Doll Face

21

Soo-Lee became aware of two things in rapid succession: the smell and the darkness. The smell came literally out of nowhere, thickening and growing rank, filling her stomach with waves of warm nausea. Spoiled meat, she thought. That’s what it smells like. Like a truck full of meat that went bad.

Which, of course, made no sense whatsoever.

Even had there been real food in the house—something she seriously doubted after her experience at the diner—it would gradually go bad as things always gradually went bad. Nothing rotted this fast, in a matter of seconds.

The second thing was the darkness.

It had been dark before, yes, but not this dark. Something had happened. There was not even any moonlight coming in through the windows. There was nothing. It was as if some giant cover was dropped over the house like the sort that was used for birdcages at night.

Whatever’s happening, this is how it starts.

“Keep together,” Lex said, reaching out and taking her hand as she reached out and took Creep’s.

The stink grew worse and Soo-Lee heard Creep make a gagging sound. The air was nearly unbreathable. The dark was more than dark, it was absolute blackness. It enveloped them like an ebon mist. It was as if the three of them were zipped inside a body bag; light no longer existed.

“C’mon,” Creep breathed. “Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

“No,” Soo-Lee told him. “That’s exactly what we can’t do. It’s exactly what is expected of us. We can’t run anymore. We face this and overcome it.”

Lex gave her hand a squeeze while Creep’s seemed to go that much more limp. He was not with them on this. He understood the basic idea of what they wanted to do, but he had no real faith in it, no belief that it would work. But it would, Soo-Lee knew. If only he would stand with them. Their belief was important to the puppet master of this place. She was certain that he/she/it depended upon it.

Something touched her face.

It was a light touch, almost like a fly had brushed against one cheek. But she knew it was no fly. Even though she could not see a thing, she could feel something substantial hovering in the air right before her face. It brushed her cheek again and though she wanted badly to cry out, she did not. She just sat there, trembling slightly.

Just like in the diner, the puppet master is turning up the heat. It’s kicking up things a notch. The smell and the darkness are not getting us to move, so it’s trying something else. And it’ll keep on trying.

Something brushed against the back of her hand.

It felt like a finger.

Someone or something was standing in the dark right in front of her. She was nearly certain of it. She made herself be calm. She was not going to break, not going to cry out. Its physical presence was almost crushing. The finger or whatever it was touched her nose, then her lips. It drew a line from her chin down her neck to her breastbone and hesitated there.

Still, she did not move.

“There’s something here,” Creep said, as if that needed saying at all.

Neither she nor Lex commented on what they already knew. They waited. They steeled themselves. Soo-Lee resisted the instinctive need to kick out at whatever was there. A bead of sweat ran down one temple. Her mouth was so dry she could’ve spit dust. Whatever was in front of her had not left. No, it had drawn in ever closer. Now its face was inches from her own. She could feel its breath hot against her face. It was not foul, not exactly. There was a distinctively musty smell to it that she acquainted with closed-up trunks moldering away in cellar damps.

You have to resist it. Your belief fuels it.

And yes, God knew it sounded great in theory, but in practice it was something else again. She was barely breathing, afraid that it would hear her, that her rising fear would charge it like a battery and she was bound and determined not to give it anything to work with.

Next to her, Creep was fidgeting, making moaning sounds in his throat.

The breathing thing was so close to her face now that its exhaled air filled her space and made it hard to suck in so much as a breath. It couldn’t have been more than an inch away. Fingers brushed her neck, drew slowly down her bare arms. One of them brushed against her left breast.

I can do this, she thought frantically. I will not break.

Then the thing, as if sensing this, slid a hand up between her legs at the same time its cold, wooden lips were pressed to her own. All of which was bad enough, but what was even worse is that she felt its tongue slide into her mouth, only it was not a tongue but something like a leggy, segmented worm.

It was then and only then that she screamed.