literature

The Collection, Part 2 of 2

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"They got out, Denise! They ALL got out!"

"Michelle, what is going on here?" Denise had had just about enough.

"I don't understand! I take such good care of all of them, I love them!"

"Michelle," Denise spoke calmly, "you know sometimes people, even parents, don't tell us how much they love us but they really do.  So if you'll tell me where you hid the dolls then we-"

"Don't you see what happened? Shelly hid the key so we wouldn't find it.  Then she made sure we'd go downstairs to clean up the broken cup and she let them all out!"

"Michelle, Danielle is a doll! Listen to what you're saying! Now tell me where you put the dolls, we'll put them all back and then play a game before your parents get home ok?"

"Danielle let them out! I didn't do anything! They never all got out before!"

"Okay that's enough.  I am going to go downstairs and do some schoolwork.  Let's go, drama queen."  And Denise grabbed Michelle's arm and led her out.

As they got to the stairs Michelle cried out, "Look!" There were several dolls sitting all up and down the stairs.  The Katie doll was the closest; Denise roughly grabbed the doll and then started picking up the others as she headed down the stairs.

"How did you do this?" Denise questioned her young charge as they walked into the living room; Denise's eyes widened as she saw dolls sitting everywhere - on the couch back, on the chairs, tables, everywhere.  Denise looked as confused as she was, as she started walking through the room.

"Look out!" Michelle screamed just as a vase on top of the bookcase fell, crashing down right where Denise would have stepped had Michelle not warned her.  Denise looked up where the vase was and saw the Danielle doll sitting there.

"That wasn't very nice, Danielle," Michelle scolded as Denise shook her head, overwhelmed by what she had just witnessed.  She knelt down to pick up the pieces of the vase and found an expensive-looking bracelet in the debris.

"That's mine," Michelle blurted out as she grabbed it out of Denise's hand.

"Isn't that a little bit too grown-up for you Michelle?"

"No, see, it fits," and Michelle slid it over her wrist.

"I'm calling your parents, Michelle.  This little game of yours is over." She turned back to look at the dolls, her mouth open in shock.  "They...they moved..."  She rushed in to where the landline phone sat and picked it up, dialing.  "Mrs Andrews, it's Denise.  There's some weird stuff going on here so I'm going to take Michelle to my house until-"

"What's wrong?" Michelle asked as Denise turned to her.  

"It went dead," Denise gulped as she reached down and picked up the phone cord that looked like it had been ripped from the wall.  Lying next to it were two of Michelle's dolls.  "Okay," she composed herself, "I'll call her from my phone."  She went to her purse and pulled out her phone.  "My battery's gone," she muttered as she looked at her phone. "Goddammit."  She turned to Michelle but the girl was gone. 

"Michelle? Michelle?" she called out as she walked back into the kitchen, still wearing a look of total confusion on her face.  She stopped at the fridge where magnetic letters were spelling out the word 'LEAVE'.

"Okay that's it, Danielle, you and your little freaky friends, I've had it with all of you! I'm taking Michelle and getting us out of this horror movie!"  She got to the bottom of the stairs, looking up to see dolls on every rung.

"Denise!" she heard a scream from upstairs.  She rushed up as fast as she could, never seeing the stuffed animal on the step before her...she tripped and fell backwards down the stairs, hitting her head on the floor and temporarily knocking the chesty babysitter out cold.

Denise came to a short time later as she felt herself being dragged across the floor on her back.  She rolled over to see several dolls standing there.

"Okay that is IT! I have had it with you little bitches!" And Denise grabbed the stuffed animal that had caused her to trip, using it to knock the dolls away.  She got to her feet, still woozy, and turned to see several more dolls blocking her way.  She knocked them aside and then turned the corner only to see more dolls in her way.

"Michelle?" she hollered as she made her way carefully up the stairs.  She got to Michelle's bedroom and saw several more dolls blocking the closet; inside she could hear what sounded like crying as she once again used the stuffed animal to knock the dolls away.

"Michelle are you in there?" Denise asked as she tried to open the locked door.  "Michelle open the door and I won't let them hurt you."

