Hey, Doll Face

“With all its dark curly hair and blue eyes, I instantly thought of you when I saw it,” said Mrs. Potter as she expectantly held the small porcelain doll out to Dona.

Dona had never really been into dolls, but she politely accepted it from Mrs. Potter. She had been doing Mrs. Potter’s hair for about four years now, and the lady was nothing if not sweet.

“Thank you so much! It’s beautiful!” she said as she reached for the doll. She didn’t know what she’d do with it, but she really appreciated the kind gesture and the compliment.

When she got into her truck at the end of the day, Dona tucked it into the passenger seat as if it were sitting. “You are one spooky little hitchhiker,” Dona said to it as she started the truck engine and pulled out of her parking space. It was only a few minutes to her apartment, where she was living alone after a recent breakup.

Dona made the tiring climb up the stairs to her apartment and just couldn’t get in fast enough. She placed the doll on the kitchen counter and rushed to her favorite chair to eat the hamburger she’d picked up on the way home.

As she was eating, the phone rang, and she picked it up to discover her mother, Lura, on the other end. She chatted with her mom while she finished off the hamburger and fries, chasing it down with some Pepsi. Her eyes were drawn to the doll resting on the kitchen counter, and she remembered to tell her mom about it. “I always said you looked like a pretty porcelain doll,” her mother exclaimed. This comment always made her uncomfortable, given the years her mother had always criticized her appearance.

“I gotta go, Mom. I need a shower before I get any more comfortable.” They said their goodbyes, and Dona headed to the bathroom.

As she undressed, Dona had the uncanny feeling that she was being watched. She knew it was irrational: she was in the bathroom alone, there was no window, and no one else was in the cramped apartment. Dona rushed into the shower, but still had that same eerie feeling.

It had let up by the time she got finished and partially dried her shoulder-length dark hair, and Dona decided just to ignore it. She grabbed a box of rollers and proceeded back to her chair to begin the long process of rolling up her hair. One by one, she continued the tedious task of preparing her hair for the next day while watching television.

When she went to bed, the hair on Dona’s neck prickled as she felt someone’s eyes on her yet again. She was too tired to worry about it. She slept all night and woke up the next morning still exhausted.

Dona downed a couple of cups of coffee, watched the local news, and took the rollers out of her hair. The beauty shop she worked at had high standards for its hairdressers’ appearance, and it took her at least an hour to do her makeup and her hair.

Dona’s workday was uneventful. As usual, she headed home around 6 p.m.. She wasn’t dating at the time, so she could take her makeup off and take a nap. Before lying down, Dona did notice that the doll didn’t seem to be in the same place. She decided it was just her poor memory. Dona was awakened when she felt something touch her shoulder.

Shooting up to a seated position, she looked around. Concerned that someone might be in the apartment, she grabbed the softball bat she kept under the bed. She checked the closet first, quickly opening the door and scanning the floor to see the feet of anyone hiding there. She dashed into the bathroom, jerking the shower curtain aside and checking behind the door. Next, she headed into the living room and the kitchenette. There was no sign of anyone, and the locks on the front and patio doors were still engaged.

She was still the only one there. She called her mom, more for comfort than anything else. Lura convinced her that it was just a dream, and Dona reluctantly agreed. There was no other explanation that seemed rational.

By that time, it was early evening, so Dona went through her usual ritual of eating some canned beef stew, putting in her rollers, and watching some television with a few beers to calm her nerves.

When it came time for bed, Dona checked the apartment once more, double-checked the locks, and left all the lights on. Nothing happened that night, except for that continuing vague feeling she was being watched.

The next morning was the same, except the doll was lying on the floor. Dona had a hard time explaining it away, so she decided just to ignore it. Dona placed it in the middle of the table so it couldn’t fall off, then headed into the bathroom for a shower.

It was getting harder and harder to ignore the sensation that someone was in there with her, so she took a faster shower than usual. As she was taking her shower cap off, she saw something on the mirror. In the condensation, these words were neatly written: "Hi, hot stuff."

Dona quickly wiped it away with fear building in her chest. Dona was already running a little bit late for work, and it was impossible that someone had written that while she was in the shower -- there was no one else in the apartment and no way for them to get in.

