Porcelain

Porcelain Part 1

The snow had gotten heavy with a sort of denseness that felt suffocating. Jack felt it as he trudged through the snow. He had gotten used to it at this point, day after day, on a different trail in unforgiving snow in the denseness of the forest. It had been two weeks on this day that his little Annie had gone missing.

Jack's right hand was clutched around an LED flashlight, ripping through the dark, but showing him nothing at all. At this point it was the same scene that seemed to just blur all together. His left hand clutched around her third grade picture she took earlier that year. She was all smiles and pigtails, something happy to give Jack a gleam of hope. Time had slipped past him. What felt like twenty minutes turned into three hours, almost like he had just been day dreaming. Carson still needs to be fed and the babysitter had been there all day, Jack thought to himself as he stopped and scanned off trail. The shadows danced as the beam of his flashlight bounced off the trees.

He let out a deep sigh. His light caught something as he turned back to head home. It was small and wrapped in a way that a newborn is wrapped at the hospital. A single shiver shot down his spine. He knew it wasn't on the path before he turned around. The blistering cold didn't freeze him; panic did. His stomach and brain telling him to walk away, go home. Curiosity spoke louder and clearer, seducing him to come closer. He crept up to it, staying vigilant to what could have put it there.

Jack took a moment as he stood over it trying to think about what was wrapped in the blanket, and also trying to keep the darker ideas at bay. He reached down and grasped hold of it. The blanket that seemed wound tight, started coming undone. An arm slipped through the folds, but it wasn't flesh. Thank god, he thought, it was a ceramic arm. The blanket opened all the way, and a porcelain doll laid in his hands. He noticed something odd and then unsettling. The doll's dark brown pig tails, closed and mousy smile, and the bright blue eyes. It was even dressed in the same baby blue and white checkered dress Annie was wearing the day she vanished. He just stood there even more horrified. Something was taunting him now. He stared bleary eyed from the tears starting to stream down his face. The same weight that had been expelled was sucked back in and swelled in his chest. He let it back out, but this time with a scream into the darkness. He walked back to his truck, still holding the doll. He tossed it into his passenger seat and headed back home.

The road back to Jack's cabin was long and haunting at night. The kind of haunting that keeps you on edge, awake and aware, never tempted to sleep. Jack's pick up was struggling against the snow that covered the dim eternity ahead. The engine sputtered a couple times before his head lights grazed the hill his cabin sat on. The worn tires ate the gravel as he inched closer and closer in his driveway. The moment right after he turned his truck off was one of his favorites everyday. The harmonious, deep hum of the motor shutting down. Jack unbuckled his seat belt, the click cutting through the silence, but only for a second. He sat there taking it in. He grabbed the doll and gazed at it as he hopped out of his truck. His boots crushing through the near four inches of snow, creating holes all the way to his front door, never breaking the trance the doll had him under.

The babysitter was fast asleep with Carson cuddled close on the couch. His little blonde curls popped up over the couch as Jack closed the door.

"Daddy", Carson tried to say after waking up from a deep sleep. He shot off the couch and ran into Jack's legs, wrapping his arms with no want to ever let go. He knew he had been gone for a long time, even more so than usual. He picked Carson up after prying him off his legs, and kissed his forehead. Jack walked over and nudged Bianca, the babysitter, to wake her from well deserved sleep. He knows Carson is a handful to keep up with for eight hours. She was a tremendous help with him, even with all of her focus on college. She yawned, but rolled over so he nudged her twice more.

Bianca's green eyes met Jack's as she opened them.

"I'm so sorry I'm late. I lost all track of time." He knows she never cares because it's more he pays.

"It's all okay, Mr. Rollins. Carson makes the time go by fast."

Jack laid Carson back down on the couch. The little guy was deep asleep that quick. He walked Bianca out to her car, just to make her feel safe with how dark and creeping it gets this time of year.

"So not to pry, but what's with the doll?" She asked as they were approaching her car. He had forgotten all about the doll. He even forgot where he laid it down.

"I found it off the Ochegee trail. It was so random that I really didn't know what to do with it." It was the only response that he could give. The only one he hopes he has to give.

"And you don't find it any the bit weird that it looks like Annie?"

Fuck.

"I was honestly horrified when I saw it. It could be the local punks knowing I'm searching and playing tricks." The detail of the doll is too impeccable, those kids don't have that sort of craftiness. But it was the only logical excuse he could come up with. She still looked concerned about it, as if she knew something was up. Bianca rubbed the side of his arm with all the care in the world, and a smile that would brighten up any dark night.

"If there is anything you need, please let me know." How could one person have so much tenderness? "I know you've been going through the hardest month of your life, but I want you to know someone cares." That hit Jack like a ton of bricks. His wife passed away giving birth to Carson, and with Annie having gone missing, it seemed like there was no one. He let out the hundredth sigh that day, and embraced Bianca with all he had. Some how she hugged him tighter. Bianca kissed his cheek as he gave her the cash for babysitting through the week, and he watched her dazzled as she got in her car and drove off. Thoughts of her and him shifted forward from the back of his mind. Jack had to blink a few times to focus back on reality.

There was a chill in the air as he walked back into the house. He closed the door trying not to disturb Carson. This time his curls of blonde didn't pop up to peer over the couch. Jack walked over to the couch expecting to find his five year old with a sleepy smile and neck craned into the seat of the couch. He wasn't there. Then he remembered, neither was the doll he had tossed on the recliner. Jack heard Carson giggling all the way down the pitch black hall, and the only light came from under the crack of Carson's bedroom door. Not enough to illuminate the hall, but kept the door just visible. Jack's pace grew slower and with more caution when he heard Carson start talking. The door creaked a little as Jack opened it. Carson stopped talking as soon as he heard it open.

"Hey buddy, who are you talking to?" Jack said as he walked in. Not expecting to see Carson sitting in the middle of his bedroom floor with the doll sat upright in the rocking chair that had been passed down the family for generations.

"Annie."

"I know the doll looks like her, but that isn't Annie." Jack didn't know what to say, just that he had to say something.

"Well that's what she said her name was."

Jack knew this was Carson's imagination trying to cope with his sister being gone.

"Play time is over bud. Now lets say our prayers and go to sleep."

Carson was again fast asleep after a rushed amen. Jack eased out of his bed and kissed him on the forehead, careful enough not to wake him again. He stood and stared at the doll while contemplating what he should do with it. The strangeness of the night had him too tired to think about it. He picked the doll up by it's arm, letting it dangle on his side as he walked to his room. The doll fell from his grip and onto the carpeted floor. Jack plopped onto his bed, feeling his body settle into warmth for the first time since this morning. He thought about picking it up, but he was too comfortable to move.

There was a rustling on his sheets, but he brushed it off. Jack then felt something cold and hard brush across the back side of his arm. He felt it again, this time with more of a push, and then something gripped onto his shoulder. Fear sank its teeth deep in him, paralyzing him. Unable to move, Jack heard a whisper directly into his ear as he stared blankly to the wall.

"Daddy, help me."