without a child to push them, they sat there and taunted gravity. Kimberly squeezed her cup. She didn’t drink it. When she looked up, she noticed the receptionist was staring at her.

“You didn’t answer my question earlier,” the receptionist said.

“What about it?” Kimberly asked.

“Do you still believe in the tooth fairy?” she asked. “Because these days, there’s an awful lot of people that don’t…”

“I give my son presents,” Kimberly said. “If that’s what you’re suggesting. When he lost his first tooth, I gave him, I think, it was two dollars— ”

“It’s not the fairy’s job to give money,” the receptionist said. “You shouldn’t be rewarded for letting the fairy do her job. Do you get rewarded for doing yours?”

“Yes,” Kimberly sighed. She fumbled through her purse, searching through her headphones. “I get a paycheck every week….”

“I’m not talking about that,” the receptionist said. “Your job doesn’t matter. If the tooth fairy couldn’t do her job, well, she’d get very upset. It’s hard work, you know. It’s not just teeth that she collects…”

“Yeah,” Kimberly said. She found her headphones and plugged them into phone. “What, am I supposed to tip her or something?”

“No,” the receptionist said. “She doesn’t collect money. She collects children…”

And that’s when she heard Kevin screaming.

Pratt called it a “pinch to grow an inch.”

It was a punishment of sorts for whenever Kimberly got restless. She was breathing through the mask. The gas had numbed her. Each time she squealed, it would just usher in another pinch.

Pratt sighed and pulled another thumbtack out of the box. “Now, don’t tense up now. Be a good girl, Kimberly. If you’re not good, you won’t get a lollipop…”

She picked up the thumb tack with her stubby fingers. She brought it down slowly to Kimberly’s knees.

Then she inserted it into her skin.

Up and down her leg, like dozens of mosquito bites, Kimberly was littered with red holes. This new thumbtack brought out another spurt of blood. It trickled down her white knee, stained and crusted like a child that had been wading through muddy rain. On some spots, the blood had dried over into thick patches. From other insertions, the blood dripped like water leaking down a glass window. It made its way to her toes, falling to the floor drop-by-drop…

“Can you hear me, Kimberly?” Pratt asked calmly.

Kimberly tried to shake her head.

“Well, it looks like you’re tight-lipped here. It’s rude to be shy, you know. Very rude. Your mother knows enough about that. And look at that down there…your toes are wiggling…”

Kimberly was looking at the florescent lamp above. Pratt’s face was a great sun stepping in and out of her vision. There was a rustling of tools on the tray.

“Look at those little piggies down there. Back and forth, back and forth. I want you to stop your piggy-wiggling, Kimberly…”

Kimberly muttered something, faint, unintelligible. “No…”

“I’m going to ask you again,” Pratt said calmly. “No more piggy-wiggling.”

Kimberly relaxed her feet and took a deep breath. A few feet to her left, there was a window that looked out into the driveway. There was Pratt’s Buick down there, old and eroded with rust and grime. There were ornaments lining the walkway, a chorus of plastic penguins. These had always delighted Kimberly on Halloween. She looked down the road, gauging the short distance back to her house at the end of the street.

Any second now, her mother’s Toyota would roll down the street. There would be no suspicion. No alarm. Her mother would pour herself some coffee and wait for her daughter to come home from the dentist…

Burned by the light, Kimberly’s tears stained her face. Pratt smiled. She dabbed her with a napkin.

“It’s okay,” Pratt said. “We’re going to patch you up when we’re finished. That way, your mother won’t have to yell at you…”

Kimberly saw someone passing the driveway. It was the bag lady from before. She was wandering the sidewalk searching through more garbage cans. Her dress looked like great quilt, dozens of different colors and fabrics stitched together.

Moving her lips, Kimberly tried to say something…anything.

Pratt saw this and frowned. She walked over to the window and closed the blinds.

