Visions of the Dark

It is said that fear feeds on itself.  I don’t doubt this to be true, but being equipped with such wisdom doesn’t diminish in the least any amount of fear once it has begun to feed.  Even though the rational part of the mind understands the unwarranted reason for such trifling feelings of uneasiness, it is the subconscious portion that whispers that such justifications are mere Potemkin villages erected by the mind in an effort to preserve all sanity.

You will think me mad, no doubt, to hear me confess that the doll was alive.  That is your right, but I advise such rash criticisms to be checked before hearing my testimony.  For no man is above such horrors when they grow so imperceptibly slow.  Yes, I would advise my story to be a warning of such slow gnawings of fear that eventually escalates into irrational outbursts of horror.

Not only did I suspect the doll to have a life of its own, but I also knew it plotted against me.  It was all very mental, you see.  Whether it was an evil force working through the guise of a doll or my own convoluted paranoia, the effect was still the same; and, of these two choices, I cannot honestly say which is more horrifying if proven to be the truth.

The first time I toured my elderly aunt’s house the doll had no effect on me at all.  I didn’t even notice the damn thing, to be honest.  My dear aunt was ill, you see, and I made arrangements to assist her in her convalescence.  The poor dear couldn’t manage by herself.

It was my first time to behold her exquisite manor.  I never had the opportunity to visit her on any happier occasion.  My aunt showed me around, but even this wore her out to the extreme.  I helped her return to her chambers and she drifted to sleep almost immediately.  So, I quietly closed her door and went downstairs to unpack and rest.

On the tour of the house she showed me to the spare bedroom, which I would be occupying during my stay.  The room had once belonged to my cousin, and my aunt had preserved it for all these years.  It appeared just as it had when Clara was a child.  The doll sat on a small child’s chair in the corner of the room closest to the foot of the bed.  It was a porcelain doll with brown hair in pigtails, tied with blue bows.  The bows matched the dress, which was frilly and lace adorned.  It wore white stockings and shiny black shoes.  It was about two-foot tall and sat on the chair slumped down to one side with its big glass eyes staring straight at the bed.  The effect wouldn’t have been so unsettling if it weren’t for the sinister, little smile upon its rosy-cheeked face.  It was truly an evil expression.

I didn’t notice it until I had been busy unpacking my suitcase for many minutes – hanging my clothes in the closet and placing them in the bureau.  It was then that, all of the sudden, I had the strangest feeling that I was being watched.  I instinctively turned to the door but there was no one there.  Then my eyes came to rest upon the doll.  I regarded it with little more than a cursory glance and resumed my unpacking.  I next went around the bed and retrieved my alarm clock and a couple of books in order to place them on the nightstand.  Again I chanced a look at the doll.  I placed no importance or second thought into these glances, but each time I moved to a different part of the room I stole a glance at the doll.  Its eyes followed me wherever I happened to be in the room.  It was really not such a fantastic thing.  Portraits are notorious for this quality if the artist captures the angle right.  And they are mere two-dimensional objects.  A fully three-dimensional doll should, theoretically, possess this quality in even greater range.  But it still gave me the creepiest feeling that I was being watched.

The remainder of the evening was spent with dear Aunt Sophie.  She awoke after her nap and came downstairs whereupon I prepared dinner for the two of us.  After dinner we adjourned to the living room to talk and catch up on family affairs.  The night was chilly so I stoked a healthy fire so that Aunt Sophie would be comfortable while we reminisced about my childhood escapades.  It was about this time that Aunt Sophie began talking about Clara’s death.  Poor Aunt Sophie broke down in tears talking about how much she still missed Clara, even after all these many years.  Clara and I were close in age until Clara passed away at the tender age of eleven.

I let her sorrow run its course while offering an occasional consoling word or phrase, but the cheeriness of our reunion was thoroughly quelled by the gloominess of the atmosphere that hung in the house after evoking the memory of Clara.

