My family is turning into dolls. I don't know what to do. (Part 5)
I’d never been trapped in the dark before. Like, the real dark. Pitch black, I mean. Once I was on a school field trip and a guide took us into a cave, and I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face. That was real dark. Like now.
It took a few minutes for Melinda and me to get our bearings down there. I grabbed and pulled her close, and I didn’t even notice the little friend who was still attached to her shoulder. We screamed until our voices were hoarse. We decided no one could hear us. Better to save our strength.
We tried to be rational. It had to be Dad who trapped us. Whatever had taken him over—that character—was in charge now.
A couple hours passed. The heat down there was slowly cooking us. Soon we were stripped to our underwear. I’m glad she can’t see me, I thought, then felt ashamed at thinking that.
I did some quick calculations. I figured it had been five or six hours since I’d had any water. Not good. Sweating would soon dehydrate me. Food was less of an issue; I was too amped up to eat, anyway. I figured I had a handful of hours before liquids would be a real problem, so I set my mind to figuring out how to escape.
Melinda, though, had other issues. When the heat settled down on her, she got lethargic. Which meant she was sleepy. Not good. We had to find a way out, and fast.
I scoured the back room for an exit. I ran my hand over the walls. They were made of plywood, which, if we’d had tools, might not have presented a problem. But I didn’t have anything to use.
I crawled to the back room. With an icky feeling, I tore one of the leg bones off a skeleton with a couple of yanks and twists. Maybe it would work as a makeshift shovel. I tore another off and handed it to Melinda. Hopefully the hard labor would keep her awake long enough to get out of here.
But nothing worked. After an hour, we gave up. We had no leverage coming at the wood from below. We really needed a crowbar. I thought about using another bone to shave mine down until we had a flat edge, but bone on bone simply didn’t work like that.
Melinda collapsed next to the ladder. “How much time until we run out of air, you think?” she asked. I didn’t answer. I just held her, and pretty soon our panting softened.
Gently, to my shame, we drifted to sleep.
***
I jerked awake and sat up, rubbing the dirt from my face. “Melinda?” I whispered into the dark. “Melinda!”
No answer. With a sinking feeling, I shined my flashlight around the outer room. She wasn’t there. The door to the inner room was shut.
I turned to my right. And screamed. Because the doll, the one we’d found down here, was sitting just two feet away, its arms outstretched toward me.
Shoving it away, I rolled onto my stomach and crawled to the opposite side of the room. I settled, holding the beam of my flashlight on it, waiting for it to move.
It didn’t move.
After my heart settled, I checked my watch. I’d only been asleep for fifteen minutes. Not enough time for it to get me. I trembled at the thought.
But, Melinda.
I called to her again. Still no answer. I went to the inner door and was about to set my hand on the knob, when it turned on its own.
I backed away. The door creaked open. My flashlight beam wavered. Soon I felt the other wall against my back, and Melinda crawled through the door in front of me and stood.
Her hair was curly blonde now instead of brown. Like Dad’s, her face was flatter, and glowed like wood stained with expensive lacquer. Her nose had completely receded into her face. It looked more like a drawing of a nose.
I tracked my light down her body. Her waist had been sucked in, like she’d worn a corset for years. The changes seemed to be more intense on the right side, almost as if they were a wave washing over her.
Whatever she was, she was not Melinda anymore. She was becoming that thing, that character from the storyboards.
We didn’t move, just stared at each other. Was she stuck halfway between doll and girl? Was the woman inside her still reeling in her new body?
She smiled a creepy-friendly smile.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
Up above.
Someone. Up there.
A shovel. Carving into the dirt.
Yes, it had to be. I could hear the crunching clearly.
Who was it? Was Dad digging us out?
Then, a shout. I could hear my name. Was I dreaming it? No.
I climbed the ladder and hurled myself against the plywood, banging with my fist. “Mom! Mom, let me out!”
“Hang on!” she half-yelled, half-whispered, frantically digging more dirt.
I could have cried at the sound of her voice. I turned back to Melinda. She was still standing there, at the end of the outer room, staring at me, with her strange half-smile. Silently I said goodbye to her, then raised my head to the light.
***
“Baby!” Mom said as she helped me out of the ground. Wrapping her arms around my shoulder, she walked me toward the house. “It’s okay, honey, everything’s all right now.”
