Then it hit me.
He was searching for something.
But what?
Later, after chastising myself for the four cookies I snarfed down after school, I climbed down the tunnel behind the secret door and looked around. I found nothing.
When I got out, I moved my dresser back against the door. No more nightly trips for Dad. Also, I drilled a lock into my door frame. For privacy. Smart move, I told myself. I patted myself on the back a little.
I sat against the dresser and thought some more about what Dad was looking for.
What do you think he was looking for, dummy? He was looking for other dolls.
Hmm. That was an interesting thought. If there were other dolls in the house, but they weren’t in my room, then there must be other hidden doors.
My body went cold. Jesus, were there really more of those things? If so, why were they hidden in our house?
Suddenly, I couldn’t breathe. My vision swam. Everything was closing in on me. I trembled. I needed to get out.
Barefoot, I raced down the hallway and the stairs, through the living room, flung open the door—
And screamed.
Chapter Seven
“Jesus, what’s wrong with you?”
Melinda was standing there, clutching her school books to her chest, seriously concerned about this sweating crazy person with wild hair who just yelled in her face.
I gasped. “What are you doing here?”
She rolled her eyes. “Homework. At five. Remember?”
Oh, that.
I got red. “Sorry,” I mumbled.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing, I, uh . . .”
“Do you want to work inside?” She gestured to the house.
I froze. No, I didn’t. I really didn’t.
“Sure,” I said anyway, then abruptly plopped onto my stoop and began to cry.
“What do you think?” I asked later at the kitchen table. “Am I crazy?”
It was dark out. The coffee Melinda had brought had gone cold long ago. She sipped it anyway, deep in thought.
“No, you’re not crazy,” she said. “Your dad was crawling through your room in the middle of the night. That’s weird. You saw something wooden in his side. That’s weird, too. Plus, I saw him close-up at the mall. And he looked weird. It was really unsettling. I mean, maybe your dad isn’t becoming a doll, but something for sure isn’t right.”
I could have hugged her.
“The question is,” she said, draining the last of her coffee, “where should we start searching for the other dolls?”
That devious grin again.
This is a three-bedroom home. Two bedrooms and one-and-a-half baths on the top floor, and the master bedroom on the bottom.
The staircase to the second floor leads to an open balcony, so you can peer down onto the living room from above. It’s cool. If I’d grown up here, I probably would have loaded the living room floor with cushy pillows and then leaped off the banister. I considered doing it now, but decided it was best to get our search done first.
There weren’t many places for a secret door like the one in my room. We searched everywhere. Dad’s office, all the bedrooms. I felt really weird crawling around the base of my parents’ bed. The doodads and knick-knacks on their night stands were so personal. My snooping felt like a betrayal.
We were extra careful not to disturb anything. Dad couldn’t know we’d been there. We moved desks and felt behind couches, knocking on the walls and gathering dust with our fingertips.
Melinda wiped the sweat from her forehead, leaving brown streaks. We’d been searching for almost an hour already, and we hadn’t touched our biology books. We do have a test tomorrow, I reminded myself.
“We’ve gone through the entire house,” she said, resting her back against the refrigerator.
“Yeah, guess so. What now?”
“Biology? Food?”
Yeah. Good idea. I tried to muster the energy to stand and grab a box of macaroni. Then I saw the cabinet above the fridge.
“Wait a second. Boost me up.”
She helped me to my feet and interlocked her fingers. I stepped onto her hands and opened the cabinet. She didn’t seem to strain under my weight, which made me feel good.
There was nothing inside.
Then I noticed the paneling in the back. It was darker than the rest of the interior. It looked out of place.
One knock from my fist and the secret door opened.
Melinda yelped in surprise as I sprang from her hands, propelling myself straight into the cupboard.
I gawked.
A tunnel inside, about six feet long. I crawled in, elbows slamming the sides. I could feel the slickness of blood on the metal walls. I’d be scabbed and bruised tomorrow, but I didn’t care. I didn’t think about it at all. My heart was beating so hard, I could feel it between my ears.
The tunnel twisted to the right. I pulled myself around the turn, on my side, and saw the thing sitting there.
Melinda, poor creature, was standing in front of the fridge, her hands over her mouth, when I tossed it down.
I can only imagine her surprise when out of this hole in her new friend’s strange house sprang a two-foot-tall little girl with jolly blonde curls and crooked, painted eyes.
Chapter Eight
We sat it up on the kitchen table. God, this new doll was creepy, and obviously from the same “family” as the other one.
Its face, features, and “clothing” were all painted on, just like the other one. And like the other doll, the wood was immaculately smooth. The body was stiff—no movable joints. And its expression? Bubbly and smiling. A happy child with blonde curls. Definite charisma.
I guess.
We stared at it a while. This was supposed to be a big surprise, or so I thought. But now that we’d found it, the room deflated a bit.
“What are you going to do with it?” Melinda asked.
“I don’t know. What should I do? I don’t want to give it to Dad. He’s already obsessed with one doll. He said the other day the studio loves it; they’re revising the entire family in the movie now.”
