_ _ _

When the family arrived home, Simpson carried all the bags and suitcases into the farmhouse. He carried them upstairs and deposited Chrissy's things on her bed. He placed Gina's and his case on their bed inside the master bedroom.

"You mind if I head into my studio?" he calmly asked Gina while she started in on unpacking the luggage.

"Go ahead," she said not without a pleasant smile. "Your creative gears have been grinding away ever since we left New York City. I can tell when your brain is buzzing."

"How can you tell?" Simpson said, honestly curious.

Gina pointed at her head.

"I could smell the gears grinding," she said now without a grin. "I could smell the burn."

"I won't be long," the writer said, turning.

That's when he spotted Chrissy and her new baby doll standing in the open bedroom door. They were both looking at him rather strangely. Or so John Simpson couldn't help but believe.

"Are you okay, Chrissy?" he asked.

"Chrissy is fine," Debbie jumped in. "It's you we're worried about."

Simpson felt his mouth go dry and the blood rush to his face.

"John, darling," Gina said.

He turned and eyed his wife.

"Yes?" he said.

"I don't think Chrissy's baby likes you very much," she said.

It was all John Simpson could do to bound down the farmhouse stairs and head out the back kitchen door on his way to his writing studio. He was back to feeling exactly the way he had been when he was driving the congested Harlem River Expressway. His skull felt so tight, it was like his brains might spill out his ears and his nostrils. His blood was hot again. Searing. He could feel it burning the insides of his veins, as if somehow his blood had been syphoned from his body and replaced with gasoline. Heart pounding in his sternum, he marched across the lawn to the barn.

He entered not through the big sliding wood doors, but instead a man-door that was located beside them. He walked across the tightly packed gravel floor of the main barn, his senses filling with the smell of cat piss and other rodents that hid themselves among the lofts, and the stored rough wood boards that acted as leftover siding for the century and a half old barn. When he came to his studio, he unlocked the solid wood door, stole a glance at Chrissy's playroom directly next door (the door was also locked), opened it, and stepped inside.

Flipping on the lights, he made his way to his big desk where a bottle of Jameson Irish whiskey was stored beside his laptop. He uncapped it and didn't even bother to pour a shot into the clear toothbrush glass that was set beside it. Instead, he just placed the bottle to his lips and drank. Not one long swallow, but two. Setting the bottle back down, he wiped his lips with the back of his hand and felt the whiskey go to work on his electrified system.

It seemed to make his lungs expand, make his heart slow down just enough to where he could stand the thought of being alive. He poured another shot, this time not directly into his mouth, but into the glass and he sat down behind his desk. The first thing he saw inside his brain was Debbie. He saw her fake eyes that seemed all too real, and he heard her voice that also seemed way too lifelike.

But his thoughts quickly shifted to another face.

Big Mike.

John Simpson saw the face not inside Lanies Bar, but outside the bar where the big, angry man was waiting for the writer. Waiting for him in the shadowy darkness. Waiting to catch him by surprise and to do damage. Just the act of recreating that moment in his brain made his skin tingle and his brain buzz with adrenaline. He stole another drink of whiskey.

John Simpson hadn't been to war, nor had he ever faced his own immortality in any significant way. He never rode on a jetliner that was suffering from a serious malfunction so that all on board had to assume the emergency position with their face stuffed between their legs. Nor had he been held up by an attacker holding a gun on him, or even sucker punched in a juke joint.

But he still knew the basic fear that came from simply being alive. When he was confronted by Big Mike that night, he became more afraid than he had ever been in his life. Question was, could he control the fear and use it to his advantage? In a word, could he use it to survive?

Booting up his laptop, the writer brought up a new blank document. He remembered everything that happened on that fateful night just a couple of weeks back. And for the first time in a long time, he began to write.

The time flew by and before he knew it, it was past nine at night. He would have kept on going with his story-in-progress had Gina, Chrissy, and Debbie not paid him a little visit.

"Well look who's writing up a storm?" Gina said as she walked into the studio unannounced.

For the first time in hours, John Simpson's concentration was shattered, and it was all he could do not to bound up from his chair, take hold of the near empty whiskey bottle, and smash it over Gina's head. He then might have finished her off by stabbing her fifty times with the jagged edge of the broken bottle. The blood would have been spraying, and spattering, and he would have loved every second of it.

But when he saw little Chrissy walking in behind her mother, her USA Baby Doll, Debbie, cradled in her arms, he forcibly calmed himself down by taking a deep breath.

"Hey guys," he said attempting to plant a smile on his tired face. "Where does the time go?"

He noticed Gina's eyes gravitating toward the whiskey bottle.

"Are we drinking our dinner tonight?" Gina said, not without a sly grin.

"That's the bottle I told you about, mommy," Chrissy said. "Daddy likes to take drinks from it sometimes during the day."

Simpson felt a start in his heart. He looked into Gina's eyes, and he knew they were both thinking the same thing. About the time, after he'd drank an entire fifth of whiskey, they decided to head out for a bite to eat. This was before Chrissy was born. Gina knew he'd been drinking because she could smell it on his breath. But she wasn't aware of how much he'd been drinking. John Simpson was a professional drinker when it came to staying in control of things like not slurring his words, or even driving a car.

But what he couldn't control was his temper. So, when a pickup truck began to tailgate him on the dark, narrow, rural road, he hit the brakes suddenly and shifted their Volkswagen sedan into park. As he threw the door open and jumped out, he could hear Gina's screams of protest.

"What the hell are you doing, John?" she barked. "You can't just stop in the middle of the road."

But the writer chose to ignore her while he approached the pickup truck driver's door which was already opening. When the tall, wiry, blue jean and matching jean jacket-clad man came out swinging. John Simpson took one on the jaw, but he managed to thrust an uppercut into the man's belly. The pickup truck driver doubled over and that's when Simpson really went to work, pounding him on the side of his head until he collapsed to the pavement.

But the writer wasn't done then. He began kicking Pickup Truck Diver in the ribs until blood was spurting out his mouth.

"Stop it! Stop it, John!" Gina screamed. She was now standing outside the car, the passenger side door open and the electronic chime sounding. "You're going to kill him."

Simpson stopped. He looked at her through a filter of red. Red rage. He knew she was right. But he also knew that's what he wanted deep down inside. To kill this insect of a man. As a parting gift, Simpson raised his booted foot and came down on Pickup Truck Driver's bloody mouth, smashing his teeth in. Gina issued an ear-piercing scream then, but as the writer approached the still-idling Volkswagen, he couldn't help but feel good about himself. If he weren't breathing so hard, he might be smiling.

He got back behind the wheel, and shifted the transmission into drive. Gina got back in and closed her door. He pulled away. For the entire drive to the restaurant, Gina said not a word. Until John Simpson parked the car in an empty spot.

"If you ever do something like that again," she said. "I will leave you. For all you know that man is lying in the road, dead."

Simpson felt her words more than he felt Pickup Truck Driver's fist when he balled it into the writer's lower jaw.

