Doll Face

35

Soo-Lee crawled on her hands and knees through the passage of dolls until she realized there were no dolls and that she was actually moving up a set of stairs. The transition had been quick and she had no idea if that had been real and this was illusion or if it was the other way around. She paused there, trying to acclimate herself to what was happening.

She saw she was halfway up the stairs. She could see the polished balustrade gleaming in what seemed soft candlelight, the sort generally reserved for romantic dinners. The spindle balusters were dark oak, shining with wax. The stair runner was a soft floral carpet. It was quite elegant.

Where the hell did this staircase come from?

She didn’t know and she honestly didn’t care. Being out of that awful place of dolls was enough. The carpet felt nice under her hands. She was so tired, so very tired. She lowered her head to one step, luxuriating in the feel of the nap beneath her cheek.

Yes, this was nice.

She needed to call out to Lex but she just didn’t seem to have the strength or the air in her lungs. Her entire body was aching, the muscles sore and tense. Her eyelids closed and she began to drift off when there was a loud banging somewhere behind her.

She lifted her head.

Thump, thump, thump, the noise came again.

Below her there was a sort of foyer with dark paneled walls and a shiny parquet floor. There was an antique coat tree, several large floor vases, and a cabinet with many drawers that looked like something from the 18^th century. Beyond was a massive six-paneled door. Wavering shadows slid over its face.

Thump, thump, thump.

Somebody was knocking at the door. Knocking? Hell, they were beating on it with their fists. They wanted in badly.

Soo-Lee knew who it was.

Or, better, what it was.

It could be nothing but the hulking figure she had seen in the doll passage, that shadowy stalking figure. It was still after her and it meant to have her.

She pressed her lips together because she did not dare make a sound, a scream rattling in her throat. The fist pounded on the door again and it felt like the entire house shook with it.

Move!

Sobbing but refusing to give in, she pulled herself to her feet with the aid of the stair railing. She stood there uneasily, her knees feeling weak. Already she could smell the thing that was coming for her—it stank of aged tapestries moldering in dark cabinets and heavy mildewed drapes, worm-eaten and threaded by spiders. An almost sickening, nitrous stench of antiquity that she acquainted with dusty Egyptian tombs.

She scrambled up the stairs and was faced by a long, narrow corridor that moved in either direction. It was set with antique gas jets that threw a guttering, uneven light. As the pounding came again, she tensed, knowing she had to go and get behind one of the many doors she saw. Any of them would do. She needed to shut one and lock it tight and wait in the darkness… and pray.

Thump! Thump! Thump!

It was louder now, more insistent. She could hear the doorknob down there being rattled frantically. Each time the fist hit the door it was like a nail being driven into her. She could nearly feel the pain. It made her stomach tighten like a fist.

She ran to the left, trying door after door and finding them locked one after the other. They could not be forced. She did not really believe there was anything behind them. She threw aside a heavy tapestry at the end and found herself looking at a dusty window. Maybe this was the way out. She rubbed a clean spot in the pane and peered out through the glass. She saw the moon riding high above jagged rooftops, skeletal spires, and reaching chimneys. Far below were narrow, crooked streets cutting between leaning buildings. It seemed that the window she looked out of was a hundred feet above them as if the house itself was suspended in the sky.

There was a rending crash and she knew the door below had come off its hinges and the thing that sought her was now in the house, pushing writhing shadows before it as it came out of the dead of night bringing a smell of dry rot and subterranean vaults.

Soo-Lee ran back down the corridor.

At the top of the stairs she paused, but only momentarily. She could not see the thing down there, but she could hear its clomping painful gait, the sound of one leg dragged behind it. Its stench blighted the house. She saw jagged shadows begin to creep up the steps.

She ran in the other direction, trying doors until she found one that was open. It was a trap and she knew it had to be a trap, but fear pushed her through it. She closed the door as quietly as possible, locking it and stepping away from it into a room that was immense with a king-size Gothic canopy bed set near the far wall, red velour curtains tossed aside from massive carven teak posts.

The bed was baronial and exquisite, a chamber of dreams. It was like something from an Elizabethan novel. Red and black velvet pillows were piled in abundance, the comforter and blankets a deep scarlet. Oh, to sleep in such a bed. To lie in it, to—

Thump, thump, thump.

He was at the door now and Soo-Lee knew there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it. She was the fly that had entered the spider’s web out of its own free will. She could not be certain in those last few moments before the door crashed in if any of this had been her own idea. She had been carefully worked and carefully herded, she had not acted but reacted and free will did not seem to be part of it.

But there had been no other place to go, a weak and wounded voice in her mind said. There had been no choice, no real choice.

Maybe that was true and maybe she just lacked the strength, regardless, as the lock snapped and fell to the floor and the door swung in noiselessly, she knew that such things as choice were concepts she no longer had and would never have again.

The smell of the thing filled the room.

Its crooked shadow snaked over the floor in her direction.

Oh, please… dear God, no… no…

She saw a distorted scarecrow-like figure moving in her direction, a twisted carnal grin on its lips. And as she screamed, hands like pale tarantulas reached out for her.