Chapter One

Lincoln held the cigarette in his hand and twirled it around in between his fingers. Cigarettes are poison, he could hear his mother yelling in the back of his head. They sure were but so had been living under her roof. He brought the cigarette back to his lips and took a puff. And yet, for the last ten or so years, he had given up the habit.

Until today.

She had that effect on him. Like a limb that was lopped off, yet you still reach over to scratch it ever now and again anyways. No matter how much distance he created between them, no matter how much older he grew, or how much he believed he had gotten over it, she would always have that effect on him, it seemed.

Maybe it was a shared chemical reaction between a mother and their child. After all, he spent nine months in her womb, was it so farfetched two individuals could have such a shared connection? That they would have a togetherness that never ceased in spite the most deliberated intent? Lincoln recalled a sermon a priest once gave when he was small. That the Atheist can never get the word of God out of their head. That’s why they’re such snarky schmucks about it (his words, not Lincoln’s), and it was all because God wanted to be heard. It was this idea that God interfered with their thoughts to bring them back on the righteous path. Maybe that’s why after all these years, Lincoln couldn’t get his mother’s words out of his head. Did I just compare my mother to God?

Lincoln knew himself to be reluctantly complicated. No one wanted to be complicated. No one wanted to have anger issues or issues with abandonment, or depression or sadness, or any of the other mental ailments filling our lousy, sad sack planet. Unfortunately, he was complicated. He was complicated because she was more complicated. Complicated-er?

As he finished his cigarette, he rolled up his car window and set it in park. His foot having prior been hovering over the brake pedal in case he had a change of heart and wanted a quick getaway.

He took in a breath and let it leave him. His lungs handled it better than he thought they would. He was grateful he stopped smoking when he did and had every intent of stopping the second he had Hardan in the rear view. The air was cool, as it almost always was. In general, the state of Hardan always carried it a gloom and melancholy that aptly complimented the evening’s affairs.

His sister’s car was in the driveway, parallel to his. A blue one. Four-wheels. Simple car. Lincoln couldn’t place the type off-hand. It was a car’s car, with no frills or extravagance. Kind of like his. His was red though.

He sighed.

He was stalling and he knew it. He cared about his mother. Loved her, even. She may have been complicated, but he never doubted the feeling was mutual. She had gone great lengths to care for him, clothe him, and provide him with everything she could. It was not fair his mind only chose to remember the things she couldn’t. She may have been a complicated woman, but she was his mother. She was his mother.

The thought only now occurred to him. Even in death, she drove him to smoke. He let out a mirthless, dry chuckle, in spite nothing being particularly funny. Who knows why he laughed.

He was complicated.

2.

His sister was, perhaps, the only person he considered family. She was neither a ray of sunshine nor a beacon of hope, per se, but he loved her dearly. Their shared experiences offered them a bond unique from anyone else Lincoln had ever known.

“This will be a lot,” Alyce said, stating the obvious for the both of them.

She was right though. It would be a lot, and it would have felt amiss had no one said it.

“Mom became a hoarder in her old age,” Lincoln jested, looking around the two bedroom apartment with mansion-like ambitions. The apartment resembled the household equivalent of what happened when you tried to shove a big rig inside a one-car garage.

Suffice to say, she had a lot of stuff. In her defense, a lot of what he saw, he recognized. So, maybe she was always a hoarder. He recognized the wooden rocking horse in one corner of the room – chipped paint, one of the horses’ eyes had since gone onto greener pastures. Beside that, he recognized the lamp and the small wooden stand it rested on. The old, dark-green couch was still there – and still, vaguely smelled like dog in spite his mother not having had a dog for years. The knickknacks and old collector cups shoved inside a glass cabinet were all familiar – old and dusty, but familiar.

“I never understood her desire to collect these things,” Alyce said, holding a small baby angel figurine in her hand.

It was the classic type of angel. The ones’ with wings and bow and arrows, hovering over a cloud that strategically blocked its crotch. She had a lot of them. Like with anything she liked, she went overboard with it. Collecting one-or-two thousand more than what any healthy person would.

“I never understood anything about mom,” Lincoln said honestly, tracing his finger over one of the small statues and rubbing the collected dust together between his index finger and thumb.

Alyce scoffed, as if to say that was the understatement of the year, “All it took was her death to make you start calling her mom again, instead of ‘Miranda’.”

Lincoln smiled, “Well, ‘Miranda’ could sometimes be a difficult person to be around.” His reply had the same snarky cadence to it.

She shook her head, not in a way that seemed in disagreement of Lincoln’s account, but in a way that felt more complicated (there was that word again). It was the head shake of somebody defeated, perhaps? The type of exasperated head movement that said volumes and did it silently, a ‘what the fuck are we doing’ type of head shake.

“She loved us though,” Alyce defended. “”She loved you. She may not have been perfect, but no one is. There is not a book or instructor on how to live life the right way.”

“No,” Lincoln countered. “There are self-help books that you can read and therapists that would have been more than willing to have lent a helping hand to her.”

Alyce said nothing, but like the head shake that came before it, the gesture meant more than that. Lincoln relented, now wasn’t the time for his hangups and quips.

