I’m not sure where Noodlehead came from. He simply appeared in my room one day. His head looked like a single large Farfalle noodle, with one googly eye sewn onto either side. The rest of his body was relatively normal, just a belly, two arms and two legs with neither hands nor feet. Your typical plain plushie, and the protagonist of my strangest childhood memory. If the events I’m about to recount sound a bit trippy, that’s not because I’m bullshitting. I genuinely believe this happened, even though I haven’t told this story to anyone in years.
The second I spotted Noodlehead sitting on my bed, I picked him up and ran to my parents to thank them for my new toy. We had just moved houses and of course I assumed they had bought it for me to cheer me up. The whole ordeal had left me sort of bummed, a pretty normal reaction for a kid my age at the time.
The beaming smile on my face must have faded when I saw my mom and dad exchange confused glances.
“Can I see it, sweetie?” my mom asked as she bent down to take a look at Mr Noodlehead. I handed her the plushie and she examined it with a thoughtful expression. She squeezed him a few times, smelled him, shook him–then handed him to my dad. He pretty much did the same, just a little rougher.
“Stop, you’re hurting him!” I protested, standing up on my tiptoes as I tried to reach out for him.
My dad shrugged and returned the plushie to me, then turned to look at my mom. “Where did it come from?” he asked in a hushed tone.
“I don’t know, I didn’t put it there,” she hissed back. “Seems to be alright though. Doesn’t even smell bad or anything.”
“Probably used to belong to the previous owners.” He looked back at me with a little smile. “You wanna keep it, princess?”
I nodded eagerly. My mom chuckled. “I’ll just give it a wash to be safe,” she told me as she once again took the plushie and placed it in the clothes basket with the other laundry.
When I got him back, I had already met preparations for him moving into my room. I had set up a makeshift bed using an empty shoebox which I had painted pink and filled with torn tissues. I cut up a pillowcase so he’d have a blanket too, something my mom would later discover without much delight. That night, I rested him in this pink little box with a reverence only a caring parent, the devoted owner of a pet or a six-year-old with a new toy could muster. I tucked him in and kissed both sides of his noodly head before lying down in my own bed myself.
From there on out, things took a turn for the weird very quickly.
The first strange incident took place that very same night. I woke up because it was hard to breathe, and when I opened my eyes, all was dark. Not the normal nightly kind of darkness, but rather as if someone had pulled a blanket over my head. I soon found that something quite similar was actually the case. I reached up to remove my new plushie from my head. It had latched onto it like some sort of cotton-born face-eater, but it didn’t cling to it seeing as I could pull it off with no difficulty at all.
That wasn’t the strange part. I’d already known Noodlehead to be alive. The question was, why did he come up to me like that? Was it to make himself known? To wake me up? If so, why?
I sat up, the now limp body of Mr Noodlehead in hand, and listened to the quiet drumming of raindrops hitting the outside of my bedroom window. The sound seemed to get more aggressive as time passed. It grew louder, more intense and was soon joined by the howling of wind, an eerie noise to hear when you’re in your room at night all by yourself. With my little Noodlehead, I felt at least a bit safer. Out of nowhere, I got an idea. What if Mr Noodlehead had startled me awake as a warning? Did that mean something was about to happen? I stared at the unmoving toy with alarmed curiosity. My fingers caressed the small, round stumps its arms ended in, squeezing them as if to comfort it.
“What’s going on?” I whispered, lifting it up to my ear to ensure I wasn’t about to miss whatever it would tell me in response. I received no answer though. Then I heard it. A static buzzing noise. It was coming from nowhere in particular and I wouldn’t call it loud, more like… big. Enormous. It instilled some sort of dread within me, the kind of feeling a child shouldn’t even know. I learned what it felt like to have your blood run cold that very night. Pressing Mr Noodlehead to my chest, I hurriedly hid under my blanket, waiting for the sound to pass. Not even my bedsheets could stifle the odd thunder.
It lasted for around five minutes, but my ears kept on ringing long after it had stopped. I didn’t crawl out from under my covers again that entire night.
