Night of the Living Dolls

by Joel A. Sutherland

  I had a hard time picturing Grandma going to a school like Summerside College. It seemed so prim and proper, and Grandma … didn’t. She was more of a practical, hands-on, no-nonsense kind of person, and her family hadn’t been wealthy either. I recalled her once telling me her father had been a janitor or something, and that after he’d died her mother had worked two jobs to pay the bills and avoid losing their house.

  I was about to close the book when I happened to catch the name of one of my grandmother’s classmates: Hattie Craick.

  Had Grandma named her doll after a girl in her class? And what about the other dolls? Did they also have names?

  I pulled out the baby doll and turned it end over end. There weren’t any markings on her, but then I raised her clothing and found a different name written on her back: Mary. I examined the other four dolls and discovered each one had a different name written somewhere on it: Dorothy, Virginia, Lois and Ruby.

  I turned my attention back to the yearbook and found four matching names: Dorothy Kearns, Virginia Coxwell, Lois Hershey and Ruby Rosswell. Why would Grandma have dolls with other girls’ names on them?

  And then it dawned on me: the handwriting was different on every doll. Grandma hadn’t named the dolls after her friends from school. The dolls had belonged to those six friends from school.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  There was definitely something odd about the whole thing.

  Holding the dolls made me feel really sad. Like they were full of negative energy that left me feeling cold, both physically and mentally. I put them back in the trunk, closed the lid, and hid the yearbook behind it. I picked up the journal, still feeling an overwhelming sense of sorrow.

  I needed to get out of the attic. I needed fresh air. I took the journal and quickly walked down both sets of stairs. Avoiding Lucy and Dad in the kitchen, I passed through the family room and went outside through the sliding door. I closed it quietly and took a deep breath with my eyes closed. The sun felt warm on my skin and the breeze blew through my hair.

  After three more deep breaths, I opened my eyes. The first thing I saw was the tall, dark hedge at the far end of the backyard. The breeze grew colder, coating my skin in goosebumps. A shadow passed from left to right through the hedge. Probably a neighbourhood kid playing on the other side. Lucy and I had always enjoyed playing there too.

  On the other side of the hedge was an empty field — empty except for the ruins of a large stone fireplace and chimney, the last remnant of some long-forgotten building. I loved that fireplace. It was so old and mysterious. I’d asked Grandma about it once and she said it had been there as long as she could remember. I wondered if it could’ve once been part of a wealthy family’s mansion or maybe it heated a wing of a small private castle. In my imagination that fireplace had been the centre of many adventures.

  The shadow paced back and forth behind the hedge, like a ravenous animal stalking prey. But I realized it was too big to be a kid or an animal.

  A chill tickled my skin and made me shiver. The wind died down and I heard the sliding door open behind me. It was Mom.

  “Hey, kiddo,” she said.

  “Hey, Mom.” I slid the journal under my leg, hoping she hadn’t caught sight of it.

  “You haven’t eaten yet,” she said.

  “Nope.”

  She eyed me sympathetically and with a hint of concern. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m okay. It’s a little weird being here, I guess.”

  “I know what you mean. Why don’t you come in and eat with me? Your father and sister are already done and I could use the company. Maybe some food will make us feel a little better.”

  “Sure thing,” I said. “I’ll be in in a minute. Cool?”

  A little smile tugged at Mom’s lips. “Cool.”

  She closed the door and stepped out of sight.

  That had been a close call. I didn’t want anyone else to catch me with the journal so I hid it beneath the deck and glanced at the hedge. Whatever had been on the other side was gone.

  ***

  Later that night I was startled out of a deep sleep.

  I didn’t know what had woken me up. It wasn’t that I had a bad dream. I wasn’t hungry or thirsty. I didn’t have to use the bathroom.

  Something was in the room with Lucy and me.

  My sister was sleeping soundly on the twin bed next to mine. Whatever had entered the room hadn’t disturbed her.