Lincoln forced a smile and a small laugh, trying his best to change the mood in the room, “Oh, I can’t believe she hung onto these things after all these years!”

He ran toward the kitchen were, sitting on the shelves above the cabinets were … them – a therapist’s wet dream: her antique porcelain doll collection. Why did she have them? Lincoln had no idea. Why did she collect little angel figurines? She wasn’t even religious! Nevertheless, she had them, and they were suitably creepy as hell.

Alyce laughed. Her laugh was real though. “I remember you used to always cry about how they would come and get you.”

“I didn’t cry!” Lincoln replied defensively.

“Oh, you cried. You cried hard. ‘Mommy, Daddy, Myra the Doll is going to get me’!” Alyce recalled, doing her best impression of a young, scared shit-less Lincoln.

Myra was, as suggested, a doll. She donned a light-pink dress with flowers on the cuffs, curly brownish-red hair, and blushed rosy-red cheeks. In spite Alyce’s attempt at faux bravery, he and her both knew Myra was the definition of nightmare fuel.

Lincoln chuckled, “Did they actually think these dolls were fashionable back then? I can’t believe that. It’s like saying children ever at all liked clowns. They have the same painted on faces and cold, dead eyes.”

Alyce shook her head in disagreement, “I can’t believe you,” She said, but, in truth, Lincoln could tell she was stalling to think of something to say in their defense.

She walked over to Myra and held her up in her hands, “Look at her cute little sundress! How can you not love her!?”

“You know, I heard when Mom found this doll, it was discounted because a voodoo practicing serial killer bled on it and they were so afraid his soul would inhabit it and go on a murder spree.”

“Ha ha,” Alyce replied dryly.

The cluttered feel of the apartment wasn’t all his mother’s fault.

After their father died of cancer in their youth, what little cheese that was left on their mother slipped off that cracker once and for all. Between her two jobs, Lincoln could not blame her if she was counting down the days until Lincoln and his sister went out on their own and she could downsize. What that left her with, however, were all of their father’s keepsakes and whatever else she hoarded, brought over from a spacious three-bedroom house and wedged into a cozy one-bedroom apartment.

3.

The day’s tasks were straightforward enough. Chances were their mother’s landlord would have been more than happy to sell off all of their mother’s possessions, but Alyce refused to allow him that luxury.

Instead, that meant she, and by extension, Lincoln, were left to sort through it all and find what could be salvaged, what could be donated, and what would be best suited for the incinerator.

Snooping and rifling through his mother’s old things was not as juicy or as cathartic as Lincoln may have hoped, however. He did not find any scandalous photographs of old lovers crinkled up and wedged in some old Bible, nor did he find his mother’s secret cocaine stash stuffed in-between the couch cushions.

The findings were exactly what was to be expected from a typical old woman in her final years. There were about a million-and-one different crochet needles, plentiful amounts of unfinished scarves and sweaters, and scratched off lottery tickets and old bingo cards.

“I can feel the light begin to go out. I can’t tell what is wrong, like a scratch on the inside of the skin, but I can feel it. I woke up in the bedroom today and was greeted by my husband. The back of his hand was warm against the side of my cheek. The glisten in his eyes and the way his nose crinkled when he smiled, I could remember it all so distinctively. And yet, I know that George has not been with me for more than twenty years. Is it dementia or something more spiritual than that? As though the line between heaven and myself thins and thins like my hairline, til there is nothing left except for a bald head. The bald head and a so-called underworld. I feel so alone, so defeated and so broken, and the worst part is, as the light darkens, I find myself more and more unable to comprehend the extent of how lost I am.” Alyce held the diary in her hand, a black leather notebook with a tan cardboard-looking string once tying it shut.

Lincoln was not entirely certain why Alyce made the decision to read that excerpt from their mother’s little memoir of madness, maybe she mistook it for a funny anecdotal snippet and by the time she realized the truth, she had committed too much of herself. Whichever reason, Lincoln offered a reserved, mirthless stare in-response, for lack of a more eloquent rebuttal.

“I feel so alone,” Alyce read aloud again.

It was a sad few words, for certain. Worse still was their unsolicited call to exist. Their mother was a crafty, vindictive woman in years past, and knew exactly which way to turn the knife to make a person squeal out. She knew how to guilt trip a person, or make a person feel small. Years ago, Lincoln would not have put it past her to leave behind ways to torment them even in death, like sad, meandering monologues in an old journal. This was not years ago, however, and judging by the state she lived, Lincoln simply didn’t believe she had the same commitment to her bits.

Alyce’s eyes watered, but she turned her back to him before her tears had the chance to spill down her cheeks. She threw the diary in one of the boxes. The box jokingly (but, accurately) had the word ‘Incinerator’ written on it in black marker. Lincoln said nothing at first, looking for inspiration on how to mitigate the situation. Maybe this wasn’t a situation you did mitigate. Maybe if there was a time to cry and feel bad, it was cleaning out your dead mother’s messy apartment. That reaction seemed healthy, for certain. Then again, Alyce was a McCormick.

Alyce McCormick.

Her last name may have changed with marriage, but, deep down, she was still a McCormick. And you know what, McCormick’s didn’t have healthy reactions. McCormick’s dealt with trauma by rediscovering old smoking habits and wallowing in their bitterness, and, … and …

“We need booze!” Alyce declared, finishing the thought for him.

