The Suffering (The Girl from the Well #2)
Rin Chupeco
This is for lovers of ghost stories everywhere—there is nothing behind you. I’m almost sure of it.
Chapter One
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I’m no hero, believe me. I’ve never rescued babies from burning buildings. I’ve never volunteered to save humpback whales or the rain forest. I’ve never been to protest rallies, fed the hungry in Africa, or righted any of the eighty thousand things that are wrong with the world these days. Heroism isn’t a trait commonly found in teenage boys.
Stupidity though? We’ve got that in spades.
Stupidity is why I’m huddled behind a large sofa bed, underneath a heavy blanket, drenched in my own sweat despite the AC humming in what is otherwise silence. The television is tuned to the least scary show I could find: a Jersey Shore rerun—horrifying in its own way, but not in the way that matters, which is the most important thing. I stare at the TV screen—and not because I’m eagerly awaiting Snooki’s next freak-out. I watch the screen because I want to know when it’s coming to find me.
Earlier this evening, I’d taken a raggedy-looking doll—its cotton stuffing already scooped out—and replaced it with uncooked rice and a few fingernail clippings. And I’d sewed it up with red thread. When you’ve done this as many times as I have, sewing becomes as good a weapon as any. Then I waited for three a.m. to roll around before filling the tub with water and dropping the doll in the bath.
“Dumbelina, you’re it.”
The name was not my idea, but it was what I had to work with. Using the same name that Sondheim and his girlfriend used in the ritual they started and never finished—that’s how it knows you’re singling it out. Just to ensure there were no misunderstandings, I said “You’re it” two more times.
The doll, like most dolls, said nothing. It gazed up at me from beneath the water, a drowned, ball-jointed Ophelia with synthetic brown hair and plastic eyes in a yellow broadcloth dress made in some sweatshop in China. The doll was common enough, the kind that could have been a knockoff of a knockoff.
The air changes. Then that invisible spider crawls up my spine, tickling the hairs behind my neck. I have come to know this spider these last couple of years. It whispers there’s something else in the room, breathing with you, watching you, grinning at you.
I hate that damn spider.
For one moment, the doll’s stringy brown hair glitters a shiny black under the fluorescent lights. For one moment, the doll’s glassy gaze takes on the faintest tinge of malicious self-awareness. For one moment, that thing’s head breaks through the water’s surface and looks at me.
I switch off the lights. I back out of the bathroom and close the door. I hide.
It sounds pretty idiotic, playing hide-and-seek with a doll. It’s not. It’s part of the rules I gotta play by.
The first rule is this: I have to finish the game. No matter what happens.
I’ve taken a mouthful of salt water at this point, and I begin counting in my head. One thousand and one, one thousand and two, one thousand and three, one thousand and four…
On the TV screen, an orange-skinned, heavily built Italian guy with gravity-defying hair is arguing with another orange-skinned, heavily built Italian guy with gravity-defying hair.
…one thousand and five, one thousand and six, one thousand and seven…
I briefly wonder where Ki is. She’s often been quick to turn up when I’ve done other harebrained rituals like this one. At the moment, she’s nowhere to be seen, which worries me. It’s not like she’s got something else to do.
I’m no hero, but I do have a superpower. Except my superpower tends to wander off when she’s bored.
…one thousand and eight, one thousand and nine…
The noise of the television fizzles out. Then the sound returns, but it’s warped, like an inexperienced DJ is spinning on a broken turntable and he has the song stuck on repeat. The voices drop several octaves until they’re rough and scratchy and incomprehensible. Jersey Shore switches to static.
Immediately, my gaze swings back toward the bathroom door, which is standing wide open.
I’m pretty sure I closed it.
Something is moving around the room. I’m hoping it’s Okiku, but I doubt it.
It sounds like something is dragging itself across the floor. Like it isn’t quite sure how to use its legs properly yet.
I risk another glance over the sofa bed.
Wet tracks lead away from the bathroom, water stains seeping into the carpet. The television screen is blank, though the disturbing noises continue.
And then I see the doll lying facedown in a puddle of water several feet from where I am.