  I sat up and gripped the bedsheet tightly in my hands. The room looked empty, but I had that feeling in the pit of my stomach that told me I was in danger, and that other feeling on my back that made me think I was being watched. A thick blanket of clouds had rolled across the sky outside my window, blocking the moonlight. I couldn’t see much detail outside the small circle of red light from the digital clock on my bedside table. It read 3:01.

  A blur of movement passed over the far wall. Shadows from the headlights of a passing car on the street, I tried to convince myself.

  The floorboards creaked — just once, but loud enough for me to be sure it hadn’t been my imagination.

  “Hello?” I said. “Is anyone there?”

  Silence.

  My breaths — short, fluttery little gasps for air — were awfully loud in the stillness of the night. I waited and watched for another moving shadow, waited and listened for another floorboard creak. Nothing happened.

  I dug under the bedsheet for Sadie Sees, but my fingers didn’t find her. I reached a little deeper and still came up empty. I could’ve sworn I’d had her when I first got into bed. Maybe I’d knocked her out of bed while I was asleep.

  An ice-cold breeze passed by the side of my bed, and the drapes ruffled as if in the wind, but the window was sealed shut.

  “I know someone’s in here,” I said suddenly. A tear sprang from the corner of my eye and I brushed it away in a panic. What would Camryn think if she could see me now? I didn’t care. All I wanted was for the nightmare to be over.

  Suddenly an office chair in the corner of the room began to spin rapidly all on its own. With each revolution, it made a hair-raising, high-pitched squeak that sounded almost like a human scream: eek-eek-eek!

  I shut my eyes tight and buried my face in my palms, wishing I had an extra pair of hands to cover my ears. The squeal of the chair was grating.

  Eek-eek-eek!

  I still hadn’t opened my eyes, but I could tell by the sound it was making that the chair was slowing down.

  Eek. Eek. Eek.

  It no longer sounded so frantic.

  Eek. Eek.

  And then it uttered one final, drawn-out eeeeek …

  All was silent.

  I peeked through my fingers for a moment. Nothing moved, nothing stirred.

  The clouds outside parted and a splash of moonlight softened the darkness.

  The chair was facing the bed. Sitting on it, staring me down, was Sadie Sees. Her eyes looked … lifelike, like she was actually seeing me.

  And then she blinked, smiled and — as if she had read my mind — said, “I can see through anything.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “What did you say?” I demanded frantically of Sadie. I felt like I was losing my mind.

  The doll couldn’t have spoken on her own. She couldn’t have spun the chair. But there was no one else there except for Lucy, who was still asleep.

  I can see through anything. It was one of Sadie’s recorded phrases.

  Can you see me now? I thought, not daring to ask the question out loud. Can you see through me?

  She sat as motionless on the chair as … well, as a doll. As a doll should be, anyway. But her eyes still had a lifelike look about them, which freaked me out more than anything.

  I slipped out of bed and crossed the room, keeping my eyes on Sadie as I slowly approached her. I reached out to grab her but stopped my hand in mid-air. The doll watched me the entire time. I poked her in the chest to see what would happen.

  Nothing happened. Of course. W
hat had I expected — her to giggle like she was ticklish?

  I must’ve imagined it. Or maybe I was still asleep when I saw the chair spin and heard Sadie talk.

  “You need more sleep, Zelda,” I told myself as I closed my eyes and rubbed my face.

  Eek! Eek! Eek!

  I paused with my hands still covering my eyes. That sound …

  Eek! Eek! Eek!

  It was the chair spinning again, but I couldn’t bring myself to look.

  “Whee!” a small voice said. And although it wasn’t one of her recorded phrases, I knew at once that it was Sadie’s voice.

  I finally managed to drop my hands and open my eyes.

  Sadie was playfully spinning in circles on the chair and hooting with joy. She looked so happy, so carefree. But she also looked … different. I can’t explain how, just different. She was the same doll I’d always known and loved, and yet she was also a complete stranger to me.

  The chair stopped suddenly and Sadie laughed. She brushed her hair out of her face, smiled, and took a deep breath. Her cheeks were flushed. “That was fun,” she said. “Made me feel young again. You should join me for a few spins, Zelda.”

