Ante Mortem (15 page)

Momma closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose with a thumb and forefinger. “Look, hon, I’m too tired to argue with you right now, so I’m gonna let it slide this time,”—she shot Sarah an
I’m-not-messing-around
look—“but you can’t go back up there until Daddy does his ‘safety inspection.’ You know how he is about stuff like that.”

Sarah nodded. “Okay.”

“
Good. Now go put that doll in your room and wash up. I’ll make us a couple of sandwiches for dinner.”

Sarah’s stomach grumbled at the mention of food. “Can I have peanut butter and jelly?”

“
Sure. Grape jelly okay?”

“
Yeah.”

Sarah shifted the doll to the other hip and mounted the steps. She reached the landing at the top of the staircase and turned left, heading for her room. The doll’s wooden cheek rested against her shoulder, its glassy gaze seeming to bore into the side of her neck. Sarah’s scalp began to prickle, as if she
really
was
being watched…

A sharp, stinging pain flared in her shoulder. Sarah grimaced and slapped at her arm, but the doll’s head seemed to be resting on the very spot that hurt most. She pushed at the toy, trying to move it away from the tender spot, and the pain intensified. Sarah twisted her head to the side and gasped.

The doll’s teeth were embedded in the sleeve of her shirt, pinching the skin of her shoulder between its gradually tightening jaws.

Sarah grabbed the doll’s hair and yanked, whimpering as the lacquered teeth scraped across her flesh. Her arm freed, she released the handful of hair and let the doll drop. It hit the floor with a clatter, a faint, yellow gleam shimmering in its eyes, and the mouth snapped shut with an audible
click
.

Sarah’s legs buckled. Leaning against the wall for support, she peeled back the sleeve of her shirt and prodded the abraded shoulder with the tips of her fingers. The skin hadn’t been broken, but she could see the indention of the doll’s teeth outlining the beginnings of what was sure to be a spectacular bruise come morning-time.

She turned her attention to the doll, eyeing it with a mixture of curiosity and dread. She nudged the doll’s arm with the tip of her sneaker and quickly drew her foot back, half expecting the wooden hand to reach out and grab her. The doll rocked slightly, its eyelids fluttering with the motion. With a shuddering sigh, Sarah picked the doll up and—keeping it at arm’s length—made her way to the bedroom at the end of the hall.

Her mood lightened tremendously the moment she crossed the threshold. Sarah loved her new room. The rose-colored walls and white wicker furniture made her feel like she had just stepped into Malibu Barbie’s beach house. A Disney Princess poster and perfect attendance award hung on the wall, the only adornments she had found time to hang up. White lace curtains framed a large picture window, the gauzy material fluttering lazily in the evening breeze.

Sarah sat the doll in the white rocking chair and knelt down, studying the cracked, round face. Hazy sunlight trickled through the curtains, staining the doll’s teeth a dingy orange. Sarah leaned forward and looked closer, inspecting the lines running from the sides of the mouth. She brushed a tentative finger across the lower lip, as if expecting the mouth to snap open at the slightest touch.
Maybe the mouth part is broken
, she thought, applying some force to the doll’s bottom lip.

The teeth remained firmly clenched.

Momma’s voice drifted to her from downstairs. “Sarah? You gonna eat this sandwich sometime tonight?”

Sarah rose to her feet. “Coming, Momma,” she said, dusting off the knees of her pants. She glanced over at the rocking chair and froze.

The doll’s eyes flickered yellow and blinked.

Sarah stepped away from the rocker, a rash of goose bumps puckering the skin of her arms. She backed across the room, her gaze never leaving the wooden face. The doll’s eyes—now back to their customary shade of green—seemed to follow her as she moved. Unease settled around Sarah, filling her with a sudden urge to bolt from the room. Turning her back on the doll, she hurried to the door.

A soft
click
echoed through the room. Sarah paused at the threshold, gripping the doorframe tightly enough for her fingernails to indent the molding. She swallowed hard and craned her head over her shoulder.

The doll’s mouth hung open.

Sarah jerked awake and sat up, a ragged gasp catching in the back of her throat. Groggy, she blinked away the remnants of a nightmare and squinted at the glowing hands of the Barbie clock hanging above the dresser.
Quarter past five
.

She groaned and flopped back against the pillows. She had not had more than an hour of uninterrupted sleep all night.

A shiver coursed through her body as she recalled the nightmare that had woken her this time—one in which some shadowy predator stalked her through an endless maze of cloth-draped furniture and dusty crates. Sarah was not sure which part was scarier: being lost in the maze or being chased by something she could not see. She shuddered and patted the pillow next to hers, seeking Mr. Roar, the ratty stuffed lion she had slept with since the day she was born. Lions were supposed to be brave, and holding Mr. Roar made Sarah feel more secure.

Where is he?

A soft creak startled Sarah from her search. She sat up and pulled the covers to her chest, her head turning in a slow sweep. The creak came again and Sarah froze, her heartbeat pounding triple-time in her ears. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glint of silver, like moonbeams reflecting off a mirror. Sarah’s head whipped around, eyes widening as they locked on the rocker in the corner of the room.

