Bury Me

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

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

At first it’s just the door.

But then it’s also the walls.

All the walls.

KNOCK

And the roof.

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 step, 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.