Thriller: Horror: Spirit Doll (Mystery Suspense Thrillers) (Haunted Paranormal Short Story)

by Stephen Kingston

  He was going to have to get used to taking these long trips and being away from the family more than he ever wanted to. Lilly and Chrissy both understood and they supported him. He just had to keep trucking on and remember why he was doing it. They were his whole world.

  He could hear Chrissy playing with Shelly as he closed his eyes and drifted off to sleep in his cozy bed.

  Chapter Two

  Brad was awakened by a familiar, sweet feeling. There was something warm and wet between his legs, engulfing him. He didn’t even have to open his eyes to know what was going on. He just lay still and breathed in nice and deeply. The sensation was moving up and down on him, sending little morsels of pleasure all through his lower body, tingling up into his stomach.

  Even after all this time his wife still gave him butterflies. He opened his eyes in the semi-dark room and he could make out the shape of Lilly’s beautiful face buried in his crotch, his boxer shorts pulled down to his ankles. She was working on him nice and slowly, but as he responded more, she moaned softly and increased her intensity.

  It had been a while since she had woken him up this way. Usually it was him tapping her on the shoulder in the morning to see if she was in the mood. If this was going to be a new standard greeting for him when he got home from these business trips, he was loving his promotion more and more already.

  She moved away from his crotch, realizing that he was awake now and began kissing up his body until she reached his face. She kissed him sweetly on the lips as she began to straddle him. He was inside of her in an instant, smooth and deep. She gasped as he locked into place and then she leaned back and began to move back and forth in a gentle rocking motion.

  He balanced her by placing his hands on her hips and moving her slowly up and down on him. It had only been a few weeks since they had made love, but it felt like longer than that for some reason. He was not sure why.

  She decided to change it up a bit and turned around to do a reverse position. They had not tried this one in a while and he found himself very excited by it. Lilly moved into position and started rocking back and forth, moving him in and out at a steady pace.

  He tried to maintain steady breath control, but it was difficult and he felt a little head rush of dizziness come over him, but he did not pay any attention to it. There was a more important matter here.

  “Ahh!”

  Lilly suddenly bounced off of him and pulled the covers up over her. She looked like she had seen a ghost and Brad was instantly on alert as he turned on the bedside lamp. He was expecting to see an intruder by the way Lilly had just freaked out.

  Shelly was sitting in the small rocking chair in the corner of the room. The doll was sitting there just staring at them with that same happy expression she always had. Her eyes were glossy and blank, but somehow seemed to be staring right at them. It was almost like she was watching their every movement and making her presence known.

  How had the doll gotten there? Chrissy was nowhere to be seen. The clock on the stand said it was almost six p.m. He had been asleep for five hours.

  “What the hell is that doing here?” Lilly asked.

  “I have no idea. Chrissy must have put it there,” Brad said.

  “I put her down for her nap like a half hour ago. She was sleeping soundly when I left her to come in here. The door has been closed. She couldn’t have come in here without us knowing.”

  Brad thought for a moment. There had to be a logical explanation. The doll sure as hell didn’t just walk in by itself. Besides if it had it would have had to open the door which one of them would have heard at some point, you would think. If it had? Really Brad? You are considering that?

  “That is the strangest thing,” Brad said. He realized the words sounded ridiculous as soon as he said them, but he did not know what else to think. His mind was being pulled in too many directions at once. Half the blood in his body was still providing sustenance for a different body part than his brain and he was in a bit of a fog. It truly was a weird experience.

  “What are we going to do?” Lilly asked.

  “What do you mean? I’ll take it back to Chrissy’s room. It’s almost dinner time anyway, right?”

  “You aren’t disturbed by this?” Lilly asked.

  “Not really. I know it’s a little weird, but I’m sure there is a logical explanation. Don’t let your mind wander on you, babe.”

  “OK, if you say so. But that doll gives me the freaking creeps.”

  “What? Since when?”

  “Since now. I’m officially creeped out,” Lilly said.

  Brad couldn’t hold back the laughter.

  “Why are you laughing at me, you jerk?” Lilly asked giving him a playful slap.

  “You didn’t find a really old pot stash somewhere did you?”

  “No! I haven’t even seen that since college. That was like six years ago.”

  “So, you admit you did it!” Brad said laughing his head off. He had been totally playing and he had just got his wife to admit she did drugs at least once.

  “You pig!” Lilly said slapping his shoulder repeatedly.

  “Hey, that is going to start to chafe. Ease up on the merchandise.”

  The two sat and cuddled for a few moments. Brad thought about finishing what they had started but Lilly was creeped out by the doll. And if she was creeped out then sex was most definitely not happening. It was a thing with her.

  “So, are you going to get that doll away from me?” Lilly asked.

  “Really? Are you going to be weird about the doll from now on?”

  “Maybe. It’s my prerogative as a woman.”

  “I don’t think the women’s lib movement covered this sort of thing,” Brad said getting out of bed and pulling up his boxer shorts, almost tripping himself in the process.

  He walked towards the doll and found that he himself was now creeped out. He silently thanked his wife for making him feel like a girlie man. There was something strange about the way the doll was just sitting there, like it was daring him to challenge it or something. It was weird, but he knew that he had psyched himself out and he forced himself to get over it.

