When I was a kid, I used to have a stuffed toy named Laughing Larry. He was a stuffed toy in the shape of a small man, but there were other variations of it—depending on what features were customized, the people that bought it could make it look like themselves or a loved one, but my parents settled on him to look like my dad. My parents showed me that if I pressed his stomach, he’d start laughing and laughed for around two to three minutes. It sounded like my dad, who said he’d recorded himself laughing.
The thing is, it didn’t sound entirely like my dad.
It made me uneasy. The laughter felt fake, forced, as if he was forcing himself to laugh and be happy. But as long as I didn’t press his stomach, I was fine with him.
He stayed away tucked in a corner of my bookshelf.
Except for one day, I got home from school, and there he was, sitting on my bed.
I didn’t panic. Not at first. No, I was a smart kid. I asked my parents if they moved him.
Both said no.
I moved him back.
And it went on like that for a few months, at least.
Saw him on my bed, moved him back. He was there the next day. Moved him back again.
Until one day, I woke up and he was laughing as he sat right next to me. This laughter, though, sounded different. Deeper. More sinister, in a way.
I screamed and flung it away. My parents had asked what was wrong, and I told them he was appearing at random and the laugh sounded weird.
They didn’t listen until he started showing up on their bed and laughing.
Then came the… other things. Small things. A tiny, barely seen bruise here. A scratch there. Items going missing, particularly other stuffed toys.
My parents bought me a new stuffed toy. The next day it was gone, and in its place, there laid a note scrawled in sloppy, tiny handwriting.
There can only be one, it had said.
Eventually, bigger things started to happen. Couch leather being torn. Plates smashed when we were all sleeping, only to find Laughing Larry sitting in the mess.
We decided enough was enough.
We threw him out.
The week after we did, all three of us had to go to the hospital because of unknown reasons—the doctors said something was in our food, based on the vomiting we had and the way our stomachs felt like they were twisting inside out.
We got better.
When we arrived home, there he was, sitting on my bed and laughing like nothing bad had ever occurred.
We were too scared to throw him out again.
So we did the only thing we could think to do: burning him.
But even as we were doing that, he was still laughing.
That deep, dark, sinister laughter will always stay in the back of my mind.
My parents had another baby. He’s six now.
From what I know, any traces of Laughing Larry has been wiped from existence. I tried looking online, and I even wrote to the old company, but they wrote back saying that all Laughing Larry’s have been discontinued.
My little brother came up to me yesterday to talk to me.
The first question he asked was, “Have you ever had a Laughing Larry?”
I could’ve sworn I tasted bile.
He quickly ran to his room to show me my old Laughing Larry, the one that we burned and made sure was ash before dumping it out into the trash, who was sitting neatly on his bed.
As soon as I entered the room, without my brother or I even touching it, it started to laugh, that same, familiar laugh that had haunted me throughout childhood.
I could’ve sworn that it was looking me in the eyes while laughing, almost as if it was saying, ‘Try to get rid of me. You can’t.’
My brother hasn’t started to get any injuries, nor have I or my parents, but I know it’s only for now.
I’m going to find a way to get rid of this thing for good, whatever it is, and to make sure it doesn’t come back this time, or ever.
Wish me luck.