Marybeth’s uncle didn’t think much of her family.
Marybeth’s mother, Annabelle, was a transplant from Georgia after having met her husband, David Wynter, while he was an officer in the Army prior to the outbreak of the War of Rebellion.
From what I was able to learn after the event, Annabelle’s brother was none too pleased that her sister had married a Massachusetts man, nor was he thrilled with the fact that she had moved to the North.
Marybeth was born as the guns tore through the summer of ‘63. When her uncle learned of her birth, he sent a letter begging that the child not be raised among the northern heathens. Annabelle refused.
In 1866, a package arrived from Macon, Georgia, sent by a lawyer in that city who represented the estate of Annabelle’s brother. He had died after the loss of the war, and he had left Annabelle a small amount of money, and he had sent along a black rag doll for Marybeth.
The child loved it, of course, and what child wouldn’t?
The doll was an unlooked-for gift, a surprise from an uncle she had never met, and never would. The toy was precious to her because of those things, and because it was a doll.
Unfortunately for Marybeth, it was much more than a doll.
What magic her uncle had been able to hide within its stuffed breast was as foul as any I have encountered, and that doll destroyed that small family.
Neighbors heard them screaming early in the morning, and the first men in stumbled out, their stomachs turning at the sights within.
When I entered the house, I nearly gagged. Most of the family was spread out across the walls and the floor. A pile of bones lay in the center of the dining table, and intestines were looped about the mantle like garland.
I splashed through puddles of blood until I came to stand in front of the pile of bones, upon which sat the doll. It looked at me with malevolence, and I knew it was the cause of this.
Without a word, I scooped the doll up and left the house with it. No one tried to stop me.
The doll is in my library as I write this, seated behind a bit of thin glass and watching me, waiting to see if I’ll forget how dangerous it is.
I won’t.
#horror #monsters #supernatural #death