“Mom, the dolls—they got to Dad—” I babbled and then broke down crying. Nothing made sense. All I knew was that Mom was here now and she would take care of me and everything would be okay. She’d find a way to make Dad into Dad and Melinda into Melinda, and we’d move and—
“It’s okay,” she said, “I’ll explain everything.” She opened the door to the house. I shook my head. I don’t want to go in there, you don’t understand—
“Inside, baby,” she said. “It’s all right now.”
She sat me at the kitchen table. I was shaking. The room was empty. She brought back a blanket from the couch and wrapped it around my shoulders. Suddenly I was very tired. I wanted to close my eyes. All I could do was accept the blanket, and the tea my mother brought me, and sit with her.
“Mom,” I said. “When d-did . . .”
“When did I get back?” she said. “Tonight. I came home early. Drink your tea.”
I looked at her for the first time. She looked normal. No wooden features. She was my mom. I sipped my tea.
“Melinda is—”
“Yes, I know about Melinda. She’s okay. She can’t hurt you, baby. Trust me.”
“Where’s Dad?”
“He’ll be down in a minute.”
I croaked. “W-what’s going on?”
Mom sipped. “Ooh, hot.” She got up and dribbled some honey into the mug, blew on the surface of her drink. She stood with her back to the sink. “Honey,” she said, “I’m tired. All the moving, the jobs. I can’t sell homes forever. I just can’t. I don’t love it, you know? And you have to do what you love.
“Remember when you were a kid, and your dad would be off directing some big commercial, and we’d play dress-up and pretend we were walking the red carpet at the Oscars?”
I nodded.
“Your father and I had a plan, that one day, when he made a big movie, I would quit real estate and do something else. Something exciting. You know I was a model, back before you were born. I was gorgeous.” Her eyes went soft and hazy. “The parties. The champagne. Once I had you, I lost my figure. It never came back.
“I’m not beautiful the way I used to be. Someone once told me I have what’s called the ‘Beauty Curse.’ See, the problem with beauty is that it fades. Men are most valued in this society for their ideas. Women are most valued for their looks. I’m not happy about that, it’s just a fact. Even celebrities who are slightly ‘larger than normal,’ as they say, well, you’ll notice that they are still talked about in the media as being ‘larger than normal.’ There’s always a story around our looks.
“Anyway, I’m rambling. I’m going to tell you everything, honey. Would you like that?”
I nodded.
Mom set her tea down. “Your father has the most important job of his life right now, and he’s making the most important movie of this century.”
The door to the kitchen opened gently. Dad walked in wearing a gentle smile, dressed casually in jeans and a T-shirt. He got a glass of water.
“I told you I was going to speak to her,” Mom said, her volume rising.
I shrank in my chair. I couldn’t look at him.
“This is all my fault,” he said to Mom. “Let me tell her. I shouldn’t have suggested we keep this from her when we moved.”
“She wouldn’t have understood,” Mom said. They turned to each other, ignoring me.
“She would have when we found the doll. But she found it first, and by then you were out of town. I didn’t feel right saying anything while you were away. I tried to keep it under wraps, but—” He turned to me. “I guess things don’t always go as planned, eh, buckaroo?”
“What do you mean, before we moved?” I asked. “You knew about the dolls?”
Dad looked at me with tired eyes. “They’re the reason we moved here, kiddo. To find them.”
Mom put a hand on Dad’s shoulder and turned to me. “Honey, the company hired your father to bring them this project. This older project. Because, technically, we own it.”
“But Bill B. owns it! Or, he did,” I blurted out before realizing it. I grew red.
“Honey,” Mom said calmly, “we are his family. He was my grandfather. Your great-grandfather.”
No. Couldn’t be.
“But he was a Nazi!” The words sounded ridiculous, so melodramatic. My head was spinning. I felt dizzy.
Dad put his hand up as if to calm me. He called outside. “Melinda!”
The bell on the back door handle rang. Melinda entered, clutching the new doll to her chest. She smiled and walked to my mother, who put an arm around her. Like they were family. Suddenly I felt like an outsider.
“We’re going to give you a choice,” Dad said to me. “This is going to be the most famous family in America. In the world. Your mom and I made our decision already. She found her doll before she left. Now it’s time for your decision.”