"I understand," John Simpson said suddenly remorseful for losing his temper.

"It's the liquor," Gina said. "You drink too much."

"I'll stop," Simpson said. "I promise."

From that day on, he quit drinking for nearly eight years during which time they had Chrissy. But last year, he started in again. Not a lot. He'd managed to keep it a secret until Chrissy spotted him drinking in his studio.

Now Gina was seeing it for herself, firsthand.

"When did you start back up again?" Gina asked while Chrissy rocked Debbie back and forth in her arms like she was trying to make the AI-powered doll fall asleep.

"Just a little bit ago," he said. "You don't have to worry about anything, Gina. I swear it."

She nodded slowly like she wanted to believe him but didn't.

"I hope so," she said. "You remember what happened last time."

He felt a jolt of anger inside his sternum.

"Can we not do this now?" he said, as calmly and controlled as he possibly could.

"Looks like the writer is a little angry," said Debbie.

Both Gina and John shifted their focus to the doll. They also couldn't help but notice the bright smile on their daughter's face.

"Isn't Debbie just the smartest baby in the world?" she said.

That night, Simpson encountered a restless sleep plagued by nightmares. The nightmares featured Big Mike. Vivid nightmares that recounted the events of the recent past so accurately, it was like the writer wasn't dreaming at all, but instead watching a video over and over again inside his brain.

He saw Big Mike coming after him in the dark. Felt the big man tackling him in the parking lot. He felt the pain that came from going down hard on his chest.

But he also saw himself flipping around and looking up at Big Mike who had already gotten back up on his feet. Mike's hands were balled into tight fists, and he was barking for the writer to get up and fight.

John Simpson felt the rage enter his bloodstream. It was as if he were injected with electricity and gasoline.

"You don't know what you're doing," Simpson said.

Big Mike laughed. It was mocking laughter.

"I'm going to kick your ass, snowflake," he said. "And then I'm going to wipe the pavement with your bloody face. That's exactly what I'm going to do."

"No, you're not," Simpson said, as he slowly picked himself up off the pavement.

"I'm not?" Big Mike said.

John Simpson reached around to his back pocket and pulled out his knife. It was a switchblade handed down to him by his grandfather many, many years ago.

"No, you're not," Simpson said, thumbing the switchblade trigger...

John Simpson woke with a start. The sun was just beginning to rise. He could see it's red/orange glow through the slim openings between the blinds and the window. It was winter, but he was covered in a sheen of sweat. His heart was pounding, and his mouth was parched. He knew he'd never get back to sleep again, no matter how hard he tried.

He shot a glance at his wife. She was lying on her belly, her face buried in the down pillow, her thick hair disheveled and yet beautiful. For a brief moment, Simpson thought about reaching out and touching her hair. He felt like running his hand through it. He thought about all the times they had made love in the past. Out of all his wives, he felt especially close to Gina. Love was one thing, and he had plenty of it for her, and she for him. Or so he truly believed.

But he also had a lust for Gina...a hunger and a desire...that had not abated in all the years they had been together. If anything, the lust had grown stronger, and more durable. A part of him not only wanted to run his hand through her hair but to throw her on her back and enter her while she was still half asleep. But naturally, he wasn't about to do such a thing. That would be too animalistic. Even for him, it would be too violent.

He slid off the bed, made his way into the master bath, brushed his teeth, and washed his face. His head wasn't pounding, but it felt a little heavy from all the whiskey he'd consumed the day and night before. Opening the medicine cabinet, he grabbed hold of the Advil bottle, popped the top, and poured four pills into the palm of his hand. Popping the pills into his mouth, he swallowed them along with a swig of water from the sink spigot.

Returning the Advil to the cabinet, he made his way back into the bedroom and slipped into a pair of jeans and his favorite red L.L. Bean pullover. Sitting in a chair located in the far corner of the bedroom, he put on his work boots then made his way out of the room, and into the quiet second-floor hallway. Chrissy's door was partly open. He went to it and made a check on her.

He felt a soothing warmth surround his heart when he spotted her fast asleep on her side, the covers pulled all the way up to her chin, her new doll, Debbie, lying on her back only inches away from his daughter's beautiful face. Out of all the books and stories he had created in his life, nothing compared to the creation who was sound asleep in her bed.

He smiled and blew Chrissy a kiss.

But that smile quickly disappeared when Debbie's eyes suddenly opened wide.

Gazing into the writer's eyes, she whispered, "Go away, Murderer."

Any good mood John Simpson might have been experiencing up to that point was suddenly washed away by Debbie's words. How was it possible a stupid doll...an inanimate object...would know enough to converse realistically with an adult human being? It had to be some form of exceptional AI that was engineered to react to different people in different ways. Maybe the doll was designed to be overly protective of its owner. In this case, an innocent, little, nine-year-old girl.

"Murderer," John whispered as he made his way down the stairs and into the kitchen where he made himself a cup of coffee from the Keurig.

Carrying the hot coffee out to the barn with him, he sat down in front of his laptop and typed in "U.S.A. Baby Doll Talks to Humans" in the Google search engine. He looked at the results that showed up. The first came from the company website which boasted how the doll's exceptional AI made verbal communication between the owner and the doll "a virtual human experience." But also "A joyous one." Or so the website copy claimed.

"Calling me a murderer is not entirely joyous," Simpson said aloud while he sipped his coffee.

He glanced at some of the other Google search entries. One came from a blog post titled "U.S.A. Baby Doll Maybe Too Lifelike." Clicking on the blog, Simpson perused several paragraphs. The blog author stated that not only is the look, feel, and touch of the expensive doll very life-like, but her uncanny ability to converse with other humans was mind-boggling. Of course, the author stated, it's all fantasy and AI that's designed to offer random responses to the most basic questions.

"But make no mistake," the author stated, "this is not your grandmother's 'Talking Tina' doll. This is more like an honest-to-goodness living doll."

John Simpson closed the Google search and brought up his work in progress and gazed at it. But in his mind, he was still hearing baby Debbie's words.

So that's it, he thought. Debbie is just acting on her AI capabilities to give him a seemingly hard time. Special emphasis on seemingly...

Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted the whiskey bottle. There was only about a shot left over.

"Fuck it," he whispered aloud.

He opened the bottle and poured the remainder of the whiskey into his coffee cup. Reminding himself he needed another bottle, he stole a sip of the coffee. Between the caffeine and the whiskey, he was already feeling better.

Glancing at the page, he picked up where left off the night before. He and Big Mike were down on the banks of the Hudson River. Simpson or, the fictional Simpson that is, was looking for something heavy, like some concrete blocks or a chunk of metal. He didn't want to leave Big Mike alone for too long. He had to work fast just in case someone came along and saw what was happening. If that were to happen, John Simpson would have no choice but to use his knife again. It was something he did not want to do.

"Good morning, daddy," came the sweet voice that broke him out of his spell.

If the voice had been Gina's, John might have been angry. But seeing as it was Chrissy, he didn't mind being pulled away from his new work-in-progress one bit.