The subject changed to other things in an effort to lift the sadness but it wasn’t long lived.  I helped Aunt Sophie to her chambers once again.  She smiled at me and thanked me for taking time out of my busy schedule to help her through her lingering illness.  I assured her that it was the least I could do to assist my favorite aunt and then we said goodnight.  I returned to the living room and sat reading for a short time, waiting for the fire to burn low.  I was tired from my travels so I decided to retire to the bed and resume my reading.

I washed, donned my nightclothes, retrieved my book, and crawled into bed.  And there sat the doll – glaring at me.  I attempted to read but my concentration was destroyed.  I barely got through a paragraph before I was compelled to peer over the top of my book right into the face of that little fiendish expression.  I was being irrational, I told myself.  It was just a doll for God’s sake.  Just a child’s doll!  But its eyes tore right into me.  Its eyes would not stop imploring something of me.  Accusing me of something I could not name or know.  I became irritated and closed my book with a snap, extinguished the light, and rolled over to go to sleep.

Sleep didn’t come, as it should to a person who has been traveling all day.  I refused to look at the doll.  But I knew it was there.  It was still there watching me.  Knowing that I only pretended to sleep.  Knowing that I only pretended it didn’t bother me; but it knew all right.  It knew because it witnessed my annoyance.  It had the satisfaction of seeing my display of annoyance by slamming my book closed.

I awoke three times that night.  Each time I tried to resist looking at the doll but it was futile.  I couldn’t fight it and I looked to see the eyes staring right at me – the face smirking at my misery.  I wanted more than anything to just get up and reposition the doll where its face was turned away from me; but I kept telling myself that a grown man of sound mind wouldn’t bother with such inane actions.  Those were the acts of a child or a superstitious fool, not a grown man of mental soundness such as myself.  But, somehow, I endured the night.  When I awoke the next morning I expected the sunlight to have a calming effect.  The morning light is notorious for converting strange night thoughts into laughable embarrassments.  This wasn’t the case, however.  The doll’s expression was still there in the corner gazing at me in accusation.  So, I busied myself with changing clothes and grooming and such, trying my best to ignore the doll.  It was a useless attempt.

Finally, I couldn’t take any more of the eyes upon me and decided to reposition the doll.  Once I decided this course of action I immediately felt in control of the situation.  I promptly marched over to the chair and reached down to grasp the doll, but my hands stopped short.  I felt repulsion at the thought of touching it, like a person might feel at touching a maggot-ridden corpse of an animal.  I didn’t stop to analyze why this might be so. Instead, I reached down and grabbed the leg of the chair and turned the entire chair, doll and all.  The doll, which was already leaning over, fell from the chair and I instinctively reached out and caught it by the arm.  I was so repulsed by its touch that I quickly flung it back onto the chair.  So quick and sporadic were my actions that its arm nearly ripped completely off.  I felt ashamed of how ridiculous I was acting.  It was just a stupid doll!

At breakfast I decided to tell Aunt Sophie about the doll’s arm.  Of course I didn’t tell her how it really happened.  She would have thought me a lunatic.  I told her I accidentally bumped the chair on passing and tried to catch the doll.  She immediately got up and rushed into Clara’s room to see the doll.  I followed, a bit confused at her overreaction.

She picked the doll up and cradled it like an infant while investigating the damage.  I found this to be so repulsive that I had to restrain myself from slapping the nasty little thing out of her arms.  The doll knew I felt this way.  It stared at me the whole time with its smug little grin.  I knew that it was already plotting its revenge.

Then my aunt revealed to me the reason why the doll had caused her to react in such haste.  The doll was very dear to Clara’s heart and it was her closest companion all the way up till the moment of her death, which was in the very bed where I had slept last night.  I was completely unaware of the fact that Clara died in her bed.  I just assumed she passed away while in the hospital.  This knowledge laid upon me a new uneasiness, which only served to compound the sinister atmosphere of the doll.  Aunt Sophie said that Clara had named the doll Tiffy, which was a children’s pronunciation of Tiffany.  And now, suddenly, the object of my derision had a name – Tiffy.

