Lifelike by Nielson Sheila A

Author:Nielson, Sheila A.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Revello Press, LLC
Published: 2020-10-11T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Three

I screamed.

My whole body jerked involuntarily in response. The smiling doll went flying out of my hands and hit the cement floor with a sickening thud. Like a small human body impacting the ground. I found myself backing away from the thing, trying to catch my racing breath.

Unbidden, Taylee’s frightened words came back to me.

It crawled back into the wall, real fast.

The frightened girl had said the thing in the wall, “looked broken.” If anything in this world could be described as being broken, this doll with her fractured face was definitely it.

“Wren?” An alarmed voice called from the top of the basement stairs. Once again, my screams had brought Aunt Victoria running. “I was coming down the hall when I heard you scream. What happened? Did you hurt yourself?”

I glanced nervously at the doll. It hadn’t moved from its position; face down on the concrete floor where I’d flung it in my panic. Aunt Victoria hurried down the basement steps craning her neck as she tried to get a glimpse of what it was that had set me off. Seeing the dingy gray mass of cloth lying prone on the floor, she hesitantly made her way over to examine it.

I put out my hand toward Aunt Victoria, my first instinct to grab her and hit the deck—anything to keep her from danger. Before my wits could right themselves enough to follow up the impulse, Aunt Victoria used the toe of her shoe to flip the doll over onto its back. The doll lay there, staring blindly up at Aunt Victoria—lifeless and seemingly harmless once more. I moved closer, thinking I would grab Aunt Victoria by the arm and run like mad if the doll so much as twitched.

It didn’t.

My aunt stared down at the doll. I glanced at it myself, half expecting it to start grinning at me again. Its face was back to the original expression, lips curved into only the hint of a smile.

“Where did you find this?” Aunt Victoria asked in a breathless whisper.

“In that hole in the wall,” I said, gesturing in that direction with one hand. At least my voice had returned to normal.

I placed one hand on Aunt Victoria’s shoulder—just in case—as she bent down to picked up the doll.

“How can you handle touching it like that? It’s freezing cold,” I said.

Aunt Victoria shot me a surprised look. “It doesn’t feel cold to me. About room temperature, I’d say.”

“Really?” I hesitated before giving the doll a not too gentle poke in the stomach with my finger. Not even a hint of the icy coldness I’d felt earlier remained. I realized the overwhelming smell of smoke and ashes had vanished as well.

Aunt Victoria flipped the odd, rectangular swatch of material over so its filmy material now covered the doll’s face. “Do you know what this is?” my aunt asked slowly.

A really creepy doll that liked to smile at people? Of course, I couldn’t say that, so I quietly shook my head instead.

“This is Rosalyn,” Aunt Victoria said, her fingers tightening ever so slightly around the doll’s middle.

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