BY NATALIE FELDER
At the start of the pandemic in the Spring, we watched from the couch as they announced everything was going to be shut down for a few weeks to “flatten the curve”. This was news I absolutely dreaded. Woefully, the words came from the anchor in slow motion, and by the commercial break the blood had drained from my face. We’d be isolated with each other for a long time, deep down I knew it would be longer than a few weeks.
My husband, Alan, our daughter, and I were in a parabolic sinking boat right at the same time as my father in law’s “accident”, as such “we” accepted help that was in the form of being taken into my in-law’s massive home in suburban Austin for free in exchange for helping around the house until he recovered. Alan insisted despite my objections, it was too coincidental. There was always an off feeling being under that roof, and we never stayed long during holidays.
You see, two years prior to this lockdown, my father-in-law, Mike, in a freak accident fell while mowing the lawn in such a way that violently amputated his leg – doctors said there was no way this could’ve happened by accident and suspected the injury was intentional because the physics behind what happened made no sense. I felt watched while living there, and inexplicable things were always happening that make you sound crazy if you were to actually say it aloud.
By Summer, Mike was almost recovered but Alan’s two siblings had moved in due to job loss. Everyone now under the roof was without a job and the tension was thick, money was low and emotions were high. One night, I was woken by a thud from the ceiling above my bed. It roused me for a moment but as I drifted back to sleep, I heard it again. I turned to Alan to see if he heard it. He lay there still and snoring, a good indicator that he’d heard nothing. I sat up and listened into the deafening silence, I looked towards the door fixated on the light shining from the hall on the ground under the door waiting and wanting to be coherent to convince myself it wasn’t a dream. No flickering, no evidence of someone walking past rather the house was silent, and after straining my senses I was convinced it was nothing. I turned to lay back down, and was met by Alan staring at me within a few inches of my face. I never noticed the snoring stop or felt him move or his breath that must’ve been right on my neck. His eyes looked black and he was motionless, it startled me, “Babe, are you okay?” Nothing, he sat there catatonic and never broke his gaze. In that moment I felt as though the air had been stolen from my lungs. He broke the silence in a voice that wasn’t his “Say goodbye” at a volume that was borderline yelling. I wanted to run away but could only fall backwards out of the bed in an effort to get out of the room as fast as possible. My legs felt like jelly. I scrambled and ran out the door. I saw my sister-in-law, Lynn, was awake and in the living room watching TV and ran over to her almost in tears. “What’s wrong?” she asked. “It’s Alan… somethings wrong, didn’t you hear him?” Concern washed over her, “No, I didn’t hear anything… which is weird… the tile usually carries whispers!” She got up to follow me into the bedroom, where Alan was laying down. I turned the light on and he didn’t budge; he was fast asleep. I ran to the bed and shook him until he woke, to which he shared choice words and alluded to the fact I must have been dreaming. Confused, I apologized to everyone and turned out the light, grabbed my robe, and went outside to the back porch to compose myself. I sat smoking a cigarette, listening to the night sounds of the south when the backdoor squeaked to open. I sat in the dark waiting for someone to come outside. When no one walked out my spine tensed, and then felt an icy hand on my shoulder. I jumped out of my chair and turned to see a dark figure low to the ground run around the side of the house. Was it the cat? No, it couldn’t be… something touched me! I was peering around the corner when my brother-in-law, Alex, startled me, “What are you doing?” he asked as he lit his cigarette.
I was relieved to see it was him, “Were you out here a second ago?”
“No, why?”
“I thought I felt someone touch me, then saw your cat”
“My cat is in my room, dude”
There was a silence for a while, as I didn’t know how to respond and any relief I’d had disappeared. I guess he could read my mind, because Alex then tells me about an experience when he last lived here entailing a banging noise before being confronted by a gigantic black figure in the hallway. He said whatever it was hit him so hard it hurled his body five feet backwards, damaged the wall, and knocked the wind out of him. He said he wished he wouldn’t have been home alone so someone would’ve believed him, and that I was the second person he told… the first laughed at him. I explained what had happened just a few minutes before, and that if no one else did – I believed him.