Aunt Sophie took the doll away to her sewing room and commented that she would have to repair the damage later.  She assured me there was no harm done since the rip had occurred along the seam and could be mended without any indication that it had ever occurred.  I apologized and conveyed my relief that no permanent damage was done.  Of course these were bald-faced lies and I merely acted like I was concerned for Tiffy’s well-being when, in reality, I was rather sorry I hadn’t done worse.

I was, nevertheless, glad of the fact that the doll was removed from Clara’s room.  As long as the doll wasn’t around, my rest would be much better.

That evening after dinner Aunt Sophie and I once again adjourned to the living room before the fire.  I was enjoying an after dinner drink as we talked.  Then Aunt Sophie remembered the doll and retrieved it from her sewing room along with a needle and thread.  When she entered the room and I saw what she intended to do, my spirits plummeted.  The evening I thought would be relaxing and free of the presence of the doll, now turned out to be doubly stressful.  For, I not only had to endure its presence in Clara’s room, but also its presence in the living room as well.

As she worked on mending the arm of the beast it stared at me relentlessly.  Aunt Sophie talked as she concentrated on her sewing and was oblivious to my anger.  Conversation was strained because I was so furious.  I longed to snatch the doll from her hands and hurl it into the fire.  Its stare was so reprehensible.  As the needle went in and out of its arm it just looked at me and smiled as if to point out the fact that it was impervious to physical pain.  No, I knew what it meant even though there were no words.  That was the point see?  Its power was mental in nature.  It projected its grotesque and evil aura through the eyes straight into the mind.  And though you might think that the little beast was but an inanimate object and my hatred was misplaced, I tell you, there was most assuredly life there.  It may not have possessed life like you or I possess but there was a life present, an unnamable and unwholesome life that resided behind that atrocious smile and those accusing eyes.

I just prayed that Aunt Sophie wouldn’t finish the job.  But my hopes were soon dashed as Aunt Sophie announced her completion of the job, even going so far as to rise and offer the doll for my inspection.  I attempted a smile and commented on her handiwork but made no move to touch the creature.  The doll obviously thought this was befitting because it mocked me with its nasty little smile of triumph.  Then, to my horror, Aunt Sophie proceeded to take the thing back into Clara’s room and deposit it right back upon the chair.

I prolonged the inevitable all that I could, but I eventually resolved to go to bed.  Aunt Sophie had dismissed herself some hours prior and I passed the time reading.  I dreaded the thought of being in the same room with the doll again.  No matter how much I tried to convince myself of the absurdity of such fears, it still gnawed at my brain.  Finally, I decided to exert my true courage and go in the room without looking at the doll and go straight to bed.  And this is what I did.

I couldn’t go to sleep though.  I lay there knowing her big, glassy eyes were locked on me.  What manner of vile being could she be, I wondered?  A child’s toy! Oh No!  There was something much too sinister in it to be a mere child’s plaything.  She wanted something of me and that was certain, but what?  Why was she conducting the undoing of my sanity?  It couldn’t be the rending of her arm.  That came after it all began.  But I swear that as I flung her into the chair, she grabbed back!  I felt it and there is nothing that can remove that certainty from my head.

I could take no more.  My thoughts were swarming in intensity.  I couldn’t resist!  Knowing that her eyes were piercing me like knives!  I peeked out from beneath the covers and the sight was so horrible that I sat bolt upright in bed!  The horrid little beast had moved!  By God it had moved!  I sat staring at it, my breathing fast and hard, and my heart thumping so fast I thought I would pass out.

It occurred to me then that the doll hadn’t actually moved, but that Aunt Sophie had replaced it in a different position more erect in its sitting posture upon the chair.  I wiped my brow and tried to gain control of myself.  What a fool I had become.  I took a long, deep breath and regarded the doll.  “Tiffy.”  I said the name out loud, almost spitting the name from my mouth in disgust.

