TALES OF TERROR

Aggie

Children are fascinating creatures. I can't help but marvel at they way they act and think. Their minds are molded so easily, so effortlessly, like the softest of dough in the strongest of hands. I worry that I will never understand this child, though, and how she thought.

These things drifted through my head as I examined the dimly lit room. The doors and windows were taped off with crime scene ribbon, the sticky messes on the floor were being sampled by a forensics team.

The site before me was grisly; what was once an eight-year-old lay on the ground. One wouldn't be able to tell what she was just by looking. Her head was hardly attached, if only by the spinal column, it lolled grotesquely to the side, the syrupy liquid coagulated after all these hours. One eye was missing from the skull and sitting a few feet away.

There was a gap where her stomach used to be, as if bitten through by a beast. Innards lay strewn about her, like a party popper on New Year's. Ghastly slash marks adorned her tiny wrists, hands, and fingers crusted with blood and shredded bodily tissue, most likely from who... or what... was after her. Clearly something wanted her dead. Her parents were in similar conditions, a mother, a father, and a grandmother, all strewn about the living room.

The place was a bloodbath. It made my stomach turn. It was clear that there was a struggle. Toys, dolls, puppets, blocks were flung about the place, magazines, broken glass. The living room looked like nightmare fuel.

I gagged at the smell of blood and insides. They had to be at least three days old. It was becoming too much.

Dizzily, I turned and walked away from the scene. Perhaps somewhere else in the house would be easier to stomach.

I found myself upstairs once my daze passed. From the looks of it, I was in the child's room. No sign of struggle here. All was peaceful and everything was in place... except one thing. A notebook. A little school notebook lay open on the floor, I plucked it from the ground, turning it over in my hand. I nearly dropped it out of shock.

Crusty, bloody lettering covered it. Symbols, signals, and signs. A face was scrawled on the paper, on almost every page. A stitched up, twisted face. The eyes were blacked out with tiny lines through them, like buttons. It looked familiar, but I couldn't place it. A small piece of paper fluttered out of the pages and landed on the floor. I knelt and picked it up.

"Don't you fear, my child, I'll keep the ghouls away
I'll keep you safe at night, I'll be your friend by day.

But when it comes to friends, I have very few,
So please don't leave me darling, or my heart will be torn in two."

This didn't seem quite right.

I turned the paper over and read the back.

"Madame Zoh's Worry Dolls.
Your friend 'til the end."

How strange.

I paged through the book again, starting at the beginning. It looked like any normal diary. Little things were written about friends at school, conflicts with parents. Though one thing caught my eye:

"Grandma got me a doll for my birthday. It's nice, I guess, but scary. Mom said I couldn't give it away. I don't want it, though..."

A few pages later was a similar entry.

"I keep Grandma's doll in the drawer. I don't like its eyes, it stares at me at night.. It's creepy."

There were several more like this.

"The doll watches me where ever I go now. Its head turns. None of my other toys have come alive before... it's weird. But neat!

"I named my doll Aggie. She's not so bad. She told me today that we're going to be friends.