“This neighborhood’s falling apart,” Pratt sighed. “The state of people these days. Why, I can’t even schedule appointments without worrying who’s going to— ”

Kimberly kicked her leg and knocked down the metal tray. The implements fell to the ground, scalpels and pliers and all sorts of things that Kimberly couldn’t name.

There was a clattering on the linoleum. Then silence. Pratt turned to her and frowned.

“Now, why would you do that, Kimberly?”

Kimberly whined and shook back and forth.

“Answer me,” Pratt said.

Kimberly tugged at the arm rests, trying to break free from the duct tape. Pratt sighed and bent down, picking up her tools from the ground.

“I don’t like that squealing,” Pratt said simply. “I’d like you if you couldn’t squeal at all…”

Pratt stood up holding a strange, metal rod. It looked like something you’d use at a barber shop. She connected it into long wire and flicked the switch. Suddenly, the tip of the contraption grinded to life. There were hundreds of metal teeth spinning in a circle. Faintly, from her last visit to the dentist, Kimberly recognized what this was: a tool for filing down teeth…

“We use this to chisel them,” Pratt said simply. “But in your case, I think we need to do some work on your gums…”

She stepped forward and brought the tool down toward Kimberly’s mouth….

Kevin started to scream from behind the door.

Kimberly had heard in the wild that animals recognized when their children were threatened. Penguins, for example, had developed a language with their strangled calls. If they croaked or bleated in a certain way, the other penguins could interpret their names. She thought the same for dolphins, perhaps other animals as well.

For humans, it should have been easier. After all, with the thousands of words in the English language, it shouldn’t have been hard for Kevin to call for help. But the way he was screaming now…

Kimberly listened, squeezing her hands on the water. Kevin’s screaming was cut off by a strange sucking sound. It didn’t sound like machinery; in fact, it didn’t sound like anything she’d heard in her life. The closest comparison was a suction cup, yet this seemed to be a cup with the force of a turbine engine. After a moment, the screaming stopped completely.

“They all come around,” the receptionist laughed.

“I want to go in there…” Kimberly said, shaking her head.

“I’m sorry, she doesn’t like disruptions. I understand you’re concerned but— ”

Kimberly placed the cup on the table. She grabbed her purse and stood up. “Don’t give me that. I’m going in there….”

She walked over to the door and grabbed the handle. It was locked. The receptionist shook her head, flipping through her paperwork. Kimberly craned her neck, trying to look at what she was writing. When she caught Kimberly’s gaze, the receptionist gathered up the forms.

“Take a seat,” she said coldly. “They’ll be done very soon…”

Kimberly shook her head and slammed her hand on the desk. “Where’s my baby? What’s happening to my baby?”

“Nothing’s happening. He’s fine.…”

Kimberly reached into her purse. She pulled out her cell phone. “I’ll call the police. Do you want that?”

“He’s not being hurt,” the receptionist said simply. “She’s having fun with him…”

She started scribbling on the forms again. When Kimberly looked down, she saw the pen wasn’t writing anything. It had imprinted deep lines like a wave, scrawling back and forth over the paper. There was no ink. Even more interesting, every single form was completely blank.

“Have some water, Kimberly,” the receptionist said again.

She reached to the side and pulled out another cup of water. Just after that, Kevin started to scream again. Kimberly’s ears perked up. This time, it sounded like he was being choked….

There was a knock at the door.

Pratt frowned and clicked off the buzzer. Its teeth stopped grinding only a few inches away from Kimberly’s mouth. She’d been shutting her eyes, preparing for the burning slit as the tiny knives sliced into her soft gums. When she opened her eyes, Pratt was staring at the door.

“Who’s in my house?” Pratt shouted.

Another knock, this time louder. Pratt glanced at Kimberly. Very quickly, she rushed to the back of the room and retrieved a yellow blanket. She draped it over Kimberly, shielding her legs from view.

“Don’t scream,” Pratt told her.

