You see when I was younger, I knew there were some stranger things out in the world other than robots and shadows in the dark. But I'd never expected to experience something like this.
It all started with a normal, sunny day at a garage sale in the small town I grew up in. It was a calm, summer day and I was with my sister and nana. She'd decided to take us to a yard sale because she felt we needed to get out of the house. I was about seven years old then and my sister was nine. We still loved to play outside and use our imaginations. However, the sweltering heat became too much—leven for us.
My sister and I browsed the tables and pawed through the boxes of toys. My sister looked through Barbies, stuffed animals and all sorts of Hot Wheels before her eyes finally fell on it: a baby doll, only about the size of my forearm. She kept saying it was the perfect baby doll for playing house. And she'd named it Alexander. She went to the man with the register, paid the quarter and hugged it tightly. After finding a little child's computer toy, I paid the man and we hopped in the Jimmy.
When we got home, my sister immediately started on setting up our game of house. Our nana had let us use an old, real baby stroller and use the old camper as a house! We were so excited that we could barely contain ourselves. We set up the camper to perfection then we started our play. We were having so much fun, we didn't even realise the sun going down. After nana yelled for us to come inside, we put the stroller with Alexander in it in our bedroom and ate dinner.Then, after dinner and a bath, we were sent to bed and slept soundly.
Well, until we didn't.
Suddenly, I was shaken awake by my sister. She was frantic, tears streaming down her face.
"Wha...?" I asked sleepily.
"Alexander's gone!" My sister said, her breaths heavy.
I looked over in the stroller and sure enough he was gone which was sort of odd, because we had strapped him in it. Then, there was the pitter-patter of little feet, and whispers of our name. They grew louder, slightly, and we hid ourselves under the covers. Soon, our crying put us to sleep.
When we woke up the next morning, we both immediately looked in the stroller. Alexander sat in the stroller unstrapped, to our dismay. We had hoped it was just a dream. So we went in the kitchen, ate breakfast, and kissed our nana good morning but when we got back in our room, Alexander was sitting on the bed, staring at the door.
We almost screamed.
My cousins, who are only a year older than my sister, came over and helped us dispose the doll. They cut off the head with a pocket knife and lit the fabric body on fire. We threw the body into the woods and buried the head next to the shed.
A few years later, my sister and I were having a picnic in the yard. At this time I was nine and she was eleven. We got into the conversation of Alexander and, curious, we went to the spot where we'd buried the head. We'd only buried it maybe a few inches deep. Smiling, we dug up the spot. The head was gone. Instead, on a rock in the ground where the hole ended, a single word was carved.
Goodbye.
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