  You know that expression, cat got your tongue? I felt like a big cat — a tiger or a lion — had ripped my tongue clean out of my mouth. Not only couldn’t I talk, but I felt like I couldn’t breathe either. I backed away in horror until my legs bumped into the bed and I stopped, staring at Sadie in utter bewilderment.

  “I’ve got an idea!” she said. “Let’s stay here forever, just the two of us. What do you say?”

  “No,” I mumbled. It was all I could manage. My voice didn’t even sound like my own — it was like I’d left my body and was watching from above, like a movie or something. A horror movie, obviously.

  “But we can be twins. You can be a doll, just like me.” Sadie slipped off the edge of the chair and landed soundlessly on the floor.

  “No,” I said again, shaking my head. Nothing made sense. Nothing was real. “I’m a girl, not a doll.”

  “For now,” Sadie said, crossing the room toward me. There was something horribly unsettling in her tone and in her eyes — a hint of malice, a glint of madness. “One day, all of this will be over. One day, just like Grandma, you’ll die. And then we can be twins. We can be dolls. And nothing will ever tear us apart.”

  Overcome with terror and panic, I closed my eyes and buried my face in my palms. But something wasn’t right. It was the feeling of my palms on my face. Instead of warm and soft, my hands were cold and hard. They felt like plastic. I pulled my hands away and looked down at them. Instead of my normal human hands, they were doll’s hands.

  “No,” I said. I looked in the mirror on the wall beside me, dreading what I’d see but powerless to look away.

  The skin on my face was smooth and free of blemishes. My hair looked like wool. And my eyes were glass.

  I was a doll.

  “See?” Sadie said. She was suddenly right beside me. “We’re twins. We’re dolls. Forever and ever and ever.”

  Her eyes turned red and her teeth grew long and she hissed as she lunged with clawed fingers for my neck.

  I screamed and bolted upright in bed, then blinked and shook my head.

  The room looked slightly different. Sadie was gone. My hands were normal once again.

  “What happened?” Lucy asked. My scream must’ve woken her up.

  My heart pounded in my chest. I pushed my hair out of my face and looked around, trying to steady my breathing and my nerves. Sadie wasn’t on the chair. In fact, I didn’t see her anywhere. I’d been asleep. The whole thing with Sadie spinning the chair and me turning into a doll and her attacking me was a dream. No, not a dream. Definitely a nightmare.

  I was about to check for Sadie under the sheets when Mom and Dad burst through the door.

  “What’s wrong?” Mom asked as she turned on the light.

  “Is everyone okay?” Dad asked.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I had a bad dream and screamed.”

  Mom gave me a sympathetic nod. “What was the dream about, sweetheart?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t remember.” Truthfully, I didn’t think I’d ever be able to forget, but I didn’t want to talk about it so lying was easier.

  Mom accepted my answer and felt my forehead, as if to make sure I wasn’t coming down with something, then turned the light back out.

  “All right, girls, try to get back to sleep,” Dad said.

  My parents left, closing the door behind them.

  I listened to their footsteps in the hall and the click of their door closing, then sighed.

  Everything was quiet again, but only for a moment.

  In the darkness Lucy said, “You didn’t wake me.”

  “What?” I said.

  “You didn’t wake me. I woke up a little before you did, thanks to your doll.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, confused.

  Lucy looked left and right, then her gaze settled on me. “She spoke.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  I closed my eyes and rubbed my temples, trying to make sense of what Lucy had just told me. Sadie had spoken. It hadn’t all been a dream.

  “That’s what happened in my dream,” I told her. “Sadie spoke to me — all on her own — and then she turned me into a doll, and then she attacked me so that we could be together forever.”

  Lucy frowned and looked at me as if I’d just sprouted a second head. “She said one of the things she always says: ‘I can see through anything.’ She didn’t do any of that other crazy stuff.”