“That’s cool, right? I mean, that your dad is a big-time director. And you’re influencing the project. That’s a good thing.”
I shifted in my seat. She had a point. But it didn’t do much for our current situation.
So I made us some mac and cheese. When I brought it to the table, Melinda was staring at the doll. Later, I’d think of a better word to describe her look. The word was “smitten.”
“I guess you’re going to put it back up there?” she asked, flicking her head at the cabinet above the fridge.
I shrugged and ate the half-cup of food I’d allowed myself. “Got any better ideas?”
“I could take it home with me.”
I looked sideways at her.
“That way you can keep it out of the house and your dad won’t find it.” She looked down at her glop. “At least, until you figure something else out.”
Maybe I should have said no. But I was so creeped out. I’d feel a lot better knowing it was out of the house.
So I let her take it.
But I shouldn’t have.
::hangs head in everlasting shame::
It was past midnight and I was in bed when I heard the front door open. Footsteps moved down the hall. I waited until the water pipes had stopped squealing (which meant Dad had finished showering), then gave it another hour to make sure he was really asleep.
I tiptoed onto the landing and down the stairs. Dad’s office is down the hallway on the bottom floor, opposite his bedroom. I paused near his door and waited until I heard him snoring.
Good. I was all set.
Gently closing the office door behind me, I flicked the light on, took the blanket off my dad’s reading chair, and shoved it under the door frame. That should cut any telltale light coming under the door.
He’d left his briefcase on the desk. Just like I’d hoped.
I love his briefcase. It’s red and old-school, and he looks like a weirdo when he carries it around.
I popped it open.
A binder of storyboards. Another one with legal documents. All neatly maintained.
At the bottom was a manila folder. I opened it. It contained old, faded news clippings from the 1930s. I sat back in the office chair and began reading.
“The Company Shuts Down Newly Formed Animation Department,” the headline said. Beneath that was the story, only a couple paragraphs long.
On Tuesday, The Company abruptly announced it will be canceling its work on the upcoming film, See You in Theaters. Insiders say The Company will take a massive loss on abandoning the project, currently in pre-production. The department heads have made no comments.
Bill B. has stepped down, announcing an early retirement: a surprising move for the forty-four-year-old lead animator. He has also refused to comment, though one anonymous source told us he and the studio suffered from “creative differences,” the project being “too dark” for The Company’s new president.
Too dark? What did that mean?
I removed the storyboards from their plastic sheaths.
They gave me pause.
The drawings were nasty. I stared with creeping flesh at the contorted faces, the long teeth, the twisted smiles. This was like no kids’ film I’d ever seen.
I turned the page. Six frames depicted a small girl, tied to a chair, while an adult wearing a doctor’s smock and surgical mask towered over her with what looked like a giant metal claw; its sharp fingers spun around in whip-fast motion, like an electric kitchen mixer. Or a weed trimmer.
It was torture, pure and simple.
The storyboards didn’t show the gore explicitly; the film would cut to another small girl standing in the corner, obviously gleeful at the display of carnage. The viewer would hear the sounds of torture, but never see the torture itself.
I slammed the book shut.
The girl in the corner looked just like the doll we’d found earlier.
The next morning, I raced to school and waited by Melinda’s locker. The warning bell rang; she still hadn’t shown. Disappointed, I went to class, figuring she’d slept in. I’d see her in biology.
But she wasn’t there, either. It wasn’t like her to miss class, and especially not when we had a huge test that counted for twenty percent of our grade. I asked Mr. Kemp if she’d called in sick, but he said no.
I texted. I called. It went straight to voicemail.
The next day, she didn’t show up again.
Knock, knock.
I stood at her front door, waiting, hands in the pockets of my loose-fitting jacket, feeling very awkward. Melinda lived all the way in Beverly Hills, even though she went to school on the East Side. And her neighborhood was uber wealthy; her house was the only one on the block without a gate.
I shouldn’t be here. Leave. Forget we were ever friends and just go. She doesn’t like me. I was stupid to think she would. She’s cute and rich and thin and people like her.
I shook my head, took a few deep breaths like my therapist in Atlanta had told me to do. No sense in thinking like that, I told myself.
I rang the doorbell twice more. Still no answer. Frustrated, I slammed my hand down on the door handle. To my surprise, the door opened, revealing an immaculate, white entryway with twenty-five-foot ceilings. A large staircase jutted out of the center of the room and stretched to the second floor, where the walkway and banisters wrapped around the sides of the interior. For a moment, I forgot all about why I was there and just marveled at the statues and framed portraits of nude women.
“Melinda?” I called, gently. My voice echoed. I tried again.
Then—
A door creaked. I heard footsteps. Up on the second floor.
I called again and stepped inside. I walked up the stairs and pushed open the first door to the left. Band posters littered the walls. Clothing was strewn around. This was her room, all right. She had her own bathroom in there, too.
I knocked on the closed bathroom door. “Melinda?”
