Dark Rock
I don’t know when I fell asleep.
I woke in the first bedroom. A macabre wooden doll sat on a wooden chair, facing me. Her mouth was like a ventriloquist dummies’ the red lips were scratched and some of the paint was completely worn off. She was the size of a five year old. Her wooden painted peacock blue eyes pointed right at me. Her blonde horsehair wig was frazzled and disheveled. The clothes she wore were disintegrating rags. You could tell her dress was patched and re-patched several times over the years, but even the patches were frayed and worn. She was barefoot, the skin colored paint had signs of aging. She had chips and scratches here and there all over her.
She was once someone’s beloved best friend. Now she sat before me, dingy and dirty from time.
I got up from the floor and glanced back at the doll.
Her eyes pointed straight at me.
I walked to far side of the room and watched the doll watch me walk. I’d have run, but where to? So I walked back to face the doll.
Suddenly her mouth opened and she began to talk.
The voice sent chills up my back as sometimes I thought it sounded like an old woman’s curse, but the replay in my memory was that of a child’s sing-song.
When she spoke the words made no sense. The words of some old witch, recanting some ancient spell seemed to come out of her. “Itching laywork forest divide, fingers moose caramel surprise.” Three times the line was spoken, but the playback in my memory sang a different song.
“Shadows to the left and to the right, wake up dolly it is night. I’m so scared and filled with fright, wake up dolly make it right. I can no longer take this sight, wake up dolly! Wake up and fight!”
I looked at the creepy wooden doll who sat before me, feeling an irresistible urge to sing the child’s song I heard in my mind. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a shadow cross past the bedroom window outside. Would this child size doll really fight the shadows, or would she fight me and turn me into one. I looked into the painted blue eyes.
In the distance outside the wind began to moan and howl, as a ticking began to come from another room. The sound of an old grandfather clock, bidding me to come to the family room. It was a welcoming sound, the rhythmic pulse of normality and sanity.
The doll’s eyes never left me.
As I started to pick her up, her mouth slightly fell open for a second. I saw what looked like dried blood on one of her white painted teeth. I probably should have been more concerned, but you know how kids are always sticking their hands in things. I chalked it up to a child’s curiosity of her loving toy. I picked up the doll and carried it on my hip as one would a child.
As I entered the bare living room it sounded as if I should be standing next to the clock. I could hear the tick-tock as if I could reach my hand out and wind it. I closed my eyes, I could see the grandfather clock standing beside me. It’s cherry wood finish so beautiful and sleek with the firelight playfully bouncing off it. I reached out my hand to touch it and the doll in my arms began again with her song-curse.
I jumped, jerking my eyes open. I almost dropped her for her creepy behavior, as the last word finished I decided to heed her warning.
I set the doll down in the middle of the bare floor and began to recite the poem. “Shadows to the left and to the right, wake up dolly it is night. I’m so scared and filled with fright, wake up dolly make it right. I can no longer take this sight, wake up dolly! Wake up and fight!”
The doll’s head turned upwards and looked at me, she blinked once and reached her right hand behind her back. Slowly she pulled a doll sized butcher knife from behind her back. It’s shiny, cold metal reflected the dolls tattered clothes like a mirror.
I took a step backwards as I noticed the dolls wooden smile was no longer that of a ventriloquist dummy. She almost looked alive now, her teeth were all pointed and sharp like a piranha. She jumped to her feet and rushed towards me.
This is more like it. This is more like the nightmares I’m used to living in when I sleep at night. Finally some normalcy, something I can understand. I am asleep and dreaming. I waited for her to slash my achilles tendon, but instead she climbed with ease on to my back.
I felt strange straps and wires all around my body, constricting and binding me. I glanced down and noticed I was wearing some sort of dark brown leather harness. I glanced up to see my reflection in the pane of glass.
I felt the blood run from my body as I saw what I had become.
My body turned as if compelled by some invisible force. I began to walk down a long wooden corridor. My anxieties and fears slowly began to drift away. Deep inside an understanding began to take over. I was no longer responsible for my actions, I need never do a thing for myself again. I never would have to exert my will for any thing in any way, any more. Someone else would control me from now on. They would move my arms and my legs. They would take me everywhere I needed to go. All I need ever do again was simply exist. It was bliss.
I faced a mirror and glanced deep into it. My eyes glassy, my smile perfect. I too could be a doll. I saw my wooden companion take her knife, and grabbed a handful of my hair. She pulled it hard, as if intending to inflict pain. I felt nothing but a mild pressure as she cut a lock of my hair.
She climbed off my back with the lock of hair.
The leather harness tightened around my torso. I should have choked for air, then I noticed I was no longer breathing. I glanced at the wires and strings protruding from every joint. Thin wires extended out from fingertips, they extended up to the ceiling.
I faced the mirror and realized I was a marionette. I did not feel fear at this, nor realization. I did not feel, nor think.
Then nothing.