It had to be just a trick of her mind. She decided to ignore it. She was already running late for work and couldn’t afford to be distracted. Forty-five minutes later, and she was headed out the door.

Dona got home earlier than usual that day, after a relatively light workday. She came in through the front door, and the apartment was icy cold despite the summer heat outside and the weak air conditioning. Grabbing a sweatshirt from her closet, she saw a dark shadow by the bedroom door. Dona jerked around and saw nothing, but when she glanced at the mirror, she saw a dark shape jauntily leaning on the frame of the bedroom door. Gathering every bit of courage she had, Dona ran through that doorway into the den, then jerked her phone receiver from its cradle and called her mother for advice.

Sitting in her chair, wrapped in a blanket and wearing a sweatshirt, and more than a little afraid, she talked to her mother. Lura gently reminded her that ghosts weren’t real, dolls weren’t haunted, and she had always had a wild imagination. Whether Lura actually believed that was questionable.

They talked for about thirty minutes until Dona felt calm and the room seemed to warm. Finally hanging up the phone, she headed back to the bedroom and made sure no shadows were reflecting in the mirror. She repeated to herself what her mother had basically said: it was all her imagination.

But she did head back into the living room and pick the doll up off the floor. She carefully inspected it, but it was nothing but a porcelain doll, maybe fifty years old. There were no tags or names on it, and the threads that held the stitching in didn’t seem to be any newer than the other threads on the doll, so it didn’t seem like anything had been sewn into the doll. It was just a vintage doll and nothing more.

It was still early, so she decided to call Mrs. Potter to see what she could find out about the doll.

“Oh, yes. I’m more than happy to tell you about it. It belonged to my sister, Desiree. You know, she had the most awful, lecherous husband. His name was Claude. He was just the worst man, and I am convinced that she poisoned him to death after he cheated on her one too many times. He hated that doll, too. Said she was too old to have a doll.”

Mrs. Potter ended the call. “I’m going to lunch with my daughter. I’ll see you on Tuesday!”

Dona hung up the phone and tried to absorb all she heard. Surely, surely this doll wasn’t haunted by a cheating, abusive husband. It had to be her imagination -- the feeling of being watched, the writing on the mirror, whatever touched her in the night, and the icy cold. But Dona was having an increasingly difficult time convincing herself of this.

She would have loved to get out for some shopping to take her mind off things, but she didn’t have the money. Payday was still a few more days away. Instead, she enjoyed the rest of her afternoon off watching television, snacking, and ironing some clothes for work. As she put the ironing board away, she saw that same dark shape out of the corner of her eye. She ignored it.

That night, Dona went to bed early. She had an elderly client coming in for a full bleach, and Dona had scheduled her for 7 am.

After a couple of hours' sleep, something woke her up. As she opened her eyes and began to roll over, she saw a tall man with outdated clothes standing in her bedroom. Dona grabbed the baseball bat from under the bed with shaking hands. She quickly leapt out of bed. He was between her and the door.

“Well, well, well,” said the man, sitting himself down on the corner of her bed. “It’s nice to finally meet you, gorgeous,” he crooned, his dark eyes flashing.

He stood about six feet tall, with dark hair and an athletic build. His clothes were very outdated. His lecherous eyes slid over her, and Dona wasn’t having it. Laying the bat in her lap with shaking hands, she pulled out the small, golden cross she always wore and pointed it at him. He had a deep laugh to go with his deep voice. “I’m not a vampire,” he purred as he leaned closer to her. She began to shiver from an icy cold blast of air.

Salt, she thought. Salt is supposed to banish ghosts. She heard that in some movie or documentary. In the second drawer of her nightstand, she had some packets of salt from eating fast food in bed. And Dona remembered exactly where they were without looking.

She moved her hand to the nightstand drawer, grabbed the pile of salt packets, and brandished them at the ghost of Claude.

Claude laughed and winked at her. She tore the packets open and threw the salt at him. He grimaced as hatred flashed through his eyes and then dissipated like steam.

Dona didn’t waste any time. She grabbed her robe, rushed to the front door, and grabbed her keys. She was out of that apartment in a flash and in her car, and headed to her mom’s. She stopped at a pay phone to call her mom, who picked up in a panic. Dona gave her minimal information and let her mom know she’d be there soon. When Dona arrived, Lura met her at the front door with a warm, enveloping hug and great concern.

