Bury Me

by K. R. Alexander

  The doll is nothing but a pile of ash now.

  She has to be.

  There’s no point frightening Alicia and James when everything is taken care of.

  I make my way slowly back into town, keeping my ears peeled for sounds of my friends’ laughter. Even though my mom told me I’m not supposed to play with them, she wouldn’t know if I accidentally ran across them and accidentally started to join in their games.

  If I’m being perfectly honest with myself, I’m also on high alert because I expect the doll to return at any moment.

  “She’s just ash now,” I keep whispering to myself. “She’s gone. It’s over.”

  It’s over.

  So why don’t I feel like that’s actually true?

  A few minutes later, I make it to town without sight of the doll or my friends. But I do catch sight of the one person I don’t want to meet.

  Peter.

  I’m on the front steps of the library, and I consider making a run for cover inside. But too late. The second after I see him, he catches sight of me.

  Do I run? Hide?

  No.

  I don’t want to be bullied anymore. The tricks with the doll have gone far enough. I clench my fists as he stomps his way over to me. I’m not going to run. I’m going to stand up for myself.

  I’ve already destroyed the doll. Now I’m going to tell him to stay away from me.

  “What are you doing without your dweeb friends?” Peter asks.

  He’s only a year older than me, but he’s a lot bigger—his dad has a farm on the edge of town, and Peter clearly spends his summer days helping out. His shoulders are sunburned and his arms are the size of my neck and his face is meaner than a cornered cat. Normally, I’d flinch. He’s never hit me before, but that hasn’t stopped him from making my life miserable with his mean comments or tricks. I’m not backing down now, though.

  “I’m not playing with them today,” I say. I try to keep my voice firm, but it shakes a little. It’s hard to sound mean and strong when you’re staring up at someone. “I’m grounded. Because of you.”

  Peter snorts.

  “Because of me?”

  “Yeah,” I say. I take a step forward. “I don’t know why you’re picking on me, but you need to stop. I destroyed the doll and I don’t want to see it ever again.”

  Peter’s eyebrows furrow in confusion.

  “Doll? I don’t play with no dolls.”

  “The one you’ve been torturing me with,” I say. “Real clever. Sneaking around my house and trying to freak me out. Well, it’s over now, so you can just stop.”

  My words aren’t as confident as I want them to be, and the more I talk, the less sense I’m making. Especially since Peter just seems to get more and more confused.

  “I haven’t been near your house,” he says. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. And I’ve never touched a doll in my life.”

  “Is there a problem here, children?”

  I jolt and turn around.

  Mr. Jones stands in the doorway of the library, looking at both of us very solemnly. Particularly at Peter.

  “Nothing’s wrong,” Peter says. He glares back at me. “Kimberly is just making stuff up.”

  Before I can say anything to defend myself, he turns around and stomps off. I watch him go, then shakily make my way up the final steps to Mr. Jones.

  “Is he bothering you?” Mr. Jones asks.

  I swallow hard. I was so certain that Peter was the one behind the doll, but … although Peter is many things, a good liar isn’t one of them. He looked truly confused, and truly angry that I’d accuse him of having a doll. Even if it was a doll meant to make my life miserable.

  But if he’s not behind it …

  “I don’t know anymore,” I say.

  Mr. Jones opens the door for me, and I follow him inside to drop my book off. The dusty old tome sits on top of the library desk while he roots around for my next read. He pulls it out from behind the desk and sets it beside my old book. This one is on the geology of Central Colorado, which I doubt I’ll read at all. Then again, I don’t really have anything else to do today.

  “What did you learn from this one?” Mr. Jones asks, tapping the cover of the history book.

  “I don’t really remember,” I admit. “It’s kind of a blur.”

  Mr. Jones smiles. “When you get older, that’s all history becomes—a big blur.”

  I smile weakly in return. Mr. Jones seems to know more about this place than anyone else, but he’s never been quick to offer information. Maybe, since we’re on the subject …

  “What do you know about the mansion in the woods?” I ask.

  “The mansion in the …” His words trail off as if he’s drifting into thought. I honestly expect him to tell me not to ask questions about it, or to pretend he doesn’t know anything about it like everyone else in town. Instead, after a few moments of silence, he answers.

  “It’s a dangerous place,” he says. “A great tragedy happened there, many, many years ago. A fire, if I recall. Yes, a fire. Such a shame.”

  “But who lived there?”

  Again, the hesitation before answering.

  “A family,” he says. “A husband and wife. And their young daughter. They ran the mines of Copper Hollow, way back when the mines were open.”

  “What happened to them? Are they still here?”

  Mr. Jones opens his mouth, but no words come out. He blinks a few times. Swallows.

  “I’m sorry, young lady,” he says. “What were we talking about? Old age, you know.”

  I groan under my breath, but I know not to press it. His eyes have taken on the same glazed look as when Mayor Couch saw the book the other night.

  No one wants to talk about the mansion or the family who lived there. But at least now I know there was a family. And that they had a daughter. It’s more than I’ve ever learned before.

  “Don’t worry about it, Mr. Jones,” I say. I grab the new book. “Have a good afternoon.”