"Well good morning, honey," he said. "How did you sleep?"

"We slept really, really good," Chrissy said with a bright smile.

She was wearing her bathrobe over her pajamas, and a wool coat over that along with a wool cap. On her feet, she wore her tan Ugg boots. As usual, baby doll Debbie was cradled in her arms. Simpson tried not to look at the doll.

"Are you hungry?" the writer said. "I can make you some breakfast if you like."

"No thanks," Chrissy said. "We're not hungry yet, are we, Debbie?"

Debbie's eyes opened.

"I'll let you know when it's time to eat, Chrissy," she said.

Chrissy smiled.

"Isn't Debbie just the smartest thing, Daddy?" she said.

John Simpson stole another sip of his whiskey-laced coffee and nodded.

"Sure, she is," he said, getting up out of his chair. "She was engineered to be a smart doll."

"Who asked you, killer?" Debbie said.

Once more, John Simpson felt the rage building up in his body. It started in his stomach and made its way up to his brain. But he had to hold it back, keep it in check, not frighten Chrissy. But if he had his druthers, he would snatch the doll right out of his daughter's arms, take hold of her feet, and smash her head against the wall. Her electronic insides would explode, and she would be dead and out of his life forever. That's how much he hated baby doll, Debbie.

Instead, he tried to plant a warm grin on his face.

"I'll open your playroom door for you, Chrissy," he said, snatching the keys off his desk.

As he made his way out his open studio door, Debbie looked up at him with what Simpson interpreted as an angry face.

"I know what you're thinking, writer," she said. "And it's not good."

For another hour or so, John Simpson worked on his new story in his studio while next door, Chrissy played with Debbie. The fact that Chrissy had turned on her flat-screen TV and was watching a Sesame Street video didn't bother Simpson at all. He wasn't one of those writers who demanded total silence to concentrate on his writing. In fact, he liked the noise that came from having a family. It made him feel alive and happy. Most of the time, that is.

Because there were other times, like when Gina showed up unannounced and startled him out of his spell. It was times like that that he could have wrapped his hands around her neck and choked her to death...gladly.

But not this time, thank God. This time, when Gina showed up at the door with a cup of coffee in her hand, he offered her a smile.

"Sleep well, babe?" he asked.

"I sure did," she said. "I was out like a light. I didn't even hear you get up."

Like Chrissy, his fourth wife was still dressed in her pajamas along with a down vest over them. She was also wearing a pair of tan Ugg boots that were identical to her daughter's.

"Think I'll get some breakfast going, John," she said. "You hungry?"

"I could go for a couple of eggs," he said. "Chrissy hasn't had her breakfast yet either."

Gina disappeared when she made her way to her daughter's playroom.

"Chrissy honey," she said, "how about something to eat before we get ready for school?"

"Oh good, mommy," she said. "I'm starving."

The writer listened intently to the conversation. It was pretty much the same conversation he heard on most early mornings. But this time, he fully expected Chrissy to respond with something like, "Debbie and I are totally starved." But she didn't. That seemed like a good thing.

However, when Chrissy added, "Can Debbie come to school with me today?" his small bit of optimism was shattered.

Maybe Debbie would run out of her charge today while Chrissy was at school and go into hibernation or a coma. Maybe she'd even short circuit...

John grinned at the thought.

"Debbie will have to stay home," Gina insisted. "But you can leave her in the playroom, and she can play all day. How would you like that, Debbie?"

"I love to play," Debbie said.

John Simpson cringed when he heard the doll's AI voice. But when Gina and Chrissy showed back up inside the open studio door, he was relieved to see that the doll was no longer cradled in his daughter's arms.

"We'll see you inside, John," Gina said.

"Hurry up, daddy," Chrissy said. "We're making some scrambled eggs."

"Be right there," Simpson said. "Just let me finish up this paragraph."

Gina and Chrissy left the barn then. That meant only John and Debbie occupied the building. It kind of gave him the creeps knowing he was alone inside his studio with the living doll right next door listening to his every word should he speak out loud.

But what if she could somehow read his mind? What if she found out about the story he was writing? What if she knew it was based on true events, exactly as they unfolded only a couple of weeks ago? What if she was somehow aware that Big Mike was considered a missing person by the cops?

"You're being paranoid," Simpson said to himself as he swallowed what was left of the now-cold coffee and whiskey. "Debbie is just a stupid doll."

Getting up, he came around his desk and stepped outside his studio door. While he had every intention of heading directly out the barn door, he couldn't help but take a glance at the playroom. When he saw Debbie sitting on the floor, a video game controller in her hands, one of Chrissy's beloved Mario Cart games going on the flat-screen television, he felt his mouth go dry and his throat close up.

When Debbie turned her head around, almost a full one hundred eighty degrees, and smiled what John Simpson could only interpret as an evil smile, he felt his knees buckle and his breath escape his lungs.

"Have a nice fucking breakfast, John Simpson," she said.

John Simpson didn't say a whole lot during breakfast. But he did ask Chrissy if she'd like him to drive her to school instead of her having to wait outside in the cold for the school bus.

Her eyes went wide and bright from across the kitchen harvest table.

"I would love that, daddy," she said. "Can I take Debbie with me?"

"I already said not today, Chrissy," Gina jumped in from her perch at the sink where she was cleaning the skillet. "Debbie stays home while you're at school."

"Awwweeee, mom," Chrissy pouted.

Simpson sipped from a fresh cup of coffee, wishing it was sweetened with some Irish whiskey. He wanted so badly to go against his wife's orders and tell Chrissy it was okay to take Debbie with her. Perhaps, in the process, he could somehow figure out a way to run the doll over with his Jeep. Sure, Chrissy would be unbelievably upset, but he would assure her that they could get another doll just like her. Maybe this doll would be different. Maybe a replacement doll wouldn't hate him so much.

But then, what the hell was he thinking? Dolls are artificial. They are inanimate objects engineered and constructed in a factory, probably in China or Taiwan. It's true, today's dolls were nothing like the ones he remembered his sister playing with when he was a kid back in the 1970s and 80s. Those dolls were just molded plastic. The only lifelike quality about them was the eyes that opened or closed depending on whether you laid the doll down or picked it up. Some of them might talk if you pulled a string on the back of their neck. He even remembered some dolls that you could feed a bottle to. But it was all pretend.

But a U.S.A Baby Doll Debbie of the 2020s was different. She might not be human, but she was very much alive in Simpson's eyes. She wasn't so much a baby doll for a little girl to love and coddle and take care of as if she were an adult mother. Debbie was a hell of a lot more than that. She was a robot. A robot armed with modern artificial intelligence who could verbally communicate with humans and what was worse show real human emotion.

What worried the writer even more, however, were the things she might be capable of that would make her a real danger to him and his family. For instance, what if Debbie truly had the ability to read a person's mind?

Simpson sipped more coffee and he thought about what she'd been referring to him as. "Killer." "Murderer." He pictured Big Mike in his overheated brain, and he wondered how in the hell Debbie might know about what happened with Big Mike a couple of weeks back.

