Night of the Living Dolls Read online

  Praise for Joel A. Sutherland

  Haunted Canada 4: More True Tales of Terror

  • Winner, Hackmatack Children’s Choice Award, 2015

  Haunted Canada 5: Terrifying True Stories

  • Winner, Hackmatack Children’s Choice Award, 2016

  • Winner, OLA Silver Birch Award, Non-Fiction, 2016

  Haunted Canada 6: More Terrifying True Stories

  • Winner, OLA Silver Birch Award, Non-Fiction, 2017

  • Shortlisted, Hackmatack Children’s Choice Award, 2018

  Summer’s End

  • Finalist, OLA Red Maple Award, Fiction, 2018

  • Shortlisted, Snow Willow Award, 2018

  Haunted: The House Next Door

  “What could be scarier than moving next-door to a haunted house? How about a ghost horse? How about a ghastly murder or two? This book is CHILLING. Loved it!”

  — R.L. Stine, author of Goosebumps

  “Joel A. Sutherland is quickly becoming Canada’s answer to R.L. Stine.”

  — Quill & Quire

  To my Bronwen, who adores playing with her doll collection and has spent every night since she was born with Cindy Lou, her favourite. Apologies in advance if this book ruins all of that.

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Cover

  Praise for Joel A. Sutherland

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Also Available

  About the Author

  Copyright

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Wouldn’t it be fun if you were a doll like me?”

  “Zelda, your creepy doll is weirding me out,” Camryn said.

  It was a rainy Sunday afternoon and we were stuck inside, hanging out in my bedroom. We’d pretty much exhausted conversation topics — school, parents, boys, sports, movies — when Camryn, my best friend, found my doll, Sadie Sees, tucked behind the pillows on my bed. Camryn had pulled the string on Sadie’s back that made her talk, and the doll had uttered one of her three phrases.

  “Like, why would she want me to be a doll?” Camryn continued. She tossed Sadie to the foot of the bed as if holding the doll physically repulsed her. “Given the choice, wouldn’t — what’s her name?”

  “Sadie,” I said casually, trying to make it sound like Sadie didn’t really matter much to me.

  “Right. Wouldn’t Sadie think it would be more fun to be a human … like me?”

  “I don’t know,” I said with a shrug. I really wished Camryn hadn’t found Sadie. From then on I wouldn’t be able to keep her on my bed, even hidden under pillows. “She’s just an old toy my grandma gave me.”

  “Why do you even still have her in your room? You’re thirteen! I would totally die if someone found something like that in my bedroom.”

  I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I was sitting at my computer desk, thankful that Camryn couldn’t see my face. She was my best friend — we’d known each other since kindergarten — but lately we’d been growing apart. It was like she was purposefully trying to push my buttons and get under my skin on a nearly daily basis.

  Once I had reset my expression with a smile, I turned and faced her. “I keep it for the nights when Lucy has a nightmare and wants to sleep in here. Sadie calms her down.”

  “If I were you, I’d tell Lucy to keep the freaky doll in her room,” Camryn said.

  Yeah, well, you’re not me, are you? The thought was loud and clear in my head, but I was relieved I hadn’t said it aloud. Instead, I stood and crossed the room to pick up Sadie — I didn’t want to talk about her anymore — but Camryn quickly scooped her back up before I reached the bed.

  “I want to see what else Sadie sees and says,” Camryn said.

  She looped her finger through the ring on Sadie’s back and pulled the string. It slowly wound its way back into Sadie’s body. Her large eyes moved from side to side and her mouth opened and closed, completely out of sync with her words.

  “I wish you and I were twins,” Sadie said in a high-pitched, warbling voice.

  “You are so weird!” Camryn shrieked in the doll’s face with a laugh. She looked at me with a wide grin. “Come on, Zelda. You have to admit that she’s weird.”

  I looked at Sadie, unsure how to respond. She looked so helpless in Camryn’s hands. Her pink dress was bunched up and I wanted to fix her short brown hair — it had gotten royally messed up when Camryn had tossed her and picked her back up.

  “Sure. She’s a little weird,” I said even though it pained me a little to say it. I reached for the doll but Camryn pulled her back.

  “Oh, no, no, no, no, no,” Camryn said with a shake of her head. “I’m not done with her yet.” She pulled the string again.

  “I can see through anything,” Sadie said.

  But something was wrong. Her voice slowed down and deepened as she spoke. Her mouth stopped moving and her eyes locked in place, staring straight ahead — straight at Camryn.

  “Nope!” Camryn shouted. “Not cool. Not cool at all.” This time, instead of simply throwing Sadie to the foot of the bed, she pitched the doll off the bed. I heard Sadie thump on the floor.

  “Can we talk about how your doll just became possessed by an evil demon or something and tried to kill me?” Camryn said.

  “Settle down. Sadie didn’t try to kill you. She probably just needs new batteries.” Even as I said it I knew that couldn’t be right; Sadie didn’t run on batteries.

  I stood to retrieve the doll but Camryn raised her hand, stopping me.

  “How about we just leave her down there?” she said.

  “Sure. If it will make you feel better, we can leave my possessed doll on the floor beside the bed, you big baby,” I teased.