The door opened a few inches and Michelle reached out, grabbing Denise's wrist and pulling her into the closet with her.  There was light coming through the slats in the door, just enough to see as Michelle shut the door behind them.

"Michelle, we have to get out of here.  I know they scare you but we can get past them. I just got past them to get to you."

"They're not after you," Michelle whined as she knelt on the floor.

"I don't get it," Denise muttered in bewilderment, "they're just dolls.  I can carry you past them, we can get out of here."  

"Where did you get that?" Michelle suddenly asked, pointing at the stuffed animal.  She reached for it and as she ripped it from Denise's grasp something fell out of it, a wallet.  Michelle gasped as Denise opened it and saw a picture of a brown-haired girl.

"This girl, she's wearing that same bracelet," Denise stated as she looked to Michelle's wrist.  She looked in the wallet, where she saw a driver's license belonging to a...Danielle.  Denise had a look of total confusion on her face as Michelle started to cry again.  Denise looked inside the stuffed animal where she found a whole stack of ID's.  There was a Katie...and a Miranda...

"Don't be mad at me," Michelle bawled.  "I didn't mean to...they were my friends and my parents would get home and they would want to leave..."

"Your parents paid them to look after you not to be your friends...these girls, they were all babysitters weren't they..."

"I didn't want them to leave I just wanted them to stay..."

"The dolls...they weren't trying to hurt you, they were trying to warn ME...they told me to LEAVE...they're still trying to warn me to get away from you..." The realization finally crossed Denise's pretty face as Michelle leaped into her arms hugging her tight.  "Let me go Michelle let me go...!"

Denise suddenly felt very lightheaded.  It was like the room was starting to spin all around her.  She was getting dizzy, disoriented, everything around her was getting bigger, she felt stiff all over...that look of confusion on her face frozen...


A short time later...

Mr. Andrews was on the phone angrily berating whoever was on the other end.  "We just got home and found our daughter crying hysterically in the closet.  She's 10, for Christ's sake! This is the last time we hire a sitter from your agency - they just aren't responsible at all, this is the third one this month that's run off and left our daughter all alone!"  He hung up in a huff.

Michelle was in her bed, having finally calmed down; her mother was putting the last of the dolls back into the case.  "Seriously Michelle, I thought you promised us you'd be quiet and behave while we were gone.  This crazy, wild behavior is why we can't keep a sitter."

"I'm sorry Mommy," Michelle sniffed.

"I know you are but you know the rules.  You're in your room, grounded, for the rest of the weekend.  Good night." And Mrs. Andrews went to leave turning out the light.

"Mommy, turn the nightlight on please? For Katie."  Her mother turned it on then left, shutting the door behind her.  Once her mother was definitely gone, Michelle quietly got up and crept over to the case full of dolls.

"You are all so bad.  You are all grounded forever!" she whispered through the glass doors.  "None of you are EVER getting out again!"  She took out her key and placed it in the door.  "I just wish you would all stop hating me, we should just all be friends, right?"  She opened the door and placed another doll with its stand inside.  "This is your new friend, and you better be nice to her," she added as she closed and locked the door.  "Her name's Denise."  She looked through the door at the new doll with its shoulder length brown/blonde hair, pink blouse, short plaid skirt and heels, a blank look frozen on its face for all eternity...
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Femfan1's avatar
:star::star::star::star: Overall
:star::star::star::star::star-empty: Vision
:star::star::star::star-half::star-empty: Originality
:star::star::star::star::star-half: Technique
:star::star::star::star::star-half: Impact

I had a sense of where this was going, but it was a creepy and entertaining ride getting there. Good job building suspense, with Denise's growing frustration becoming confusion and, finally, understanding, too late. The influence of the Twilight Zone clearly comes through, or Tales from the Dark Side. Michelle was a great character. Powerful children who don't have a grasp on the true consequences of their actions, and who are naturally self-centered having not yet developed empathy, make some of the most terrifying villains. For the next babysitter's sake, I hope she's a mean one that Michelle wants to have leave the house.