A NaNo Teaser Tuesday!

I love this scene. I mean, what's creepier than a shop full of freaky little dolls?

For the first time Bridget examined where they were. It was a store on a quiet side street in one of the busier Marina shopping districts. As she read the antique scroll letters painted on the front window of the store she tilted her head to one side. She'd done the twins' bedroom. She'd done old Mrs. Long. But she'd never done--

"Mrs. Pickleman's Tiny Princess Doll Shoppe?" she said. "Please tell me it’s the apartment upstairs."

Monsignor Renault tightened his grip on her shoulder as if he were afraid she was going to make a break for it. "No, this is it."

"A friggin' doll shop?" Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. There was nothing creepier in the whole wide world than dolls. Even as a kid Bridget couldn't handle the porcelain-faced little freaks her Grandma bought her. She'd stuff them to the bottom of her toy chest where the moonlight couldn't reflect off their beady glass eyes while she slept: eyes that seemed to follow her around the room, just waiting for her to turn her back before they leaped off the shelf to throttle her with their wee cold hands.

Monsignor gave her a firm push towards the door and Bridget stumbled forward. Why couldn't she have just said "No" and meant it? Why did she have to get all cocky?

Monsignor pushed the glass door open, tripping an old-fashioned bell that hung above. Its high-pitched tinkling was like a death knell in Bridget's ears.

As Monsignor and Father Santos pushed passed her, Bridget froze just inside the doorway. Right in front of her was a glass-enclosed display case populated by old, withered dolls. They were bald, sort of, their hair painted on their freaky little wooden skulls, and they wore varieties of period clothes, some kind of Old West-y, some more turn-of-the-Century. They all had a similar look on their face: painted eyes staring straight ahead, lips puckered and slightly open as if they were cooing. Most of them were chipped, the flesh colored paint flaking off and they sat at odd angles, leaning on each other for support like some infant Leper colony.

In a panic, Bridget's eyes darted around the small shop. All four walls were lined with similar glass cases, all packed to the brim with round-faced dolls staring at her. Plastic, porcelain, swaddled like infants, dressed like fairy queens and Disney princesses. Caucasian, Black, Hispanic, Asian--a real United Nations of horror.

Bridget shivered. Of course this place was infested with demons. Of course it was. This was it. This was Hell.