Bogleech.com's 2017 Horror Write-off:

Armoire De Tueur

Submitted by FightKing

As I sit, surrounded by my new "friends" for lack of a better term, I find myself reflecting on how bad things are for people with my kind of hobby. How screwed the internet has made everything. A Craigslist add or an eBay listing normally isn't worth much, of course. Any Schmuck with a C-list horror movie or access to horror stories can come up with random creepy stories centering around an old tent and hock it to some idiot for a few hundred bucks extra. But sometimes, weather you believe the story about the painting who's owners are seen in the background before dying, Or an ax that was used to kill two whole families, or some shit about an urban myth, you just want it because it looks good.

Don't lie to me, collectors. I know the urge. Toy collectors snag bootlegs here and there, Goths once in a blue moon go more Halloween then actually Gothic. And people like me, sometimes we just make exceptions. Collecting things we know aren't haunted because they just look nice. A friend of mine scooped up a replica of something from a game because in the game it was haunted. That's just how it is sometimes. You want something, and weather or not it fully bounces off your collection, you just need to have it. And it was so with this cabinet.

See, I read that a second hand shop about an hour from my house had a very odd item for sale, A cabinet with an absurd collection of dolls inside. All of them different scales, styles, appearances, everything was different for each of them, but the weird stuff started when I read some sort of ghost story about it included on the website's listing. The owner went missing a few weeks prior. They had links to articles on him and everything. He had a string of bad luck, then just vanished. House fires, an attempted break in with no perpetrator, the list goes on. I just had to see it.

When I got there, I wasn't disappointed by the creep factor, the wood looked ancient and the glass was covered in small cracks. The dolls inside though... oh my the dolls inside. Some where what you might expect, beautiful if somewhat damaged porcelain nightmares waiting to happen. But there were others ranging from barbies to baby dolls to action figures. Some were intentionally creepy. I mean what other purpose would a clown with stitches all over its face be other than to freak people the back flipping fuck out? Still, one look and I just to have it.

Transport was easy enough, my truck had a big bed and the dolls all fit in a handful of big boxes I took with me. I set the new conversation starter in my guest room just to the left of the closet. The dolls and setting them up right, that would come later. For the moment I just brought them in and left them on the bed. Trying to proceed with my day off, sandwich and beer with a little bit of Law and Order, I heard Czar just barking like crazy. At first, I thought it was the neighbor's cat again, sweet little thing but that damn dog just hated her. "Nyet!" I shouted, he stopped immediately. I wound up yelling two more times before I just had to get up. To my surprise, he wasn't barking at the cat, he was in my guest room, barking at the display case. That made me smile a little, probably shouldn't have, but it did.

I had to take him outside to get him to shut up, decided while I was up I'd put the dolls away, and so I did, noting, for a moment the absence of a baby doll with rubber limbs, though it just fell out of the box. Slid under my bed... at least I thought that at the time. It was about an hour of organizing, Babies in one shelf, little miniature-type ones in another, larger dolls on the third. The shelf seemed just a twang deeper than its dimensions outside would let you think, "Probably just a thin back wall," I thought. Again, at the time, it seemed more likely.

That night, Czar was losing his mind again, I leaped up, grabbed a baseball bat and ran downstairs to find a broken window in my living room and Food stains everywhere. someone wrote things like "Burn it" and "Get out now" on my wall and floor in anything they could find it would seem. Ketchup, Mustard, Chocolate syrup, name it. Needless to say I called the cops in a flash. These notes were all over my house, written in various crap all over the walls, a few on paper. Had I known then what I do now, I would have headed every word.

The window was fixed after a few days, clean up us quick, but things didn't stop. Shit was was opening on it's own, My stove was just on some mornings, or my fridge was randomly open, shit was breaking all over the place, I HAD to do something. What to do was beyond me though. Of course, an exorcism, this shit was happening way to often to be a string of Burglars, it had to me that cabinet. But what to exorcise? All the dolls? The cabinet itself? Both? The fifth morning had me thinking about that.

By the fifth night though, it was to late. Czar, barking upstairs, made me come running. The doors were open, the dolls scrambling. "What the hell?!" I shouted drawing their attention, when suddenly, I felt something wrap around my ankle. I looked ad saw the tongue. That whip-like tongue. I was yanked onto the floor and I remember bashing my head on the bed frame, I passed out instantly. I don't know if I ever woke up between then and now. I remember feeling my body get pierced like a pin cushion, parts being ripped away, at least I think I felt that. As I came too in the dull hours of the morning, I heard one voice. "Welcome to your new home." It said, the first and only time I'd heard that voice for a few weeks. I was in the case.

I could hear them. The other toys. "We tried to warn you." "You wouldn't listen." "We can't hurt the box." Endless excuses and taunts. It was a few days later, Czar went to my mother, most of my collection went to my friend, and this case... it went back to the same store after a few more people joined. And now, I'm just sitting here. Looking at people from a prison of plastic, having no mouth and needing to scream, wondering "Who will I fail next?"