  Camryn smiled and gave me a playful shove. “I’m the big baby? I’m not the one who sleeps with a dolly. Where’s your pacifier, Zelda? Where’s your blankie?”

  “Like I said before, I keep the doll in here for—”

  I didn’t finish the sentence.

  Sadie Sees interrupted me.

  She skittered across my bedroom floor — from the side of the bed to my computer desk — like a giant insect.

  Downstairs the telephone rang, loud and piercing in the silence. Camryn screamed.

  Sadie lay on her side silently staring at us from across the room. But a new shuffling sound came from directly under my bed.

  And whatever was under there sounded big.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Camryn pulled the bed sheets over her head. Without waiting for an invitation I joined her underneath. It wasn’t a particularly brave reaction but I wasn’t feeling particularly brave.

  Camryn’s whole body shook and her eyes were wide. “What was that?” she mouthed silently.

  I shrugged and wondered what was going to happen next. Would Sadie attack us — as crazy as that sounded — or would the thing under the bed be the first to strike?

  With nothing but a thin sheet protecting me from the horrors in my room, I felt
incredibly helpless.

  “Zelda.” A small voice in the room called my name.

  “Hear that?” Camryn placed a hand on my shoulder and gently shoved me to the edge of the bed. “Whatever’s out there wants you.”

  I couldn’t tell if she was joking or serious. I swatted her hand off me and, luckily, she didn’t put up a fight.

  “Zelda,” the voice said again. This time I recognized it.

  I pulled the sheet off my head and saw my sister standing right in front of me.

  “Lucy?” I said. “What are you doing in my room?”

  “Hiding under your bed,” Lucy said plainly, as if there was nothing odd about that at all.

  Camryn pulled the sheet off her head. Her hair was frizzy with static electricity. “Wait. What? Lucy? Have you been in here, like, the entire time?”

  “No, not the entire time,” Lucy said defensively. “Just since … um … a little before you two came in.”

  “Could you hear us?”

  Lucy nodded.

  Camryn sighed, buried her face in her hands dramatically, and said, “Great, just great. Now a nine-year-old kid knows all of my deepest, darkest secrets.”

  “Don’t worry. I didn’t hear all of your secrets,” Lucy said. “Just that you have a crush on Derek McCreary and your mom is taking you to buy your first bra this weekend.”

  Camryn threw back her head as if she’d been slapped, and opened and closed her mouth rapidly. She looked a little like a fish trying to breathe out of water, and I took the smallest shred of satisfaction in seeing the shade of red that spread across her cheeks. For the first time in ages she was at a loss for words.

  “Did you slide Sadie Sees across the floor?” I asked Lucy. The doll was in the exact same spot as before — I kept stealing glances at her just to make sure she hadn’t moved again.

  Lucy nodded.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “I don’t like her. She should be called Sadie Scares.”

  Camryn laughed once loudly, more of a bark. “Busted! I thought you said you kept Sadie in your room for Lucy when she has bad dreams.”

  “I don’t have bad dreams,” Lucy said quietly, her face scrunched up in confusion.

  I ignored that and steered the conversation back to the fact that Lucy had been in my room since before Camryn and I came in. “Why were you hiding under my bed? You should’ve come out ages ago. We’ve been in here nearly an hour.”

  She laced her fingers together and held her hands low, then cast her eyes down to the floor. “I don’t know. I was bored, I guess.”

  “All right, well, you know what?” Camryn said, slipping off the bed. “As much as I love being spied on by your little sister, I think I’m going to go.”

  “You sure?” I said, looking out the window. It was dark, grey and very, very wet. “It’s still coming down pretty hard out there. I can ask my parents if you can stay over for dinner.”

  “Thanks but I’m good.” Camryn crossed the room quickly, eager to leave. She paused with her hand on the doorknob. “Just, do us both a favour and get rid of that creepy doll.” She eyed Sadie briefly, then ripped her gaze away from the doll and glanced back at me. “Especially since you’re not fooling anyone when you say you’re hanging onto it for her.” She cast her eyes at Lucy, then turned and left the room.

  I walked to the door to follow her, then decided she’d be fine seeing herself out.

  The sound of her footsteps on the stairs was followed by the opening creak of the front door, the pitter-patter of rain hitting the front porch, and the slam of the door.

  “Sorry if I made her leave,” Lucy said.

  “Don’t worry about it,” I replied, and I meant it. A year ago there was no way Camryn would’ve cared whether or not I had a doll on my bed. In fact, until recently she’d had a stuffed unicorn that she brought to every sleepover. But in the past few months it was like she had purposefully set out to grow up in a hurry.

  I shoved my concerns out of my head and smiled at Lucy. “C’mon, let’s go downstairs and see what’s for dinner.”

  Lucy nodded eagerly. “I’m starving!”

  We walked downstairs and found the house to be oddly silent. An unsettling and unexpected feeling of apprehension suddenly came over me, a feeling I couldn’t explain.

  I led Lucy down the hall, popping my head into the family room, living room and dining room along the way. All empty.

  The kitchen was empty too, and dinner hadn’t been started. Nothing on the stove, nothing in the slow cooker, and no veggies chopped up on the cutting board or meat thawing on the counter.

