SRU: Dolly Dearest         by: Paul Jutras

 

"Paul! Lesley!" Mrs. Beetle called out. "You’re father sent you a package from Jutras Island up in new England. "He miss you, working up in that Maine lighthouse. He wanted you to know he was thinking of you.

"What is it??" The two of them called at once. They tore into the box wrapping and opened it up. There was a rag doll with pigtail hairs and a pink dress. Paul held it up by one arm and tossed it to Lesley.

"What am I suppose to do with this?" Paul muttered as he headed up to his room. His room was covered with Star Wars merchandise from bedspread and curtains, to large action figures and collector cases. He even had space models hanging from the ceiling. He even pulled out his Star Wars character picture pajamas to go to sleep in.

Getting out one of the Spells R Us book series, Paul laid on his stomach with his head at the foot of the bed and read until he couldn’t keep his eyes open any longer. It wasn’t until then that he fell asleep. As the book hit the floor the book fell shut. He didn’t even notice the cover showing a boy; who looked like him, being chased to a dead end by the shadow of a doll.

The sound of a child crying soon woke Paul up. "What was that?" Paul muttered as he opened his eyes and climbed off the bed. Rubbing the sleepy seeds from his eyes, he lumbered out of the bedroom to find the source of the sound.

"Lesley?" Paul whispered in her bedroom doorway. She laid asleep with a pink comforter over head in a lace covered canopied bed. Her whole room and a pink and white color scheme to it. "Not her. Wonder if her new doll is made to cry?"

"Mom?" Paul whispered into the bedroom. He looked in to see his mother sound asleep in their king size bed. The crying had stopped once more. When it started again, it sounded like it was coming from downstairs.

"Someone down here?" Paul asked as he reached the bottom of the stairs and check the closet out. He pulled out his baseball bat and started to creep about the place. He went through the living room and then into the kitchen.

"Have you come to play with your dolly dearest?" A voice got Paul’s attention. He turned his head and saw the doll standing by the kitchen door. Before he could wonder how it got there, he began to wonder how it was moving toward him.

"Who... Who are you?" Paul stuttered. "What are you doing here?"

"I’ve come to play." The doll said as Paul turned and ran out of the kitchen and up the staircase. When he reached the top; however, the doll was standing at the top. His foot slipped on a step and Paul when tumbling down the carpeted steps until his back smashed into the closet floor at the bottom.

"Ow!" Paul muttered as he looked up and saw the doll climbing down the staircase toward him.

"I want to play with you." The doll repeated itself as Paul scrambled to his feet. He knew he couldn’t get to his mother. Not knowing what else to do, he went back to the kitchen and picked up the phone. To his surprise, the receiver cord came off in his hand and dangled before him.

"You will learn to love to play." Dolly Dearest said as she scratched his leg through the pajamas. "You’ll love to be just like me!"

"What do you mean...?" Paul began as he felt dizzy. He collapsed to the floor and black out with the sight of Dolly Dearest approaching him. Fear built up inside of him, but he couldn’t do anything about that.

Feeling himself being squeezed around the midsection, Paul’s eyes opened. He stared up at a giant Lesley, who seemed to be cradling him in her arms. When she repositioned herself, Paul saw that he was nothing more that a frozen plastic female doll in his sisters arms. Their mother putting her Spells R Us book away after reading her a goodnight story and tucking her in bed to put her asleep. Paul would be Lesley’s little Dolly Dearest for now on.

THE END

 

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