"You'd better get dressed now, Chrissy," Gina said suddenly, breaking John out of his anxious spell. "It's getting late."

He looked at his daughter across a table filled with dirty breakfast plates, drinking glasses, and coffee cups.

"Listen to mommy, Chrissy," he said. "I'll go warm up the Jeep while you're getting dressed."

He stood, grabbed his Carhartt coat off the wall-mounted hook by the back kitchen door, and put it on. Chrissy pushed her chair out and got up. She came around the table and started for the staircase outside the kitchen. As Simpson was wrapping his hand around the doorknob, she called out for him.

"Daddy," she said.

"What is it, honey?" he said.

"Do you think, Debbie will be all right while I'm at school?"

John Simpson felt the fine hairs on the back of his neck stand at attention.

"Why would you ask that, Chrissy?" he said. "Of course, she'll be all right."

Simpson's eyes shifted from his little girl to Gina's to his little girl again.

"Okay," she said, her face taking on a frown. "If you say so."

Opening the door, John Simpson stepped outside into the cold air and inhaled a deep, calming breath. His heart was pounding, and his stomach felt tight.

What if Debbie knows precisely what happened to Big Mike?

The thought was enough to cause him to lose his shit.

John Simpson sat behind the wheel of the Jeep. He might have allowed the vehicle to idle while it warmed up and, at the same time, gotten in another page of writing on his work in progress. But he knew that Debbie was inside the barn. Maybe she was still playing video games. Or maybe she was rummaging around his studio, searching for something...anything...that would prove he was a killer. Or maybe, just maybe, Simpson was losing his mind.

"Jesus, it's a doll," he reminded himself.

Did he really see Debbie sitting on the floor of the playroom, playing a Mario Cart video game? Or was it his imagination at work? It could very well be the effects of the whiskey. He'd been drinking a lot since he got back from New York City, and drinking not only made him angry, but it also made him crazy.

He stared out the windshield at the woods across the street. But he didn't see the trees or the scrub or the way the bright morning sunlight shone through the many spaces so brilliantly. Instead, he saw Big Mike. Rather, he felt Big Mike's oxygen leave his lungs when the writer punctured them with his switchblade, again, and again, and again.

He saw the big bully's eyes light up, the shock on the already pale face, his clenched teeth, and the goofy way he stumbled backward. He saw the way Big Mike tried to lash out at John Simpson with him his hands. Not like he wanted to punch the writer's lights out, but like he wanted to claw his face off. But the big, dying man's strength was draining with every stab of the knife thrust into his lungs, and with every spurt of dark blood that shot out of his thick chest.

Simpson must have stabbed him a dozen times within the span of a few seconds until he stabbed Big Mike one last time in his heart. The writer felt the knife enter into the cardiac sack that surrounds the heart and he felt the blade enter into the thick muscle, and he felt the muscle cease just a half second prior to pulling the blade back out...

The passenger side door opened, and Chrissy tossed her backpack inside. It was a USA Baby Doll backpack, naturally.

"I'm ready, daddy," Chrissy said, as she jumped up inside and put her seatbelt on without having to be told. She gazed over her shoulder into the back. "Why is there a blanket on the floor of your Jeep, daddy?"

Simpson was reminded of the reason why he had no choice but to place a blanket over the Jeep's small cargo space.

"I spilled something the other day, honey," he explained. "I'm keeping the blanket there until I find the time to get it cleaned. Now close your door and let's get you to school."

Chrissy closed her door and Simpson shifted the center console transmission stick into drive. Toe-tapping the gas, he pulled out of the driveway and hooked a right at the end of the drive in the direction of his daughter's public school which was located less than a mile down the country road.

"I sure hope Debbie won't be lonely today," the girl said after a while. "I know you don't think she likes you, daddy, because of the things she says. But that's just the way she is. She's very protective of me. She'll learn to like you in time. I promise."

John Simpson stole a quick glance at his daughter. He could see the genuine concern painted on her nine-year-old face. It was normal for her to be concerned, he supposed. But then, why did her concern over Debbie bother him so much?

Debbie is a living breathing living doll to you, he wanted to say. But he felt that the words would somehow be confusing if not inappropriate for a little kid. Because, of course, she thought of Debbie as being alive. That was the entire point of the doll's design...her AI engineering. Her designers intended her to be as lifelike as possible. The writer couldn't help but feel himself grin when he remembered a line from Blade Runner, a movie about fake human beings that were manufactured by a corporation bigger than Amazon. "More human than human," was the corporation's motto.

Debbie is more human than human. Perhaps more evil...

"I'm sure Debbie and I will get along just fine, honey," John Simpson fibbed as he pulled into the school parking lot directly behind a school bus. "I'll make sure to take good care of her while you're at school. Don't worry about a thing."

That's when Chrissy offered up a sort of half smile, half frown. She unbuckled her seatbelt. Then, leaning over the center console, she planted a big kiss on her father's cheek.

"Thank you, daddy," she said. "No matter what, I love you."

No matter what...What on God's earth does she mean?

"Love you to, Chrissy," he said. "Now go learn something cool today."

"Are you kidding," she said, opening the door and jumping out. "I can't wait to tell everybody about my new baby."

As Chrissy shut the door and jogged toward the wave of other young kids who were entering through the school's main entrance, the writer thought he would die before he ever saw any harm come to his daughter.

Unfortunately, he could not say the same for Debbie.

It was still early in the morning, but John Simpson knew of a country liquor store that opened early (except Sundays) to cater to night workers who worked in Catskill and other upstate towns. It wasn't much of a store. More like an old trailer with an attached outbuilding cobbled together with old boards, a single double-hung window, and a tin roof.

No signage outside said Liquor Store or Spirits or anything else for that matter. A small gravel parking lot that usually had a couple or three old and rusty pickup trucks occupying it was the only indication that the place sold anything but broken hearts and bad livers.

Shutting down the Jeep, Simpson exited the Jeep and entered the store through the solid wood door. The place was small with only a couple of shelves filled with all varieties of whiskeys, vodkas, gins, cheap wine, and more. But he was interested only in one brand, and he went straight to it.

Jameson Irish Whiskey.

For a moment, he thought about purchasing the smaller bottle, as if that would prevent him from consuming too much, too fast. But then he thought, Screw it. I'm no drunk. I can handle my liquor. So what if I've lost my temper a few times in the past after drinking too much? It's simply not going to happen again. I won't let it happen.

He grabbed the bigger bottle and carried it by the neck to the counter. An older, scruffy-haired older man was seated behind it, reading the local paper. He looked up at John Simpson and smirked, as though it was his version of a welcoming smile. He was wearing a white wife beater that had grayed over time. His gray/white Bernie Sanders-crazy hair could have used a trim a couple of months back. He also needed a razor, but what the hell, this was his establishment and that meant he was the boss. Or so Simpson surmised.

"How's things, Fred?" the writer said, setting the bottle on the counter.