Pratt walked to the door and opened it just a crack. Through the gap, Kimberly could see a green flash like the eyes of a cat. It was the bag lady. Beneath her bonnet now, Kimberly could see a black, weathered face. Her lips were pursed, almost like she was humming in silence.

"Why are you here?" Pratt demanded. "I'll...I'll call the police..."

"Your door wasn't locked," the bag lady said simply. "And on account of being a dentist's office, well, I wanted to inquire about some teeth, Ma’am..."

Pratt seemed taken aback. "Excuse me?"

"I wanted to know if you had any teeth to lend me…" the bag lady said. "I've been searching through the trash. Found a lot of bones. Not many teeth. Y'see, I'm in need of them because—"

Pratt sighed and stepped forward. She hustled the woman out into the living room, locking the door behind them.

"Out," Kimberly heard Pratt say as she left. "Right this moment, I'll call the police. Get out—”

And just before the door shut, she caught the bag lady's last words:

"Let me finish..." she said slowly. "I need some teeth…on account of how I’m the tooth fairy…”

Kimberly spun away from the door. "Cut the shit. Right now. Open up..."

The receptionist shook her head, ruffling through her blank paperwork. She took the black stapler and forced a few pages together. Kimberly watched as she rolled across the room on her rolling chair.

All over the walls, there were pictures in black-and-white of young children. Some of them were recent, young blonde girls staring out at the camera. Nobody was smiling. To Kimberly, it looked more like the decor you'd find on the side of a milk carton.

Then she noticed some of the other children. In old vests and frilly dresses, it almost looked like they'd be taken in the late nineteenth century...

"All of this nonsense," the receptionist said, stapling more blank paper. "We’re just collecting children...and you have to start such a commotion..."

Kimberly glanced at the chair and noticed a black chord. At first, she thought it was a telephone wire. It followed the rolling chair as it spun around the office. Yet rather than into an answering machine, the chord vanished right into the receptionist's cardigan.

Kimberly breathed. She forced herself to look closer. The chord wasn't plastic or strings of metal silicon. In fact....

Kimberly's hands crept to her wrist. She brushed her fingers across her jugular....

"Drink your water," the receptionist said, much more forceful now. She edged the cup closer to her.

There, underneath her wrist, Kimberly saw it....the chord burrowing into her skin in knotted folds. It pulsed and breathed on its own, thrumming up and down like a porthole of a whale.

Kimberly shut her eyes. She thought, "I'm here. Yes. This is where I am..."

Kevin was screaming again in the other room. She pictured him turned sideways, cradling himself in an operating chair.

Kimberly reached out with trembling hands. Then, fearing the long chord like an electric fence, she took a breath and squeezed....

Kimberly pulled off the duct tape. The sides of it dug in like thorns, slicing up her wrists. When she heaved her head forward, she felt the whole weight of the anesthesia…the sense that her head had turned into a twenty-pound bowling ball.

Kimberly vomited. She spit up a morning’s worth of blueberry yogurt down her feet. Then she struggled to her feet, tumbling and collapsing out of the chair. After inhaling the laughing gas, moving now felt like walking on water

Behind the door, she could hear a scuffle. Pratt was yelling. The bag lady was raising her voice as well. Kimberly went for the metal tray of tools. She grabbed a scalpel, a useless instrument that would have to do. She stepped toward the door. Beneath, like smoke seeping out of a fire hole, she could see their dark footsteps.

On the counter to her left, Kimberly noticed a porcelain bowl of lollipops. True to Pratt’s words, she kept a heavy stash. Most of them were coffee and cinnamon, the recycled variety that nobody wanted to touch. For some reason, the sight of the colorful treats made Kimberly disgusted. She brushed her arm to the side, swatting them to the floor. They scattered around her feet. She walked close to the door and brandished the scalpel.

“Doctor Pratt?” Kimberly managed. ‘What’s going on?”