Exactly.

4.

The alcohol numbed their discomfort. That’s all it was, really, was discomfort. Both Alyce and Lincoln were old and grown. Once upon a time, both their stories revolved around their mother, but that chapter had ended long ago, long before their mother’s death. She was no longer the matriarchal center of their lies, withering down into a sadder, calmer shell of her former self. It was sad to see what she’d become. It was sad to think of what she dealt with, but Lincoln didn’t mourn her in that way.

If you look in the sky and see stars, know that they are dead lights diffusing, afterimages that only vaguely resemble what once was.

Maybe that was a stupid thing to think. Maybe it wasn’t deep at all and was only pretentious, but, by now, Lincoln had had a few and was feeling profound.

By nightfall, they had assorted things accordingly. Trash bags filled with old, stuffy smelling clothes that would be thrown into the drop-box of a nearby charity. Alyce seemed absolutely convinced she would be able to fetch a pretty penny with some things, said she would split it halfway with Lincoln. Lincoln didn’t care about any of that though and said she could keep all of it. He only wanted to wash his hands of the whole mess, really.

After all, since the turn of the millennium, any photograph worth having was online. The rest of them, well, Lincoln felt happy to forget.

Like that, morning came. As did a slight hangover. They hugged (he and Alyce, Lincoln showed no affection for his hangover). They told each other they loved them. Then, Lincoln opened his driver’s side door, filled to the brim with the baggage left by his mother.

Lincoln smiled.

The baggage left by his mother. Always. Then, he no longer smiled.

“What the fuck, Alyce!?” Lincoln shouted; startled by his discovery.

Alyce flashed a satisfied but tired grin.

“Why?” Lincoln asked, the initial shock now having had a chance to leave him.

“Because you will regret it later if you don’t.”

“Why would I ever possibly regret it? It is fucking awful!”

“I know you and mom had your issues. I also know that her death didn’t make you forget about all of them. Still, I know that you did love her, and, in fact, you loved her a lot. You’ve, maybe, put up a wall, and have your hangups, but when that wall comes down, you will want something to remember her by. That is why you need the photo albums and that is why you need this,” Alyce explained.

Lincoln held Alyce’s stare for a moment, and then, looked over at the porcelain doll fastened in the seat belt of his car’s car of a car, and then, back at her: “But I hate it.”

Maybe that was the point.

Chapter Two

Lincoln took the key out of the ignition and stepped out from his vehicle. He was welcomed by the pitter-patter of rain overhead. The forecast had called for sunny skies and swimming weather, but what did the weatherman know anyways?

He ran down the driveway to his porch, propping up his old blazer as a makeshift umbrella. He made it to his front porch and reached in his back pocket for his keys.

Strange.

They weren’t there.

Very strange.

Lincoln recollected his thoughts, of taking the key out from the ignition. He did do that. He knew that much.

He knew.

Where else would it have gone if not his pocket?

The rain had no relent. He turned his back and made the walk of shame back to his vehicle, nose to the gravel, expecting to see his keys had fallen out of his pocket somewhere.

They hadn’t.

He opened his car door, relieved he hadn’t locked himself out. There they were, plain as day. The keys rested comfortably by Myra’s booties. Lincoln squinted, tilting his head to the side like an old slasher villain. What a bastard, Lincoln thought to himself.

* * *

Lincoln tugged at the string, bringing down the small staircase leading to his attic. It was an aptly decrepit, depraved home for a decrepit, depraved doll. He propped it up against the window and situated it, sitting it snugly where it would collect dust forever after.

Part of him had considered throwing poor Myra out in the cold and dropping it down in the trashcan for Tony the Homeless Man to discover and try to sell for crystal meth (not every homeless man did meth, but Tony the Homeless Man most certainly did).

Unfortunately, he knew Alyce would never go for that. They had remained in touch in their adult lives. They ‘poked’ each other online and sent each other funny pictures on occasion, but they weren’t very close. If she came by and found out he had thrown out one of the last of their deceased mother’s possessions, that would be the end of it.

Before he shutoff the light and went back down the steps, he took a double-take at the doll. The way the light from the window hit its pale, porcelain skin gave it a livelier quality.

His eyes wandered to the cracked photo frame beside it, showing he and his ex-wife at the beach. He remembered the day well. Lincoln held a somber, thoughtful stare, then, turned from it. Maybe he and his mother had more in common than he thought.

2.

The next few days went about how they always did. In spite the insistence by his employers, he opted against taking some days to recover from his mother’s death. As prefaced, he did not feel there was much to recover from, and besides, even if there had been, it wasn’t as though staying cooped up in his house stewing it over would do him any good.

His job was fairly mundane and humdrum by most person’s standards – he was an account for a small printing company. What they sold; he had a vague idea (that they sold prints of some kind) but had never paid enough attention to graduate to actual certainty. He enjoyed the task. Whereas others would have sighed and even pitied him, he found it soothing and therapeutic. In a world without definite answers or explanations, he appreciated the matter-of-fact nature of paperwork. If he did his job right, everything always had a definite answer and an explanation.