  “Oh, yeah, I know,” I said, realizing that I’d mistakenly believed Lucy had seen Sadie speak on her own. I smiled and laughed, feeling a little embarrassed but also a little relieved. “I guess I must’ve moved her cord in my sleep. Weird.”

  “Yeah,” Lucy said, still looking at me oddly. “But not as weird as your dream.”

  “I found a doll collection up in the attic this afternoon,” I said. “Seeing them must have caused my nightmare.”

  Lucy shrugged her shoulders. “Where’s your doll now?” she asked.

  “Here in bed where I left her,” I said.

  I patted the bed on my right and left but didn’t feel her. I lifted the sheet and peered beneath, but she wasn’t there.

  “At least, she was here when I fell asleep,” I said.

  “Huh,” Lucy said.

  “What?”

  “She’s here.” Lucy pulled Sadie out from under her own sheet.

  “How …?” I asked. “Did you take her after I fell asleep?”

  Lucy shook her head. “I don’t know how she ended up in my bed, but I guess I must’ve made her talk, not you.”

  “Yeah, I guess.” I held out my hand. “Here. Pass her back.”

  She leaned over and started to hand Sadie over to me, but then she looked at the doll’s face and paused. “Actually, do you mind if I hang onto her? Just for the night?”

  “Really?” I said, surprised by the request. Lucy never seemed to care much about the doll, and after the dream I’d told her about, I figured she’d care even less.

  She nodded. “For some reason, having her close makes me feel better right now. And … I don’t know … makes me feel closer to Grandma. Does that sound silly?”

  I smiled, thinking back to the first night after Grandma gave me the doll, and how much better I felt holding her close as I drifted to sleep.

  “That doesn’t sound silly at all,” I told her. “Of course you can keep her tonight.”

  Lucy thanked me and lay back down. “Zelda?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Maybe tomorrow night too?”

  I laughed. “Sure.”

  It took a while, but we both eventually fell back asleep.

  ***

  I was sluggish and headachy when I woke the next morning, and Lucy looked like she felt the same. We moved about Grandma’s house like a couple of zombies, passing each other in the hallway as
we shambled from the bedroom to the bathroom to the kitchen, finally settling at the table.

  “You both look great,” Dad said sarcastically as he placed bowls of Xtra-Bran Flakes in front of my sister and me.

  “Ugh,” I said, picking up a spoonful of the brown cereal, which was quickly turning into sludge, and letting it slide free and fall back to the bowl. “Can’t I eat some Crystal Crunch or Honey Bears?”

  “That’s all there is in the cupboard,” Dad said. “Any more bad dreams last night?”

  “Not that I remember,” I said.

  Lucy choked down a mouthful of her cereal with a pained expression. “Tastes like twigs.”

  “How do you know? You’ve never eaten twigs,” Dad said, then frowned. “Have you?”

  Lucy didn’t answer.

  Mom came in and went straight for the coffee pot. She poured herself a mug and leaned against the counter as she took a long sip, then sighed.

  “We’re going to be out most of the day,” Dad said. “We’ve got to meet up with Aunt Joyce and Uncle Greg and take care of some other stuff too. Will you girls be okay on your own for a bit?”

  “Of course,” I said with a shrug.

  Lucy looked too disgusted by Grandma’s cereal to answer.

  I pretended to eat the Xtra-Bran Flakes while Mom and Dad puttered around the kitchen, then rinsed it down the drain in the sink as soon as they’d left. Despite the fact that she seemed to hate it and had proclaimed it tasted like twigs, Lucy managed to finish her entire bowl. She patted her belly and went back upstairs.

  ***

  Time passed slowly. I tried to read but couldn’t get past a single page. I tried to watch TV but couldn’t focus. I tried to eat but couldn’t work up much of an appetite. By two o’clock I didn’t feel like sitting inside Grandma’s house any longer. I went out to the backyard and sat on the edge of the deck, then reached under the wood boards and pulled out the journal.

  “What’s that?” Lucy asked.

  I flinched and squeezed the journal to my chest. “Lucy. I didn’t hear you come out here.”