That’s when Kimberly heard a loud thrumming sound….like a vacuum, yet more powerful. Somehow, a fan or something seemed to be sucking all the air out of the living room. Slowly, Kimberly’s hands crept to the door handle. She jiggled it back and forth. It was locked.

Then, she felt something cold at her feet. It was like touching seaweed in the ocean, a slimy brush by her ankle. When Kimberly looked down, she screamed….

It was a tentacle, black like thick licorice….

It squirmed its way around her ankles, almost like it was searching for something. Kimberly hopped up and down. It coasted around her toes like molehills. It felt its way down the slated roads of linoleum, sniffing its way to its target.

It found success in one of the coffee lollipop. Wrapping its tendrils around the paper, it snatched the candy and started to drag it back beneath the door…

Kimberly’s mind had turned to autopilot, a manic game of hot-and-gold.

Without another thought, she screamed and brought her foot down hard on the tentacle…

When Kimberly touched the chord, the receptionist’s body quivered and broke.

Her nose tucked inwards.

Her eyeballs deflated, white water pouring into open pools somewhere in her skull. Like a living balloon, her whole body collapsed from the inside-out.

Black blood poured out over the desk. Kimberly leapt back, screaming as the window gushed like a wave of water at a car wash. The office condiments on the desk, staplers and Sharpie markers, were sent sailing down to the floor.

The black chord started to whine and wither. It knotted itself around the receptionist’s arm, tying her up in a thick Boy Scout knot. Then it pulled her out of the rolling chair. It dragged the remains of her body, pulling them like a carcass in the wild. Her face had been left an empty hole. Now, Kimberly could see green feelers twitching in the crevasse where her brain should have been.

Kimberly screamed and climbed over the desk. She shimmied through the observation window. When she crashed down on the other side, toppling to the carpet, she watched the receptionist’s legs vanish down the hallway. She knew where they were going: the operation room…Kevin…

The tentacle slid back beneath the door.

Kimberly squeezed the scalpel, ready to stab anything that came crashing through.

Then, with a metallic click, the door swung open. It wasn’t a monster; it wasn’t even Doctor Pratt. The bag lady stared at Kimberly with a gentle smile.

“Now, what’s this about?” the bag lady asked. “Are you scared of going to the dentist?”

Kimberly lowered the scalpel.

“Don’t worry,” the lady laughed. “She’s not going to bother you anymore. Take a look…”

The bag lady held out her hand. There in her dark palms were exactly thirty-two of Doctor Pratt’s teeth. Some of them were golden with cavities. Others had been blackened by too much cigarette smoking. The bag lady held them closer, almost like Kimberly wanted to count them.

“What happened?” Kimberly stammered.

“I ate her,” the bag lady said simply. “Gobbled her up. But don’t worry. Before I ate up, I took all the good parts for safe keeping. Look, now I have all of her teeth…”

Kimberly glanced down. They looked like gemstones, little earrings. When the bag lady rested a hand on her shoulder, Kimberly took a breath and stepped back.

“Don’t worry. I’m not going to hurt you. Your teeth are too clean to eat. It’s the ones with the cavities; why, those are the ones that melt on your tongue. You just owe me a favor now….”

“What favor?” Kimberly stammered.

The bag lady picked up one of the teeth in her palms. Like rock candy, she popped it into her mouth and chewed. There was a great crackle. She swallowed it in one bite.

“When you have a baby….” the lady said. “You’re going to let its teeth rot for me. Then when they’re ripe, I’m going to find him. That’s me, Kimberly. The tooth fairy….”

Kimberly charged down the hallway.

In its wake, the tentacle had left a long trail of black ink. It coursed its way over the walls, spinning in wild circles like a child had committed sacrilege with a Crayola marker.

When she turned the corner, she watched the receptionist’s bloody heel vanish through an open doorway. Kimberly didn’t waste any time. She hurried over and swung open the door.

