It grows Teeth

© 2004 Nicholas Scipior
All rights reserved.

Its eyes were empty pits of darkness stretching to the bowels of the earth. Their evil was limitless.

"Daddy, can I play with the dolly?"

"No, honey, it's not a toy." Ken didn't know what it was, but he sure as hell wasn't going to let his four-year-old daughter come anywhere near it.

What it was supposed to be was a gift from his overly energetic sister-in-law, Karen, who'd just gotten back from her week-long vacation in Jamaica. Energetic wasn't quite the word. Annoying was more like it.

"Well, what do you think?" she asked, her teeth gleaming from ear to ear.

"It's...." Ken needed a lie. Nice? No, he didn't think he could say that in good conscience. Swell? Great? Just what he wanted? Nope, none of those. "...interesting."

Well, it was interesting, in that abominable sort of way. Leave it to Karen to dig up some disgusting piece of garbage, wrap it up in a box, and give it to him as a belated birthday present.

"I thought you'd like it," Karen said.

Susan walked over and peered in the box. Ken nearly laughed when he saw the revulsion on his wife's face.

"Karen ... you shouldn't have," Susan said, her eyes twitching around the edges. She hated lying. "Isn't that nice of her, sweetie?"

"Sure is." Nice like a severed head, he thought.

Karen reached into the box, pulled the thing out, and handed it to him. To say it was awful would have been undue flattery. Ken guessed that in someone's imagination it had been meant to be a doll. Though what kind of psycho made dolls like this, he didn't want to know.

From its dimensions, Ken assumed it had been meant to model a real baby. But size was where the similarities to humanity ended and the nightmare began. It could have been a dog's chew toy, for its splotchy reddish skin was hardened with a wrinkled texture of having once belonged to some sort of animal. A pig, maybe? A goat? Did he really want to know?

The body was little more than two pieces of desiccated hide fastened together by some unknown adhesive, a slight bulge making for a corpulent midsection, as though a pocket of air might have been trapped inside during the gluing process. The arms and legs were crude rectangular cutouts of the same unyielding substance, their lengths tied to the appalling body with thin lines of frayed rope.

But it wouldn't have been so bad if it weren't for the head.

The misshapen cranium had been formed out of the same dried animal skin, though here it had been wrapped around some unknown object to give it a wide, melon shape. A melon that had been badly beaten, Ken observed. Little had been done to give it eyes, other than the two quarter-sized punctures that sat asymmetrically on the hideous countenance. It lacked any noticeable nose save for a minor indentation, and it had a puppet-like jaw that hung loosely open, toothless and uniquely textured like the inside of a cabbage. Adorning the scalp were long black dreadlocks, no doubt to reflect the tradition of its home country.

It was the embodiment of fantastically grotesque. He hated it: the dead animal skin; the rotten, probably lice-infested hair; its rough assembly of crude, uneven body parts; the faint leather smell that wasn't quite leather. But most of all, above all of its other aberrations, he hated those eyes, those black cadaverous holes that seemed to gaze out with a misanthropic stare, hating the world for its creation, desiring nothing more than to spread the cancer of its own existence.

"Thanks, Karen, that's awfully nice of you," Ken said, setting it back in the box. As usual, she had meant well, though forethought and adroitness in gift-giving were never Karen's strong points.

"Well, I knew you liked scary movies and that sort of stuff. I thought you'd like this," she said.

Susan wrinkled her brow. "It's not some kind of voodoo doll is it?"

"No, I think it is some kind of medicine thing or something; I can't really remember what he said...." Karen frowned and rolled her eyes. It was a trait of hers that signaled confusion, which Ken noted seemed to happen with regularity. "I bought it from this really old guy and he was really hard to understand. You know they have such thick accents down there."

"Oh, yeah?" Ken said, pretending to be interested. He was already secretly planning to send the gift out with tomorrow's garbage.

"Yeah, and they're so cultured down there, too. It's really something, being so close to all the natives and their ... native little huts and homemade knickknacks and the children running around without any clothes on. It was so cute, you just had to see it."

It's called poverty, you moron, Ken wanted to say. Her ignorance was overwhelming. Though he was satisfied in knowing that the locals had probably suckered her out of all of her cash. Not that she had that much to begin with.

