There’s a figure in the hallway whose details we can’t make out only a silhouette that is misshapen, but childlike, boyish in its mannerisms. He has come to destroy his dolls. They are stupid, and scary, and he hates them; he wants them out of the house. He starts down the hall running his hands against the walls to bide his time; he doesn’t like to go near the dolls, they scare him and that makes him angry. He reaches the end of the hall and pauses, he hates the dolls.

He begins with the big dolls. He almost hates them the most, they are too scary because they’re almost as big as he is, and he doesn’t like that. He starts with the one in the stupid suit, it’s supposed to be a boy doll, but all the dolls look the same to him. He picks up the doll and throws it across the room, shattering its face. White fragments litter the floor and now the dolls suit is torn, his parents won’t be pleased when they see the mess he’s made. That’s okay though because there will be no more dolls. The other doll, the one that wears dresses and skirts is next; he doesn’t like this one at all. This doll looks mean and scary all the time, like a dog waiting to jump on you any minute. He grabs the doll and shakes it viciously until its head is swinging limply on its body. He drops the doll and stamps it into the ground until it is torn and ugly. The other dolls will be easier because they are smaller, but scarier than the big ones. They are the ones he dreads the most.

Only two dolls left to get rid of, he starts with the bigger one. This one is smaller than the big dolls, but still comes up to his knees at full height. He snatches the dolls arms in both hands and turns them in the opposite directions until they snap off. He repeats the process with its legs. He discards the broken doll and moves on to the one he hates the most. This one cries, he think its voice box broke a long time ago and that is why it makes so much noise. He picks it up gingerly, this is the one he is the most afraid of, and stares at it. It stares back with those blank eyes and just keeps crying. It is the scariest thing in the world, its eyes are like endless pits that have outbursts of emotion when only he is looking; no one else ever sees it. He lays the doll down on its back and begins to tear open its chest. Once he can see inside he takes out the voice box and hurls it across the room where it collides with a lamp knocking it off and smashing it; much like the big dolls face. Finally he is finished and the wretched dolls are no more, his parents will be home soon so he sits quietly waiting for his punishment.

When his parents arrive they are livid. They lock him in the closet and yell at him for hours. He does not understand why they wanted the dolls so much. They were useless they didn’t do anything but scare him and make him angry. His father unlocks the closet and smacks him around for a while, his mother is crying and yelling for his father to stop; she says he didn’t know any better. When his father finally stops he locks him back in the closet, and leaves. His mother brings him food and says that they will have to move. He doesn’t understand why.

Two days later the county sheriff’s office was alerted to a strange smell coming from the house by a concerned neighbor. When the patrol officer investigated he received a frightening scene that sent him retching into the bushes and also into an early retirement. The houses residents, a father, mother, their teenage son, and small infant were discovered massacred in the most gruesome form. The father, a bank teller, was found lying against a wall with his face crushed so hard that his skull had shattered littering the floor with bone fragments. The mother, a housewife and former beauty queen, is found with her neck practically removed from her body, or what is left of it, which is twisted and deformed as if it had been stepped on and squashed like a bug. The son, a varsity football player weighing in at two hundred fifty pounds and a whopping 6’2, was dismembered beginning with the arms then legs. Then there was the baby, barely six months old, she was found in the nursery with her rib cage split open; her tiny lungs were apparently thrown across the room where they hit a lamp with enough force to shatter it into a million pieces. There was no evidence of anyone being in the house except the family and the case was never solved, the police never even found a viable suspect. Today the case remains cold as do so many other unexplainable crimes.