Thriller: Horror: Spirit Doll (Mystery Suspense Thrillers) (Haunted Paranormal Short Story)

by Stephen Kingston

  “OK, but do you believe in God? Are you saved?” Rachel asked.

  “I never gave it much thought, but I guess I do believe in God,” Lilly said.

  “You had better start making your faith as strong as it can be again, because it is going to be your best weapon and best defense against the devil.”

  “OK, I certainly understand. With everything that has happened I can see that being easily done.”

  “It probably won’t be as easy as you think, Lilly. Anyone can say the words and anyone can tell themselves that they believe, but true faith comes from deep inside your heart. It isn’t always easy to find. But you need to start searching and search hard. And once you find it, you won’t ever let it go.”

  “OK.”

  “Has your daughter been baptized?” Rachel asked.

  “No, I’m afraid not. Will that affect what we have to do to get rid of this thing?”

  “It can, but your daughter is well below the age of accountability according to God’s word, so she is still completely innocent. She does not have conscious choice to choose Him.”

  “I understand,” Lilly said. She was totally relieved by those words. How had she let her little girl down so much? She had been raised in a church environment, but she just slowly stopped going as she got older. It became easier and easier to drop the formalities over time.

  “How solid is your marriage?” Rachel asked.

  “It’s great. Until this thing happened we have never had any problems.”

  “No fighting? No sneaking around or infidelity?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Lilly, I know some of these questions are harsh, but you just need to stay with me here, OK?” Rachel said.

  Lilly took a deep breath and tried to smile. She knew that Rachel was right and that these questions had to be asked. It was just hurting her to hear the questions as if she was being interrogated and asked things that were no one’s business.

  “Have you or your husband ever hit your daughter?” Rachel asked.

  “No, absolutely not. Brad would never do that and I certainly would never do that either.”

  “Great. Again I’m sorry I have to ask these questions, but it is vitally important.”

  “It’s OK, we understand,” Brad said finishing off the bottle. He threw the bottle across the kitchen and it landed in the trash can. He high fived himself and did a slight victory dance.

  Lilly tried to ignore him, but the sound of the bottle flying into the can and the loud clanking sound as it broke, echoed loudly in the quiet house. She couldn’t help but jump a bit. Rachel gave Brad a nasty look and then went back to making notes on her pad as she continued her line of questioning.

  “So, the strange occurrences happened when Brad brought home the doll?” Rachel asked.

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “Where did he get the doll? In Thailand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, I’ve done some research on these dolls and the behavior that surrounds them and I believe I have a few answers for you about what might have caused this problem.”

  “OK,” Lilly replied.

  Just then Mary came into the room and sat down at the table. She looked as if she was a bit on edge and there was some sweat pouring down the side of her face.

  “What happened? What did you find?” Rachel asked.

  Mary took a deep breath before she began.

  “OK, I did find something here. As we suspected there is a demonic attachment going on here.”

  “So, the doll is not haunted?” Lilly asked.

  “It is cursed; not haunted. The doll is really just a doorway for the spirit to enter our world.”

  “How did it become cursed? Brad said he had it blessed and everything right after he bought it,” Lilly said.

  Rachel spoke up. “Well, in my research I discovered that there are those who instead of doing a blessing will actually do an invocation. Basically they will curse an object and summon a demon forth to it.”

  “Why? Why would they do that to Brad’s doll?”

  “It is tough to say. Maybe because he looked wealthy? It might be because his number was up. Who knows? Some of these practitioners who perform these rituals believe that the balance of nature is very delicate and that for every one of these dolls that are blessed then a certain number of them must also be cursed. It is better for a few to suffer so that the majority can live in peace and harmony. That is the theory behind it anyway.”

  “That is bizarre,” Lilly said. “So we were just fucking unlucky then? Perfect.”

  “That is one way to look at it. I find in most cases of demonic attachment that luck is often a deciding factor,” Mary said.

  “So, what do we do now?” Lilly asked.

  “Well, we might need to perform an exorcism, but again that is always a last resort. Things could escalate and things could get much worse,” Rachel said.

  Lilly sighed. She was not getting the answers that she desperately wanted to hear.

  “So what then?”

  “My team will set up some cameras and we will see if we can provoke the demon to show itself. If it does this I will try to force or trick it into uttering its real name,” Rachel said.

  “Why do we need its name?”

  “Well, when you call it by name then the demon has to answer to it. It’s kind of like an archaic law of God that’s been around since the beginning of creation. It is one of our best defenses.”

  “OK and you think it will just leave on its own?”

  “It might, or it will retaliate.”

  “Great, and what do we do if it attacks?” Lilly asked.

  “Then we will need to have the exorcism performed,” Mary said.

  “But one thing at a time,” Rachel said. “First we have to break the curse on the doll.”

  “OK, why does the doll matter? You said the demon is attached to us right?”

  “Yes, but the doll is still the entryway, the portal. That demon can come and go as it pleases through that portal. We have to destroy that.”

  “So, we destroy the doll?”