A girl no older than ten sat in the chair, an oversized doll in her lap and a silver hairbrush in her right hand. Soft moonlight slipped through the window, ebbing and flowing over the girl’s form as she rocked to and fro.
L
ong, blonde curls hung around her face, shadowing her features to an indistinct blur. Seemingly oblivious to Sarah, the girl moved the brush over the doll’s locks, her foot occasionally kicking at the floor to set the rocker in motion.

Sarah cocked her head. “Who’re you?” she asked, her tone more curious than frightened.

The girl paused her brushing. A pair of green eyes shone briefly from behind the wall of curls, disappearing as the girl turned her attention back to the doll. “Amanda," she said, resuming the steady pass of brush over hair. “Amanda Stilton.”

Sarah scoured her memories for a connection and frowned. She didn’t know anyone named Amanda. “Um, I’m Sarah Wilkes. We just moved in yesterday.”

“
I know.”

“
Oh.” Sarah’s fingers twisted nervously in the hem of the bedspread. “So, do you live around here or something?”

Amanda shrugged, seemingly too absorbed in her grooming duties to respond. Sarah turned her attention to the doll in the girl’s lap. It looked a lot like the one she’d found in the attic. “I like your doll,” she said, more to break the silence than out of any real admiration. “What’s her name?”

Amanda flinched, nearly dropping the silver brush. “Her name’s Beatrice.”

“
Cool. Where’d you get her?”

“
I found her in the attic.”

Sarah sat up straighter. “Really? That’s weird. I found a doll in the attic too. She’s—” Sarah’s words drifted off, her brow furrowing in confusion. She distinctly remembered setting the doll in the rocking chair when she brought it upstairs. Her eyes narrowed to a squint, trying to see through the wash of shadows hovering around the girl.

“
Hey, where’s my doll?”

Amanda either did not hear the question or chose to ignore it. She sighed and held the doll up by its arms. “I hate her, you know,” she said, giving the toy a good shake.

Sarah blinked, confused by the sudden shift in topics. “Hate who?”

“
Beatrice,” Amanda snarled, returning the doll to her lap. “She’s mean.”

Sarah’s brow shot up. “She’s just a doll. How can she be mean?”

Amanda tossed the hairbrush to the floor and shook her head, the curtain of blonde locks swaying with the movement. “You don’t believe me, either,” she said, sliding from her seat. “Nobody does.” She walked to the foot of the bed and bent over, disappearing from view behind the wicker footboard.

Sarah pushed the covers off and crawled towards the foot of the bed. “I didn’t say that,” she said, peering over the footboard.

A cold knot of dread twisted Sarah’s stomach as she watched the girl settle, cross-legged, onto the floor. Pale light poured through the window, highlighting the black welts covering Amanda’s arms from wrist to shoulder. A tattered hole in the girl’s sleeveless smock revealed a gaping wound in her belly, her insides bulging through the gash, glittering sickly in the moonlight. Amanda looked up at Sarah and smiled, black ochre oozing from the ragged holes in her face and neck.

Sarah gagged and slapped a hand over her mouth. “Oh, my God,” she gasped, her nose crinkling in disgust. “What
happened
to you?”

Amanda shrugged her shoulders and looked away. “She got hungry,” she said, her voice sounding hushed, as if she were telling a dirty secret.

Hungry?
Sarah gulped and gripped the footboard a little tighter. “Who got hungry?”

Amanda picked the doll up and extended it to Sarah. “Beatrice.”

Sarah recoiled as the doll’s eyes rolled in their wooden sockets and locked on her, the irises flaring an incandescent yellow. The mouth snapped open, vomiting chunks of grey, maggot-riddled meat. Sarah shoved away from the footboard, a garbled scream bursting from her lips.

Amanda dropped the doll and stood up. “I told you she was mean,” she said, hoisting herself onto the bed. She crawled towards Sarah, her mouth twisting into a smug sneer. “Now do you believe me?”

Sarah bolted upright in the bed, her bleary-eyed gaze flitting from one shadowed corner of the room to another, seeking any sign of Amanda and her deadly doll. The tick of the Barbie wall clock clicked loudly in her ears, keeping time with the ragged in and out of her breath. She rubbed her eyes and peered at the wicker chair.

The rocker was empty.

Sarah released her grip on the comforter and sighed.
Just another nightmare
, she thought, settling back against her pillow. Closing her eyes, she rolled onto her side and pulled the covers over her shoulder, trying to shake the nagging sense of alarm growing in the back of her mind.

It felt like she’d missed something—something important.

The rocker.

Goose bumps prickled her arms. She had left the doll in the rocker when she went to bed, and now it was empty. Sarah’s eyes popped open, a gasp hitching in her throat.

The doll stared back at her, its head resting on the pillow next to hers. Sarah yelped and scrambled to sit up, shoving the doll away with as much force as her terrified muscles could muster. The toy slid across the satiny covers and fell to the floor with a thud.

Sarah kicked the covers off her legs and reached for the bedside lamp, her fingers fumbling for the switch. The light clicked on, bathing the room in a soothing glow. Sarah glanced around the room, taking comfort in the light’s revealing glare. Her gaze swung from the walls to the mattress, eyes narrowing as they settled on a handful of fluffy, white scraps.