This very thing would happen over and over again in the following nights. I loved Noodlehead, but ever since I’d obtained him, I hadn’t gotten a single good night’s rest–he would always wake me up somehow, then have me hold him as the sound would come on and eventually disappear again. I didn’t even know where this seemingly instinctive fear I felt when hearing it stemmed from, yet my pulse would start racing all the same. Weeks soon turned into months and my parents began to notice my change in demeanor. Whether it was my fatigue, increasing apathy or the dark circles under my eyes that alerted them I don’t know, but even though they were worried, they didn’t make any connection to Noodlehead.
I wasn’t about to tell them what I was hearing at night. I used to keep to myself a lot when I was little and I considered these odd exploits a secret between me and my noodly best friend. If they ever heard the sound themselves, they didn’t say–not once did I even overhear them mentioning it. I figured not, especially since they didn’t have anyone to wake them up so they’d hear it. That was another thing that struck me as off; Noodlehead always seemed to know it was coming before it started.
I lived in this odd state for almost an entire year, the buzzing flaring up night after night. Until that one December evening. It was pretty close to Christmas if I remember correctly and just like many children, I had wished for a dog. I’d wanted one for a very long time at that point, but my parents had insisted we had neither the time nor space for one and that I simply wasn’t old enough to take responsibility for it. I still sort of had my hopes up that I’d be getting one as a surprise. However I would never get closer to it than I did a few nights before Christmas eve.
I was lying in bed, Mr Noodlehead in his box beside me when I heard a knocking on my window. I sat up and looked around, but I couldn’t see much in the darkness. Upon realizing this, I quietly got out of bed and walked over to my window, opening it after some careful consideration. I found myself facing a woman I had never seen before. She was of about the same age as my mother and very pretty, with silky brown hair and a warm smile on her lips.
“Hello, young lady,” she greeted me. Her voice was soft and oddly melodic. I couldn’t decide whether or not it made me uncomfortable. “Do you have a moment?”
I was taken aback. “Who are you?” I stammered. “What are you doing here?”
“That’s not important. I’m here to give you something. Close your eyes…”
I hesitated, but eventually complied. I heard her rustle around with something I couldn’t see. “Good. Now you can look again,” she said cheerfully.
I slowly opened them, only to find the cutest, tiniest white puppy sitting in her outstretched palms. My jaw dropped and I carefully reached out to pet its little head. It yapped excitedly and I could feel my heart begin to race. “Is it for me?” I breathed.
The lady nodded eagerly. “Yes. Go on, take it.”
I wrapped my hands around its small, warm body as gently as I could. “Can I really keep it?” I whispered reverently.
“Of course. There’s only one little thing I’d like in return.” I waited for her to go on and she cleared her throat. “There’s something of yours that used to belong to us, but sadly, it got away. It wasn’t supposed to, but it did and now you have it. We would very much like it back. We’ve been looking for it for a long time. If you hand it over, you may keep the puppy.”
“What is it?” I asked, the change in her tone having made me suspicious.
“Let’s see. It’s light beige, has two eyes and its head is large, flat and a bit weird… like it’s twisted in the middle. It kind of looks like…”
“A noodle?” I offered.
“Yes! Exactly, that’s it. You have it, don’t you?”
“I do…” I replied slowly.
“Well, great! So, will you give it to me?”
I stopped caressing the tiny dog in my arms as a frown began to form on my face. I couldn’t bring myself to respond. The lady’s eyes darkened. “What is it?” she asked, her tone sounding much less cheerful than before. “I know you have it. Give it to us.”
I swallowed before quietly shaking my head and holding out the puppy to her. “I’m sorry, ma’am… but I don’t want it after all,” I said meekly. Her formerly friendly smile had turned into a deep scowl as her hand suddenly shot forward and batted the dog from my hands. I suppressed a scream as I watched it fall to the floor only to disappear in the blink of an eye.
“Where did it go?” I squeaked. It was like it had vanished into thin air. Like it had never been there in the first place. I turned back to the woman with wide eyes. I was beginning to understand that something was very wrong with her. This set loose another idea and I felt stupid for not noticing before, but my room wasn’t on ground level. How was she even looking into my window? Without losing another word, I stepped back and slammed the window shut. I heard a high-pitched hiss coming from outside. Just before I could pull down the blinds, I saw her head move down, and while there wasn’t enough time to put my finger on it, I could see that there was something off about it now.