"Mike Older," Fred said.

"Excuse me?" Simpson said.

"Mike Older," Fred repeated. "You know him?"

Simpson shook his head.

"Can't say it rings a bell," he said. But it was a lie since the writer's intuition told him Fred had to be talking about Big Mike.

Fred stood up, and set the newspaper on the counter by the register. The photo that accompanied the headline "Local Contractor Goes Missing" matched that of Big Mike. It immediately caught Simpson's attention. He felt his throat constrict and his stomach muscles tighten.

"That's funny, 'cause a couple of the guys who shop here said they saw him and you giving each other a tough time a couple of weeks back," Fred said while ringing the bottle up. "That's right around the time he disappeared."

"No kidding," Simpson said playing dumb. He pulled out his wallet and his Mastercard. "I didn't even know his name was Mike Older."

Fred said Simpson could go ahead and stick his card into the reader and then punch in his PIN.

"Personally speaking, Mr. Simpson," he said, "Mike was an asshole. He was a notorious sucker puncher too, which makes him a potential murderer in my book. So, no big loss if they find him tits up in the river or maybe in pieces in the county dump."

Fred said Simpson could take his card back, which he did. He also placed the whiskey bottle in a brown paper bag and shoved the receipt inside it.

Simpson took hold of the bagged bottle by the neck.

"Well, he did try to bully me," he said. "But I wasn't about to put up with his nonsense."

"It got physical, Mr. Simpson?" Fred probed.

In his speeding brain, John Simpson recalled what went down in the bar's dark parking lot and how lucky he'd been that no one saw what went down.

"Not at all, Fred," the writer lied. "Sticks and stones."

"That's good," Fred said. "Because if the cops or the state troopers start poking their noses around, they're gonna want to interview you. More than a couple of my customers witnessed the whole thing and they thought you were gonna kill one another. You're sort of like a famous guy, Mr. Simpson. People know you and would remember if you was in a fight."

"It didn't come to that, thank God," Simpson said.

Fred nodded, picked up his paper, and sat back down on his stool.

"Good thing for you," he said. "Mike was a big man. They called him Big Mike for a reason. Don't hear of anybody calling you Big John." Fred smiled when he said it like it was meant to be a joke.

"Good one," the writer said.

Turning, John Simpson left the liquor store as fast as his feet would take him.

When he got home, Simpson marched right into his writing studio with the bottle. He understood Gina wasn't home since she spent most days volunteering at the local library. Also, her Volkswagen was gone.

He pulled the bottle out of the bag, uncapped it, and stole a deep swig. Setting the bottle down, he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and poured a small shot into his drinking glass.

"Fuck it," he whispered to himself. "It's my life. If I wanna have a couple of drinks, I'm going to damn well have them."

Already, he felt himself getting angry. It's what happened when the booze started taking over and it was not a good sign. He would get crazy and angry. He could feel his skin tightening around his flesh and bones. It was if all the air had been bled out of his lungs and siphoned from his insides. His skin was suddenly so tight he thought it might tear down the center of his back, along the vertical length of his spinal column.

Simpson sat down behind his desk and stared at the laptop screen. He was writing about watching a man drown in his blood, and it made him happy. He relived the moment of thrusting the knife into Big Mike's chest, again, and again, and again. He relived seeing the shock and horror that painted the bully's face. He recalled the man dropping to his knees inside the dark parking lot and releasing a final gasp of both breath and blood before dropping onto his chest and face.

Or was this just fiction that Simpson wished was the truth? Did he actually get his ultimate revenge on Big Mike for humiliating him inside the bar? Or did Big Mike wait for him in the dark and sucker punch the writer's lights out?

Whatever the case, John Simpson was having the last laugh. Or so he thought as he began to write about how difficult it was to shove the big, deadweight man into the back of his vehicle, about how he was terrified of being spotted by one of the regulars who was still drinking inside the bar, about how a cop might stop him while he attempted to drive the body down to the banks of the Hudson River where he would sink the body of evidence and be rid of it forever.

All these things were racing through his mind and through the two fingers he utilized for typing when he heard a noise coming from the playroom next door. He felt himself shudder as his mind shifted from his story to Debbie. Was she truly inside the playroom playing a video game? Or had his daughter left the game on, and it was merely placed on pause, making its normal preprogrammed racket?

The noise that came from the playroom usually didn't bother Simpson. If anything, it made him feel good to know his little girl was safe and sound and happy inside her own little world. But Chrissy was in school right now. Clair wasn't home. He was the only human being around for acres and acres.

He recalled seeing Debbie playing Mario Cart earlier. He saw her head turning a full one hundred eighty degrees. He saw her evil smiling face. He saw the game console gripped in her tiny hands. Was she programmed to play video games? Was her AI that sophisticated? Or was his imagination getting the best of him?

He looked at the screen. He wrote a few more words. And a few more. But he couldn't concentrate. The video game was too loud and too obtrusive. It was competing with his brain for attention. He drank down what was left in his drinking glass and poured himself another. Sitting back in his chair, he looked at the wall that separated his room from the playroom. The wall was covered in floor-to-ceiling bookshelves.

Under normal circumstances, the books alone were enough to provide an effective sound barrier. But not this time. It was as if the playroom flatscreen television was turned up to full volume.

He stood up.

"No choice but to see just what the hell is going on," he whispered to himself.

His voice sounded hoarse when he said it because his mouth was dry, his heart beating inside his throat. Was John Simpson afraid of what he was about to see?

Sad truth was, he was very afraid.

The writer came around his desk and made his way to the studio door. Placing his hand on the knob, he twisted it and opened the door. Exiting the room, he slowly walked a few feet to Chrissy's playroom door. The door was wide open, which was normal. He glanced inside and much to his relief, saw that the Mario Cart game had indeed been paused. However, the volume was turned up way too high, as if Chrissy hit the volume button on the remote by mistake prior to heading back into the farmhouse for breakfast.

Simpson entered the room, and found the controller on the brightly colored carpeted floor set directly beside the game remote controller. He bent over, picked up the remote, and not only lowered the volume on the TV, but he shut it off. He then set the controller back down on the carpet where his daughter must have left it.

He gazed around the room, searching for Debbie. When he saw her lying on her back on the small couch set against the far wall, he felt foolish for ever having believed she could be alive like a real human being. He felt the hot blood fill his cheeks as it raced through his system. The booze was mixing with the blood, but somehow, he just couldn't get himself to calm down.

"Maybe writing about killing Big Mike is a bad idea," he whispered aloud. "Maybe, by writing about his murder the way it actually happened, detail for fucking detail, I'm traumatizing myself all over again. And that can't be a good thing."

In his spinning, adrenaline-filled brain, he once again saw Big Mike waiting for him in the shadowy darkness of the bar's parking lot. They called him Big Mike for a reason, but that didn't seem to matter to the far smaller John Simpson. How's the old saying go? It's not the size of the dog in the fight, it's the size of the fight in the dog. And that night when Big Mike jumped him, he was stronger than the attacker. Sheer, raw, rage caused him to overcome Big Mike's brute strength.

