Doll Face

12

Tap-tap, tap-tap, tap-tap.

It felt like Chazz’s skin was crawling with thousands of tiny insects that were skittering over his arms and up his legs, down his spine and over the nape of his neck. The sensation was so very real that he scratched at his skin until it hurt. But there were no bugs, there was only fear and it was making his skin prickle.

He was watching Lady Peg-leg.

She had paused now in the middle of the street. She was just standing there, not moving, not doing anything at all. He studied her and realized that she had gone inanimate. She was just a dummy now. She had no more life than a mannequin in a store window.

What now?

He didn’t find this latest development very comforting. In fact, he almost liked it better when she was moving. At least he knew what she was up to. It was like she was waiting there, plotting, thinking, playing head games with him. Trying to jack up his unease and apprehension. If that was the case, she was doing a very good job of it.

Now was the time to get away, to do something, but he was as stiff as she was.

She waited.

He waited.

He wasn’t really sure what for, other than he knew down deep that he was essentially too scared to move. All of it was too much and something in him had simply shut down. It wanted to crawl into a corner and hide and suggested he join it. Again, he wished Ramona were there.

He wished anyone were there.

He had never been very good at being alone. Even as a kid, he was not the sort that could amuse himself building model cars or reading comic books or playing video games. He was a social creature (he liked to think) and he needed others around. The truth was that he needed people to justify his own existence, people to marvel over him and his athletic grace, his good looks, and easy manner. He needed the worship. Alone, he was empty and wanting and unsure. Alone, he had no confidence. Alone, he seemed not to exist or to be on the verge of dissipating.

And right now, he was not sure of anything other than the fact that he was certain he was losing his mind and there was no one around to tell him that he was not.

So get the fuck out of here, dumbass. Climb back out the window and go find the others. Do what you do best: run, gobble up some yardage.

And he knew that’s what needed doing. He could almost hear Coach yelling at him, motivating him, driving him, telling him that he had the tools and he had the skills but he lacked motivation.

Oh, he was so right, so very right—

The alarm.

It started again, droning on and on. Like Ramona earlier, it reminded him of some primordial beast pulling itself up from a Mesozoic lake and shrieking out its rage and hunger. It went right up his spine and seemed to make the fillings in his molars actually ache. The windows rattled. The world echoed with the grim noise. Then about the time he thought he might start screaming from the sound of it, it cut out and faded in the distance.

At that very moment, as if on cue, he felt something skitter over his shoe and he kicked out at it. He figured it was a mouse. He didn’t like crawly little furry things, but most of his old fears seemed pretty minor league now. Fucking mouse. So what? He could live with mice.

Then it started crawling up his leg.

It was no mouse.

It was a rat.

With a cry, he reached down and felt his hand brush against a greasy pelt that almost seemed to palpitate with the verminous life within. Goddamn thing was no bush league sewer rat, it was a monster the size of a cat and if he doubted its intentions before, there was no mistaking them as it bit into his leg and brought a hot, needling pain to his calf.

Chazz grabbed at it, clutching a thick rope of tail that squirmed in his hand like an especially unpleasant snake. He ripped the rat away from his pants, feeling its claws tearing at the material as they tried to maintain their hold. He had no idea what he had in mind other than peeling that son-of-a-bitch free, but he found himself swinging it around in loose circles, seeming to enjoy the power he held over it. Once he had picked up the necessary velocity, he let it fly.

It hit a patch of moonlit wall with the sort of force that should have injured it and made it bleed. But it left no blood splotch. In fact, as it hit the wall, it simply fell apart… it broke into pieces.

Chazz let out a muffled cry.

It wasn’t real. Like everything in this place, it just wasn’t real.

In the moonlight, he could see it there on the floor. Its head was hairless like that of a possum, detached from its body, the jaws still trying to bite. Two of its legs had fallen off and they were still moving, still trying to claw. But the very worst thing was that its body had broken open and he could see what looked like whirring gears inside it, spindles and springs.

There was no end to this shit.

The rat was like some windup toy.

And as this settled into Chazz’s mind, mixing up in there with the rest of it and making him more confused and pushing him that much closer to complete lunacy, he heard another sound.

Creak, creak.

He looked around. It was Lady Peg-leg again, it had to be Lady Peg-leg again… but no, as he peered out the window, he saw that she was no longer in the street. He couldn’t see her anywhere.

Creak, creak, creak.

And besides, this sound was in the room with him.

Yes, over there beyond what he thought was a couch, he could make out a dim figure. It was sitting in a rocking chair, rocking back and forth, back and forth.

Creak, creak, creak.

“Who… who’s there?”

And a voice, feminine in caliber, throaty and breathless, said, “It’s me, doll-face. And I’ve been here a long, long time.”

A woman, another doll woman.

He nearly started cackling hysterically at the idea of it.

“Stay away from me! You come by me and I’ll kill you!”

The voice giggled in its throat. “Oh, you don’t have to worry about me, doll-face. It’s the old lady who wants you. The peg-leg lady. She wants your heart. You have a nice, strong heart and she doesn’t have one at all. She wants yours.”

“Fuck you!” Chazz shouted.

The chair stopped creaking. “You only had to ask, doll-face. You only had to ask.”

The doll woman had risen from the chair now and was coming with that same clicking sound as the doll man in the street. She moved with a shambling gait, painfully and slowly as if one leg was longer than the other. He could see her reaching out with sharp fingers, long hair sweeping from side to side as she got closer.

With a scream, Chazz vaulted across the room to where he had seen a door.

He barely got through it. Her fingers dragged through his hair and then he slammed it shut behind him and he could hear her nails scraping at the other side as if they were not nails at all, but claws.

The door had a lock and he set it.

She continued to claw at the other side. “When I find you, doll-face, I’ll fuck you.”

Chazz threw himself backward, his skin crawling again.

He stumbled over a chair and fell into a pool of moonlight that made his fingers look ashen and almost phosphorescent like the petals of night-blooming orchids. He was shaking, drooling, chattering his teeth. Tears ran from his eyes and he could not throw together a single coherent thought.

There were a set of stairs before him, climbing to the second floor.

When he could think, he considered going up there and hiding in a room, but, no, he could not bear the idea of being in the same house as that thing in the other room. No, he had to run. He needed to escape. He needed to put some distance between himself and this place.

And this is exactly what he was going to do.

Then he saw something coming down the stairs and in his fevered mind it could be nothing but a giant, leggy spider. It had sighted him and decided he was its prey.

Clip-clop-clip-clop, went its many legs.

Chazz crawled away toward the door, thumping into it and on the other side, the voice said, “Now you have to make a choice, doll-face… me or it.”