This night – a Friday night, it so happened, was also casual and uneventful. He opened his refrigerator and grabbed the gallon of milk, taking a thoughtful swig while he perused his pantry for something to snack on. Bleck!

The milk tasted like absolute piss water. He even gagged, momentarily taken by its disgusting taste. The expiration date said it should have had a week before spoilage, but, evidently, that was a load of crock. What exactly was a load of crock?

Lincoln imagined a bunch of human-like crocodiles wedged inside of a minivan, driving down the interstate.

“See ya later, alligator,” He said for some reason he couldn’t explain.

It wasn’t clever. It didn’t even make any sense. And yet, he had said it.

Lincoln sat in his computer chair and listened to music while he perused the internet. He browsed out of boredom’s sake, really. Websites were filled to the brim with click bait ‘journalism’ these days like: “You won’t believe what Molly Louise wore during one of her shows (and what she didn’t)!”, “Top 10 Craziest Things Done by Internet Celebs To Go Viral!”, and other nonsensical posts like that.

He soon heard a large rustling noise overhead. It sounded like small, scampering feet. Mice, most likely. Little critters needed shelter too, for certain. That in mind, he did not much care for welcoming his house to strangers.

* * *

The next day, Lincoln was treated to dinner with his sister Alyce, a rare occurrence that he tried to enjoy. She appeared to be more beat up than he was by their mother’s death. She appeared tired and wore down. He pitied her, but couldn’t say he related.

“How is your little friend?” Alyce asked, twirling her fork around the spaghetti noodles, creating a hard clunking noise as its prongs hit the dinner plate.

“Oh, I love it!” Lincoln exclaimed. “Honestly, after my divorce, I didn’t think I could love again, but, …,” he stopped for a moment, blinking his eyes repeatedly for effect, “I think Myra the Doll has healed me.”

Alyce laughed, nearly choking on her noodles, “Say what you will, Mom loved that doll. When you close your eyes and think back to your childhood, I don’t think you can deny Myra the Doll, creepy or not, has a sentimental spot somewhere deep down.”

Lincoln smiled weakly, “When I close my eyes and think of my childhood, I think a lot of things, most of these things I wouldn’t like to bring into my home – especially not Myra the Doll.”

“Do you really hate the doll that much?”

Lincoln held his tongue at first, deciding it not a battle worth competing in. “It’s fine,” He said, and, really, it was. It wasn’t like the doll would inconvenience him any, collecting dust up in his attic. If it meant so much to Alyce that he had it, he wouldn’t put up a fuss about it.

* * *

That afternoon, Lincoln returned home.

He smiled at the small boy that kicked around his soccer ball and waved at him. The child appeared nice by all accounts, but Lincoln had heard enough to no different – he was a wild, hyper child, often running to his heart’s content, at the expense of his desperate mother chasing him some fifty feet behind. It made Lincoln grateful he and his ex-wife Lorraine never procreated.

He returned to his attic, lining it with mouse catchers. They were peculiar contraptions, like metal cheese graters. Lincoln had never seen one prior, but when the store associate went on and on about the inhumanity of mouse traps, he bought them so she would leave him alone.

Before he left, he stopped and looked around the attic. Something felt different, yet he wasn’t able to place what it was. His eyes went over to the porcelain doll at the other end of the attic and felt a chill travel up the back of his neck. “You are absolutely terrifying,” He remarked.

Chapter Three

Nathan remained still, his body perched unnaturally in the corner, partially concealed by an assortment of old boxes.

It wasn’t the ideal arrangement, and had the man thought to look, even the smallest second, in his direction, it would have all been finished before it started. That would have been a disappointing outcome.

On the bright side, the man wasn’t of the burly persuasion, which meant there was a likelihood the shock would have likely offered enough an opportunity for Nate to slip out and get out of dodge before the authorities came around. Still though, it would have been a disaster, a real disaster.

He held his breath.

How could he have known the bastard would step into his attic the very first day of the experiment?

The man’s name was Lincoln McCormick. He was a simple man with simple hobbies and a simple lifestyle, an every man, and the perfect candidate.

Larger than life personalities attacked the authenticity of the experiment, and once a handful of people attacked your credibility, it became very difficult to bounce back.

Lincoln stood, adjusting what might have been the creepiest doll Nate had ever seen. It was like something straight out of a horror film, and not a high-production horror film either. It was the type of creepy that the director of a horror film would look at and wonder if it was too disturbing to have ever been in someone’s home for real. After propping it up against the window (the very same window Nate had used to let himself in), Lincoln turned his back from the doll and made his way out.

Nate remained entirely still, more afraid than he’d ever felt. The second he saw the staircase ascend, he let the breath escape him; relieved.

2.

Nathan was apprehensive to move around, but knew he had no other option. He would have to be careful. There was a system, and he was well versed.

The only pity he had was that he had not set up a camera to capture the moment. It would have been a moment truly worthy of the highlight reel, but that was something he would have to accept. Maybe he would be able to spin it someway in his favor, further instill the sense of realism.