  “NO! If we just destroy the physical being of the doll the door will remain open and you can’t close it,” Rachel said. “There is a ritual that must be performed, just like before. We have to remove the curse on that object. That way the demon has no way back in and once we force it out then it has to stay gone.”

  “Yeah, we don’t want that nasty thing hanging around again,” Brad said, his words slurred through his drunken stupor. Lilly wanted to slap him upside the head as hard as she could right then.

  “What about Brad? What is wrong with him?” Lilly asked leaning in to whisper to Rachel.

  “We need to do some tests to make sure that he is not actually falling under entrapment, which is the next stage after attachment. The stage after entrapment is possession,” Rachel said.

  “OK. Do what you need to do.”

  Rachel pulled something out of the pocket of her sweater. It was a small, clear bottle with no markings of any kind. The bottle contained a clear liquid. Without any warning she splashed it on Brad’s hand that was sitting on the table.

  “Hey! What the hell?” Brad said wiping his hand on his shirt. “That is fucked up. What the hell is wrong with you lady?”

  “It was just a test to see if you are still you,” Rachel said.

  “What? Of course I’m still me. Who the hell else would I be?” Brad asked.

  “So he isn’t possessed?” Lilly asked.

  “No. It’s good news. He isn’t even under entrapment. He may just be under the first stage, but then again you all are, which is why this nightmare has been happening to you.”

  “Then what is wrong with him?”

  “He is suffering from a form of temporary insanity. We’ve seen it before. Basically sometimes a person’s mind just can’t deal with the truth when they come face to face with the supernatural. It takes a mental and physical toll on everybody, but
some people for whatever reason form a barrier between themselves and the truth. It is just a defense mechanism put forth by the brain. So basically it is an extreme case of denial and they will lash out at everyone and everything around them that challenges this façade. They will abuse their families and act completely opposite their true nature. Because if they don’t they might go insane.”

  “Wow, will he get over this?”

  “I don’t know. A lot of times when the threat is dealt with and it is no longer there then the mind will return to normal, but sometimes extensive counseling is required to bring the person back to themselves. We just won’t know until it is finished,” Rachel said.

  “Mommy…” Chrissy’s little voice wafted up to her ears.

  The child was just opening her eyes. She let out a big yawn and a small stretch.

  “Hi, baby. Did you sleep well?” Lilly asked.

  “Who are these people?”

  “Oh, these are friends of ours. They’ve come to help us with a few things,” Lilly said.

  “What kinds of things?”

  “Oh, you don’t need to worry about that honey. You can go back to sleep if you want.”

  “I want my bed and I want Shelly.”

  “Honey, Shelly is broken and you can’t play with her. That is why these nice people are here. They are going to try to fix Shelly,” Lilly said, glad to actually be telling her daughter some fraction of the truth for once in what seemed like weeks.

  “OK,” Chrissy said.

  “Actually we should start with the doll,” Rachel said.

  “OK. Let’s get it.”

  Chapter Seven

  The doll lay on its back in the middle of the living room on the coffee table. Its glassy porcelain colored eyes stared straight upwards as if in some sort of religion induced trance. It did not appear to be evil or even anything out of the ordinary, Lilly thought. The doll no longer had blood stains on its hands either as it did when it first arrived back to them in the UPS package.

  The room was silent and almost motionless. Only Rachel was moving as she began to get ready for the ritual. Lilly thought for certain the priest would perform this, but Rachel assured her that anyone could perform these rituals, even the exorcism if they had studied and trained for it. The priest was required to perform The Rite of Exorcism because he had to be blessed by the church and have that support and approval for it to work. It sounded strange but it made all the difference in the world. She told Lilly the tales of people she had heard about who had attempted to perform exorcisms themselves, but horrible things happened to everyone involved. That was why you had to be wary of false gurus who would sell you on some stupid story.

  Rachel would never attempt or allow any member of her team to perform an exorcism. It was far too risky. It would most likely get them all killed.

  Lilly watched as Rachel began by sprinkling holy water around the doll on the table, but not touching the doll with it at all. She was waiting for a drop to touch the doll and expected it to burst into flames at any second, but Rachel was very careful. It was amazing to watch her skill as she did this so quickly.

  Then Rachel grabbed a piece of sage from the floor beside her and lit one end of it. The smell hit Lilly’s nostrils instantly, smelling of burning hay and grass. She was filled with the urge to sneeze, but she held it in tightly. She didn’t want to interrupt Rachel’s concentration and she had the feeling that the demon would instantly come to life if she made any noise whatsoever. She didn’t even want to breathe right now.

  “I call thee forth,” Rachel began. Her voice was a loud, but echoing monotone. She continued to move on into the chant mixing odd words that were not of any identifiable language that Lilly was familiar with. It was almost like Rachel’s body was being taken over by something, but no one else from her team seemed disturbed by it, so she had obviously done this before.

