Goblin Bites: Scary Stories 10

When Carl and Philip moved into their new home, they were filled with hope. The house used to belong to Carl's grandmother, who had bequeathed her home to them in her will. They had been wanting to move out of the city and back into the suburbs ever since their daughter, Lucy, was born, but could never afford to move out of their small apartment until now.

The house was definitely older, hand built by Carl's grandfather back in the Depression. It was in dire need of repairs, but was still overall in pretty decent shape. Carl had many pleasant memories from his childhood spending summer after summer in that house, and he looked forward to his own daughter forming memories within it that were just as warm and comforting. What they hadn't counted on was that the house came fully furnished. They'd expected to find a dresser or two or perhaps some clutter in the attic, but every room was exactly as it had been since the day Carl's grandmother was moved to a long-term care home. All of her clothes and personal belongings were still there as well, including her jewlery, extensive collection of figurines, and an old china doll.

The doll was one Carl remembered from his youth. It belonged to his grandmother when she was a girl, and her mother before that. To them, it was a deeply treasured keepsake, but he had never much cared for it himself. Even as a child, he thought the doll was unnerving, and refused to be in the same room with it for more than a few minutes. He could recall a handful of times when his grandmother would ask him to fetch something from her room, and he always tried to complete the task as quickly as possible because it always felt like the doll's eyes would follow him. The doll was exactly where it had always been when he entered his grandmother's bedroom the day they moved in: displayed prominently on the bed, nestled between two small, lacy throw pillows.

Carl's first instinct was to box up the doll and all his grandmother's belongings, and donate them to a local charity shop. Philip agreed for the most part, but wanted to keep a few things for their daughter to pass on to her children someday... including the doll. Philip argued that the doll was an heirloom, and it deserved to stay within the family. Carl, as always, found he couldn't argue with his partner - because he was usually right - so he begrudingly relented. It took an entire two weeks almost to sift through everything, deciding what to keep and what to give away, but well worth the effort. With that settled, the family could begin to put their own stamp on the house, and finally make it the home they always wanted.

From the first moment Lucy saw the doll, she fell in love with it. Her parents warned her that it was very old and fragile, but allowed her to play with it anyway. They believed their daughter was old enough that she would be able to take care of the doll properly with little supervision, and as usual she proved them right. She found a small stamp on the bottom of the doll's left penny loafer that read "Molly", so she began addressing the doll as Molly from there on out. Lucy and Molly soon became all but inseperable; wherever Lucy went, she took Molly with her, except when her parents wouldn't allow it.

Carl spent much of his free time repairing the house himself in the months that followed. He and Philip couldn't afford to hire a real contractor, but Carl had learned plenty about carpentry and doing basic home repairs from his grandfather and uncles, and was confident that he could take care of most of the work on his own. Philip worked long hours in an office job downtown, which meant that Carl was alone in the house with their daughter most of the time. In truth, Carl didn't mind spending extra time with Lucy; until recently, Philip had been the stay at home parent, so Carl saw this as an opportunity to bond with his daughter. The only downside was Molly. Molly still made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, and her dead, green glass eyes still seemed to follow him the way they did when he was a boy.

It wasn't long before Carl noticed Lucy beginning to act out. At first, it was in little, barely noticeable ways; she didn't want to wear the outfits he picked out for her, or she would complain that he cut her sandwiches wrong, things like that. The only truly strange thing was the way she would present her complaints. She would say, "Molly doesn't like that dress," or, "Molly prefers triangles to rectangles." Carl was well aware that his daughter had an active imagination, so for the most part he just let the little things slide. As more time passed though, more and more unsettling things began happening.

He awoke one morning to find the wall he had painted the day before covered in marker scribbles. When he asked Lucy why she had done such a thing, she just said, "Molly did it." A few days later, he'd found her standing over a broken lamp in the living room, and again she'd said, "Molly did it." Next, he found his tools scattered across the front yard, then a can of paint splattered all over the newly refinished kitchen floor, and his favorite shirt stuffed behind the washing machine with huge, jagged holes snipped into it. Every time, Lucy's answer was the same: "Molly did it."

Carl was very quickly coming to his wit's end. He talked to Philip about Lucy's troubling behavior, who in turn brought it up to a family friend that was a child psychologist. The family friend reasoned that Lucy may be acting out because she missed the friends she'd had in their old apartment building. The house they'd moved into was in a new school district as well, and they'd heard many times from Lucy's new homeroom teacher that she was having trouble settling in. After meeting with Lucy's teacher again, hoping to shed more light on why their daughter was having such a hard time, they were shocked to hear the answer. According to her teacher, Lucy had been regularly bringing Molly with her to school, and her classmates had been teasing her about it.

The following Monday, Carl drove Lucy to school personally instead of letting her take the bus. When she tried to take Molly out of the car with her, he gently suggested that Molly should come home with him. Lucy looked at her doll, then shook her head. "No, Daddy," she'd said flatly, "Molly likes coming to school." When Carl insisted, Lucy started getting very upset. "No, Daddy," she whined, "If Molly doesn't come to school with me, she'll get mad! Don't make Molly mad, please!" Carl was deeply troubled by his daughter's reaction, but assured her that everything would be just fine if Molly went home with him instead. Eventually, Lucy calmed down and agreed to leave her doll on the back seat. "Be good, Molly," she sniffed, "Don't do anything bad while I'm gone, okay?"

After walking Lucy to class, Carl got back into his car with a heavy sigh. He put the key in the ignition, then did a double-take when he looked in the rearview mirror. Molly was sitting up on the back seat. He thought this was strange, as he was sure Lucy left her doll laying down. He shook it off, thinking he must have misremembered, and tossed his jacket over the doll so that he wouldn't have to look at it while he drove home.

Not five minutes after he'd pulled out of the school parking lot, Carl realized there was something wrong with his brake pedal. No matter how hard he pressed the pedal, his car didn't seem to be decelerating. Admittedly the car he drove was a heap, but it had always been reliable up until now. Carl began to panic as his spedometer needle climbed, his mind racing as he tried to figure out what to do. He tried putting the car in park, but the gear shift was unresponsive. Next, he thought to pull the key out of the ignition altogether, however it seemed welded into the switch. He careened out of control off the road, trying to minimize the chances of hurting anyone else at the very least. Almost out of habit, he then glanced back at his rearview mirror. Molly stared right back at him. His jacket was folded in her lap, and her green glass eyes seemed to glow with pure unbridled rage. That was the last thing he remembered before crashing head on into a telephone pole.

When he awoke, he was in a hospital bed. Philip and Lucy were at his bedside, and the latter held her prized doll in her lap. Molly didn't have a scratch on her, and her painted lips appeared to be smiling. Philip stroked his partner's hair worriedly when he realized Carl was awake. "Babe, thank God," he sniffed, "The police said your car was completely out of control, and you crashed. You're lucky you survived! What the hell happened?"

Carl coughed, wincing as every part of his body hurt. He was wearing a cervical collar, and had his arm in a sling, and based on how much his ribs hurt, he was certain they were shattered too. He looked his partner dead in the eye, and moaned, "M-Molly... did it..."