Anna’s Gift
The past is never gone. The past is never forgotten. Sometimes it comes back for revenge. When you least expect it.
“What are you going to name her?” Melanie asks her daughter, Anna.
Anna looked at her new doll, pondering on the question she was asked she scanned the doll up and down. Studying the white ankle length dress while twirling the brown curly hair of the doll around her finger and looking into the fake yet realistic plastic green eyeballs. “I’m gonna name her Lily.”
“What… What made you pick that name?” she said with a shocked look on her face.
Anna shrugged her shoulders while staring into her mother’s dewy eyes, then back at the doll’s. Using her index fingers to caress the doll’s rosy cheek. “It fits her.”
Melanie didn’t respond, she just put the doll away and tucked in her eight year old daughter for bed. With a quick peck on the cheek, she proceeded to leave the coral themed room, glancing at Anna’s stuffed animals. She was holding the urge to rush out of the room for her daughter’s sake.
“Mommy.” Anna called out before her mother left the room.
Melanie turned to see what her child wanted. “What is it honey?” she spoke with a soft motherly voice.
“Lily doesn’t like you.” Anna frowned after saying those words, as if she were confused.
Sweat dripped down Melanie’s face.
“Oh.” was all she could say, she looked at the doll before walking out of the room and closing the door.
While walking to her room, she could hear the faint laughter of her daughter. She would have went in there and asked why she was laughing, but she didn’t want to step in that room for the rest of the night.
Melanie tiptoed to her bedroom, trying to be careful not to wake up her husband, but as she slipped into bed she saw her husband, Johnathan was wide awake.
“Does she like the gift?” he asked his wife, giving a quick peck on her cheeks.
“Yeah.” Melanie turned away from her husband, ready to go to sleep.
“What’s wrong?” he asked, sensing the change of atmosphere in his wife.
“Nothing.” Melanie tried to push the subject away by giving short, vague replies.
“I know you, darling’. Something’s wrong.” he continued to use his caring voice.
“She named her doll Lily.” Melanie blurted out, hoping to shut him up.
Johnathan left the topic alone and turned away from his wife, ready to catch some shut eye after the long day they had. Melanie and Johnathan found it hard to sleep, but as they let their minds rest, they quickly fell into deep sleep.
Melanie shot up from her sleep to the sound of a thumping sound downstairs.
“Johnathan.” she shook her husband awake, he made some grumbling noises in return. “There was some noises downstairs.”
“It’s probably your imagination Mel.” he spoke into his pillow.
More thumping noises followed, making Johnathan wake up entirely and on full alert. He walked out the bedroom with a firm grip on a baseball bat in case he had to attack any intruders inside of his house. How many people could there be? One? Five? There wasn’t a way to be sure and he didn’t want to find out. Maybe it’s just rats or tree branches hitting the side of the house.
Melanie sat in the room alone with the home phone in her hand. She dialed 911 after hearing the thumping noises a few more times, but didn’t press the call button just yet. She began to get up from her bed and proceed to the door. Her hands shook as she grasped onto the metal doorknob. She felt death awaiting her.
Breathe in. Breathe out. She slammed the door opened and was greeted with an eerie silence. A silence that made her heart pound and mind race to different conclusions. She didn’t have a weapon, so how was she going to protect herself?
As she began to walk slowly across the carpet, she felt as someone was behind her. She didn’t stop or turn around, she just kept walking. She thought that would help, but it didn’t. Melanie still felt that evil presence behind her, following behind her closely, probably laughing inside their head at how vulnerable she was.
As she reached the staircase, she turned around to be greeted with no one behind her. With a sigh of relief, she walked downstairs. “Johnathan?” she called out, hoping he would respond and her nerves would be calmed.
A few more thumps echoed throughout the house and her heart sunk in her chest. She pressed the call button and held the phone against her ear. “911, what’s your emergency?” a woman’s voice spoke from the other side of the phone.
“I think there’s someone in my house.” she began to cry to the woman.
“okay ma’am, I’m going to trace your call. You need to stay on the phone with me, can you do that?” her voice was professional sounding and had a hint of weariness in her tone.
“Yes.” Melanie’s voice was shaky, but still responded, trying to stay calm.
She walked into the living room, it was dark and quiet. The only comfort she had was the 911 operator speaking to her. “Is there anyone else in the house?’
“Yes. My daughter and husband.” Melanie answered the question as she walked through the living room.
“Are they okay?” the woman kept asking questions.
“I don’t know.” tears fell from Melanie’s eyes.
She entered the kitchen slowly and dropped hard on her knees. Her heart felt like it was being set on fire until what used to be her heart was in ashes. On her floor lied her husband, dead. His intestines were pulled out, lying next to him. The blood pool around him just kept getting bigger and finally reached his wife’s feet. She snapped into realization that the killer could still be there. Before she could react, she was on the ground.
A sharp pain came from the back of her feet, like someone slashed them. The pain shot up through her body, forcing out a scream. In the process of falling, the phone slid out of her hand. Melanie tried with all the power in her body to get up and run, but she miserably failed. She crawled through the blood of her husband to reach the phone. Another sharp pain after another in her back and she finally gave up hope. She could feel the life draining from her body. Melanie somehow managed to use the rest of her strength to flip her body over to see her attacker.
The doll.. The doll she bought for her daughter stood next to her with a knife in it’s hand. She thought she was dreaming, that somehow the blood loss was making her hallucinate, but sadly she knew what she was seeing was real. The last image she saw was the doll slicing into her skin until she died from the amount of blood loss.
The police arrived too late. Melanie and Johnathan were dead, but Anna was very much alive in her room, sleeping away while her parents were being murdered by her gift.
Two years after the death of her parents, Anna let out some secrets she was holding in about the death of her parents.
“How are you feeling today, Anna?” her therapist, Grace asked her in the usual calm, but happy tone.
“I know who killed them.” Anna lowered her head, fiddling with her fingers.
The therapist leaned in closer to Anna, obviously eager to know the truth behind the brutal killings. “Who killed them?” she asked.
“My sister.” she looked up at the therapist, studying her facial expression.
“You don’t have a sister.” Grace was confused with this new piece of information Anna told her.
“Not anymore.” Anna’s voice turned cold. Grace stayed silent, waiting for her to continue on. “My mom and dad killed her.”
“How?” Grace was on the edge of her seat, listening eagerly.
Anna shrugged her shoulders and turned to her doll, that sat next to her on the couch. “Her name was Lily and her spirit lives in my doll now.” Anna had a huge grin on her face while the therapists face showed only fear.
Grace looked over at the doll, watching it while it turned it’s head to the side and showed off a menacing grin. A grin that showed victory.
With a shaky voice, the therapist turned her focus back on Anna. “Can you please ask her how she was killed?”
Anna put her ear up to the doll’s mouth, nodding her head every few seconds. She then looked back at her therapists. “Ever heard of a miscarriage?”
Grace nodded her head. “That’s how she died? That can’t be your mom and dad’s fault.”
“Mom was drinking and doing lots of bad things while dad let her.” Anna stopped to take a peak at her doll. “I personally think they deserved it.”