Reader Submission: Doll Eyes

“My story takes place in the sleepy town of Moundsville, West Virginia. We are home to the West Virginia Penitentiary and the Adena Burial Mound.

During grade school, I spent most of my weekends at my friend Emily’s house. Emily lived next door to her grandmother, Nina, who had several medical issues.

Nina’s house was the same house Emily’s mother had grown up in. The house always had a strange feeling in it… Lights would turn on and off, footsteps and whispers could be heard, but none of that phased me. The only thing that did scare me was the attic.

The attic was finished, but had that “death” smell to it, like an abandoned building. It was always cold, despite the hot air that would rise from the floors above. The attic contained 4 small rooms, which were bedrooms when Emily’s mother and siblings were children. The rooms contained little knickknacks from her mother’s childhood. One room was entirely devoted to dolls, which I always found terrifying.

One day, Emily and I were playing in the attic with some of the old toys in the doll room. We heard Nina call for us for lunch, so we placed the rag dolls we were playing with back on the shelf in the room. Right before we left the attic, we heard something fall to the floor. Curious, we went back into the doll room and saw that the middle doll from the shelf had fallen off. I, myself, had put the doll back in its place, and there was no way it could have fallen like it did. A little spooked, I picked up the doll and put it back on the shelf.

Later on that day, Emily and I were playing in the woods adjacent to her house. I squatted down to pick up a pretty stone I found on the forest floor. When I went down, I felt something poking me in my pocket. I put my hand in the pocket, and I found two doll eyes in my pocket…the eyes from the doll I had picked up earlier that day. Needless to say, I have been terrified of dolls ever since.”

Creepy! Spook yourself with more tales of haunted dolls or share your own creepy tale by using the submission form here or by email at ghostsghoul@gmail.com!