Except for the box, Ken cleared off the kitchen table so the girls could sit down and palaver, an activity at which Karen seemed to excel. If, of course, by excel you meant bludgeoning one into silent submission with a torrent of verbiage. Ken sat and quietly endured the invisible fusillade that flew between the two mouths. He watched as Karen absently reached into her purse and pulled out a metal fingernail file.

Oh God, not the nail file.

Always with that stupid nail file, Ken mused as he watched his sister-in-law pull forth her Excalibur and feverishly go to work on fingernails that were already ground to tortured nubs. He half expected that she'd be down to the second knuckle before the conversation was finished.

"So, how were the beaches?" Susan asked.

"Oh, my gawd, they were so beautiful. I took so many pictures; I'll have to bring them over as soon as I get them developed."

Gee, won't that be fun, Ken thought acerbically as the sisters chatted on. When would he and Suz be getting their vacation? God knows he needed one, with all the hours he'd been putting in down at the office. Ken was in his tenth year at Gunderson, Reilly, and Smith law firm, where he specialized in corporate law. For the last two months he and his team had been working on a public offering for one of their biggest clients. Needless to say, the hours had been piling up. But so had the money. But what in the hell good was it if you couldn't spend it with your wife and daughter on a warm beach someplace? Perhaps next month. Christmas in paradise sounded just fine.

"Can I get you something to drink? Wine? Soda?" Susan asked her sibling.

"Nah," Karen said standing up, "I better get going. I'm beat from the flight and I have so much laundry to do, it isn't even funny."

"Well, I'm glad you stopped by. You look great. I love your tan," Susan said with a hug.

"Aw, thanks, Suz. You were right; I really think it helped. I did a lot of thinking down there, and I feel so much better," Karen said, releasing her embrace.

"Thanks again for the present," Ken said, moving in for the unsavory, yet mandatory hug.

"I'm so glad you like it. I really think it's for the best."

Huh?

Susan walked her sister out the door. When she returned moments later she saw her husband standing in the kitchen with a self-satisfied look on his face.

She stood in front of him, her mouth starting to crack a smile.

"Now, Kenneth, you promised you'd be nice."

"Yeah, when she's here. I never said anything about after she leaves."

"Come on, Ken, you know she's got problems."

"Yeah, but ... Jeezus. 'I really think it's for the best?' What the hell was that supposed to mean? And look at that friggin' thing. I mean just look at it!" he said, with a laugh.

Susan peered in the box. She put a hand to her mouth and giggled. "It's definitely ... unique."

"Susan," he said emphatically, "it looks like came from Ed Gein's little shop of horrors!"

She gave up. They joined in a hearty laugh.

"I tell you, that woman...." he said at last.

"Well, she's trying. And you have to admit, she is getting better."

Compared to what? A month ago, the woman had been on verge of a nervous breakdown. Not to get into any of the specifics, but her life had been one wrong turn after another. And men? She couldn't keep a guy for an entire date, much less for any substantial sort of relationship. But finally, with Susan's constant support and advice, she'd sought some badly needed counseling. So the doc did what every good shrink does and tranquilized her with some meds and sent her on a vacation. Had it helped? Well, maybe some, Ken surmised, but perhaps the physician erred in that he should've used what the folks on Animal Planet use when they want to take down a rhino or a charging water buffalo instead of Prozac or Zoloft or whatever they're feeding them these days.

"I admit nothing."

She sighed and gave up on the subject.

"Where's Crystal?" Susan asked.

"In her room, playing. Time for bed, I guess," he said, with a yawn himself. "I'll go tuck her in."

Ken plodded up to the second floor hall of their large Tudor home and stood in the doorway of the last room on the left, Crystal's bedroom. There he found his little blue-eyed wonder in gold pigtails having tea with three of her stuffed animals.

"Hi, Daddy."

"Guess what time it is, pumpkin."

"Nooo," she whined. "I don't wanna."

"Why don't you wanna?" He scooped her up and carried her over to her Bob the Builder-themed bed.

"Cause I'll have bad dweems," she said, as he pulled the covers to her chin.

"Now, what are you going to have bad dreams about?"

She shrugged.

"Well, you just think about nice things, and you'll have nice dreams. OK?"

"OK, daddy."

With a kiss and hug, Ken put the child to sleep.

He returned to the kitchen to find Susan taking dishes out of the dishwasher and toweling off the residual wetness.