At first, she didn’t see anything. It was like any other room for children at a dentist’s office: a television and bright pink walls with smiling pictures of toothbrushes. Through the blinds, sunlight streamed in bright stripes. Kimberly took a step forward. She glanced at all the tools on the tray: the scalpel, the buzzer, the little mouth-pieces they filled with pink paste for retainers.

Then something dripped on her nose….

Kimberly spun around, glancing up above the doorway. There, dangling from the ceiling was what looked like a massive, purple octopus….

On the left side, there were at least a dozen tentacles squirming and fighting like snakes in a knotted mess. They seeped into a single bud at the center like a flower, a giant, gaping mouth with thousands of teeth. Kimberly’s first thought was a Venus fly trap.

When she looked closer, she realized it looked more like some foreign, undersea creature. It was ragged mess that a fisherman would drop dead on a dock like a rag. But this thing was breathing…alive…

One group of tentacles held Kevin. They had smothered his mouth and eyes. If it weren’t for his bright, red sneakers, Kimberly wouldn’t have recognized him. With its other tentacles, the creature was in the middle of gobbling up the receptionist’s corpse. It split her open like an envelope, spraying blood down all over the linoleum. Then it chortled and turned its attention to Kimberly. There it was, the tooth fairy…

The tentacles brushed themselves around the receptionist’s broken head. Like plastic surgery, they started to rebuild a face. After a moment, looking out from the bud in the center, Kimberly’s own face stared back at her…

“You can have my teeth instead!” Kimberly pleaded. “Please! They’re bad! I promise…”

“No!” the tooth fairy said back to her. “You’ve taken excellent care of your teeth. You brush them every day. I’ve been watching you—”

“Well, just give me a week!” Kimberly wailed. “I won’t floss! I’ll drink coffee! I’ll smoke cigarettes! Just let him go! Please—”

“You should have brought me teeth,” the creature said, shaking its head. “I can’t resist teeth once they’re out of the mouth…”

Kimberly glanced down at the scalpel in her hand. Then she glanced up at Kevin. There was a way to do it, yes. A way out of this. But to go through with it…

“Are you sure you can’t resist them?” Kimberly said quietly.

The creature turned its attention to Kevin, cradling him like an ant trapped in a spider web. The tentacles raised him higher. The creature opened its jaws. From beneath the chattering teeth, there came three green tongues…

Then Kimberly jammed the scalpel into her own mouth. She screamed and thrusted it right into her gums. She pulled and pulled, digging into the gap between her two front teeth. They bent sideways, loosened earlier that week when she’d tripped on her walkway. There was a pain that felt like ice breaking in her skull. After a moment, there was a crack.

The monster shrieked at the noise.

It spun away from Kevin, his head almost in its gaping jaws. The tentacles spun like they’d been gushed by a wave, algae and plants raised up by the tide underwater. Kevin was dropped to the floor. He skidded down the wall and landed somewhere in the corner. Then the tooth fairy climbed down the wall, dozens of flagella moving at once. Its eyed locked on Kimberly…

“Pull it out!” the monster hissed. “Give that tooth to me! Pull it out… ”

Kimberly spun around, spitting up blood. She dashed away just as the tentacles swung to grab her ankles. Clambering across the floor, she reached into her purse and fished through her possessions: credit cards, her gym membership, the house keys. Her hands tightened on a pack of Newports and a lighter…

“I want your tooth….,” the monster shrieked. The tentacles seized the dentist’s chair and pulled it out of the floor like the roots of a tree. The bolts went flying like shrapnel. “Give me your tooth…”

It was ludicrous…absurd. Yet in the back of Kimberly’s mind, she knew it was her only resort. She pulled out a cigarette. She sparked the lighter. She watched the orange embers dance, lighting up the black tar.

Then she glanced up at the towering maw in front of her, the forest of tentacles that left a dripping mess of black ink in her wake.

Kimberly held the cigarette.

With a great cry, she chucked it right at the monster’s face.

