NOS4A2

Content Warning: This guide and the source material reference child abduction and endangerment, as well as domestic violence.

FCI Englewood, California

In a prison infirmary, Nurse Thornton takes a blood bag to an old man named Charles Manx. His eyes are open, which disturbs her, particularly because it is Christmastime. Manx killed dozens of children in the 1990s at the “Sleigh House” (4). This is the first time Manx’s eyes have been open; the patients in Manx’s ward are “catatonic” or nonfunctioning.

Manx grabs her wrist, and she drops the blood as he says her son’s name: Josiah John Thornton. He says Josiah could be happy at Christmasland, and that it would be better for her than going to the House of Sleep, where she would meet the Gasmask Man. Thornton runs and gets security. Ten minutes later, two officers arrive and strap Manx down. His eyes are closed again and the doctor—Patel—says to unbind him. She shows them the bruises on her wrist where Manx grabbed her.

An eight-year-old girl named Victoria McQueen—also known as Vic and “The Brat”—hears a sob in her parents’ room. Her father, Chris McQueen, is asking her mother, Linda, to remember where she might have left something.