He moved some of the boxes around the room. The first order of business would be creating an easily accessible hiding location. Someplace that could be entirely obscured and yet, inconspicuous. Something Lincoln wouldn’t notice straightaway or think anything of. That was easy enough. Nate could only hope the man wouldn’t come up again and start rifling through boxes, feeling sentimental. That would have to be a calculated risk.

The attic was small. Aside from the center of the room, Nathan mostly had to navigate with his head arched to the side or be outright crouching down.

Thankfully though, it had a lot in it – a lot of opportunities.

The basic storage – an assortment of nondescript boxes, dusty holiday decorations, a mishmash of old VHS tapes that would never be used again, along with a fat-backed television. There was even an old grandfather clock with a cracked face. In time, Nathan imagined he would end up sifting through at least a few of the boxes, if only to keep himself entertained during certain lulls in his day.

The process was tedious, largely because of how discreet Nate had to be with all of his movement, but not without accomplishment. Soon, Nathan had successfully positioned everything to form a neat, tidy fort around his luggage.

Nathan walked toward the front of the attic, imagining himself as Lincoln, seeing it with Lincoln’s eyes. He nodded his head, feeling assured in himself. Unless Lincoln knew what to look for, Nate felt for certain he had nothing to worry about.

He traveled light. Anything more than the bare essential would be too much of an inherent risk. Not to mention, if he was discovered and needed a quick getaway, whatever he left behind would not only be lost for good, but would be evidence for law enforcement.

Nay, he went with only the basic necessities.

His luggage consisted of a steady camera, laptop and cellphone (and chargers for both – words couldn’t describe how relieved he felt when he saw that Lincoln had a working outlet in his attic), a small cot to sleep on, and that was it.

The impression Nate had of Lincoln based on the research he’d conducted told him he wasn’t much of an outgoing person. Thankfully though, life made hermits hops from off their bachelor pads, and that meant when he went out, so could Nate, so long as he had a general idea of how long he would be gone and when he would return.

Nate cracked his knuckles and opened his laptop – this was what had preoccupied most of his time since Lincoln was away. The little cameras were pricey, but an investment. He assorted them throughout the house, making certain they threaded the needle of being difficult to detect yet capable of documenting footage at a proper angle – not always an easy feat.

In a few clicks, Nate’s laptop could now survey every room in the house (except the bathroom, no reason anyone needed to see that). It wasn’t long until he found his man – Lincoln sat in his computer chair, browsing the internet without seeming to have a clear objective for its usage. He hadn’t done anything embarrassing, which Nate was alright with. Unfortunately, he wasn’t doing anything interesting either. It was a dull affair, and it went on far longer than Nate had expected.

Nate sighed. He had expected as much though. Most of the footage archived would be uninteresting and useless in the end, but it would be up to him to sift through it all and find the diamonds in the rough.

3.

When Lincoln left, Nathan took it upon himself to learn more about the man. A man’s living quarters offered far more intimate details about them than social media could ever relay. Alternatively, social media did offer a lot of intimate details about a person when you had the luxury of having access to that person’s private account.

Evidently, Lincoln’s recent departure had to do with his mother’s death – a mother with whom he carried a lot of baggage about. He and his sister Alyce had emptied out her former apartment and had brought themselves souvenirs from the occasion. This explained the disturbing doll Lincoln had recently made Nathan’s roommate.

He and his ex-wife Evelyn remained civil – she reached out to him after his mother’s death, sharing her condolences. Lincoln remained nonchalant, acting unbothered by the event. As far as Nathan could tell from his documenting, that seemed to be the truth.

As an act of kindness, Nathan took it upon himself to write a message for Lincoln ‘from the beyond’, a simple, straightforward, “I love you, Link, always – Mother,” saved on his desktop as a simple text document, titled “Mom”.

The second act, pouring ranch dressing into his carton of milk, was a more selfish, and ultimately, stupid gesture altogether. It wasn’t exactly subtle, but it was a casual prank that would offer a clip for the montage.

Some naysayers would argue its significance to the experiment. They would not be wrong with their criticisms, but they would be silenced. Any actual good act of merit was made available as an award for a bad act. When a content creator raised half a million for a charity, that was only made possible by the following he built making clickbait articles or drama-laden spectacle.

It was the spoonful of sugar that made the medicine go down, so to speak.

4.

Everything went about as Nate had surmised it would. Lincoln gawked and was theatrical over the carton of milk, and that would make for a laugh when the eventual video was uploaded.

‘Phrogging’ was the term that described Nate’s occupation. The term derived itself from the way ‘phrogs’ would hop from one house to the next, like a lily pad. Most the time, participants did it as a means of shelter, like a parasite sucking blood out from its host. Nate took pride that he was an innovator in the field.

He smiled at the camera, “Good ‘morrow, dark web! As you can see, our social experiment is well underway, and everything is happening as it should. This character we have, he’s, uh, very special type, isn’t he? Let me know in the comment section what you think we should do next!”

Nate stopped for a moment. He was caught off-guard by the sound of a vehicle pulling up into the driveway. He wasn’t meant to be here. Not yet. This was different. No matter. Nate had anticipated sporadic changes.

“Looks like Lincoln is changing things up on us!”

* * *

“You are absolutely terrifying,” Lincoln said, looking at the doll with big, scared eyes.

