The nightmare

Susan could feel her muscles release and her bones relax. It had been yet another long hard day and she had been looking forward to collapsing on the bed. Just as she started to dose off, the door creaked open.  “Mommy? I’m scared”. Susan sighed deeply. She didn’t have the energy to argue about the existence of the boogieman with her 5 year old daughter tonight. “Come get in”.

When little Katie got in, Susan reached for her to pull her in, to keep her safe and warm. “What have you got there?” Susan couldn’t see in the dark, but could feel that Katie had some large hard object in her little arms. “It’s Tammy”. Tammy was Susan’s porcelain doll. It was her favourite thing in the whole wide world. Tammy used to sit on Katie’s nightstand for safekeeping, but after a nasty encounter with the vacuum cleaner, Tammy cracked her face and lost an eye, and now Katie wouldn’t let Tammy out of her sight. Susan had warned Katie that if she kept Tammy in the bed with her while she slept, she could roll over Tammy and crush her completely, but Katie had made up her mind.

As tired as Susan was just moments before, she suddenly couldn’t sleep. Lying awake with her eyes wide open, the room slowly started to make sense. It was as if a soft moonlight had started to settle in, wrapping every object in the room with its magic midnight cloak. Each item had a new identity, a new colour, and some even new shapes. The longer Susan stared at the furniture in the room, the more alien the items began to look. Susan turned to the other side, away from Katie, hoping that the new position would encourage sleep. Susan forced her eyes closed. Her mind was focusing awfully hard on trying not to focus on anything, when she felt movement on Katie’s side of the bed. It was a soft subtle movement. Susan stayed dead still, not wanting to wake the child if she were merely moving in her sleep.

But then Susan heard movement on the floor – the floor on Katie’s side of the bed. Reaching behind herself with her hand, she felt Katie’s warm little body behind her. Susan realised that she was focusing on every possible movement and night sound that she could; insomnia must be kicking in.

Susan had been lying dead still for quite some time. She had the sensation that her eyes were only closed because she was forcing them closed. As if, if she were to totally relax all the muscles in her face, her eyes would pop open again. As if to prove a point to herself, Susan opened her eyes.

She gasped with fright. Just inches from her face, was Tammy. Cracked faced, one eyed Tammy. The adrenaline pumped through Susan’s blood so fast that she instantly felt lame. Had she not already been in the bed she surly would have collapsed! Susan stared at the doll. She tried to rationalise how the doll could have gotten there. Looking the doll in the eye, she couldn’t help but notice how alive it looked in the moonlit room. Susan blinked, maybe she wasn’t seeing right. Maybe she was imagining that the doll was there. The room was still very dark; maybe there wasn’t anything there at all.

The doll was still there. Susan started to lift her arm out from under the covers, with the intention to reach for the doll, only, when she moved, so did the doll. Tammy started to lift her arm too. Susan froze. She wasn’t sure of what she just saw. Susan could feel her heart beating in her throat. She wasn’t sure if the darkness was playing tricks on her eyes. After a few long moments of nothing, Susan slowly started to pull her arm out from under the covers again. Tammy didn’t move. Susan slowly reached for the doll... Tammy moved so fast that Susan didn’t have time to react. Tammy grabbed Susan’s hand and bit into it. Susan let out a loud scream. Tammy vanished and Katie started to cry. 

Susan put the bedside light on. Katie was holding Tammy tightly, tears streaming from her little cheeks. “Why did you scream mommy?” Katie asked. “Mommy had a bad dream sweetie” Susan couldn’t take her eyes off Tammy, who was unexpectedly... doll like, in Katie’s arms.

“You scared me” Katie said in a sob. Susan wanted to hug her child, comfort her, but at the same time she didn’t want to get close to the doll. She found herself in a bazaar predicament. “I’m sorry sweetheart. Mommy won’t give you a fright again, okay?” Susan got up and walked around to Katie’s side of the bed. She leaned over to kiss Katie on the cheek, and then removed Tammy from her clutches. She ignored Katie’s protests and left the room with the doll. Down the hallway, Susan placed Tammy back on Katie’s nightstand. Susan started to wonder if she was going mad. Tammy was clearly nothing more than a doll. Maybe she had had a dream after all? One thing was for sure though; she wouldn’t be getting any sleep if with Tammy in her bed tonight. 

Susan put the light out in Katie’s room and started to close the door, when she noticed the blood on her hand. Just then Susan’s body went ice cold. She was standing in the doorway, the door half closed. She looked up and straight into the darkness and there in the middle of the room, Tammy stood, staring straight back at her.

Tammy spoke in a deep growling voice; “What’s wrong mommy?”

“Shut the fuck up!” When the doll called her mommy, it angered her. How dare this devil call her mommy?

“Why are you shouting, mommy?” It was as if Tammy’s voice was dropping deeper in pitch.

Tammy started to walk toward the door. Her movements were boxy and unnatural looking. Susan had lost her ability to move. She knew that if she tried, she’d collapse with fear. But that didn’t stop her from shouting at the doll, the demon spawn from hell. When Tammy finally reached the door, she stuck her arms out. “Hold me mommy”. Susan was trying to fight the paralysation with all her might, when she finally launched forward at Tammy and grabbed the doll around the neck. “Please mommy, no, you’re hurting me. You’re hurting me mommy”. Every time the doll called Susan mommy, she tightened her grasp around the doll’s neck, hoping to choke the vocal chords that she knew the doll couldn’t possibly possess. 

Tammy fell silent. Susan closed her eyes, tears streaming down her cheeks as she thanked God that it was over. She started to regain the feeling in her legs. Warmth returned to her body. She was still holding Tammy. Her eyes closed and senses regained, she started to realise how soft Tammy felt in her hands – so opposite from the icy cold, hard porcelain form that she fought so hard to silence just moments before. Tammy, now fearing the worst, tried to find the strength, the courage, to open her eyes.

She looked down at the soft lifeless form in her lap, her hands still wrapped around her neck... It wasn’t Tammy. It was Katie. Susan wasn’t in Katie’s room down the hall. She was in her own bed. Susan started to scream hysterically. It had been nothing more than a night terror... A night terror that now became the worst waking nightmare any mother could ever imagine.