"What are we going to do about that thing?" she asked.

"Chuck it."

"Ken, what if she comes over some time and asks about it? Maybe just keep it in that box, and we'll store it in the basement."

He laughed. "I'm sure she'll love the fact that we're storing it in a box in the basement. But fine, honey, whatever you think." He went over to her and grabbed the towel and glass she was holding. "Better let me; you got work early, don't you?"

"Seven," she said, her lips curving into frown.

"All right, to bed with you. Love you."

"Love you, too." She gave him a kiss and headed off to bed.

The dishes were dry and stacked in orderly rows when he again returned to the doll. It lay face-up on a bed of white tissue paper, its two empty orbits glaring banefully at the kitchen ceiling.

Or were they looking at him?

Nonsense.

He should burn the damn thing, Ken thought uncomfortably. If Susan hadn't wished otherwise, he would have been going for the metal garbage can out in the garage and a bottle of lighter fluid at that very moment. He probably would get rid of it one day, long after Susan had forgotten about it. But how easy that'd be, he didn't know. It wasn't exactly an image you just brushed out of your mind.

Ken reached into the box and pulled out the vile creation. The head seemed fused to the shoulders, but the arms and legs, held to the torso by nothing more than that scrawny rope, dangled loosely and kicked against one another. The eyes, dark voids of infinite blackness, were hatefully staring at his own.

It's not staring at you, you idiot. It's not staring at anything. Dolls don't stare.

But still, he couldn't help the feeling. Quickly, he set it face down on the table and began pulling the tissue paper out of the box.

What's this?

There was something folded in the bottom flaps of the cardboard; a yellow meniscus revealed the presence of hidden parchment. Ken reached into the box and carefully tugged at its thin periphery; it resisted momentarily from old glue. With a gentle tug the paper came loose. The writing it bore was old, faded; the paper filthy with rubbed-in grime.

Congratulations, Mon!

You have become the owner of the Obeahmon doll. You can now share in its magic charm in the spirit of the true shamans. Just remember, mon, it's no toy, so don't fool around! Before placing the Obeahmon doll in your home, be sure to remember the following:

1. The Obeahmon doll treats its owner just how the owner treats it, so don't abuse it, hey mon!

2. Obeahmon doll likes to be seen, put it somewhere so you can look at it every day.

3. Obeahmon doll come from Jamaica, mon, where it's always sunny and warm, so it don't like being in cold places.

4. Obeahmon doll's no toy; so don't let your kids play with it.

5. Give it attention, it don't like being lonely.

6. When Obeahmon doll is unhappy, you'll know: it grows teeth.

Remember, treat it well and good luck will be yours. Treat it poorly and don't blame me, hey mon!

Beautiful, Ken thought with a sardonic smirk, a voodoo doll with a set of instructions. Grows teeth? Sure, of course. Why wouldn't it? How fitting that Karen should come up with a birthday present that's as warped as her mind.

He grabbed the doll by its neck, intending to shove it back in the box, but stopped. A giant mallet was hammering the warning bell in his head.

It doesn't want to go back in the box.

Now that was an odd thought. He wasn't falling for such superstitious bullshit, was he? Of course not, Ken assured himself, but that didn't change the fact that he wanted the ugly lusus out of his sight.

He stuffed it in the box, feeling whispery fingers of unease edge up his spine. He threw the lid on and set the whole thing up on the kitchen counter. There it would stay until morning, when he'd take it down in the basement and find a place for it to sit out it its hideous existence.

Ken yawned, his jaws making a tiny click. It was ten after ten, and he was already tired; it had been a long day. Nevertheless, for a lawyer in the midst of a public offering, work never ceased. There were papers to go over in his briefcase, schedules to review, reports to work on, and anything he did now would make for a less stressful day tomorrow. Just an hour or so. That's all he'd allow himself, then it would be off to bed.

It wasn't going well tonight. His eyes refused to be forced upon page after page of financial statements, officer reports, director reports, forecasts, 1-year statements, 3-year statements, and so on and so on. His brain felt like someone had a fishhook in it and kept tugging in the opposite direction.

He couldn't get into that zone of concentration, and that was strange; all he usually needed was a cup of decaf tea and some peace and quiet. Right now he had all three, but still his mind wouldn't stay on track.