If only he knew that Nate was looking at him with the very same big, scared eyes. This was unexpected. As Lincoln left, Nate let a breath escape him and smiled a hysteric grin.

That was fucking close, he thought.

He may have anticipated sporadic changes to Lincoln’s schedule, but he had by no means anticipated him coming up stairs to visit him. That was a little too close for comfort. “Sloppy,” Nate mumbled to himself. Whatever he did, whatever sound he had made up here, it was enough to catch Lincoln’s attention.

5.

As much as Nate had felt the adrenaline course through his veins when Lincoln came upstairs, either time, the rest of his stay felt uneventful.

In truth, the experiment wasn’t for him. The experiment was for the customer.

The dark web browser, aptly named The Shock, was a relatively new phenomenon in Maharris. Encryptions and virtual private networks, that sort of stuff, Nate wasn’t too interested in the technical side of it. What it basically came down to was this – no one could find you or track your location. This opened the door for a lot of fun. There were chatrooms and message boards, and special websites where onlookers would pay top-dollar for whatever fucked up thing they could make some blurred out face onscreen (Nate had to retain his anonymity, after all) do.

Nate brushed the back of his neck with his hand. Lincoln must have believed his attic was infested with mice by the amount of mouse catchers he had strewn about. Nate could only imagine the world of hurt he’d be in if Lincoln had decided to peruse his attic a little further and discover the truth.

You are absolutely terrifying, Nate recalled, then, looked back at the doll at the other side of the room. In his defense, it was terrifying.

Nate smiled.

Chapter Four

Lincoln awoke from his bed, somehow, someway, feeling less rested than before he slept. He had certainly had better nights than the ones of late. He sprung out of bed and arose to his feet, met by the glum, melancholic sky, sure to rain. If there was a God, maybe he liked making the occasionally metaphor or allegory. Was this his way of visually representing Lincoln’s depression.

Was Lincoln depressed? He didn’t believe so. He arose to his feet and walked by the largening pile of dishes in his sink. He had absolutely no interest in doing them – so, maybe, he was. Whatever, the only proactive steps he could make at the moment were to go to work. Maybe he’d call Alyce, see if she was interested in coming over to watch a movie or something like that. That’d be good. He could foster the few relationships he’d had left.

He sighed, but that’s also mean he would have to clean up his house. Maybe he could throw up a tarp in front of his kitchen and tell her that specific part of the house was being fumigated.

He sat at his computer chair and browsed the web, looking for nothing in-particular but a way to run out the clock until he went in for his day. That was what he did lately. He didn’t live in his house at the moment, per se. Instead, he went room to room and haunted his house, looming over bookshelves and the refrigerator like a ghost.

A document stared back at him, titled: “Mom”.

What the fuck, he thought to himself.

Suddenly, he flinched. Badly.

Myra the Doll stared back at him from his couch. He stood to his feet and approached Myra, apprehensive like he thought it might arise to its feet and chase after him, brandishing a knife like some type of cheesy slasher flick. How had it gotten there? There was a deep hot, unrelenting heat in his chest – pounding against him, wanting to break free. How had it gotten there!?

The first thing he did was check all of the locks in his house – all the hatches had been battened down, as it were. There was no sign of a break in. Nothing was taken. How would anyone even know about the doll’s whereabouts, let alone its significance?

They couldn’t have.

This was bad. Lincoln stared at the doll intently. He couldn’t have thought of a time he’d hated his mother more than in this moment. Even in death, she found a way to fuck with his head. He swatted her off the couch’s armrest and watched at her porcelain head shattered like a spill plate. She didn’t go down without a fight, bringing down a collection of old trash from off his coffee table as she went. Although the act didn’t offer him an explanation, it brought him some small comfort. He hated having the doll in his house and now, he wouldn’t have to carry the burden.

Before he left, he discarded the doll and cleaned up the small mess he had made worse – a large bottle of vodka that had seen its contents long-since indulged, and a small plastic container of antidepressants. They themselves could have been the culprit, he realized. The warning label of the meds highlighted the risk of popping them while drunk off your rocker, but Lincoln hadn’t listened. He couldn’t remember heading into his attic and bringing the doll downstairs, but that didn’t too much. He couldn’t remember a lot about that the last couple nights and it was more than a little plausible that he had brought the doll downstairs all emotional and forgotten about it. It wasn’t an assertion he was proud of, but it could have happened. If nothing else, it was the only thing he had that made any sense.

2.

Lincoln stared back at Alyce and offered a warm smile at her. This was nice, at least. Even if everything else had went to shit, at least he had a sister which at least meant he wasn’t alone.

“How’s Myra?”

Lincoln almost choked on his steamed broccoli, having to fight it down his gullet.

“Are you okay?” Alyce asked.

“Yeah,” Lincoln said, bringing the small glass of ice water to his mouth to wash it down. “The one healthy life choice I’ve made as of late, and it nearly kills me.”

Alyce made a flicking motion with her hand, a sort of ‘aha’ gesture, “I thought you’d been delivering presents again.”

Lincoln stared at her confused, then, realized: “Ah, right, I smell like a chimney. Funny!”