  Lilly listened to the words that Rachel spoke and began to feel herself falling almost into a trance around them. The language sounded familiar, but she could not put her finger on it at all. What in the hell language was it? Was it current or ancient? It sounded old, possibly older than recorded civilization. Where in the hell did Rachel learn it? Or maybe she just knew this particular chant by heart. Lilly’s head whirled around and around with thoughts as she tried to distance her mind from the spell that was being cast in front of her.

  Her eyes remained focused on the doll, but she could see nothing so far. The doll did not move a muscle. It just lay there like the piece of plastic and stuffing that it was. It appeared to be perfectly innocent, but she knew that it was anything but. She wondered if the demon was roaming around close to them. As the thought passed through her brain she began to feel the skin on her back and neck crawl, almost like she was being touched gently by cold fingers, but there was no one there.

  She cradled Chrissy in her arms. Chrissy was awake and obviously confused by what was happening but she could tell Lilly really meant it when she had told the girl to keep quiet and to not make even a tiny peep until she said so, otherwise Shelly would not be able to be fixed. She thanked God that Chrissy was only four and she could still live in the world of total make believe.

  Lilly’s gaze moved around the circle that surrounded the table, at all the other faces watching. She had the pleasure of meeting the other two members of Rachel’s team—Steve and Rory. They were both young college age guys who knew their way around a whole bunch of weird electronic gadgets that she had never even heard of.

  Steve was in charge of the audio for the time being and Rory was in charge of all of the video production. It had taken them almost an hour to set up all the cameras throughout the home and to place the microphones in the perfect places. Then they had set up a miniature computer lab in one corner of the living room. It consisted of four different computer monitors; each one was monitoring a couple of different rooms. Most of the house was dark, which they said enabled the equipment to view better with night vision. Lilly thought that sounded strange, but Steve told her that it was true that spirits preferred the darkness and would be more active. She made a mental note to always sleep with the lights on.

  When it came to retrieving the doll from the closet Steve had been the lucky winner assigned with that job. The second that Rachel asked him to do it Lilly could see his face turn ashen pale, almost gray with sickness. But he smiled and got right on that. He obviously had more guts then you would think to look at him. He reminded her a bit of a nerd with just the right amount of confidence who could become a versatile and highly skilled leader. But seeds of self-doubt had dampened his spirits somewhat.

  He did not used his bare hands to touch the doll. He retrieved a special pair of calipers with a long handle on it. It looked almost like a huge pair of bolt cutters, but it had a different end that was used for grasping. It was a lot like the toys one could find at the dollar store, but these were made of metal.

  Steve grabbed the doll and brought it downstairs where he laid it on the coffee table that had been covered in a ceremonial cloth that Rachel provided. It was a beautiful design and well crafted. It seemed odd to use it for such a twisted ritual, but apparently that was what it was designed for. Rachel said it was blessed by a priest and that when evil touched it the power would be substantially reduced. Or at least that was the theory. Lilly didn’t see how a piece of cloth could repel anything, blessed or not. But she was a novice to all of this and she smiled and nodded while trying to believe everything that was said to her. This was totally against her nature, but she had decided it was OK to go against your nature when dealing with something that was completely unnatural.

  After laying the doll on the table very carefully, Steve’s color instantly returned and Lilly could see the relief spread across his face. He quickly left the room and continued to set up the equipment in the other rooms. It was rather fascinating to watch this tight knit unit working together like a champion team. The way they could read each other’s movements and thoughts showed
that they had been working together for a long time. That put Lilly’s mind at ease a bit. It was nice to know that they had done a lot of jobs like this.

  Lilly was suddenly distracted by an odd smell entering the room. It smelled like rotting meat in a trash can left outside on a hot, summer day. The nausea was almost overwhelming as it hit her instantly. Steve and Rory groaned slightly as they felt it too. Lilly wondered how normal this was and what it represented. She had so many questions she wanted to ask, but she made sure to keep silent. She just hoped that she would remember them all later.

  The nausea was followed by a feeling of falling, surrounded by rounds of dizziness. She struggled just to remain seated and not fall over to the floor. It was just like she had felt in the hall that day, but she had not smelled the stench that permeated the air now. Trying to hold your breath was futile as the smell worked its way inside of her nostrils and oozed down her throat, threatening to choke her.

  She felt as sick as she had ever felt, but she held on tightly to her baby girl. Chrissy’s eyes were wide with fear and she clung to her mother tightly, her little face crinkled up in disgust from the smell. Lilly forced a smile at her and made a face for the girl to stay quiet. She did as she was told, but Lilly could see the fear in her eyes. She was terrified and Lilly wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep that fear at bay. She wanted to take it away and continue to reassure her, but she knew that it was going to be hard to continue to lie to her.

  Lilly shot a look over at Brad, who was asleep on the couch. Rachel had actually injected him with a sedative to keep him out of the way. In his current state he would have been a huge danger to everyone there. He could have wrecked everything and it was not uncommon for people in that denial mindset to attack those involved in the rituals and procedures just to protect themselves from admitting that all of this was real. Lilly had not really had a problem with keeping him out of the way, but she did have the scary thought that if the demon retaliated then they would have to fight and then Brad would be at a huge disadvantage and they would have to leave him be.