  * * *

  I don’t head home.

  I sit outside the library for a long while, watching my sleepy town pass by. A few people walk their dogs while others go for a jog. Mostly, though, the wide boulevard of our downtown is empty, filled with hot golden sunlight and dust. Once more, my dream filters through my head—the room filled with riches, the girl hiding from … something. It felt so real, and even now, in the light of day, it seems more like a memory than a dream. But none of it fits with the reality of Copper Hollow. There are no fancy parties here, no rich families. At least, not anymore. There’s just endless days of nothing new. My imagination is just trying to make this place more interesting than it is. More interesting than it will ever be.

  For some reason, that makes me think of my dad.

  He’s the only person who’s ever left this town, at least to my knowledge. My mom says he left a few weeks before I was born, that he promised he would find a better life for us. Somewhere far away from here.

  Maybe he found it. He probably did—it wouldn’t take much.

  The trouble was, whatever he found was so good he didn’t want to come back. He left us here, in a town with nothing going on. He left my mom and me in a trailer, where no matter how hard we work, we never get ahead.

  “Get ahold of yourself,” I mutter. There’s no use dwelling on the past. He left us. That’s that.

  I haven’t thought of my dad in years. Haven’t even really thought about actually leaving here, though I wonder now if maybe someday I’ll go find him. Wherever he is. Find him and ask him why he left us here, and what is so much better outside that makes leaving his own family worth it.

  It must be the stress of the doll making me think such things. Yeah. It must be that.

  Even though the thought of him leaving makes me sad on one hand, on the other, it fills me with a sort of fire. I want to follow in his footsteps. I’m going to take my mom and my friends and we are going to leave this quiet little town onc
e and for all. Move to a city. Have a real life. A life worth living.

  Like my dad, I won’t come back here.

  Unlike him, I won’t leave the important people behind.

  Steeling my resolve, I push myself to standing and stare down the one road leading out of town, the one that cuts past the copper mine and out into the unknown beyond.

  “Someday soon,” I whisper to myself.

  I’m going to get out of this town and its creepy dolls and its strange happenings.

  I’m going to escape. And nothing is going to stop me.

  It’s late.

  It’s quiet.

  Too quiet.

  The crickets have stopped chirping and my mother has stopped snoring. When I roll over in bed, she isn’t there.

  That is my first clue that something is wrong. Terribly wrong.

  “Help me,” a voice says. I turn back.

  The trailer disappears, replaced by a room filled with gold and jewels. Gold and jewels and smoke, and a girl standing in the corner in a beautiful crimson dress. The same dress as the doll.

  “Help you?” I ask. I cough.

  Smoke creeps thicker. And above us, far away, or maybe not far at all, I hear the crackle and roar of fire.

  “Bury me,” the girl says.

  I blink, and she is the doll. The doll, but my size. They have the same fancy red dress, the same curly black hair. The same angry smile on her face. And as smoke thickens around us and chokes my nostrils, she smiles. Her dark doll eyes glint with firelight as she takes a step forward. Another step, and she is right in front of me, her cold porcelain hands on my neck.

  “Bury me,” she says, “or I’ll bury you.”

  I wake up with a scream.

  Sunlight pours in through the windows. It illuminates the empty trailer, the folded newspaper on the table, the half-full carafe of coffee on the kitchen counter. Mom must have already left for work. Immediately, my nightmare fades. It was all just a dream. I’m safe.

  I flop back down on the bed with a huge sigh and close my eyes. It feels like I haven’t slept in weeks.

  THUD

  Something slams atop the trailer roof. My eyes snap open. An acorn? A squirrel? That would have to be an awfully big—

  THUD

  It comes again. But on a different spot.

  THUD

  THUD

  THUD

  I jolt upright and clutch the covers to my chest as the trailer fills with the sound.

  Not just thuds—

  Footsteps.

  Dozens of tiny footsteps, scampering across the trailer roof. And with them, the sound of high-pitched laughter.

  The sound builds and builds until I swear my ears are going to explode. I duck beneath the blankets, pull them over my head, and squeeze my hands to my ears.

  This can’t be real. This can’t be real.

  Then, as if cut off with a knife, the footsteps and laughter stop.

  Just the quiet.

  The pulse of my frantic heartbeat. Then—

  KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK

  A pounding at the front door. I swallow and cower under the sheets. I don’t move. I barely breathe. No other sound enters the trailer.

  And for a long time, I lie there, listening to the quiet and my heartbeat, trying to force my pulse to slow, until I start wondering if I’m making it all up. Maybe it’s another dream—I’ve had them before, when you think you’re awake but you’re still asleep. It has to be. There’s no other option. There’s no way my trailer is being overrun by dolls. No way one of them has knocked at the door.

  The doll is gone.

  She has to be gone.

  After what feels like an hour, I pull back the sheets and look around.

  There’s still the folded newspaper on the kitchen table. The half carafe of coffee. The morning light.

  Shakily, I get out of bed.

  “It was all just a bad dream,” I say to myself.

  Birds sing outside the trailer. It’s daytime. I’m awake.

