Bratton's Idea

Bratton has spent decades tending to the glittering halls of a Hollywood film studio, unseen and unremarked. But behind the scenes, in his basement laboratory, he pursues a single obsession: to create life from nothing. When a ventriloquist discards his dummy after a humiliating rejection, Bratton sees his chance. The mannequin he names Tom-Tom will be his masterpiece, his proof that even a nobody can birth a miracle. He succeeds beyond his darkest imaginings. Tom-Tom opens his eyes. Tom-Tom speaks. And Tom-Tom hungers for something very different from recognition. What begins as a lonely man's triumph becomes a descent into terror, as the creator discovers he has given life to something that knows exactly how to use it. Set against the artificial glare of 1930s Hollywood, this is a eerily effective tale of aspiration curdling into horror, and the monsters we make when we long too desperately to matter.