“Go away,” she said in a muffled voice. Sounded like she was crying. With her hands over her face. “Just go away.”
I put my ear to the door. First she hadn’t come to school, then didn’t answer my calls, now this.
I felt a sudden wave of sadness. I’d just found Melinda. She was my first friend in so long, and now she was telling me to leave. Mom and Dad were both basically absent. Did I have no one left?
I leaned in. I spoke loudly and clearly and slowly, so she could hear me, really hear me. She needed to understand. I told her that whatever was going on, it was safe to tell me. I wouldn’t reject her, or think she was weird, or tell anyone if something had happened. I needed her, I told her, I needed her to let me in, to talk to her. I wiped the tears from my eyes.
I heard the click of the lock.
The handle turned. The door opened.
I saw the rest in fragments:
—Steam billowing out.
—Melinda’s face, makeup streaming down.
—Her shoulder.
—And the second head attached to it.
Not just a head, though.
A frame. A frame of a body.
Oh, no—
And two tiny arms.
Melinda sniveled and looked at the doll that was attached to her. “Get it out of me.”
I gawked, aghast.
The doll was sticking out of her left shoulder, cut off at the chest at a forty-five-degree diagonal. The right arm was submerged up to the elbow near her collarbone, as if it had been swallowed up while flailing at sea.
I couldn’t tell where she ended and it began. There was no blood. They’d been fused seamlessly. The wood from the doll and the skin from my friend were overlapping, the resulting area looking like the skin of a burn victim, stretched and horribly painful-looking.
“Get it out,” she repeated, sobbing.
I placed my hands under the doll’s wooden arms and pulled.
And pulled some more.
And yanked.
But it wouldn’t budge. It was like trying to pull a table apart with my bare hands.
I shook my head. It was no use.
The doll was hopelessly stuck inside her.
Chapter Nine
It took two hours to calm Melinda down.
“Here.” I handed her a cup of tea. Decaf, Jesus Christ, decaf.
“Thanks,” she said, glancing at the blanket we had thrown over the doll. She frowned and quickly looked away.
Now, try to picture how creepy and awkward this situation would be if you were me. You’re with a new friend you kind of know but not really, and somehow a doll is stuck halfway out of her body. What do you say that isn’t wildly dumb or insensitive?
Also, it felt like I’d just caught her naked or something. It felt very revealing. Not sure how else to describe it.
“I’m screwed.” Her eyes glazed over. Her look said it all. Nowhere to go, nothing she could do.
Still, I tried to reason things out. “Okay, first things first. Are your parents coming home soon?”
She shook her head. “They’re gone on a business trip. Four or five days, I think.”
I paced her bedroom, trying to make it look like I had a plan, or was at least capable of formulating one. “We need to get this thing out of you. That’s the most important thing. I’ll take you to the hospital.”
“So you can pawn me off on them? So they can keep me there, locked down, like some kind of freak prisoner? When they see that a doll is sticking out of me, they’ll flip out. They’ll call in the army or something. That’s what always happens in the movies. They’ll want to do tests on me! They’ll cut me open!”
I saw her point. That did seem to happen a lot in movies. I decided to change tactics. Maybe we could come up with some answers on our own. “Okay. So how did this happen?”
She stared into her mug. “I came
home with it from your place. There was something . . . attractive about it, I guess. I’m not sure what drew me to it.
“When I got here I put it on my chair, just kind of forgot about it. I was so fried, I climbed into bed and went to sleep. But when I woke up the next morning . . .” She looked forlornly at the blanketed mass on her shoulder. “It was lying next to me.”
“You didn’t put it in bed with you?”
“No way!”
“What happened the next night?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. I felt so weird and tired. I stayed home from school and slept. Like, all day. I only got up to use the bathroom, once, and I got some water. Other than that, I slept straight through the day and night.
“I woke up this morning, and before I opened my eyes I knew was having more trouble lifting my arm. It felt . . . heavy. Then I looked over and saw this.” She motioned to the bulk attached to her and spouted fresh tears.
I felt terrible. But I also knew one of us needed to stay strong. I had to figure this out.
“It attaches itself to you when you sleep,” I concluded, half to her and half to myself.
She nodded, wiping her face. “I think so.”
“And you woke up this morning, and it’s been the same since?”
“Yes.”
I nodded. “Okay. At least we know how to stop it from getting worse.”
“But what am I supposed to do? I have to sleep!”
“Not until we figure this out,” I said bluntly.
She threw up her hands. “And how do we do that?”
I pulled out my binder. “I took the storyboards out of Dad’s briefcase before he left for work yesterday. I made some copies.” I flipped it open. “I found notes about the production, too. This movie that was supposed to be made back in the day was horrific, way too violent for kids. The studios picked it up originally to compete overseas with German films.”
“Germany?”
“Yeah. During the 1920s and 30s, Germany was producing these animations. Weird stuff. They were dark and strange, popular in some circles, but The Company thought they could market similar movies to the American audiences. So they hired Bill B. and gave him a project. This project.”
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