Something was jabbing at his nerves with a sharp stick.

Ken leaned back in his office chair and cracked his neck with a satisfied grunt. What was it? Surely it wasn't that, was it? That would be ridiculous.

Taking a sip of tea, he forced himself back over his papers. Five minutes later he was out of his chair, stretching his back. He couldn't get settled and his heart even seemed to have picked up a step. Why? There were deadlines for this stuff, but they weren't for weeks, and besides, he was ahead of schedule. So then what the hell was it?

It was that, wasn't it? As much as he hated to admit it, that loathsome doll was actually getting to him. Will you grow up, for Chrissake? Perhaps he needed another cup of chamomile.

Ken hooked his finger through the handle of his empty mug and carried it back to the kitchen. He refilled it, put it in the microwave for two minutes, and hit start. Not too hot; he hated a burnt tongue.

The box. It was still there, just where he had set it. Why wouldn't it be? He wondered how much she had paid for it. Fifty, sixty, seventy American dollars? They do like American dollars down there, don't they? What a waste. What did she think he was actually going to do with it? Set it on the mantel above the fireplace? What a lovely piece you have there, what do you call it? Oh that? That I got from my schizo sister-in-law; it's part of the one time only "Baby Demon" collection.

Ken was surprised to find himself staring down at the creature, the lid of the box having been removed by his own hand. The eyes were dark portals into nightmare worlds, menacing and surreal, where evil things romp and creatures stalk ... not just stalk but lurk, lurk in the shadows of lunacy, sidling behind you, furtive steps creeping in blind spots, eyes, eyes, eyes, some shining yellow, some blood red split with black slits, but some, the worst, were just gaping pits of black, and wide voracious mouths of gnashing fangs, long coiling tongues tasting the air for blood because they're hungry, ravenous, famished for what? Flesh of course, flesh of beasts, birds, mice and yes, even the flesh of—

A shudder brought him back. Whoa. Kinda lost it there for sec. Ken quickly tossed the cover back onto the box. He went back over to the microwave and pulled out his hot water, only it wasn't hot. Hadn't he warmed it up already? He put it back in the microwave and reset the timer. Once it was reheating he turned back to the grubby box.

What should he really do with that thing? Yes, putting it in the basement was a possibility, but wasn't that sort of a waste? After all, Karen had paid good money for it, and she was only trying to do something nice. Of course he couldn't put it in the living room, but maybe he could put it in the office. It wouldn't be so bad there, and it would make Karen happy if she came over and saw it. Maybe on that smaller bookshelf where he kept his fiction reading. He had plenty of other useless ornaments sitting there, why not add another?

Forgetting about his tea, Ken picked up the box and carried it to his study. What a mess, he thought. Once he was done with his current project he'd have to go through and do a thorough cleaning.

Once again he removed the lid and took out the malformed figure. Moving aside some books and papers, he found a nice resting spot for it on the smallest of the four bookshelves he had in the room. It was a fat little shelf, not much more than waist-high because most of his reading time was spent in statutes and case law, not John Grisham and Stephen King. There, it would be happy there.

(Happy?)

Ken went back over to his desk and shut off the reading light. That would be enough work for tonight; it was getting late. An icy draft suddenly brought goose bumps to his flesh. He leaned over to the window above his desk and pushed down, making sure it was shut. One thing about Tudor homes was that the older ones had poor insulation. Not to mention that it was late fall and the temperature was dropping nightly. Still, he'd wait for another few weeks before turning on the furnace. Why waste the money sooner than you had to?

He moved to exit the room but paused just before the doorway. It was cold. He looked over to the little shelf where the Obeahmon doll sat. Probably a little chilly for him. Almost without thinking, Ken went to a small closet in the corner of the room, pulled out a fleece blanket, and walked back over to the doll.

He blinked.

What do you think you're doing? he wondered, amazed that he actually was just about to tuck in the doll as though it was his child. Are you nuts? You were actually going to do that, weren't you?

"Well, you know, just for luck," he murmured softly.

God knows with all the shit on his table lately, he could use a little luck. Besides what was wrong with a little superstition? He'd thrown salt over his shoulder when he was a kid, hadn't he? And had worn his cap upside down during little league games. And went around ladders, avoided cracks for his mother's sake, and was careful with mirrors. Well what would it hurt? He could use a little good luck.