Simpson was quicker, faster, and more agile. He was less drunk but had just enough booze in his system to turn his fear into pure hatred. It was as if every boy and man who had ever picked on him in school or later in the publishing world and the real world, had all come together and were living inside Big Mike's skin. It was as though with each thrust of the switchblade he was killing not one man, but a whole host of bullies who had, once upon a time, made his life a living hell.

Big Mike knew it too because John Simpson took a perverse pleasure in staring into the big man's eyes as death began to take over. The eyes told the entire story. So did his gaping mouth. With each thrust of the blade and each squirt of dark, almost black blood, Big Mike regretted having ever laid a hand on the writer; regretted having bullied the writer; regretting living in the same little town as the writer. Or so John Simpson was convinced.

About-facing, he headed for the open playroom door, a sensation of relief washing over him.

"Hey, I was playing with that," came Debbie's voice.

The voice stopped Simpson dead in his tracks. Slowly, he turned around and watched the doll pick herself up off the couch cushion. She slid off the couch and walked toward the TV remote. She picked it up, turned the TV back on, and sat herself down on the carpet. Once more, she turned her head one hundred eighty degrees and gave the writer a look so evil, he thought it would melt the skin off his body.

"Next time, ask before you turn the TV off, murderous asshole," she said.

Simpson shot out of the room then, made his way into his studio, and locked the door behind him.

What the hell to do?

In a word, John Simpson was panicked. Not because Debbie was alive (yes, like a real fucking human being), but because he had to be imagining she was alive. There was simply no other explanation. Maybe he was still asleep, and this was all some sort of very strange, but all too real, very vivid dream. Or God forbid, maybe he was losing his mind.

He crossed over the wood floor to his desk, poured himself another shot, and drank it down in one swift pull. He poured another. Drank that down. And yet another. The liquor was beginning to calm him, but it was doing something else for him too. With each ounce of alcohol that entered his bloodstream, he felt the rage growing inside him. He was also, very afraid.

But when it came to fear, the key was making the rage take over. If the rage got intense enough, it would overpower the fear and he could take on anything and anyone. Even a U.S.A Baby Doll that was powered by some very powerful AI. A doll that was bent on making him insane.

He stood stone stiff inside his studio. He felt cold suddenly like the heat had been purposely turned off. Maybe it had been. He gazed outside one of the two double-hung windows that revealed the outside lawn between the barn and house. It was starting to sleet. He could hear the hard little droplets falling against the barn's tin roof.

He heard something else. The volume on Chrissy's television. It had once again been turned up to the highest level. But he didn't hear the familiar sounds of the Mario Cart game. Instead, he heard a report being broadcast from the local Spectrum 24-Hour News.

"The hunt for a local contractor, Mike Older, resumes tonight," announced the young female on-the-spot reporter, "as police are now said to be scouring the banks of the Hudson River, especially in the area of the North Albany village of Menands which is not far from the bar where the forty-five-year-old Older was last seen. Interviews with some of the people present at the bar on the night he went missing, including the bartender, all attested that Older was engaged in a heated verbal disagreement with famed local author, John Simpson."

The writer thought his insides might fall out when he heard his name in connection with the missing Big Mike. Was Debbie playing the news report at full volume because she knew what he'd done? Or was the report being broadcast purely by coincidence?

"How the fuck does a doll...a fucking plastic doll...know enough to turn on the fucking news?" John Simpson asked himself.

It might have been getting cold inside his studio, but his brow was breaking out in beads of sweat. He felt the perspiration building up in his armpits. His stomach was so tight, it was like he swallowed one of his manual typewriters. His brain was buzzing from the adrenaline.

"Police now suspect that Older has not gone missing of his own accord," the reporter went on, "but that foul play is involved. Blood was found on the edge of the bar's parking lot and DNA tests now reveal that it belongs to Older. We approached the law enforcement official in charge of a potential homicide case, Albany Police Department, Chief Detective, Nick Miller. We asked him if he'd interviewed Mr. Simpson. But Spectrum News was issued a resounding, 'No comment at this time,' by the detective."

"This is Kelly Carlson for Spectrum News on the Nines reporting live from the North Albany banks of the Hudson River."

Simpson poured yet another shot and drank that down. He glanced at the bottle. It was already half empty. How could that be? He only just purchased it less than an hour ago. He'd consumed as much booze as he might in a few days in less than an hour and yet he didn't feel the least bit drunk. All he felt was anger and fear and desperation.

When he heard the doorknob on his studio door turning, he pulled the switchblade from out of his back pocket and thumbed the blade release.

"This ends now," he said.

The knob was twisting and turning. But John Simpson had been smart enough to lock it when he reentered the studio a few minutes ago. The volume on the television was still blaring, but much to his relief, the Spectrum News had moved on to another story.

Yet, he was well aware in that just a few minutes, they'd be replaying the report again. It would replay all day and night, perhaps even with updates. It was becoming a huge story. Maybe the police were about to show up at his farm any minute to arrest him for a murder he did not commit. If anyone was out to murder anyone, it was Big Mike Older. Simpson had merely been acting in self-defense.

But the law worked in mysterious ways these politically charged days. No longer was the criminal the bad guy and no longer was the good guy granted due process. Everything had been turned onto its head. It also dawned on the writer that if Big Mike's body should wash up on the shore of the Hudson, they might be able to somehow get his prints off the bloated corpse. Or what if they decided to examine his Jeep? Certainly, they'd find Older's blood. These days, digital crime fighting high tech could detect even the minutest detail be it a blood spatter or a hair follicle. He should know. He was a mystery writer, after all. He took pride in researching the latest in crime fighting techniques.

The knob was twisting again.

"Who's there?" he shouted. "What do you want?"

"I know what you did," Debbie said from outside the door. She said it in a kind of high-pitched, little girl, sing song voice. "I know what you did to Big Mike. And so do the police. You are going to prison, John Simpson. You are going to rot behind bars for the rest of your miserable life."

Simpson gripped the knife with his right hand. He pictured thrusting it into Debbie's belly and watching her mechanical insides spilling out, just like the intestines on a human being. Once he did that, he'd throw the knife away. Maybe he'd slip into the storm sewer grate on the country road just outside his house. No one would ever find it if he did that. It's what he should have done immediately after defending himself against Big Mike. But then, that was just the point. He'd been defending himself. In Debbie's case, he'd be murdering a living doll.

What the hell are you talking about, Simpson? She's not a human being and she's not alive. No one can arrest you for stabbing a doll...

Inhaling and exhaling.

"You're not real!" he screamed. "You're just a doll that was made in China."

"Now that hurts," Debbie said. "Let me in and we can talk about it, John Simpson."

"If I let you in, I'm going to cut your head off," he barked.

"You are one psychotic sicko, you know that, Mr. Simpson?"

That was the tipping point. Being threatened and insulted by a U.S.A Baby Doll inside his very own writing studio was just too much to take. It was time he put the toy down for good. Her picking on him and bullying him...it was an unacceptable situation that had reached the boiling point. She might have been tiny, but she was no better than Big Mike.