  Brad quickly picked up the doll and held it up to the light. It seemed to be just an ordinary, yet extravagantly, beautiful doll. He still could not get over the fact that it seemed so lifelike. He could get lost staring into the contours of the eyes themselves. It was like there was a living person inside of there. The eyes contained emotions, hopes, and fears.

  How in the hell did they capture that in a doll’s eyes? Brad had to admit he was both creeped out and completely encompassed in the details of the doll. He shook his head trying to shake himself out of the trance that he was being thrown into.

  “See? It’s just a doll, honey,” Brad said.

  With that he took it out of the bedroom and down the hall. Chrissy was still asleep when he walked into her room. How and why did she bring the doll to their room? Did she see them doing anything? Oh, he hoped not. Even at her age seeing your parents doing it could scar you for life. This thought brought back painful memories of his own childhood when he had caught his parents in the act on three separate occasions. It never got any easier to deal with. It was still gross.

  Brad sat the doll down in bed beside Chrissy. She instinctively wrapped her arm around it and held it close. She did not bat an eyelid, still deep in sleep.

  Maybe she had sleepwalked? Was she too young to sleepwalk? He wasn’t sure he had ever heard of it happening in a kid that young, but he did not know a damn thing about the phenomenon, so who was he to say? That had to be it. She must have been sleepwalking and taken the doll down there and returned to her bed completely unaware of anything.

  They were going to have to keep an eye on that. The sleepwalking thing could become a bit of a problem if it was not dealt with early he had heard. He decided he might do some more research on it if it happened again. He was hoping that it would just be an isolated incident. Did that occur? Weren’t most sleepwa
lkers, chronically doing it? He didn’t have the faintest.

  He decided not to worry much about it and maybe he and Lilly would talk about it some other time.

  At dinner he watched with glee as his little girl spooned, much too large for her mouth, spoonfuls of mashed potatoes into her face. At first she did it because she grossly misjudged the size of her mouth and the spoonful of mashed potatoes, but when she saw it made her and Lilly laugh she kept doing it.

  They let it continue for a few minutes, until it became obvious that she was making a mess.

  “Chrissy, that’s enough. Take smaller bites and eat properly,” Brad said. He felt like a tool for laughing and encouraging the behavior, before realizing he had to be an adult and stop it. Being a parent was never easy.

  “So, back to work tomorrow?” Lilly asked.

  “Yep, they know I came home today, so it’s right back to the grind.”

  “They are going to be thrilled with how well everything went,” Lilly said. She was always so encouraging. Brad didn’t know where he would be without her constant love and support. He felt very lucky.

  “Yeah, I think so. I was pretty nervous about this one, but after I was there everything just really clicked and they loved the presentation I created.”

  “Way to go Daddy!” Chrissy said.

  Brad laughed so hard he almost choked on his own potatoes. Had his little girl actually understood what they were talking about? Or did she just pick up on the joy?

  “Thanks, baby,” Brad said.

  They ate alone in silence for a few minutes, but Brad finally decided to ask the question he had been thinking about since the bedroom.

  “Chrissy, did you come into Mommy and Daddy’s room earlier?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, we found Shelly sitting in the rocking chair in there, so we thought you might have left her there.”

  “No, I didn’t go in there.”

  “Then how did Shelly get there?”

  “I dunno. She walked I guess,” Chrissy said only half paying attention. She was currently trying to build a mountain out of her potatoes and green beans.

  “Sweetie, Shelly can’t walk; she’s a doll.”

  “Yes she can,” Chrissy said.

  Brad could practically hear Lilly’s breath stop as she stopped chewing, holding on to a mouthful of food.

  “Honey, don’t tell stories. Shelly can’t walk like we can. Dolls can’t walk.”

  “I’ve seen her. She can walk.”

  Brad was suddenly feeling that creeped out vibe again. His flesh broke out in goosebumps as he looked at the doll, lying motionless on the small chair beside Chrissy. “What do you mean when you say you’ve seen her walk?”

  “She walks in my room. She talks too,” Chrissy said.

  Brad felt his heart beating faster in his chest. It was normal for kids to have imaginary friends or give superpowers to inanimate objects. She thought of Shelly as human, therefore Shelly could of course do anything that humans could. It was all make believe. It was just a child’s imagination.

  He looked over at Lilly who was staring at him with a glazed expression, her eyes popping out of her head. She was genuinely frightened. Brad smiled at her, hoping to ease the tension and made a silly face. She had to know their little girl had a vivid imagination. He decided to talk to her about his sleepwalking theory.

  “Well, I guess that is possible. Sleepwalking does run in my family,” Lilly said. She finished brushing her hair and buttoning her night gown. Then she rolled into bed, sliding beneath the clean sheets.

  “Really? I never knew that,” Brad said closing the book he had been glancing at. He had been trying to get through this new Stephen King novel for a month, but for some reason he kept being distracted from finishing it.

  “Yeah, I sleepwalked until I was probably eight years old,” Lilly said.

  “Wow. What caused it?”