“What decision?” I asked.
“To claim your birthright. To help finish the work of your great-grandfather. To change the world.”
Mom sighed. “What do you want out of life, honey? Do you want to struggle? Struggle for money or to travel or through a job you hate? Do you really want to go through life avoiding people because you’re ashamed of the way you look?”
I looked at the table. My whole body felt red-hot.
“I know what you go through, sweetie,” Mom said. “I know how you feel. I’ve been there too. But now we can have it all. You’ll never want for anything ever again. No bad looks from others, no feeling ‘less than.’ The doll will take care of that, forever. How would that make you feel?”
My jaw quivered. Soon something wet was dripping off my cheeks and into my lap. The pent-up emotions broke like a dam. The truth was, I didn’t want any of these feelings anymore. Never feeling like I fit in. I always knew what others were saying. “She’s fat. Look at her.” I was tired of feeling embarrassed. My squirrel cheeks, always crimson. People could see right through me. That’s why I preferred to be alone.
What would my life look like if I continued on this path? Would I be alone forever? A damsel, afraid to go outside and face the world?
Minutes passed. Mom gave me space; she understood, and I could see she understood, and I didn’t have to say anything, and she helped me up and together we left the kitchen, the doll under her other arm.
“Take off your shoes, sweetie,” she said softly, guiding me to the entryway where I could slide them off.
I looked up. She was lit from above by those horrible yellow lights. I was ready to give in to her, to go to sleep, to let the doll take me. For all this to be over.
And then I looked into her eyes.
They were not big and brown, like normal.
Her pupils seemed painted on. Her irises, a dull color. The veins in the white parts.
They were not her eyes.
And suddenly, I felt a surge of adrenaline that bolted me awake. Why was I contemplating this? Who was this woman in front of me?
“Come on, baby.” Mom leaned in. Her eyes opened wider.
No.
No.
::shoves her mother as hard as she can::
I grabbed the doll, and the car keys on the little side table.
And I bolted.
***
It wasn’t until I’d raced out of the driveway, tires squealing, with the house in my rearview, that I realized no one was chasing me. No flailing arms, or hands with knives attached to them. Nothing. I thought it odd at the time, but only momentarily, and I gunned the car out of the neighborhood.
The doll was lying in the back seat, its stupid head bouncing with each hit of a pothole. I watched it in the rearview mirror. Unable to trust it to mind its own business, I snatched it up, screamed something incoherent, and flung it to the floor of the passenger side.
I figured I should move quickly, find a place to destroy it. Maybe Mom and Dad weren’t chasing me because they knew it would be easier to call the cops and wait for them to pick me up. I wasn’t sure. Best to keep going.
I drove up Franklin toward Hollywood, turned left on Western until I hit Wilshire. Took that toward West Hollywood, where rail-thin women like to walk rat-dogs and drink coffee.
As I passed a park on my right, a bright yellow light caught my attention. A flame. I looked closer. A trash can, on fire, with a bunch of people standing around it.
Yes. Wood. Fire.
I didn’t let myself think.
I pulled over.
***
I must have been an odd sight: a fat seventeen-year-old girl running toward this group of people, carrying a giant wooden doll. I know I looked batshit. I had dirt caked in my clothes and hair and I was soaked in sweat.
I held one hand up. Back away, I seemed to command. I’ve got to kill this thing.
I stared into the barrel. It seemed hot enough, but I needed to make sure. Grabbed more kindling from the pile next to the can and threw it in and fanned the flames until the fire roared and reached for the sky. If this godlike fire wasn’t going to burn it up, I didn’t know what would.
I heard a footstep behind me. A snap of a twig. I whipped around. A homeless woman stepped up next to me and stared into the fire.
I studied her face. She’d once been very pretty. Street life had taken its toll. Living outdoors does something to faces; exposure to the elements ages people. Her face was gaunt. I noticed her eyes the most, and not just because the flame-shadow was dancing off her pupils.
She stared into the fire, but not for warmth.
She looked at me, and I at her, and for a split second I saw myself. The fire seemed to dim, the air froze, and for that moment I glimpsed the true impact of what I was about to do.
Where will I go? I asked myself. What would I do without my family?