Ken covered the doll and left the room.

A shower before bed was always in order when he knew the next day would be hectic, as it would be tomorrow; or today, rather, the clock having already struck twelve.

The steaming spray felt heavenly and chased away the cold tingle from his toes and fingertips. Clouds of billowing steam rose up from the shower floor and filled the bathroom, their balsamic vapors tranquillizing his body and mind.

He turned off the water, stepped out, and grabbed a towel off the rack. In the mirror his reflection glared at him through a screen of fog. He felt foolish.

Once he was dry and his pajamas had been donned he walked out of bathroom's tropical warmth and went straight for the study.

There his heart froze.

Lying on the floor at the foot of the bookshelf was the fleece blanket that he had ... had ... What had he done? He wasn't sure he remembered. Had he put it on the doll? But that was crazy, he thought. He must have stopped short upon realizing the lunacy of it all and had dropped the blanket to the ground.

But that didn't explain why the doll had flipped onto its stomach.

Slowly, he approached the wretched object, his heart jogging. Maybe he hadn't covered it with the blanket, but he sure as hell had set it on the shelf face-up. He stopped just a pace away from the bookshelf and stared at the impossibility. Dread swept over him, chilling his soul like a dark December wind. Tired. You're just tired, that's all. You don't remember things very well when you're tired. That's just the way you tossed the stupid thing down. He now wondered what he'd been thinking, to bring the demonic toy into his office. It was absurd. He had more sense than that; he was a friggin' lawyer, for God's sake!

Angry with himself, Ken snatched the doll off the shelf. He bent down to pick up the box and moved over to his desk. He wasn't five years old; he didn't need a goddamn doll in his office. Even if it was for luck. Speaking of which, there was no way a thing that revolting-looking could ever bring good luck.

Just as he was about to throw it back in its cardboard cell, his fingers probed something peculiar along the back of the doll's head. He turned it over and flipped the dreadlocks forward. What the hell was this? A number of thin gouges had been made in the back of the thing's skull, a sawing into the flesh with some sharp instrument. Little flakes of dust sat within the markings, hinting at a freshness to the wounds. But who in the hell would do that?

Someone who wanted to piss the little guy off.

Ken shook his head, silently reprimanding himself for the inane thought. Enough of the voodoo horseshit; it was time to get the thing out of his sight. He jammed it into the box and slammed the lid over the top. He'd take it downstairs first thing in the morning.

With that, Ken left the study and went off to join his wife in bed.

Try as he might, he could not find sleep. For over an hour he tossed and turned, unpleasant thoughts streaming through his head like stock market tickertape. There was a maleficent aura about the doll, an invisible miasma of evil attached to its repugnant body.

The Obeahmon doll treats its owner just as its owner treats it, so don't abuse it. Someone had abused it. Someone had tried to saw right though its little neck. Why would someone do that? Ken wondered. Eh mon, don't you know that brings bad luck? Don't you know that makes it angry? Why mon, why don't you want make it angry?

It grows teeth.

That was it. Fuck storing it in the basement; it was going in the trash right now.

He got out of bed. Throwing on his robe, Ken made his way for the study, fully intent on walking it out to the garbage and setting it at the curb. Pickup wasn't for another day, but the damn thing could sit there. It wasn't going stay in the house and drive him nuts a second longer. Not such a stupid, childish thing.

He flipped on the office room lights.

Ken almost choked on his curled tongue.

The doll, the disgusting abhorrence and sinister voids locked in its eyes' nefarious stare, was sitting on top of the box. For the man standing in the doorway, the world seemed to stop, only the thick beats of his heart marching on to the procession of madness. There was no fucking mistake about this. He had put the thing in the box. And now it was out, staring at him, mocking his attempt to hide its accursed existence.

In a flash, Ken was moving down the hall, holding the cold, evil object in his hand. At the kitchen he threw it onto the table and turned to dig up a plastic bag, maybe two. No one was going to look at those eyes again; he'd make sure of that. Out of a bottom drawer he pulled two black heavy-duty bags and some duct tap. He turned back for the table.

The chair.

The chair.

It was lying on the kitchen table chair.

"God..." he whispered with a shudder,"what the hell ... what the holy fuck!"

