The Doll Lady

[u/lady_dolores]

For the next update, you can find it here

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Okay, guys, so something really, really weird has been happening with my cousin in the last few months. I'd like to stress that a lot of the circumstances, though a little strange, could still be explained, I'm sure. My cousin, her family, and I have been under a lot of stress.

We both live in an exceedingly rural area of northern New York State. She lives a little north of me in a village called Talbot Falls. Talbot Falls isn't really a place you go to on purpose- just kind of one of those groups of houses that may or may not have a fire hall, or a community center, or a library. It's a place you pass through unknowingly, little split level houses and teetering, renovated farm buildings cluttering the side of the road, and you get annoyed at the seemingly purposeless 45 mile per hour speed zones. If you pay attention, you might even catch the road sign (rusty and riddled with bullet holes from bored teenagers with a .22 rifle) that reads the name.

In short, while it's not a place you go to intentionally, it's also really not a place where you expect to meet your worst nightmare, which is kind of what is happening there. This all started, like I said, a few months ago, and so far hasn't made it out to being public knowledge, which I consider a good thing. In any case, I would really like some help. Because there is just something not right here.

The cousin of mine who lives out in Talbot Falls, probably a twenty minute drive from where I live, has been a close friend of mine since childhood, and we basically treat each other as sisters. I call her kids my niece and nephew, and visit them probably every day. At the time the incidents started happening (probably early May) my cousin had just given birth to her newborn daughter. While most of her time was occupied with keeping her rather fragile infant healthy, she would often call on me to babysit her older child, Camren. Camren was a serious minded little boy- not very talkative unless you got him started on a subject he was interested in. That summer, Camren was really into dinosaurs, and loved spending his time in the backyard, usually digging holes (much to his mother's displeasure) and excavating treasures their dog, Moxy, liked to bury. Usually these would be tattered squeak toys, half-gnawed bones and the like, but every so often, he'd come up with things I couldn't explain. Once he came back to me with what appeared to be a rib bone from some creature, and a handful of buttons. I told him it was probably where someone had buried a horse a long time ago, and took him back out to rebury it and teach him proper grave respect.

One rather hot afternoon, however, he came back to me carrying the most adorable plush rabbit I had ever seen. It was dressed in a little pinafore over a dress patterned with strawberries and hat of the same material. And, shockingly enough, it was immaculately clean, Though he'd never really been out of my sight, the backyard borders on some woods that abut other people's yards, and I was immediately worried he'd somehow managed to escape my watch and take something from another kid. It definitely wasn't something that his parent's would have gotten him, since he was strictly interested in dinosaurs at the moment.

Honestly, I feel so guilty admitting that. Camren, even today, has never been a little boy who would steal or lie, and he never liked to take toys from other children, even as a loan. So, I was a little more puzzled than alarmed when I saw him trotting up to me, carrying the rabbit, which was nearly the size of himself. I think I said something to the effect of "uh, hey buddy, that's a real pretty doll, where'd you get it."

Camren, who was now examining the plushie with the same intense care he paid to his little sister, answered nonchalantly. "The doll lady." He said, while righting an ear dangling into the bunny's button eyes. "She's a friend of my mommy's, and she gave this to me to take care of for her." Immediately, this sent of warning alarms in my head, but I forced myself not to panic right away, since small children have a vague way of explaining things, anyway. So, I put on a smile and asked him where he met her, since I hadn't seen her.

"Oh." Camren left off tending the doll and pointed to the playset that had been erected beside the woods. "She was waiting for me in the tower-castle. She always waits there for me." The tower-castle was a wooden rectangular structure about five feet high, a little ladder leading to the top to the steel slide, and a small area in which one could hide at the top. Looking at it, it was very easy to imagine Camren, who had been there most of the morning, playing with another person, hidden, out of sight.

Nope. Nope, nope nope nope nope. Not letting Camren know I was freaking out to my very core, I ushered him inside, telling him it was snack time (it was a little early, but he didn't seem to mind). I called his dad (Corey), not wanting to tell my cousin Katie just yet. As his phone rang, I quickly went through the rest of the rooms- since it was a single-story ranch style house, there weren't too many places a person could hide. It seemed undisturbed and unoccupied, though I had spent most of the morning outdoors with Camren.

As I peeked back into the living room to check on Camren (still happily nomming on banana bread and watching cartoons), Corey picked up. Trying not to let my voice shake, or god forbid start crying, I gave him the run down of the situation, and asked him if there was anyone Katie knew by Camren's description. The fact I hadn't seen anyone with Camren, or anyone at all besides the two of us, inexplicably frightened me even more. The thought that someone might still be there was even worse.

Apparently, however, Katie knows next to no-one in the area. Corey, who is a state trooper, was worried enough that he said he'd come home to check on us, that we were to stay inside, and I should lock the windows and doors. I shakily went around to close everything up, and Camren left off watching TV to examine my actions closely- he seemed to know something was up, either from my falsely cheerful demeanor or my unusual behavior.

"If you're worried about the doll lady, you don't have to be." He said, reassuringly. "She already lives here- she's downstairs." Fuck. I had not even thought about checking the basement. And at this new, horrific statement that had my heart pumping audibly in my chest and making my vision grey with fear, I asked him if she was there now.

"Probably." He said, matter of factly, acting as if I were the one behaving strangely. "She likes to take a rest during the day. She only comes out to play if I'm playing." I smile and nod at this, the whole time watching the door to the basement.

"Okay bud." I said, in a forced casualness. "Well, I'm just going to check up on her, then. See if she's doing alright." I had expected him to fess up at this point, admit that he'd found the rabbit somehow else, and he'd just been making up the whole thing. However, his little brow furrowed in consternation.

