Roasting on an Open Fire
Christina and Hannah joined me in the bedroom.
I could read the curiosity on my wife’s face. Without saying a word, her bold and confused expression asked me how Norman’s room caught fire. I just looked at her and said, “I have no idea. But thank the powers that be I was in the right place at the right time.”
Hannah had calmed down enough to talk, and now all four of us were sitting on the bed. One dysfunctional family once again haunted by the past.
Norman’s appearance had altered drastically. No longer did he have the cute, yet sinister exterior. This event changed his entire aura and added a daunting, haunting visual aspect that not only captivated you, but shook your very soul to the absolute core. I could even smell the residue from the burns, and I wasn’t even close enough for that. You know when a pungent smell just lodges itself within the inner walls of your nose and no matter where you go or what you do you can smell it?
His wounds momentarily became the incense of our bedroom. It was a mordacious odor. I felt like I was breathing poison with every breath I took. As I am writing this, I can still relive that smell. It wasn’t like wood burning or charcoal or that wonderful smell of a home-cooked meal. It was dark, saturating, and viciously poisoning. The odor felt like a blanket of sorrow was covering us.
No matter what, it always seemed that anything surrounding Norman, even on the smallest of levels, grew into something much larger and encompassing. Even as an unscathed, brand new toy, Matty Mattel’s face appeared sly, mischievous, and contemplating shenanigans, without the need for being possessed by a threatening being. At least, that’s how he appeared to me. His already in place naughty look became more fitting once I learned he was being controlled by an immoral spirit.
He was now 100 percent menacing looking. The fire brought a life to his exterior that wasn’t there prior. It was still Norman on the surface, but the accents of burns gave him the appearance of one hundred faces in one. Depending on which way or what angle you looked at him, Norman seemed to have a different persona thanks to the repercussions of the fire and the new shadows that now laced his face.
Norman before the fire
Now his look was more fitting and what one would expect something harboring a dark evil to appear as. He no longer looked like an innocent toy. The burns only effected his face, which is still a conundrum to this day. Logically, considering the fire was underneath him, his bottom half should have burned first. Instead, it did not burn at all.
Norman after the fire
The impish little doll was now forever scarred. There was no way to turn back time. There was no way to replace him. He grew into that. That was the Norman we lived with now.
One of the changes in his appearance I noticed immediately was what appeared to be a perpetual tear pouring down his face. Mattel’s original, mass-marketed doll from 1962 was not designed to cry or even look like it had been crying.
The tear
The logical side of me attributed that to the fire. The paranormal side of me blamed something far worse. Was there an innocent little boy trapped inside with a malevolent entity or enraged spirit? It just wasn’t adding up. All of my data was pointing to something evil. At the same time, it was also pointing to the spirit of a stillborn child. One of two things was happening here. Either the child was lashing out at a world he could never have or he was trapped with a sinister being. That was something to definitely consider. There was still a chance the child had nothing to do with the doll at all. There are no rules to this game. Who is to say that multiple spirits can’t haunt the same object?
We knew whatever was inside of Norman was evil. At one time, we believed a child spirit to be trapped inside of Norman. In other instances we believed it to be an older man. Although, I felt the spirit was that of the unborn boy, and he aged mentally by observation. In the end, it was nearly impossible to prove which of our theories was true.
Whatever the entity was, it could appear and act like anything, and that was a very scary realization to digest. But the tear was dumbfounding. It meant something. I had seen a lot of questionable things during my time in the field of paranormal research, and biological functioning was never one of them. How does a tear appear opposite the side that was burned? How does a tear even appear at all? There was not any damage to stage right of his face; in the pictures, it is on the left for you readers. Not a single burn mark or even an inkling of melting. The tear was on top of the cheek and layered over the plastic. That was perplexing to say the least.
At first, I thought maybe Norman was trying to leave this world by destroying his shell. His toy body could have been viewed as a coffin, I suppose. Maybe he was trying to finally move on. I wanted to believe that he wasn’t trying to kill us, but I think that was more or less me attempting to reassure myself, Christina, and Hannah.
With Norman being who he was, it was very difficult to determine genuine emotions from him. It could be a ploy for all we knew. It could all be just another tactic to lure us in and put our guard to rest. When dealing with something evil, you never truly know when to believe what you are seeing. Appearances can often be deceiving, and oftentimes deceit is the true nature of their origins.
However, my thoughts would always land right back on the same idea. He was trying to kill us. That has seemed to be his stratagem from the beginning. It certainly was with me. Could he have been angry for being locked away instead of finding himself relieved and at a level of serenity?
I concluded that he was out for revenge. There were many things he could have chosen to do to garner attention. But he went straight for one of the most dangerous methods. He was either counting on me to be awake, knew I was already awake, or fully intended to just burn it all to the ground.
Seeing what Norman could do in the past and knowing the terror my family lived through, it was hard to think otherwise. I think he was trying to take us all down. We knew his secret.
Before any of us could attempt to rest, I needed to do something with Norman. Christina finally talked Hannah into going back to bed, but first she wanted reassurance that Norman would not be returning to the room next to hers. She also made it clear that she wanted him locked up and more confined. She knew we had attempted to rid ourselves of him before and that had failed. So for Hannah, locking him up and placing him as far from her as possible was the only way she was going to negotiate.
He was Christina’s and my responsibility now more than ever. He needed to stay where we could see him. With no surveillance, we had no choice but to keep him in our bedroom. The bedroom also doubled as my study, so ninety percent of the time, one of us was in there.
Plus, I had easy access to all of my cameras and equipment. If things were to head south again, I could document on a whim.
I had placed him in what I call a “glass coffin,” a glass exhibit case typically used for displaying dolls, figures, collectibles, or anything you wish to keep protected. In this particular situation, the case was to protect us, or at least I had hoped.
At least in the case it would be harder to burn anything. Carpet is one thing, but a glass case is another.
Norman back in his glass case
Glass can break, however, and I was beginning to think there was no foolproof way of containing him.
I felt like we had taken a step backwards with Norman. He was once again tucked away in our bedroom and right in the middle of our family, just like he was years ago. At this point in the very early hours of the morning, all I could do was stare up at Norman, who once again was king of my research castle.
I was so engulfed with terrible thoughts about Norman, I had not taken the time to even allow myself to be blessed or merry for Christmas. I knew it was Christmas, but it was far from feeling like it. All I could think about was the outstanding possibility that we could have been burned alive in our sleep, in our house, and nobody would have ever truly known why.
Those anonymity-filled events do occur. Heart attacks, tragedy-stricken circumstances such as a fire, and the reality of literally being scared to death happen at the hands of monstrous entities more than you think. I think most people
just choose to ignore them.
Terrible thoughts overcame me as I envisioned those things happening. I found it very difficult to snap myself back into reality as I attempted to fall asleep. Every time I closed my eyes, all I could see were Hannah and Christina screaming as they burned, and me, unable to do anything to stop it.
Losing all we have in a fire has been one of my greatest fears, and that almost became a reality. But for Norman, he wasn’t going to let me rest in the slightest. He had more than a fireworks show to put on.