His body numbed; his chest was heavy, each breath threatening to turn into a scream. That's all he really wanted to do. Scream. Scream until his vocal chords came loose and shot out of his mouth like a wad of chewed bubble gum.

With wide, disbelieving eyes, Ken grabbed the doll off the chair, took one wild look at its ghastly head and—

He stopped.

Tiny white protuberances lined the perimeter of the mouth like the razor nubs of a baby shark. With a yelp of disgust, Ken slammed the vile object into the bag and cinched its yellow handles. He opened the second bag and dropped in the first. Once it was tied, he took both bags and their unholy bundle and jammed them into the box, using duct tape to seal it shut several times over. Little bastard wasn't going to get out this time.

The door slammed as he flew into the garage and headed straight for the rusty metal garbage can that sat just back of the cars. He dropped the box in, slammed the lid shut, and carried it out into the night. At the end of the driveway he set it on the curb. Ken wasn't sure what had happened over the last several hours—if his eyes were just playing nasty tricks or if he was losing his mind or what, he didn't know, but enough was enough. The damn thing could rot in the landfill, and if he never thought about it again, it'd be too soon.

It was just a stupid doll, a repulsive one at that.

Right?

Ken reached over to the curb and pulled free a chunck of cement he knew had been loose for some time. With a satisfying grunt he set it on the can's metal lid.

The way his night had gone, he couldn't be sure about anything.

In his dream, he was fishing in a small boat just off the shore of a gorgeous tropical beach. The water was as blue and clear as the cloudless sky that stretched above him. He was catching fish, a lot of fish, but there was something awful. Every time he got one of the thrashing things on the line, they screamed. Screamed horribly at the pain of the hook lodged in their mouths. Suddenly, he was sitting alone on the beach's unmarked white sand. There he had a campfire and he was eating one of his catch. His hands brought the large fish to his mouth; he bit off a chunk and chewed with a wet crunching sound. A wet crunching sound....

A wet crunching sound?

Ken shot upright in his bed, his heart pounding thunderously in the darkness.

"Suz ... what's that sound?" he whispered.

He reached over and gently tapped her on the shoulder.

"Suz," he said, a little louder. "I hear something."

She didn't respond, lost in deep slumber. She was so peaceful; it was almost like she was—

"Suz?" He listened. The wet crunching stopped. A pitter-patter of feet across the carpeted floor. "Susan!"

Ken bolted out of bed, fighting against the sheet that had wrapped itself around his leg. He fell and hit the ground hard. Still on his knees, he scrambled to the light switch. He flipped it on.

Ken looked to the bed. There lay his wife, still under the covers, one bare leg hanging over the edge. That leg had no foot.

"Susan!" he shrieked.

Her foot had been cut off, severed just above the ankle. By what? By who?

Abruptly he spun around and scanned the room, doing all he could to fight the shock. It hadn't been cut off. It had been bitten off.

He turned back to his wife. She was bleeding badly. A terrifying possibility descended on him. Was she?

No, thank God, she still had a pulse, though much weaker than it should have been. Reaching down to the bed, Ken frantically tore off the sheet and wrapped it around his wife's ragged stump. He couldn't believe he was doing this. He was actually wrapping his wife's stump. It was surreal, Ken was sure he'd wake at any moment and find himself drooling over his client's prospectus and he'd find out it had all been a really bad dweem.

Crystal!

"Oh my God..." The words were saturated with the most terrible horror he had ever known.

He blasted down the hall racing for the last door on the left, his daughter's room. He stopped short. There, lying just before Crystal's closed door, completely inanimate, was the anathema itself. Its teeth had made their full growth from the mere nubs into large curved needles. Lodged between the rows of incisors were red chunks of meat that still bled and stained the white a grisly pink.

He took a step forward. It didn't move. It was just a doll, of course.

In a surge of rage Ken kicked the monstrosity to the end of the hall, where it bounced off the end closet door and fell limply to the ground. He looked away with a shudder and went into his daughter's room.

"Crystal!" he shouted, turning on the light.

"What, Daddy?" she asked sleepily, from under the covers.

"Oh, thank God." Ken rushed over to his daughter, scooped her up, and turned for the door.

It lay face up in the doorway, unmoving.

"Daddy, I don't like that thing!" Crystal cried, almost at once realizing the horror of the moment.

"Neither do I, but Daddy's going to take us out of here, don't you worry."