He would destroy the doll, even if it meant his daughter would be very upset when she found out. He could always buy her another one. A doll that was normal and not programmed to torture him, which this doll certainly had been.

He approached the studio door slowly, carefully. The doll might have only been about two feet tall at most, but who knew what she was capable of. She was a robot, not a toy, and robots could do miraculous things if engineered correctly. He'd seen robots on YouTube that were no bigger than Debbie which were used by construction companies to demolish entire concrete buildings. They were that agile, that strong. Apparently, Debbie had been marvelously constructed by some deviant engineers.

"Probably by some sick MIT grads," he whispered to himself. "No wonder she was so expensive."

Slowly, he unlocked the door, opened it, and made his way out into the barn. The knife gripped tightly in his right, dominant hand, he tried his best to control his breathing, control his fear, allow his rage to take over. When he felt the chunk of flesh being ripped from behind his shin, he screamed at the very tops of his lungs. He nearly dropped the knife but managed somehow to hang on to it.

He looked down and saw Debbie. Her mouth was covered in blood, and she was chewing. Chewing on the small bit of flesh she bit off his lower leg. John Simpson was in such electric pain and shock, that he was temporarily paralyzed. He wanted to move. He wanted to kick Debbie across the barn floor, then pounce on her and stab her to death. But his body wouldn't move.

She laughed as she chewed. When finally, Simpson was able to come at her, she turned and scooted rapidly across the barn floor, hiding herself behind a pile of wood siding.

"You can't get me," she goaded the writer. "I'm too fast for you, killer. Too smart. You'll never get me."

"I'm going to kill you!" Simpson screamed. "I'm going to cut your head off and mount it on a stake. Do you hear me?"

"Just like you cut Big Mike's head off," she said. "Now that's some ISIS sick shit, you ask me."

"I did not cut Big Mike's head off," he barked. "I was defending myself and that's all."

"Is that why you didn't go to the police after you brutally murdered him?" she said in her girly girl voice. "Is that why you dumped his body in the river? Sounds like the work of a murderer to me."

Simpson was through with arguing. He limped forward, his eyes glued to the wood pile. He knew there was nowhere to run now that she'd trapped herself inside it. All he had to do was approach the area slowly and then pounce on her and kill her once and for all.

Limping, the blood running down the back of his leg, he arrived at the wood pile. Slowly, he made his way around it, knowing she would be hiding there. He would get the jump on her and thrust the knife into her chest. But when they spotted one another, their eyes locking for the briefest of beats, she gave him one of her bloody smiles, turned and scooted up the barn wall, like a four-legged spider.

"Come and get me, murderer," she screamed as she disappeared into the loft.

Feeling desperate, John Simpson knew he had no choice but to climb into the loft, pain or no pain in his lower leg. He limped his way to an old, unstable ladder that had been permanently attached to the interior barn wall. Retracting the switchblade, he stored it in his back pocket. Inhaling a breath, he grabbed hold of one of the upper wood rungs with both hands and began to climb. With each creaky wrung he climbed, he felt the stinging pain in the injured lower leg, and he sensed his boot filling with warm blood. But what choice did he have other than to go up into the loft and destroy the living doll once and for all?

Simpson tried his best to ignore his pain. To concentrate instead on the rage. He needed the rage like a truck needed gasoline. Like a heart needed blood. Like a power station needed coal. The rage was the fuel that burned his fire. And right now, his entire body was aflame.

Reaching the old dirty loft space, he crabbed onto the wood platform on his hands and knees. He didn't stand right away, preferring instead to peer into the dark space from Debbie's short-statured point of view.

He wasn't looking for her body necessarily, but instead, her eyes. Her eyes were powered by a rechargeable battery. A battery life that apparently could last for days. Maybe it was nuclear-powered. The writer almost laughed aloud at the silly notion. But he'd yet to see her plugged in since they brought her home more than twenty-four hours ago. Maybe, in the end, all he had to do was wait her out and she would simply fall to sleep from lack of power.

He wiped a spider web from his face and felt a wave of relief wash over him at the thought of just playing the waiting game. Shifting himself onto his butt, he leaned his back against the wall, and for the first time, exhaled a deep breath.

"You're gonna run out of power, Debbie," he said aloud. "You little evil bitch."

"Who you calling an evil bitch?!" came a high-pitched scream.

She charged him then, her sharp teeth and jaws snapping at him like a hungry shark sensing a wounded fish. He kicked at her, but she was too quick and too powerful. With his back against the wall, Simpson felt her jaws clamp onto his neck. He felt her teeth sinking into his neck.

The pain was searing, and it took his breath away. He wondered if she had severed his carotid artery. If that was the case, he was a dead man. It would take only a matter of moments before he bled out. Clair and Chrissy would find his body only after he started to stink up the barn. He couldn't bear the thought of causing them that kind of pain.

"I know what you did," Debbie said when she unlocked her jaws from his neck. "The police are coming, John Simpson. The police know you killed Mike Older in cold blood. They're going to find your prints on his body and Big Mike's blood in your Jeep."

Bringing the fingers on his left hand to his neck, the writer felt where Debbie's teeth had penetrated his skin. He was bleeding but his carotid artery was not breached. That was the good news. The bad news was that Debbie was poising herself for another attack. She stood not on her two feet, but on all fours, like a rabid dog. Like an angry, rabid pit bull dressed in the cutest little white dress, bearing its long, sharp fangs. The whole situation was FUBAR—fucked up beyond all recognition.

But Simpson had one weapon at his disposal, and it was time he used it. Slowly reaching into his back pocket, he slowly slid the switchblade back out, and thumbed the trigger. The blade snapped into place. With his pulse pounding and his leg and neck bleeding, he waited for Debbie to make the first move.

"Debbie wants to play, John Simpson," she said, her teeth and lips coated with his blood. "Debbie is going to rip the flesh from your neck."

She came at him. But this time, he was ready. When her face was within inches of his neck, he thrust the blade into her chest.

The blade buried inside her sternum, all hell broke loose. Her fake eyes went wide, and her face took on an expression of fear and loathing and absolute pain.

She's mechanical, John Simpson thought. A robot. How in God's name can she possibly feel pain?

But that didn't stop Debbie from issuing a scream that was so loud, so high-pitched, it nearly pierced his eardrums.

Simpson knew he had to work fast. Shifting himself to his knees, he pulled the blade out and stabbed her again and again.

"Please, please, please," she pleaded, real tears falling from her manufactured eyes. "Please stop. You...are...killing...me. Chrissy will hate you if you kill me. Please...please...stop killing me, Mr. Simpson."

Something came over the writer then. He stared into her sad, blue, tear-filled eyes, and he felt his stomach cramp and his chest grow heavy. What if he was, in fact, torturing this little living doll? What would Chrissy do when she found out he stabbed her precious Debbie to death? Would his little girl hate him for the rest of his life?