  “The doctors never could tell us what caused it or why it stopped.”

  “Hmm, well I hope Chrissy doesn’t have to go through that. Isn’t it kind of traumatic?”

  “No, not really. It would be if the sleepwalker is woken up from an episode. You are never supposed to do that because it can mess someone up really badly.”

  “OK, good to know. So if we see her doing it, do we just guide her back to bed?”

  “Pretty much. You don’t want to let a sleepwalker just continue to run around because it’s like walking with a blindfold on. It can be really dangerous.”

  “Wow, I learn new things about you all the time,” Brad said.

  Lilly kissed him good night and snuggled up under the covers.

  Brad closes his eyes and hoped that Chrissy slept well tonight.

  Chapter Three

  Lilly pushed herself back from the computer and rubbed her eyes. She had been working on the same piece for three solid hours and her eyes were starting to wear thin. She had forgotten to quit after two hours and now she was going to pay the price of the watery, itchy, tired eyes. She just hoped this one did not morph into a sick migraine as they had done before.

  She had suffered from eye strain since she was a kid. If she stared too long at a screen, or if she read for too long she would start to feel the effects of it. Her eyes would hurt and burn and it would take hours of actual rest before they would ease up sometimes. She hoped that she didn’t have to worry about that too much today.

  The project she was working on was a lot of fun and she had found herself getting just too far into the work. It happened sometimes when you loved your work, which she did. She occasionally thought about those years she had endured working in the public realm and how much she had hated it. She had rediscovered what she’d known all along in that you have to be fulfilled in what you do all day or else life was just unbearable.

  She walked down the hall to Chrissy’s room to check on her once again and saw she was still sleeping like a baby. The poor little thing had kept waking up all night last night and now she was sleepy as could be. It was a blessing in disguise, though. When Chrissy slept then Lilly was able to get a lot more work done. Though usually the sweet little thing would be entertained playing with her toys in the hallway outside of the den that Lilly had converted to her office.

  As Lilly turned away from the door, her eyes landed on the doll. Shelly had been curled up in Chrissy’s grasp when she had been asleep earlier. Now she was sitting on the toy chest on the other side of the room looking out the window. Had Chrissy woke up and moved the doll there? Why would she not take it back to bed with her? She never slept without it anymore.

  Lilly decided that she did not have the mental capacity to deal with this right now. She had not had nearly enough coffee that morning. She kept meaning to get up to go get some more, but her work often sucked her in until she could not feel time slipping away from her.

  She poured a big mug full of black coffee and sipped it, feeling the strong flavor engulfing her senses. She always made the coffee about twice as strong as most people liked it. Lilly had this thing where she actually wanted to taste the coffee she was drinking.

  It was just past noon and she felt the basic rumblings of her stomach signaling the time for lunch. Although, her stomach was probably waiting for breakfast to come around still. She grabbed a loaf of bread and made a few peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Even at twenty-eight years of age they were still her favorite sandwich.

  She sat down in front of the television to watch the midday news and enjoy her sandwich. When Chrissy woke up in a bit she would prepare a good lunch for her. Probably some more peanut butter and jelly—the girl was a chip off the old block.

  She had just finished the first sandwich when she heard the noise. It sounded like the squeaky hinges of a door being creaked open slowly. Lilly held her breath for what must have been a minute or longer, waiting to see how long that sound would go on. Chrissy must have woken up from her nap, but why was
she opening the door that slowly? Did she think Lilly was asleep or still working? She wondered what the little squirt was up to.

  Lilly got up out of the chair and peered around the corner of the hall. She saw the door to Chrissy’s room was now wide open, but there was no one there. Did Chrissy go back into her room? Was she hiding somewhere else? What was her game?

  That was the thing about small kids, they seen everything as play and it was tough to decipher what the game was at times. Lilly moved down the hall slowly, being deliberate with every single step as if she was walking on tiny egg shells and she didn’t want Chrissy to hear her coming. She was going to surprise her and not let Chrissy scare her. That was one of her favorite new games; to jump out and scare someone. It was kind of eerie how good she was at it already. It was like she had a gift. She could be so stealthy and sneaky when she wanted to be. Lilly shuddered at the idea of what Chrissy was going to be like as a teenager. They were going to have to put bars on her windows and an alarm outside her door to keep her in place. That sounded like fun times to come.

  Lilly reached the door and peered inside. She half expected that Chrissy would be behind the door or hiding in the closet waiting to jump out. Those were her two fail safes and she had not worked out any other methods of attack yet.

  But Chrissy was sleeping soundly in bed still. And the doll was gone. Lilly’s eyes darted around the room from left to right but she saw nothing. She walked into the tiny bedroom quietly, trying desperately not to wake her daughter. She peered around the side of the bed thinking maybe Chrissy had knocked the doll off the bed in her sleep, but nothing was there.

  Lilly knelt down and checked under the bed. Nothing. It was surprisingly clean. Chrissy had always been a very clean little girl. Lilly wasn’t sure where she had gotten it from because both she and Chrissy’s father were secret slobs. They appeared to be neat and orderly, but they were 'sweep things under the rug, put it in the closet' type of people. They were a perfect match.