Carrying his daughter in his arms, Ken charged forward, booting the doll across the hall as he exited the room. He ran back to the master bedroom and realized his dilemma: He could only get one of them to the car at a time. Crystal, it'd have to be Crystal.

He shot a glance back down the hall. It lay face down, halfway between him and the end closet, pretending innocence. What the fuck is this red-light green-light? You lose and it chomps? At that moment he would've very much liked to take thing out to the tool shed and feed it to his wood chipper, but he couldn't, not with the way Susan was bleeding. He didn't know how long she could hold on. And now he had to take them down one-by-one. He couldn't let Crystal go out to the car on her own; the thing just seemed to jump from place to place, and he couldn't risk letting it jump right on her.

Ken reached to the inside of their master bedroom door and hit the lock button. He slammed it shut. It wouldn't be difficult to unlock when he returned, all it took was a twist of a penny. And there was no way it could open doors. No way.

It was mere feet away.

"Gaah! Get the fuck away from us!" Ken stepped forward and sent the doll hurtling through the air with a violent kick.

Knowing there wasn't second to lose, he turned and carried his daughter down the stairs, through the kitchen and out to the garage, grabbing the keys to the Jeep Cherokee as he went out the door.

"OK, honey, you sit tight now, you hear? Don't move. Daddy will be right back."

"I'm scared, Daddy." Tears welled in her eyes.

"It's okay, baby. I'll get Mommy and I'll be right back."

He closed the door and hit the remote lock, sounding a pair of beeps. The fixtures of his house flew by in a wild blur as Ken raced back inside and up to the second floor. There was a maddening sense of reason to it all. Maybe it got hungry when you pissed it off, just like people get the munchies when they're nervous. It had already munched on Suz's foot, how much could the little fucker eat?

The door to their bedroom hung slightly ajar, obscuring whatever atrocity was being perpetuated beyond. His heart withered. It couldn't open a door! It wasn't even tall enough to reach!

He shouldered the door open and his eyes caught it in mid-fall, its body plopping just before his unmoving wife. He had made it back not a second too soon.

Susan moaned, her world a semiconscious stupor. Her makeshift bandage was already soaked a deep crimson. What an abysmal nightmare the last eight hours had become; but at least now he was starting to understand the rules. The little shit only moved on you when you weren't looking. Well then, the solution was simple, Ken concluded: just don't let it out of your sight.

He reached down and gripped it around its neck. He could do this, he assured himself, so long as he didn't look at those damn teeth.

It was slow going down the stairs with one hand dragging his wife by her good leg and the other holding Karen's loathsome birthday gift. This was one present Ken was sure he'd be returning to sender. Hadn't she any clue it was a cursed object when she first saw its black, evil, bleeding eyes staring at her from the back corner of whatever old shaman's hut she'd found it in? Or at least seen that it would make a crappy gift? Why couldn't Susan have had a normal sister, one who gave Best Buy gift certificates for birthday presents?

At the bottom of the stairs he switched the doll to his other hand in order to use a fresh arm to pull Susan through the kitchen. This would definitely take the cake when it came to Karen's asinine blunders. Much worse than the time she'd been over helping stain the deck and almost burnt the fucking house down with a cigarette. Or when she'd almost talked Susan into dicing up those mushrooms that were growing in the backyard and putting them in the spaghetti sauce because the dumb bitch had read some place that you could—

...doll treats its owner just how the owner treats it. So don't abuse it, hey mon.

Hey mon. That was funny; Karen was always doing reckless shit like that. Funny.

When it's unhappy...

"It grows teeth." Ken brought the doll from the corner of his vision into full view. The deep dark empties stared back. Again his fingers felt upwards to the smooth grooves on the back of its head where it had been cut.

Not cut. Filed.

A metal file.

Sort of like the kind you use on fingernails.

"Fucking bitch!" He stopped at the end of the kitchen, just before the garage door. Why would she do it? Well, I dunno, let's see ... you have a family, money, all the happiness in the world. She's jealous, lonely, psycho, and poor as dirt. At least with you, Suz, and Crystal gone, she'd get the money. And that was true. He was an only child, Susan's parents were dead, and Karen was her only sister.

Next of kin.

Ken released the grip on Susan's leg. She groaned.