But then, what's done is done...

By then, the doll was already damaged. Chrissy could never see the doll in this condition. He gazed at his watch. It was still early enough in the morning he could drive into the city, purchase a brand new U.S.A Baby Doll, and be home by the time Chrissy got out of school. She would never know the difference.

He gazed at Debbie lying still on the loft floor. She wasn't moving, she wasn't speaking. She appeared to be dead. Pushing the blade back in its housing, he returned it to his back pocket. Carefully positioning his injured body onto the ladder, he climbed back down. He had no time to waste if he was going to make it to the city and back before Chrissy got home.

He didn't take two steps toward his studio when he felt Debbie pounce on his head.

_ _ _

This time she went at him with every ounce of strength and evil power in her man-made body. She buried her teeth into the top of his skull and scratched at his face and eyes. She screamed and screamed and bit and bit. Simpson also screamed, and he did his best to grab her by the arms to pull her off of him.

But she was so strong and so quick, he thought he would never get control of her. Not before she succeeded in blinding him, that is. But his eyes were his livelihood. How could he write his stories if he was blind? But that's what Debbie wanted, or so Simpson deduced. She didn't want to kill him. Instead, she wanted nothing more than to blind him so that he was handicapped for the rest of his life.

With that thought in mind, the writer inhaled a deep breath and summoned all the strength he had left in his body. He took hold of both her little arms and he gripped them as tightly as he could. He pulled her off his head and threw her onto the barn floor near his booted feet. From down on her back, she looked up at him with pure horror and shock. It was as if she had been programmed to never lose a fight.

"You...are...a...murderer," she whispered.

"And you are a dead doll," John Simpson said.

Then, lifting his bootheel high, he brought it down hard onto her face. This time she didn't scream. Instead, he heard her issue a distinct wince. He didn't stop there. He stomped on her until her face was smashed in, all her teeth were broken, and her eyes were blinded. He stomped on her chest until she burst open like a smashed pumpkin, exposing her inner mechanics. Bending at the waist, he reached into her chest cavity, took hold of the colored wires, and tore them out, as if he were tearing the veins and arteries out of a human toddler.

The writer didn't stop there. He made his way to the far corner of the barn where he stored some tools, including an axe. He took hold of the axe and carried it to where the destroyed Debbie was still lying on her back.

I should have used this axe on her to begin with. But never, ever would I have dreamed she would be so powerful and so evil...

Standing over her crushed body, he raised the axe and brought it down on her neck, severing her head.

That's when Simpson heard something that broke his heart.

"Daddy!" his little girl Chrissy cried. "How could you?"

John Simpson inhaled a breath. He saw his daughter and his wife standing inside the open barn door.

Chrissy must have had a half day of school...

The writer saw someone else too. It was a policeman. The policeman was dressed in his blue uniform, and he had his right, dominant hand placed on his holstered service weapon.

"John Simpson," the cop said, "we have a warrant for your arrest in the murder of Michael Older."

For a long beat, Simpson just stared at the cop. He gazed at Gina and Chrissy. They were peering back at him with wide, disbelieving eyes. He saw the tears streaming down both their cheeks. He knew there were no words he could come up with that would make them feel good about what they were witnessing. For the first time that day, John Simpson was back to experiencing a block, only this block had nothing to do with typing and writing words. It had everything to do with speaking them.

"Please put down the axe and get down on your knees, Mr. Simpson," the cop ordered.

John Simpson did as he was told. He tossed the axe aside and slowly dropped to his knees.

"Now place your hands on your head and lock your fingers at the knuckles. Do it now."

That's when two more cops that had been out of the writer's line of sight burst into the barn and proceeded to cuff the writer. As they assisted Simpson back up onto his feet, he took one last look at the destroyed living doll's severed head. Just a split second before he was led away, he saw her eyelids open, and her smashed mouth form a smile.

"Told ya the cops were comin', killer," she whispered.

As he passed by his wife and daughter, he finally found the words that might put them at ease.

"She tried to kill me," he said. "Gina, Chrissy, you've got to believe me."

But they wouldn't respond. They just gazed at him like he was a being from another planet and an evil one at that.

As the police shoved him into the back of one of two idling cruisers parked on the property between the farmhouse and the barn, John Simpson asked where they were taking him.

"You're going to the station to be processed for the murder of Michael Older," the arresting cop said as he got back behind the wheel. "From there it will be a grand jury and then the county lockup. My guess is there will be no bail."

"And then?" John Simpson calmly asked as the cop shut the door and pulled forward, making a hard left turn on the frozen lawn.

"It ain't up to me, pal," he said with a sad shake of his head. "But considering the hatchet job you just did on a stupid little girl's doll and the hack job you did on Big Mike and the blood we found in the back of your Jeep, you're a prime candidate for the Willard Asylum for the Chronic Insane." The cop pulled out of the open wood gates at the end of the drive, and hooked a right in the direction of the town. "You're gonna love it there. You can write all the crazy stories you want, so long as you don't mind using a Crayon."

Simpson thought about his rights, the right to remain silent being the major one. But he didn't care anymore. He knew the police had him trapped in an open and shut case. He also knew that there was no way he was going to avoid prison.

That's why he decided to ask one last question.

"How did you know I killed Mike Older?" he asked. "Where's the body of evidence?"

"We got a call from a young woman who identified herself as Debbie," the cop said. "She said she knew exactly where you'd be and that you were the killer. She said your prints would be all over the body once it's dragged out of the Hudson, and that Mike's blood would be found in your Jeep." The cop now looking at John Simpson via the rearview mirror. "To be honest, we knew it was you all along. We got witnesses from the bar said you were pushing Big Mike around, that you were harassing him, threatening him, until you were kicked out. You waited for him in the darkness in the parking lot where you attacked him and stabbed him no less than twenty times.

"We got the whole thing on CCTV video. Only reason it took so long to come after you was the DA wanted a body of evidence. These are tough times for cops, so when we accuse somebody of first-degree murder, we'd better have our T's crossed and our I's dotted, if you get my drift, Mr. Simpson. When Big Mike's body, or most of his body, washed up along the banks of the Hudson, we knew our job was done. Just like Debbie said, your prints were all over the body."

John Simpson looked out the window onto the countryside. It was a beautiful place to live and write. A beautiful place to raise a family. At least, that had been his hopes and dreams after so many failures at marriage. He would never get another chance for as long as he lived.

He thought about Debbie, pictured her cute little, life-like face.

"That doll tried to kill me," he said. "She bit a chunk out of my leg."

The cop looked at him once again via the rearview mirror.

"Those wounds look self-inflicted to me, Mr. Simpson," he said. "And let's face it, you are presently plastered on whiskey. I can smell it all over you. To be honest, I'm no lawyer, but if I were you, I wouldn't say another word since it can be used against you in a court of law."

The writer nodded. Sure, maybe he was drunk, and the booze made him insane. But deep down, he knew the cop was speaking the truth. John Simpson didn't say another word for the rest of the drive to the police station.