Once they were inside on the sofa, Dona told her mother everything, including her suspicions about the doll being Claude. Her Mom was horrified, and concern for her daughter’s fear convinced her to take things seriously. Together they came up with a plan to deal with the doll.

“Didn’t we see some movie where they burned something?” asked Lura, her hands wrapped around a steaming cup of coffee. Taking a sip of her own coffee, Dona replied.

“I’ve heard of people burying things, too,” was Dona’s reply from across the kitchen table.

“I like the finality of burning things. It seems more cleansing. And let’s face it, it’s hard to haunt something that’s just a pile of ashes,” replied Lura with finality. Once she had made up her mind, there was no changing it, so Dona had no choice but to agree.

Dona always kept some makeup and clothes at her mother’s house so she could get ready there when she stayed overnight. About an hour later, Dona headed to work. Her workday was uneventful. Her exhausted appearance was commented on throughout the day by clients and other stylists. Dona blamed it on insufficient sleep. She had no intention of letting anyone else know about the haunted doll, and she definitely didn’t want Mrs. Potter to find out.

When she got off work, Lura met her outside the apartment, carrying half a bag of charcoal, tongs, and a brand-new container of lighter fluid. They walked into her apartment together, and they both started shivering. Lura also experienced that same feeling of being watched. She looked around, sure that someone else was there, and at her insistence, they quickly swept the apartment for intruders. Finding none, Lura then checked the thermostat to see if the AC was responsible for the unusual cold. The thermostat was set to 76. Oh, and the doll was back on the table, sitting up and facing their direction as if defiantly claiming the apartment as its territory.

Once Lura felt certain there were no rational explanations, Dona snatched up the small doll and rushed out with Lura close at her heels. They slammed the door shut and locked it.

Gravel crunched beneath their feet as they dashed through the parking lot and over to the general apartment BBQ pit.

Dona’s hands trembled as she held the doll. How something so small and innocent-looking could do something like this was beyond her understanding.

Lura got the fire started. Dona dropped the doll in.

The flames leaped up unnaturally high and turned an unusual shade of blue as they lapped at the doll.

The doll violently threw itself out of the BBQ and onto the ground, flailing around in the dirt as if it were a living creature. Always prepared, Lura used BBQ tongs to lift the doll and toss it back in the fire. Dona threw some salt on top of it for good measure. The doll writhed and hissed in a powerful combination of rage and pain.

An apartment security guard stalked up, seemingly out of nowhere, with his thumbs in his belt loops and standing as tall as possible. He asked them what they were doing. Dona turned to him and informed him that they were barbecuing some brisket. He narrowed his eyes at her and said, “That’s no kind of brisket I ever saw.”

“Then your vision must be off,” Lura curtly replied, intimidating him with a powerful parental stare as she stood to her full height to face him.

“You’re burning a damn doll,” he stammered. “Put that fire out now. It’s a hazard. And the fumes are terrible.” The security guard coughed.

At that moment, as if it knew it had company, the doll began crying pitifully, like a small child. It also tried to turn on its side, although its body was a charred mess of ashes. Lura held it down securely with the tongs. Its porcelain head, now crazed and covered in the ash of its body, violently thrashed about. What was left of the doll tried to free itself from the tongs while it shouted out in misery.

The security guard’s eyes grew large, and he backed away. “I don’t know what the hell you two women are doing, but I want no part of it,” he said, turning quickly and running back up the gravel path toward the building.

With its body gone and no audience to appeal to, the doll grew still and quiet. They closed the lid on the BBQ and sat for an hour on a nearby bench, periodically adding more fuel to the fire. One final, heartrending scream echoed from the doll, and Dona rushed over to check on it.

All that was left were the cracked porcelain head, hands, and feet. The body was nothing but ashes. Together, they fished the pieces out with the tongs and crushed them beneath their feet in the hard gravel.

Dona and Lura entered the apartment and immediately started shivering once again. To their horror, the doll was sitting upon Dona’s chair, perfectly intact, except for a small smudge of ash on the doll's forehead. Their plan hadn’t worked after all.