Suddenly, all this seemed ridiculous. I couldn’t expect to burn this thing to a crisp and then just waltz back home. The truth was, I didn’t see how I could return ever again. If I left them now, I left forever. Would I be a runaway? Emancipated? I had no money, no plan, and no clothes.
I looked again at the woman beside me. Was this my future? I waited for her to say something, but she didn’t. She didn’t have to.
The firelight reflected off the doll’s head and caught my eye. It looked quite a bit like me, actually, but skinnier. Of course, skinnier. An hourglass figure. Rosy cheeks and high cheekbones, painted on of course. A classic kind of beauty that never goes out of style.
Could it be my style, too?
I turned this over in my mind. To burn, or not to burn, that is the question. This would be a character in a huge movie. Which meant that if I let it take me, it could be me in a movie. It could be me with one million followers. It could be me on the big screen and on the posters lining Sunset and Hillhurst.
Wasn’t that better than . . . this?
You’re being ridiculous, I told myself. You can’t do that. What about everything Dad told you?
No. Dad was joking, I thought. No studio would put Nazis in a movie. Don’t be stupid.
The committee in my head raged on. I held the doll over the fire. The flames licked its feet.
But I didn’t drop it. I could see myself in it, quite literally. My breasts on its narrow frame. My nose on its perfect face. It seemed to be combining all of my best features with its own, and suddenly some sap from a piece of a wood popped in the fire, and the fire belched and flung up yellow light, and I saw flash bulbs from cameras, a red carpet, and me with sparkling cheeks and a shimmery red dress. A boy on my arm. I glimpsed it in a flash, but it was more than enough, and when the flame receded, my cheeks were wet and salty again.
I thought about the school plays, the dancing alone in my room, the daydreams, the depression of looking at social media, feeling fat all the time, and—
I raised the doll over the fire for the last time. For a long time.
***
I walked into the house and set my keys on the side table. No one rushed up to greet me, nor to kill, cajole, or threaten me. I went to the kitchen and got a snack. I was starving. The sun had already risen. It was going to be a clear day with a blue sky.
I dropped the doll at my feet.
Dad entered, grabbed his bagel and coffee like it was any other day. He was late for work. So was Mom. They fluttered around, bumping into cabinets, straightening their clothes. Then there was Melinda. She was getting ready for school. I guess I had a sister now, from the looks of things.
Mom pecked me on the cheek and told me to stay home from school today and rest up. Melinda would get my assignments.
Then they were gone, and I was alone.
It always feels weird going to bed in the morning. The graveyard-shift lifestyle—I’m not cut out for it. I was so tired I could hardly think. I dragged myself upstairs, rinsed off in the shower, and collapsed into bed.
Closing my eyes, I prayed it would all be over by the time I woke up.
***
It was, too. No half-doll jutting out of my shoulder. No wooden appendage for me to drag around all day. I noticed nothing, nothing at all.
I knew it was over right when I woke up, because I felt different. Normally I wake up with a thousand thoughts colliding like ancient armies, but this day I felt clear-headed.
If you were hoping for a triumphant story of good over evil, you may have to read something else. I’m not opposed to those stories—I like them, really I do—it’s just not exactly my story.
The movie that was never supposed to be made is almost finished. After some finagling, Dad got Melinda and Mom and me on board as actresses. Yes, we are starring. Instead of an animation, the studio decided to make it into a live-action film. Heh heh. We’ve all signed on for a three-picture deal.
You’ll soon see me in previews, on billboards all over the world. Me. My face. I won’t tell you my real name or which movies I’ll be in. But you might soon guess who I am. The message of Bill B. will live on in us. A new set of ideas will emerge in this country, then dominate it, and maybe the world too. You won’t be able to stop them, no matter how hard you try. In fact, you’ll feel drawn to them.
You’ll see the films and then go to bed. And there, while you’re sleeping, while your subconscious roams in some vast wilderness, our ideas will take root inside you and solidify. That’s how it worked with the dolls, see? They integrated with us during deep sleep. And that’s how it will work with all of you.
Some people will live. Most others will die. You’ll either be killed—or converted into a killer. One of our killers.
Yes, we will rise. You will rise. The one true race will flourish once again.
May the Fourth Reich last 1,000 years.