“You said it,” She replied, carving into her steak with a knife. She stopped, “Seriously though, you have to stop with that. That stuff will kill you. Lung cancer doesn’t just run in our family, it does a slow walk, shaking hands with each of us. Mom hated that you smoked.”

“Mom hated everything,” Lincoln said back, a defensiveness he hadn’t intended, but couldn’t much deny having. “Sorry,” he added.

“How’ve you been?” Alyce asked.

Her inflection had become more serious, Lincoln didn’t like that. As much as it may have been understandable, he didn’t like it. “I’m fine,” he said.

He didn’t want their night to be an emotional heart-to-heart, he wanted something carefree and wholesome, like out of an old sitcom. The way real families acted. He smiled to himself; the train-of-thought was paradoxical. Still, there had to be families that were a little like that. Families that didn’t have a black cloud over them.

“How’ve you been?” Lincoln asked playfully.

“Seems like you’re deflecting a bit.”

“No, I’m not. How’ve I been? I smoke now because I’m an irritable, grumpy son of a bitch, whose mother was batshit and I never made amends with that, I’m a divorcee, which also means I drink a lot. My doctor prescribes me medicine to numb it, but so far it has only led me to believe that Myra the Doll is alive, and my mother’s ghost is haunting me from the other side,” Lincoln said it fast enough that none of the punches would land, then, smirked: “How’ve you been?”

Alyce’s expression had changed about midway through Lincoln’s tangent – from annoyance to mild amusement: “Myra the Doll is haunting you?”

Lincoln chuckled himself at the audacity of the statement. “I can’t think of a better explanation for it.”

Maybe it was how dead serious Lincoln had been, but it felt like it had cycled back and landed somewhere goofy. Alyce laughed. Lincoln laughed. They both laughed. It was a nice moment, he thought. “I’m alright, Alyce, really. Through everything, through all of it, I’m glad I have you.”

3.

As Lincoln arrived home, bidding farewell to Alyce, he couldn’t help but feel a small sense of comfort. In spite everything he’d felt, all the emotions he felt, having Alyce in his life in a real way, made it feel like, after all the wrong turns, he could still find his way back. The sentiment even sounded cheesy in his head, but upliftingly so.

He cleaned out his house the best he could. The act was a longtime coming, with a piling mound of dishes and trash strewn about. He threw away the remaining bottle of vodka and even tossed out the rest of his cigarettes. The latter was a symbolic statement. He hadn’t smoked in years, and he damn certain wouldn’t let himself make a habit out of it. The former was because he damn sure wouldn’t be letting himself blackout again.

He walked outside and down the steps, a black bag of garbage in-hand. The young boy who lived by his house bounced a Hackey Sack on his foot and took notice of him as he walked by. Lincoln smiled and offered a polite wave.

“That doll you have is creepy,” The little boy said.

Lincoln felt a shiver up his spine as the words struck him. The word had gotten out, it seemed. He looked to the boy, “What do you mean?”

“Up in the window,” The boy said innocently. “It isn’t there anymore.”

No, it isn’t, Lincoln thought. I made sure of that.

“It was an old doll,” Lincoln said, keeping his thoughts to himself. “That was the style back then, I guess.”

“It moved a lot,” The boy said. “I’d always by it or see it in the window, and its head would be turned one way or the other. Some of my friend saw it too!”

Lincoln tensed, but then, relented: “Well, neither of us will have to worry about it anymore. I dropped it last night and it broke, I’m afraid. No more creepy dolls up in the window anymore.”

The child looked, seeming unconvinced. Lincoln smiled. Although he never had children of his own, he could sympathize with them. The way small, insignificant things like a doll up in the window could fester in your brain and be a source of fear when you’re asleep at night – it bothered Lincoln, and he was an adult! He rested his trash bag on the sidewalk and walked over to his trashcan.

“I’ll show you,” he said.

Lincoln lifted the lid and was met by the unfortunate sight of … nothing. Nothing at all. His heart skipped a beat. Where was it? He looked over at the child, keeping his composure intact.

“What did I tell you?” Lincoln said, tilting the trashcan over and showing the emptiness of its contents. Where the hell was it!? “I brought the doll out for the trashman, and he brought the silly doll to the dumpster.” No, he didn’t.

“I thought today was trash day,” The boy said.

It is. “It isn’t,” Lincoln replied. “I mean, it is, but sometimes the trashmen do different things for different reasons, like holidays or town cleanups, or, uh, or things like that!”

The boy must not have bought into Lincoln’s lie, and Lincoln couldn’t blame him.

4.

Myra the Doll – that was the name Lincoln and his sister Alyce assigned to the porcelain doll, Nathan had learned through the conversations he’d scrolled through on Lincoln’s desktop. It wasn’t the actual name of the doll, however. Maybe each of the dolls came with their own unique name or something, Nate hadn’t the faintest idea. Whichever, he was more than satisfied with Lincoln’s reaction to his little prank. The man nearly jumped out of his skin! Why did he have to ruin it though? The doll was broken.