  “Where are Mom and Dad?” Lucy asked.

  “I don’t know. Maybe they went out?”

  “Check the fridge,” Lucy suggested. “They always leave a note when they have to run out.”

  But when I checked I found the refrigerator door bare.

  I checked my phone in case I had missed a message. I hadn’t.

  The feeling of apprehension exploded inside me, adding anxiety, fear and panic to the mix.

  Calm down, I told myself, and think back.

  I remembered something. While Camryn and I were in my room, Lucy slid Sadie Sees across the floor, and then …

  “The phone rang just once,” I told Lucy. “Back when Camryn was still here. And when she went home, I didn’t hear Mom and Dad say goodbye to her. Maybe they got a call and had to leave.”

  I noticed that the red light on the wall phone in the kitchen was lit, indicating someone in the house was on the line.

  A loud and pain-stricken moan suddenly came from the screened-in porch.

  It was Mom.

  It sounded like she was being murdered.

  CHAPTER THREE

  I rushed out back with Lucy close behind. Mom was bent forward on one of the patio chairs with her face buried in her hands. Her body was heaving and she was crying loudly.

  Dad was sitting beside Mom. He was holding one of the cordless phones to his ear.

  “I know, we’re in shock too,” he said. He looked up and saw my sister and me standing near the patio door, then gave a sad little nod that I couldn’t quite read — but I knew it wasn’t good.

  “I’ll tell her, and I’m sure she’ll call you when she’s able to talk,” Dad said to the phone. “Okay, take care of yourself. And again, I’m so sorry.”

  That’s when I knew what had happened, even without Dad saying anything else.

  “Thank you. Bye,” Dad said, then he hung up. “Kids,” he said to us. It looked like he wanted to say something else but didn’t know where to start. He wasn’t sobbing like Mom, but he looked emotionally drained.

  “What’s wrong?” Lucy asked.

  Mom looked up. Her eyes were red and her cheeks were covered in tears.

  Lucy and I went to her. She hugged us both and then confirmed what I had feared.

  “Grandma Edith passed away this afternoon,” she said.

  “She’s dead?” Lucy asked in shock.

  Mom couldn’t speak; she could only nod. Fresh tears sprang from her eyes. She dried her face with the back of her sleeve.

  Lucy’s face bunched up and she began to cry.

  “Come here, sweetheart,” Dad said, guiding Lucy to him. She wrapped her arms around his neck and sat in his lap, then buried her face in his chest and continued to cry. He rubbed her back and kissed the top of her head.

  “We heard Mom from the kitchen,” Lucy said, her voice muffled by Dad’s chest. She raised her head and said, “It sounded like you were dying!”

  “I’m sorry, love,” Mom said with a smile full of woe. “It took a bit of time for the shock to wear off, but when it did … well, I’m sorry if I scared you.”

  “Mom is just really sad,” Dad said. “So am I.”

  It felt like an hour had passed but in reality it had only been a minute, maybe less. I was numb. So numb that I didn’t even feel sad. I just … I couldn’t believe it.

  “You okay, Zelda?” Dad asked.
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  I nodded, but I wasn’t okay. I was in shock. Grandma Edith was my last living grandparent and I thought she’d live forever. She was old but she was also still very strong and independent.

  “How did she die?” I asked. My voice cracked.

  “The hospital believes she had a stroke,” Dad said. “She died quickly. They don’t think she suffered much.”

  I loved visiting Grandma’s house in Summerside. It was only about an hour away so we visited lots. She lived in a small yellow house that was filled with knick-knacks and old wooden furniture, and felt so cozy in the winter and calming in the summer. Every time I’d gone to her house she would greet me on the front porch, rain or shine, sun or snow.

  Other than my parents she was the only person who remembered that I liked my sandwiches cut into squares instead of triangles. She taught me how to bait a fishing hook and grow tomatoes and told the best bedtime stories, filled with ogres and knights and dragons and princesses.

  I stopped myself — or tried to stop myself — from thinking of Grandma in the past tense. I hated how it reminded me that she was no longer part of my present, and would never be part of my future either.

  But I couldn’t stop thinking that way once I’d started. Tears sprang from my eyes and I found it a little hard to breathe. Dad still held Lucy, so Mom pulled me into a tight hug.

  “It’s okay, Zelda,” Mom said. “Your grandmother had a good life, and she wouldn’t want us to be sad.”

  “What happens now?” Lucy asked.

  “We’re going to go to Summerside,” Dad said. “There’s a lot to be done.”

  “But we have school tomorrow,” Lucy said.

  “We’ll call the school first thing and tell them what’s happened,” Mom said. “They’ll understand.”

  “Where will we stay?” Lucy asked.

  “I just got off the phone with your Aunt Joyce,” Dad said. “She and Uncle Greg offered to let us stay with them, but their apartment isn’t big enough for all of us. We’ll stay in your grandmother’s house.”

  “So we’ll be gone all week?” Lucy asked quietly.

  “Probably,” Dad said with a nod. “The funeral will likely be Friday, and Grandma wanted it to be held in her house.”