The next morning, I decided to go into the attic to investigate. I looked around and saw no evidence of anything out of the ordinary, but then a box fell behind me causing me to spin around and see a doll had fallen by my feet. It looked like a child’s effort to make one – it was composed of white socks for body and limbs, red yarn hair, black buttons for eyes, and faded permanent marker smile and fingernails. It looked like something my daughter would make if it weren’t for the fleshy feel of what should’ve been fabric. I brought it down with me and closed the attic. I asked everyone if it was in any way familiar and got unanimous “nope’s”; I promptly took the doll to the garbage and washed my hands – the feeling of handling skin gave me the heebie-jeebies. That night, in a hypnopompic state, I heard the guttural wail of something primeval. It willed me out of bed to the garage where the doll lay at the door. I was struck by its aura of resentment, and suddenly felt remorse for disposing of it so willfully, and I remember nothing after mentally apologizing. I come to standing in the the yard midday, doll in hand, pixelated and overwhelmed by the sun above me. I walked inside to go to the bathroom, no one was home… in the mirror I looked wan and sleep deprived. There was luggage under my bloodshot eyes and my skin was sallow. I could hear voices in a language I didn’t recognize but could oddly understand. I had a voracious craving for alcohol that convinced me to walk out the door and to a liquor store a mile away. Once there, I spent money I didn’t have on as much alcohol as my arms could carry. The walk home was excruciating, my arms ached but I wouldn’t let go nor did I stop for air despite my struggle to breathe. I made it to the front porch before I twisted the cap on a bottle and drank from it until it was empty. I vomited, and started on the next one. I was dizzy, everything was screaming, “STOP!” but I wasn’t in control. I remember falling forward down the stairs before blacking out. I wake up to Alan and my daughter standing next to my hospital bed. “I found the doll”, Alan said. “I don’t know how to explain what I saw, only that… I think something evil was at work”. He described that the sock doll that I’d shown him days before, but said there’d been changes to it’s appearance. The yarn for hair was now yellow, the buttons had gone from black to green – mimicking my blonde hair and green eyes. Alan said he had arrived to find me in a pool of whiskey and broken glass with the fleshy doll at my side. My blood alcohol content was .49, more than four times the legal limit… I should have died, and I wept at what I’d put my daughter through. I couldn’t be honest with anyone else about what happened, I already sounded crazy. I admitted to a mental breakdown and blamed it on my deployment – it seemed to help everyone make sense of the ordeal.
I was afraid it would be waiting for me at home, but it wasn’t. I asked Alan what he did with the doll. “Don’t worry, it’s somewhere no one could find it”, was his response. I tried not to ask dozens of questions, but I’d be lying if I said my mind didn’t wander. Did he bury it? Burn it? I’ll bet he put it in cement and sank it in the lake. If it wasn’t destroyed the next person wouldn’t be as lucky as I. Why does he brush off my question? Perhaps he’s afraid if I continue to obsess, but it’s too late for that. When I read news articles about inexplicable deaths, I question if they found the doll. We decided it was best for everyone to leave Texas and bought a cabin in the Rocky Mountains after my recovery. It should feel better to be further away from all things related to the experience, but it still haunts my dreams and still feels real. Every thud, every foreign sound, and even nothing at all gives me a start; I must then pull Alan aside and ask one more time what he did with it. He’ll turn to me and smile, kiss my head, and tell me everything is alright. I grow more suspicious of him with every tender notion and unanswered question – this is less and less like the man I married. My therapist assures me these feelings are normal after an “accident” like mine, and that it doesn’t matter if people believe me or not. There are subtle differences in my encounters with him: his tongue feels different and his sleep schedule is off for the first time in a decade. There’s nothing wrong though, not really, but with each month that passes without a fight or a clumsy injury my reservations grow. I’m now over analyzing everything – how is it no one recognized this doll that was in their attic for the 20 years? No one remembers seeing much of me in the days before the incident, and Alan never mentioned anything concerning to anyone. It wasn’t uncharacteristic for me to withdraw, but why did no one ask about me? Perhaps it all was a lie – the fact he didn’t recognize the doll, the fact that the doll looked just like me when I was found. Were they just stories told to the traumatized mind, a false comfort? Was I bait or the intended target? “Say goodbye” … what did that mean? That night was my opportunity to bid farewell to the man I married before the invasion. Was this the real viral menace, the fearsome thing unseen; was the quarantine the opportunity it needed for the incursion? I’m either the sanest I’ve ever been, or I’ve lost it entirely. Isolation makes it impossible to know and bodes the question: should I kill him? Would the doll live on if I did? I can say with certainty that after quarantine nothing is as it seems, or will ever be the same.