It may not have actually moved but its expression had changed.  I tried to convince myself that it was just because the doll was sitting more upright than before, but this, of course, was not true.  Its mouth was more twisted than the angle could account for.  For whatever reason why it plotted against my sanity, it was getting angrier the longer it took to accomplish my undoing.

I tried one more time to ignore the thing and go to sleep but it was useless.  I couldn’t bear the test of wills any longer and rose from the bed with a rush, growled at the little monster, and went into the living room to sleep on the couch.  I immediately fell into the most relaxing and comfortable sleep.

Then I was being awakened!  The doll’s hands were upon me and its eyes were no farther away than a foot!  I was had!  The beast had me!  I moaned in distress and came to my senses.  And there, replacing the doll’s devilish face, was Aunt Sophie.  She had risen in the middle of the night to find me asleep on the couch.  Thinking I had dozed off unintentionally, she awoke me and told me to go to Clara’s room and get into bed.  I couldn’t tell her the truth so I played along with her assumption and went to the room.

I was so tired that all I wanted to do was return to the world of sleep from which Aunt Sophie had snatched me from to deposit me once again in this tormented hell.  I could hear Aunt Sophie go in the kitchen to get something to drink.  I crawled under the covers and turned to my nemesis.  She mocked me like never before and I became furious.

“What – do – you – want – from – me?”  I said each word forcefully but quietly.  I thought to myself that eventually I would grow so tired that not even the doll could keep me from sleep.  But sleep did not come.  Only thoughts of those eyes ripping into my mind!  I prayed for sleep.  Even the sleep of death would be better than this agonizing torture upon my senses.

Thoughts of death made me think of Clara and her deathbed.  That is when it hit me – the realization of the doll’s motive.   Aunt Sophie said that Tiffy was Clara’s companion until the last moment of her life.  Obviously she saw me as an intruder on her mistress’ property.  The connection to the deathbed was such a strong psychical bond that an interloper would only breed ill will.  But my anger only grew.  Even with this realization I continued to stew in my hatred.

Exhaustion, fear, anger, and repulsion all mixed together in a maddening blend of psychotic rage that erupted from me uncontrollably.  The smirk on the damned thing had changed again and the eyes finally succeeded in affecting my mental breakdown!  I rose from the bed with a scream and threw the covers off.  I grabbed the little demon up and began shaking it back and forth as I screamed, “Stop staring at me you damn little beast!  Stop staring at me!”  I shook and cursed and ranted as all of the pent up rage boiled out of me.  I couldn’t shake it hard enough I tell you!  I continued cursing and screaming until finally I caused Aunt Sophie to come running.  And just as she arrived in the doorway I took the doll by the feet and swung it round.  As I screamed, “Go be with your precious Clara!” I dashed the doll to the floor and raised my foot to stomp in its hideous, porcelain head.  But before I could deliver the fatal blow I noticed Aunt Sophie staring in horror at the scene before her.  Before I could do anything further she fainted to the floor, crumpling in a heap.

I regained my senses and rushed to her side.  The poor dear must have thought me a lunatic!  For that is exactly what I had become!  My condition was only a temporary malady, but how was she to know this?  She didn’t know the tortures I had endured from the demonic little imp.

I picked her up and placed her on the bed.  I checked for breathing signs.  Although faint, she was, thankfully, still alive.  The strain had been too much for her feeble condition.  My outburst must have appeared like shear madness to her!  But it wasn’t really me who caused this, no!  It was the doll!  The damn doll!

“It was the doll!” I cried.  I turned to finish the deed I had started, but I froze at what I beheld.  Tiffy’s eyes no longer watched me!  The eyes were now looking at the swooning form on Clara’s bed.  The eyes now looked at Aunt Sophie.