  I pinch myself, just to make sure.

  It stings. Definitely awake.

  I make my way toward the door. I’m awake, and everything that just happened was a bad dream.

  I’m going to prove it to myself.

  My fingers shake on the doorknob. I take a deep breath. Tell myself once more that this is silly. I have nothing to be scared of. It’s morning. The doll is ash. Everything was just a bad dream.

  Before I can psych myself out more, I yank open the door.

  And there, on the front stoop, is the doll.

  Written in soot across the step are the same two words as on her dress, in the exact same creepy handwriting.

  I slam the door shut. And the moment I do, the knocking starts again.

  Knock

  Knock

  Knock

  Knock

  Knock

  Knock

  At first it’s just the door.

  But then it’s also the walls.

  All the walls.

  KNOCK

  KNOCK

  KNOCK

  And the roof.

  THUD

  THUD

  THUD

  This isn’t possible.

  It isn’t happening.

  But it IS happening.

  Our trailer has never seemed so flimsy. The walls are going to cave in.

  I am trapped.

  And there’s so much noise.

  A hurricane would be quieter.

  A tornado would be less terrifying.

  How is one doll doing this? Unless … there can’t be more than one doll. Can there?

  I don’t know what to do.

  I curl up on my bed, rocking back and forth and staring at the locked door.

  We don’t have a phone, so I can’t call my mom to help me. I can’t reach out to Alicia or James. I’m stuck in here, with a possessed doll outside my front door, and there’s nowhere to go and nothing to do. I’m not even safe in here.

  The windows could break at any moment.

  The walls could fall at any moment.

  The ceiling could crash.

  What have I done to deserve this?

  Why won’t she stop?

  What if she never goes away?

  The thought is enough to make tears come to my eyes.

  “Stop it!” I yell out. “Please, just stop!”

  And all at once, it stops.

  Silence.

  And then. Rather than a thousand individual knocks, the whole trailer shakes, as if one giant hand is reaching everywhere at once.

  Knock. Knock. Knock.

  Knock. Knock. KNOCK.

  I can’t stand the thought that I’m going to have to deal with this forever. And for some reason, that’s enough to make me stop being scared, just for a moment. I refuse to be bullied by a doll. By now, I’m positive this isn’t someone playing a prank. This is real. And that means I really have to find a way to stop it, before it takes over my life any more than it already has.

  “You can do this, Kimberly,” I say to myself. “This is just a stupid, tiny doll. You can handle this.”

  I think of the many different expeditions my friends and I’ve gone on: trips to the Arctic to study mechanical polar bears, expeditions to Mars and space races across Saturn, escaping haunted houses filled with scary ghosts and zombies.

  We’ve always managed to get out.

  I need my friends to help me.

  Emboldened, I get dressed and grab my backpack.

  As I do

  the knocking

  falls

  silent

  as if the sound itself is waiting for my next move.

  I’m not certain what I’m going to do, but I am certain that my friends will be able to help. Together, we’ll come up with a solution. I’m sure of it.

  We don’t have any other choice.

  I slam open the door, expecting to see a horde of dolls. Or maybe one giant doll.

  But there, sitting on the ste
p, is the exact same doll as all the other times.

  The one I buried.

  The one I burned.

  Only there’s no sign of dirt or ash; her dress is perfect crimson, her skin pure porcelain, her hair perfectly combed. The locket still sits heavily on her neck, and the words BURY ME are still scrawled on her dress. But her face is different. The frown has deepened, and I can see tiny teeth peeking out between her red lips.

  is written in the dirt at her feet.

  I swallow and look around.

  No one else in the yard. Just a clear summer day. Birds singing. Insects chirping. As if everything agrees that nothing could be going wrong. Tears form at the corners of my eyes.

  Why won’t she go away?

  “What are you?” I ask, my voice cracking.

  Then, before she or anyone else can answer, I rush forward and shove her into my backpack, jogging down the path to town without a single glance back.

  “Are you sure it’s the same doll?” Alicia asks me.

  I nod solemnly. She’s always been the analytical one. Which is good, because James’s imagination and my imagination can often become overpowering when we’re all together.

  We’re back in our fort, and the doll sits between us. Just as it did a few days ago. Only now, the air between all of us feels different. Charged and heavy, like a thunderstorm just about to break.

  I’m worried to find out what happens when it does.

  “And you’re sure it’s not a prank?” James says.

  “How could it be a prank?” I ask. “We buried her, and she came back. Then I threw her in a fire and watched her burn—but now she’s back. I even confronted Peter about it yesterday, and he had no clue what I was talking about.”

  I haven’t told them about the knocking on the trailer. For some reason, admitting that seems like a big mistake. They’re already worried. If they think I’m actually in danger—if I admit that I might be in physical danger—I don’t know what they’d do. We just have to solve how to get rid of the doll, and then I know that everything else will go back to normal.

  Alicia bites her lip. She kneels before the doll and pokes it. The doll tips over; I fight back a yelp.

  “He could have been lying. And there’s a chance there could be multiple copies of the same doll,” she says. She looks around and drops her voice. “We have to make sure the same one is coming back.”