"So you come from Jamaica, mon? Like it hot down there, hey mon? Well, let's see how hot you like it." Ken swung open the oven door, tossed in the demonic doll, and twist the dial to broil.

For a moment he watched through the tinted window as the bottom coils turned to red. If it was hungry, why didn't it just eat that bitch? She was the one who instigated this whole nightmare with her goddamn fingernail file assault. She was the one who'd sparked its anger, encouraged its murderous will, grew its teeth. Kill her, kill the psycho bitch!

He flipped on the oven light. Its dark charm seemed to bring about a sort of ambivalence toward the truculent beast. The eyes were its spell. Through the dark-hued window it lay upon its back, black sockets staring at the searing upper coils. All at once Ken knew that it didn't matter who had pissed it off. It was the apotheosis of a monster—for its own hideousness it hated all and all alike. Karen had prodded it like a rabid dog and set it loose upon his home. His own negligence had merely hastened what was likely a foreordained conclusion. There was only one thing you could do with such indiscriminate evil.

Destroy it.

Ken frowned dubiously at the heating tomb. It probably wouldn't do much to stop the bastard if it could get out of a rock-weighted garbage can, but at least it'd give it something to think about while he got Susan into the car and off to the hospital. Once she and Crystal were safe, he'd come back. And then it'd be party time.

He grabbed a handful of towels from a kitchen drawer and slung them over his shoulder. They'd make good bandages. He opened the door to the garage before hooking his hands under Susan's armpits and dragging her out. With a last look at the heating oven, he slammed the door.

"Mmmm... Ken... Mom needs her purse...." Susan murmured, just above a whisper.

Ken dragged her around to the passenger side of the Cherokee, the blood leaving a trail of red smears as it soaked through the sheets. A moment later she was slumped in the bucket seat, her head resting on her chest.

"Daddy, what's—"

He slammed the door shut and hurried around to the other side. A noise. He heard a noise. What was that? It had definitely come from within the house, but his adrenaline had since kicked into overdrive, blending all sight and sound into one confusing mush. He opened the driver side door.

"—t's wrong with Mommy!"

"She's okay, sweetie. She's just got an owwa on her leg."

He was alarmed to see that the owwa had already spilt a small pool of blood on the rubber floor mat. At that rate she'd never make it to the hospital. He would have to do something now.

Ken grabbed the towels from his shoulder and reached down to the passenger seat footwell and began to redress the wound. For the rest of his life, he was sure that he'd never forget the sight of his wife's ragged stump as he removed that blood-drenched bed sheet.

It was grisly work. He bent far down into Susan's lap and began wrapping the towels around the dripping wound. There was a sound somewhere. A commotion. What was it? He didn't really have time to think about it now. A window breaking? A door slamming? A what? From where? What was that little bastard doing?

Hurry, hurry, hurry...

"Daddy...." Crystal whined, concerned for her mother.

He sat up and with a red slimy hand shut the driver's side door. With the other he put the keys in the ignition and simultaneously hit the remote garage door opener.

Finally, he breathed. "It's okay, honey, Daddy made her all better. We'll take her to the doctors now."

"Unhhh...." Susan stirred. Ken's heart rose when he saw her eyes open a crack.

"Hang on, Suz," he said, backing out of the driveway and into blue-gray hours of dawn. "We'll be at the hospital in a sec."

"What..." She pulled her head slightly off the headrest and immediately set it back. "What ... happen?"

"Don't worry, Suz, it's gonna be okay." He put it in drive and proceeded along the quickest route to St. Michael's Hospital. It wasn't more than four or five miles. They'd make it.

Susan groaned again, this time showing a little pain.

"Daddy..." Crystal cried.

"She's okay, honey, her foot just hurts." Or lack thereof, he thought grimly.

"Feel....kinda funny..." Susan tossed her head to the side, her eyes closed. "Where's Mom?... She's got her hair appointment..."

He pushed the accelerator.

"Daddy..."

"I'm going, sweetheart, but Daddy doesn't want to get in an accident." A red light. He slowed, checked for cars, and proceeded through.

"Mmm ... better get Dad's cane .... 'fore we go ... chicken."

"Daddy!"

"Honey, just stay calm. We'll be there in a minute."

"But Daddy, this dolly is scaring me! "

Crystal screamed.

And as Ken looked into the rearview mirror, so did he.

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