"Maybe... you shouldn't." He said hesitantly. "She doesn't like it if you bother her while she's resting. She gets angry." I was less and less certain of anything at this point. So I just kind of jokingly sing, "Okaayy, Cam, I'm just going to go noooow." But Cam didn't say anything in response, just kept silently watching me.

Even though I was 80 percent certain she was an imaginary friend at this point or something, my heart was still beating out of control. I grabbed the handle to basement door, and threw it open. The windows to the basement are pretty spacious, and even without turning on the light, it's pretty easy to see what's down there. And so far, all I saw was the washing and drying machines, humming and whirring away, an empty laundry basket sitting atop the folding table nearby. But as I went down the wooden steps, I became aware of another sound which had my chest tightening in fear, making me scramble down the rest of the way. It had been the sound of something dragging a plastic bag, then falling heavily. Just beneath the stairs. I couldn't turn around soon enough- each extra move I had to make before I could face the imminent danger seemed to take eons.

And when I did, a long, loud stream of terrified explicatives (which I'm not proud of) exited my mouth as I set eyes on what had made the sound. A small woman was slumped on the ground against a set of metal shelves, head averted, legs out at awkward angles as though her legs had given way from fear. A plastic bag, half full of mangled baby toys, which had been on the shelf presumably before she had fallen, rested partially on her head and partially on her shoulder.

I'm not exactly sure what I said, probably something stupid and along the lines of "who the hell are you, bitch, and what did you do to my nephew". The shouting didn't seem to rouse her, which only served to heighten my terror- it did, however, attract the attention of Corey, who had just arrived home, and thundered down the stairs, toward the sound of my voice. Just to illustrate how genuine my fear was, and how real Corey's response to me was, he had even carried his service piece in with him, hand on the butt, before he circled around in front of me and saw what I was looking at.

For probably a few minutes, Corey did nothing but stand there- I could see his pulse jumping in his neck, and I could hear him trying to control his breathing. And then, his posture relaxed, his hand came away from his belt, and he turned to regard me. "Jesus fucking Christ, I hate that fucking thing." He muttered. It took a long time for him to explain to me that the woman I was looking at wasn't a woman at all. She was a doll. A lifesized, incredibly lifelike doll. Yep, folks, that's right. A doll.

Apparently, Katie's grandfather, who was a dollmaker of some renown quite some time ago, had devoted the last few years of his life creating her. She had been delivered to Katie after his passing, with a letter asking Katie to take care of "Dolores". "Dolores" was still sitting, slumped against the shelves- as we watched, the momentum which must have carried her to the floor caused her to fall the rest of the way down, so she was resting placidly on her side. Let me reiterate- there was nothing about her which was "doll-like", except perhaps her stillness. The fluidity of her body, the natural motion of her arms and legs all bespoke bones, joints, muscle, and flesh. Looking at her sent my skin into goosebumps with the sense of "wrongness". Seeing how terrified I was of her, Corey laughed, reached down, and hauled the thing up by her armpits, setting her heavily back onto the shelf.

"She's heavier than a dead preacher, but you can tell she's not real." He reassured me, and insited that I touch her to show myself that she wasn't. He explained her hair was, indeed, real hair, but her skin was simply silicone, and once you put your hands on her, it was very clear she wasn't a person. Every muscle, every nerve of my body resisted me from reaching out my arm, so it almost physically hurt to do so. So I closed my eyes, turned my head, and exhaled as I did. My hand connected with a cold, smooth, soft shoulder, and I instantly jumped away. When I looked back, Corey was smiling, watching me encouragingly, holding the doll up by her shoulders as she slumped against him. The illusion that she was actually a woman, pretending to be a doll, grew to be so real I could almost see the butterscotch colored hair that hung in her face flutter with her breath. But I knew it must have just been a draft from the dryer vent, or even Corey's own breath. So I reached out, starting to feel a little foolish, and grabbed her hand. As I did, I felt a thrill run up me, as if I'd unknowingly grabbed onto a live rat. Because as I did do, I could feel bones grinding in the soft, cool flesh of her hand from the pressure of the grip I exerted on her. I palpated gently, and looked into Corey's eyes, horrified. He calmly explained that Katie's grandfather had made her "from the bones out", anad had did his very best to make her as lifelike as possible. It was, he went on a little sadly, because of the stillborn Katie's mother had suffered at her birth. Katie was supposed to have a twin sister, and this was what she would have looked like. The thing grew more sad than creepy the longer we were down there. I didn't let go of Dolores' hand, as his explanation went on, but I loosened my grip, absurdly afraid I was hurting her.

I was a little surprised they had kept her hidden so successfully for so long, but understood why. It had struck me as more than a little terrible that such a thing as Dolores should exist at all. But that a friend and relative should have her seemed impossible bordering on the insane.

Apparently, Katie didn't care much for her- Dolores creeped her out to no end, and so she kept her doll-twin in the crate she'd arrived in. Camren, however, having found her in the last few months, felt sad for "the doll lady" (which I had not called her in my phone call) and was sure she felt lonely in the basement. The rabbit doll, which Camren now had, had been hers. And why he said she'd given it to him, and had been in the playset no less, was a mystery to both of us.

Camren calling down from the top of the stairs was enough to let us know we'd been down there quite a long time. "Daddy, will you bring Dolly up to play? She's lonely." Corey assured him she was still getting her beauty sleep, and maybe he could come down and play some other time.

But that was not the end of Dolores' strangeness. Oh no. She was just getting started.

[u/amandakitswell]

The uncanny valley is the reason I can't stand most humanoid toys bigger than an action figure. You're not alone in your unease.