I heard them shuffling about in the middle of the night, like misshapen zombies. Ever since my work had begun, I woke in the long hours before dawn, and every night they walked the workshop below, their limbs of cardboard and glass, of cloth and paper rustling as they tore me from my nightmares into a dream born of the previous day’s labours.

Each time sleep once again claimed me, and each time I woke in a cold sweat, afraid to descend the stairs and experience the horror of my creations come to life. Each time I rose from my bed, exhausted from nightmares and waking dreams, they sat silently, motionless on the floor and tabletops of my workshop, showing no sign of their night-time wanderings but that they were not where I had left them the previous night. The first time, and the second and third, I spent each morning returning them to their rightful places. A futile effort, I assure you.

And yet I could not cease my endless sculpting. I know not to this day what drove me to create such shapes, many-limbed creatures of straw and wire, lop-sided bipedal mutants of packing tape and cardboard tubes, each developing in my mind’s eye as if organically shaped from some long-distant design.

Despite my efforts, I could not bring myself to sell any of them. Even if I had found some damned soul who would wish to buy one – for there are always damned souls willing to purchase such esoteric art – I would be afraid of their reaction to my creations’ wanderings. Even in these enlightened days of science, it takes little to start a witch-hunt. As an artist, I should know the power of the media more than most.

It was Alex who was the first to notice something was wrong. Alex, who I have to thank for my salvation, for my freedom, for my loss. He was an old friend, one of those who hovered on the edges of the artistic world. I had relied on him for his cool head and outside perspective ever since I had become the epitome of the starving artist. Never as starving as my latest creations had made me, of course. My patrons were growing impatient.

“I just don’t understand you, Cal,” he said as he entered my studio. He wore pale slacks and a deep-blue polo-neck sweater, and his mid-length hair held the narrow middle ground between reckless bohemia and coiffured pretension. “You’ve got oil-sheikhs from Abu Dhabi banging down your door to buy classical character studies, you have rich young footballers who wouldn’t know art if it smacked them in the face desperate to buy a Calvin Andersen original, and you’re still working this ‘scrap art’ angle. What’s up with that?”

I shrugged. My attention was momentarily distracted as I realised the lumpy quadruped of wire and yarn that had been constructed in three frenzied days last week had migrated from its stand by the door to the far corner of my workshop. Two of its appendages – presumably its forelimbs if the rhinestones that decorated one surface were supposed to represent its face – were raised against the wall, as if beating its impotent fury against the plaster and brick.

“I have to follow my muse,” I said. It was a lame response, but it sounded like something an artist should say when defending his art. “I can’t just sit down and create a masterpiece every day, you know.”

“Don’t give me that bullshit! You must have some reason for creating these ugly pieces of crap, some plan of how you can make money from them. You may be crazy, but you’re not stupid.”

I’d had a chance to think about what he’d said by the next time he came back, three days later. Was I crazy? In the passing days, I’d taken a box of drawing pins and stabbed them into a papier-mâché creation that could only be described as a cross between a large arachnid and a squid. It felt right, and the papier-mâché was rigid enough that I finally thought I had found a way of controlling my creations.

“That’s one ugly piece of shit,” Alex said when he set eyes upon it where it had perched upon my main workdesk. “New, is it?”

I nodded. I had hidden it away in a cupboard as soon as the papier-mâché had set, in part out of a strange sense of depression, in part out of a sick fascination to see whether its rigid form would prevent it from joining the shuffling danse macabre that kept me awake each night. It had danced nonetheless.

Alex scanned the rest of the room. “Can’t you leave anything in place for even a day?” he asked. “It looks like you spend more time moving these… things around the room than you do sculpting!”

