Travis and I shared a look. She had no idea the hours we spent figuring out how to phrase things in a way that wouldn’t trigger her alarm. Travis really did enjoy his one on one time with the baby, and had to focus all of his attention like a laser on that fact when he talked about needing to retreat to that coffee shop.
Travis tried to yell over her, “Is it too much to want to piss in peace?”
“Seriously?” she screeched. The baby let out another wail, so she bounced him a little faster.
I tried to interject. “I only mention it because—” Before I could finish my sentence, a doll leapt off the shelf at Krystan and the baby. Stepping forward, I cleanly sliced through the doll and it fell in two pieces on the floor. Despite its dismemberment, the doll’s head turned and the eyes blinked unevenly. Two ceramic arms tried to pull its torso forward, toward Krystan again.
I stomped on the doll, smashing the ceramic into bits. Krystan was now making sputtering noises as she clutched Tristan closer.
Travis ran a hand through his hair, staring at the decimated doll, wild eyed. “No way, man. Please tell me this isn’t happening. There are like a million of those things in here.”
“Three hundred and sixty two,” Krystan said quietly, still staring at the remains of the possessed doll as the one intact eye continued to wink at her.
All the ceramic faces in the room rotated to face us. I pulled Krystan into the center of the room and sandwiched her and the baby between Travis and me just before the dolls started hurling themselves off the shelves.
Travis picked up Krystan’s discarded axe and we began to swing weapons, chopping away at the dolls. At one point, I heard Travis yelp and say, “It bit me.”
I stomped on another doll head, crushing it to dust as one landed on my head. Instead of smooth ceramic, claws dug into my scalp. I went to pull it off but two more launched and landed on my legs. Razor sharp teeth sunk into the flesh below my knees.
“If I turn into a zombie doll, you’ll take me out right?” Travis asked, panic tightening his words.
“Shut up, Travis. You are not going to become a zombie doll,” Krystan chastised as she grabbed the doll on my head and flung it across the room.
We were surrounded, in close quarters. I could use my powers to fight them off, but I’d weaken myself and I’d need every bit of strength if Emma came for us herself. We’d have to fight off the hoard one by one.
The whacking sounds behind me increased in fervor. Travis screamed. “I hate these fucking dolls.”
It wasn’t long before crushed china littered the whole living room floor.
Krystan looked up at me. “You could have just said something.”
My eyebrows shot up before I could help myself. “And you wouldn’t have been mad or offended?”
Krystan broke eye contact and mumbled something unintelligible about how pregnancy made her sensitive and nesting was important.
The house rumbled again. Emma’s laughter rang through the walls.
“Fucknuggets,” Krystan said.
“Language,” Travis said.
“Baby appropriate fucknuggets,” she said.
The power slammed into me like a sledgehammer, sending me to one knee. Emma was trying to take out the wards. The glyphs on the walls lit up like beacons, taking the brunt of her power.
A clamoring on the stairs drew our attention. A wave of dolls cartwheeled and flung themselves down the staircase, coming for us.
Travis started to stomp his way over to meet them.
Another blast of power and I almost couldn’t breathe. Alongside the dark assault, another presence made itself known.
“Oh damn,” Travis said, though his curse wasn’t said in fear, rather he breathed the words in appreciative awe.
“What?” Krystan demanded, using her bat to beat back the possessed dolls.
“It’s your gran,” Travis said. “She’s so…beautiful. Golden. Lit up like an angel.”
I couldn’t see her the way Travis described, but the hairs on my arms lifted and I could feel the presence of her great power. It was made of light. More expansive and boundless than the book of Terra.
