Secrets of a Doll

Chapter Five: He Can See You

Regina, Christina's mom, was sitting at the kitchen dining table, waiting for her daughters to get home. She was sorting through the envelopes that had come in the mail when the front door could be heard opening. She got up and walked out of the kitchen and into the hall, where she could see the girls walking into the house.

Tiffany didn't pay any mind to anyone and instead went for the stairs. They had two sets of stairs in the home, both leading to the second floor. There was one in the view of the front door, and another was down the hall.

"Christina" her mom called out as she was locking the front door. She turned around, saw her mom and went up to her and immediately hugged her as her mom did the same.

She wasn't here the night of the 12th when Christina needed her the most.

A black Camaro car pulled into an empty moonlit trailer park. The car drove down the unkept dirt road and came to a stop in front of a trailer home. The car engine shut off and Brad stepped out of the driver's side. He slammed the door shut and casually walked around the car. Before he could even take a step onto the front lawn his head started to hurt. His ears began to ring which caused him to slam his hand onto the roof of the car and lean on it in pain. After a minute it all stopped. Everything went silent up until the point when he got off of the car side and made his way around the car. He opened the driver's door again and got in, silently starting the car, not bothering to turn the headlights on.

"Serena, give it back!", Colette shouted as Serena made a run towards the stairs, holding something that belonged to her. On her way up the stairs she passes by Christina, who's going downstairs with her purse and keys in her hand. She paid no attention to it and continued heading down the stairs. A few seconds later Colette runs past her as well and this time she glances but still doesn't really care enough to try and stop it. Christina walks down the hall leading to the living room.

She walks in and sees Tiffany watching the tv as she's on the phone with someone. She stands still at the entrance to the living room and says, "I'm going out to the store, you want anything?" to her sister. 

Tiffany looks over at her and shakes her head. After she knows that someone would know where she is, she backs away from the living room and walks to the kitchen. As she's walking to the kitchen, she can hear her mom upstairs asking her sisters what's going on. She enters the kitchen, immediately goes to the cupboard and opens it, proceeding to then reach for a glass. After, she closes the cupboard and heads over to one of those water dispensers with the blue jug on top and pours some water into the cup.

 As she's doing this the house phone rings. So, she sets the cup down onto the island counter, then walks over to the house phone, picks it up, and begins to talk with the person on the other line. Her eyes drift over to the open window above the sink and sees that someone is between the trees in the backyard, watching her. She stays oblivious to it as she holds the phone in one hand and paces by the sink where the open window is. Her eyes start to show a little panic as she adjusts the phone closer to her ear. 

"You know what..they're a little busy right now I'll have to call you back." she says to the person on the line. 

The person on the line continues to talk so she says, "what was that? I can't hear you, call again later, bye!" in a rushed tone. 

She moves the phone away from her ear, and carefully placing it back onto its holder on the counter. She and the person in her yard continue to stay still, looking at each other as if they're waiting for one of them to do something. They were too far away and too hidden in the shadows for her to tell who it was. In an instant, Christina impulsively reached for the two curtains and quickly draws them in to cover the window. As soon as she did, she backed away, almost slamming herself into the counter behind her.

Everything's silent for a few moments and all that can be heard is the inaudible voices and sounds coming from the television in the other room. Her cell phone rings suddenly which makes her jump a little. She takes a few quick breaths to recover from the scare before reaching into her purse for her cellphone.

"Hello?" she says once she answers. All that she could hear on the other line was static. She quickly hung up and thought nothing of it since things like that always happened to phone lines.

She quickly walked to her car, paranoid about the person outside. Christina unlocked her car and just before she got in, someone began to whistle. She froze. 

The whistling died down and seconds after it did someone called her name. She jumped and turned around, holding the car keys tightly in her hand. It really only turned out to be her cousin, Steve. She let out a small sigh and said, "you scared me...".

"What are you doing here?" she asked.

 Christina waited for his response which was "got paranoid outta nowhere home alone so I came here to hang around for a bit." as he headed up the driveway. 

She paused, getting her thoughts together and then said "yeah, go ahead, the door's still unlocked..." as he walked on by her. She stood there and reminded herself of that whistling.

"And don't whistle like that anymore out here...it's creepy." she called out after she turned around. He didn't stop but instead turned around and began to walk backwards at a slow pace.

"What?" he asked.

"I said stop whistling like that...you aren't supposed to whistle at night" she said in a lighter tone thinking he was playing dumb.

His pace slowed down and he came to a stop this time, then asked "what?" again, in a more serious tone.

"That was you...right?" she asked, "the whistling..."

"what're you talking about?" he asked confused.

"So then...that wasn't you?..." she asked a little more worried now.

He shook his head slightly.

"didn't hear any whistling."

"Well did you see anyone on the way over?" she asked quietly.

He looked at her confused and responded "nah...I didn't."

She didn't know whether to be relieved or worried that he didn't hear or see anything like she did.

"Just...can you check all the doors when you get inside? please?" she said a moment later. S

he didn't bother waiting for a response because she knew he heard her. She kept standing where she was still and looked around knowing that there wasn't anyone else there with her. It still felt like there was either way.

"I'm going to the store...do you want anything?" she asked before he went inside.

"No, I'm good." he said.

"kay" she said before getting into the car.