It got lost somewhere in the mess of limbs. The tentacles chortled like Medusa’s snake, searching for the intrusion. The creature’s fangs face got closer. Its breath smelt like anesthesia, laughing gas…

Then the tentacles started to shriek.

They curled up into tight bundles, almost protecting their siblings. Kimberly smelled smoke. Something was burning. From within the patch of tentacles, there was smoke rising up like a distress signal. As the tentacles backed away, Kimberly caught a glimpse of the monster’s stomach, a bloating gut with stenciled markings.

As more tentacles parted away, she realized they were faces…children’s faces…the same ones she’d seen in the pictures in the office.

“No!” the tooth fairy screamed. “I’ll get you. I’ll get you. I’ll…”

The tentacles started to crumble like dead weeds. As the face reached out to grab Kimberly, it was buried in an avalanche of its own limbs. They turned coarse and grey, chirping at each other like birds. In a matter of seconds, Kimberly was left looking at a pile of grey noodles.

The ceiling fan was still spinning. Cars out in the street were still honking. With a shaking hand, Kimberly reached over and picked up one of the tentacles. After she shook it, it dropped to the floor like a wet towel.

“Kevin,” Kimberly muttered after a moment. She pocketed her lighter and cigarette. “Shit, Kevin…”

She hurried over to the corner. Kevin was crouched there shielding his eyes. His shirt was stretched out over his knees. Normally, Kimberly would have scolded him for ruining his clothes. Now she held him, pulling him into an embrace…

“Let’s go,” she said. “Let’s get out of here. No time to waste…”

“I…I feel kind of weird,” Kevin said quietly.

“Yeah, I wonder why…” Kimberly sighed. “Come on, let’s leave…”

“No,” Kevin said. “I…I think I swallowed some of it…”

And from the corner of his mouth, Kimberly could see a dripping line of black ink.

Little Tommy Walters had lost two teeth on the same day. His pastor had called this a blessing from God. Now, rather than receiving money for a single tooth, Tommy was going to make double income.

During dinner, his parents had filled his head with wild fantasies: a new PlayStation, more baseball gear, or perhaps even a trip to grandmother's house if he asked nicely. Tommy didn't care for that very much. His grandmother was fond of burning anything she cooked and watched Young and The Restless all day. But as a businessman like his father, Tommy wouldn't pass up opportunities. Grandmothers, like loose teeth, meant coins in your piggy bank.

Tommy had stayed up all night thinking of silver and gold. After a while, the black sky outside turned to a dark blue. That’s when Tommy started to worry. What if the tooth fairy only answered your prayers while you were sleeping? Pressing his pillow to his face, he'd counted sheep and gone through fictitious stories in his head, tales where he was an investor at the New York stock exchange. Eventually, he'd decided to quell his insomnia with a drink of water.

As Tommy walked back to the room, he thought of all sorts of bad things about the tooth fairy. Perhaps she was lazy. Perhaps she’d forgotten him. Perhaps caring about children was all a rouse and she was really a no-good whore. Even worse, Tommy would have nobody to write a complaint to if she didn't show up. With the Easter Bunny at least, he knew he could pray to Jesus.

When Tommy returned to his room, he heard a faint, slithering sound….

At first, he thought it was the blankets rustling. He wondered if their German Shepherd had gotten into the room. Tommy sighed. He walked back over to his bed. That's when he saw the pillow move.

Looking down, he saw a thick black snake sliding out beneath his sheets…

"What the hell?" Tommy yelled. "Mom! Dad! Come quick..."

The tentacle sped down the crack between his bed and the mattress. Then it crept up the wall and stabbed a hole in the window screen. As it vanished off into the night, Tommy noticed another hole on the window…two of a kind like his window had been shot by bullets.

The lights in his parents' room turned on. His dog started barking. And if anyone had been outside, perhaps they would have seen a young woman in the front yard feeding Tommy's baby tooth to her son...