Instead of running for my parents however, I rushed over to my bed, hopped in and pulled the blanket over my head, but not before grabbing Noodlehead and pulling him close. My heart was beating so loudly I thought the strange lady could surely hear it from outside. I stayed like this until morning. It was a weekend, so I wouldn’t have to go to school, but I’d still expected my mom and dad to come and wake me up at some point. But nobody came.
I could see the blinding bright light of the sunrise flood my room even from underneath my covers and by the time it grew soft and cold, I finally dared to take a peek at the alarm clock on my nightstand. I gingerly lifted the blanket and glanced over at it. Ten a.m. I slowly sat up in bed, confused as to where my parents were. Maybe they had overslept? I knew I had to wake them up. Holding Noodlehead close to my chest, I stood up and made my way out into the hallway, over to the door of the master bedroom. I knocked with bated breath. At that point, I could only hope my Mom and Dad were alright, but deep down I most likely already knew that whatever happened last night wasn’t quite over yet. This vague fear would be confirmed when a woman’s voice rang out from inside.
“Come on in!”
Now, my mother has a rather high-pitched, unique-sounding voice that can sometimes come off as a little shrill. Whoever had responded to me from behind that door definitely wasn’t Mom, but she was trying to imitate her. I was a kid, but I wasn’t entirely stupid, and I immediately thought of the lady from the night earlier.
“It’s you, isn’t it? Did you do something to my Mom?” I shouted out. “Where is she?”
I heard a sigh, followed by footsteps approaching the door. Then it was pulled open. I staggered back when I laid eyes on the strange woman once more. She stood right before me now, there was no wall separating us, no window to shut her out. And I could finally see clearly what had seemed off about her before. Her head wasn’t shaped like a normal person’s would be. It was elongated in the back, like there was a balloon full of water sticking out from it, and it hung down the back of her neck. Her eyes had changed as well; they looked larger and more intense in color. She squatted down to get on eye level with me.
“Okay, listen, you little pest. That thing you’ve got there is not a toy,” she began in a low, threatening voice. “He’s not for you. If you keep him away from me any longer, you’re putting yourself and your parents into a lot of danger. I’m supposed to get him back, and if I don’t, I’ll basically be screwed. Which means that going back without him isn’t an option for me. And I’m not afraid to use violence.” She stepped aside, revealing an unsettling view behind her.
My parents were lying in bed, their bodies limp as if in a deep sleep, but their eyes wide open. The color had drained from their faces. For a moment, I thought they were dead, until I took note of them blinking and their chests rising and falling as they breathed.
“Don’t worry about them too much,” the lady said. “Once you give me that little guy, I’ll unfreeze them and they’ll be just fine; they won’t remember a thing. But if you don’t hand him over, I’ll have to do that to you, too. I’ll leave you like that, without your mommy and daddy, without anyone there to help. You won’t be able to move, you won’t be able to get up, until eventually, you’ll die of thirst. And I really don’t want to do that.”
I stared at her for a few seconds before wordlessly loosening my grip on Noodlehead and holding him out to her with a shaking hand. She took him, her fingers closing around him with a hostile forcefulness. The moment she touched him, he began to writhe. His arms started thrashing around, he emitted a low-pitched screech and his legs were kicking like crazy. I started to cry and the lady shushed me as she hurried past me and ran down the stairs.
“Wait! My Mom and Dad—”
“They’ll wake up in five minutes!”
“Where are you taking him?”
“Back where he belongs. In prison.”
“Why? What’s he ever done to you?” I rushed after her, trying to get a grip on her sleeve but she brushed my hand away.
“He’s not some innocent little pup. Don’t worry, kid, you did the right thing. If he weren’t a convicted felon, he wouldn’t have fled his home planet in the first place.”
She threw the front door shut behind her and shortly after, there was this godawful noise again. Only then did it occur to me that it sounded a little bit like an engine starting up.