I started this story last July then stalled about halfway through. It sat there on my hard drive unfinished and unloved until around December, when I was asked to submit a short horror story to a magazine on the subject of "children's nightmares". I decided that an invisible friend gone bad might be a good theme for that, so I subsequently wrote up a tale - "Katie's Dolly" - which utilised the idea in a far more nasty and serious way. Apart from the concept of the monster there wasn't any other similarity. However, I heard back a couple of weeks ago that the story had been rejected. I wanted to write a welcome-back-from-your-visit-to-Pompeii story for Rhiannon yesterday so I decided to return to the PVB tale and complete it. So here it is, after a strange journey.
I think now I might go and proofread edit it since I've now spotted a few mistakes.