He could not understand. I had no intention of explaining. He would think I was crazy. I was starting to think that perhaps I was crazy. It happened to artists, my mother had once said. I don’t think my mother really ever grasped the intricacies of art, but on the other hand, it was a very real possibility that those intricacies were what were driving me rapidly insane. I could see the concern in Alex’s eyes as he walked through my workshop. He paused in front of the lumpy quadruped – which had moved back to its workdesk overnight – scratched it under the chin, and shuddered.

“This is some creepy shit, Cal. Who in their right mind would want to buy it?”

“I don’t know,” I said. I gave a half-shrug and a weak grin. I was tired, so very tired.

“Then why are you still making it? And don’t give me any of that stuff about your muse.”

“I don’t know,” I repeated. A life-size biped of cotton wool and electrical tape loomed out of the corner of my eye, and I reached out to trace my fingers across its torso. “But I have to keep making them. It’s a compulsion. And every night…”

I hesitated. He would think I was insane. A dark thought loomed in my mind; he would take them away. They would no longer be mine. I had to have them.

“You need to get out more,” Alex said. “I think you’re going crazy locked up in this place on your own. Come out for a drink; it’ll do you good.”

I went. I could sense my creations trying to coax me back as I closed the door behind me, but Alex’s presence gave me strength. I would return when the night was through. Perhaps this time I would catch them in their dance. Perhaps this time I could be sure that I wasn’t going crazy. Perhaps.

The bar was dark and smoky. We talked of other things, of football and girls, of days past, of wars and politics, of all the things that I had no time for amongst the creative frenzy of my work. The beer had sunk into my brain by the time we began the short walk back to my workshop. My heartbeat felt ragged, half in excitement, half in terror at what I might find.

“What’s wrong?” Alex asked when he saw the concern in my eyes. “I swear you’re cracking up.”

“I don’t want to go back,” I said. The alcohol coursed through my system, but I could feel the pull of my offspring even three streets away.

“There’s always the spare room at my place. Come on. It’ll do you good to spend a night away from that madhouse.”

“I can’t. I have to go back.”

“Why?”

“I have to see for myself. Else I’ll never know. I’ll lie there, half-in and half-out of a dream, listening to them every night. I’ll never know whether I’m crazy or not.”

“Them? You mean your sculptures? You think they move themselves during the night? You must be crazy!”

I looked at him in desperation. His expression of amusement faded and he nodded. We returned to the workshop together. All was quiet. I turned the light on. The quadruped still sat where it belonged. The papier-mâché arachnid stood on my workdesk, where I had left it. Alex looked at me with a smug expression.

“See. Nothing’s moving of its own accord.”

“Maybe it’s too early. Maybe they’re waiting until you’re gone.”

“Now that is crazy talk.”

“You don’t know what it’s like,” I said.

“This has to end, Cal. Take them away. Sell them if you have to.”

“No!” My voice came out as a shout. “I can’t live without them. They can’t live without me!”

“They’re not alive,” Alex kept his voice steady, but his eyes were afraid. “You’re obsessed. You can’t stay here.”

I heard the rustle of plastic behind me and spun round, staring wildly around the room. Nothing. My imagination. Or one of my creations creeping across the floor. I just wanted to run, to barrel up the stairs, tripping over my drunken feet, and hide in my bed. But then I would never know for sure.

A hand touched my shoulder. I yelled and broke free, then turned. Alex withdrew his arm, and his expression was one of grave concern.

“This has gone too far,” he said. He pulled a lighter from his pocket and held it out to me. “Destroy them. Else they’ll drive you insane.”

“No! I won’t!”

“Not even for your sanity?”

I hesitated. No more would I half-dream of their shambling gait, no more would I wake exhausted from a night’s hard slumber. But they were mine. No more would I live in fear of the things I had unleashed. But I had to have them. But to be free!

A jet of flame flickered at the lighter’s tip. I held up my hands to stop him, but my eyes betrayed me. Alex reached out for the arachnid, and the papier-mâché caught in a moment. I imagined I could hear its cries as it burned.

“Now the rest,” Alex ordered. “Gather them all.”