Although it would no doubt be a worthwhile addition to the highlight reel, Nathan could hardly contain his dissatisfaction when he returned upstairs after being hid out in Lincoln’s basement. Of all the things Nathan expected, which largely assumed Lincoln would excavate the whole attic in-search of an explanation (hence his migration from the attic to the basement), he honestly didn’t think Lincoln would smash his mother’s cherished heirloom (creepy as it may’ve been). The relationship between Lincoln and his mother was very complicated, it seemed. The amount of alcohol and medication Nathan had discovered while rifling through Lincoln’s personal belongings showed that man had some deep-seated issues to deal with. No matter, Nathan was prepared to roll with the punches if he must.

Unfortunately, to make matters worse, the doll was nowhere to be seen. This – Nathan actually had an explanation for. There was a homeless man always on the prowl. The moment Lincoln left, the man went to his trashcan and snatched it. What he stood to gain from a broken porcelain doll, Nathan wasn’t for certain. The man was clearly unwell and that sometimes made a person do unruly things. Nathan couldn’t relate.

For the most part, Nathan didn’t give a rat’s ass about the doll – gluing it back together or any preparation would be too forced. It was a shame, really. So, while he didn’t care about the doll, he would have liked to have had the chance to see it again. Maybe there’d have been a brand-name or an address, or something to go on.

Thankfully, not all was lost. The dark web could be a helpful bunch when called upon. The Doll was a rarer antique, fallen largely (but not entirely) into obscurity.

5.

Lincoln hadn’t slept well. He arose from his feet in the dead of night; a feeling of nausea swept over him. Every burp was followed by the silent prayer of gratitude his prior day’s lunch didn’t resurface; not that he’d been eating much these days. Alyce. Alyce had been the silver-lining to all of it. The small sliver of hope amidst his hopeless existence – why had Myra the Doll terrified him as much as it did? Why did it still terrify him? He had smashed it and destroyed it, and yet, he felt its presence on him. But it wasn’t the dolls’ presence, was it? It was his mother’s.

Even in death, she had a death grip on him. She was always present in him. He saw her when he looked in the mirror. He could see her reflection; not literally, but in himself. He saw her nose on him. Her eyes. Her smile. He saw her in every decision he made for himself. He saw her when he lashed out at his wife, swiping at her with agitation and snide remarks, and he saw her now. But this was different. Never before had he felt, honest and truly, like her. That his own outcome was inescapable; a pattern he was destined to repeat. Why had he smashed that doll? What if Alyce asked to see it? He may’ve been able to explain away boarding it up in the attic, but how could he justify destroying the last heirloom his mother left him? Would she forgive him? Is that why he did it? To sabotage himself? Another part of the pattern.

As though the very heavens had a response for him, his heart dropped as he turned the corner from his kitchen to his living room. A small stab of moonlight cut into his home from within his window blinds, showing him a mere glimpse beyond the small silhouette.

Myra the Doll looked back at him. Unharmed. Undamaged. Pristine.

How?

He crept forward; terrified.

This didn’t make any sense. This defied logic. As he stepped, he looked to his computer monitor. His screensaver shone brightly from within the darkness of the room. He did not have a screensaver. Who did these days? The photographs were an assortment. He saw pictures of his mother in her younger, livelier days, holding him as an infant. He saw photographs of he and Alyce as children. Still hopeful. Uncynical.

He etched his hand over the computer mouse, bringing the picture show to a close, a word document stared back at him, titled “Mom”.

“Even in death,

I watch over you.

I love you,

Mom”

His hand jerked away from the mouse on reflex, he felt … like he didn’t know how he felt.

“Even in death,” He mumbled to himself, a thought he’d had to the point of cliché. He paced around her, feeling as though his heart was about to burst from his chest. After everything she’d done to him, even in death! “Even in death, you find a way to fuck everything up for me!”

Did she cause your divorce? Lincoln shook his head at … at nobody, he supposed, at himself? She didn’t. Or, well, but … at least, she was the reason he was the way he was. He was crazy because she was crazy. He was the reason dolls apparently could come alive and talk to him. She was the reason he self-sabotaged himself. The reason he second-guessed every decision he made. The reason he felt guilty anytime he felt content or happy. She was that. She did that to him! Even in death…,

“I will never be able to forget about the things you did. There were times, …” Lincoln winced, “Times when you were awful.” Even in death…, “But there were times you were wonderful as well. Times when you cared and did everything you could. Even here, I think in your own fucked up away, you mean well.” His eyes stared intently at Myra the Doll. He thought of all the memories he had of walking through that house as a child. He thought of screaming and mood-changes, all the episodes, as he and Alyce called them. “I can’t let go of those things you did. The bad things. But, for the good things, for all the tries you tried, for that, I hold onto you. All of it. Forever. Even in death.”

Epilogue

Things were becoming a little too heavy in the Lincoln household.

For that reason, Nathan felt it best he shake a leg and end his social experiment. He had more than enough footage. His online wallet was much fatter for it, and although it would’ve brought in the big bucks, he didn’t feel like watching a man about to shuffle off his mortal coil.

2.

Lincoln felt better. For no reason he could make any real sense of, he felt better. As though his mother’s spirit had moved on to the other side (as ridiculous as that sounded), he felt her absence. Things became normal again. Better than normal. Outside his house, he heard the blare of Alyce’s car horn. He smiled. A real smile. An honest smile. Happiness was a habit he had given up on.

She had that effect on him.

Until today.