Horror - Short

This story is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are fictitious and any similarities to actual persons, locations, or events is coincidental. This work cannot be used to train artificial intelligence programs.  No AI tools were used in the writing of this story.

All rights reserved. Dolls Copyright © Eddie Generous 2026

DOLLS

Gasping, panting, sopping, oh yes, this is good!

Passion, a fleeting breeze laden with unquenchable thirst and unquestionable sense, until it’s gone. Quenched. The physical act itself toppled the scales only so long and then… Quivering, inflamed, wet, throb, throb, splash, wetter yet, slow droplets tickled into her ass crack.  

Karen Anderson felt the heavy breaths on her neck, raising the tiny hairs free from the surface sweat and gently raked flesh. Fine, even good, but it’s over now. She wished that the man pressing his weight into her would get off her. Up please, up.

All things had their time, and she knew what she felt, the telltale rush. That telltale rush explained that the condom did not do its job. She doubted pregnancy worry filled the minds of men the way the way pregnancy filled the wombs of women. She doubted he thought much about her future, a stranger’s future.

“Hey, get up,” she whispered and then kissed his ear to placate anything untoward he might glean from her request.

He smelled like Old Spice cologne and recycled air.

Semen was a time sensitive subject. Time to reverse some of that swimming moisture, little creatures attempting trouble, those little miracles trying to be. At her age, the womb was always ready to party, the more the merrier, looking for a prince to crack the egg. It was time to get up. Less inside meant less chance of accident. Miracles were for later in life.

“Hey, up. Up, come on.”

He kissed her neck. “I like the way you feel under me,” he said.

His accent was from somewhere far east of Europe, somewhere in the former Soviet Union, like a TV mobster. It didn’t matter where. He was cute. He had been forward, and interesting. A pre-school-year fling, she was due back for her final year of graduate school in just a week. Until then, he’d finished, and her passion drained alongside the semen from his testicles.

The dance complete. Time to get up.

“That’s nice, but I’ve got to pee.”

She tapped on his side. She gave a little shove upward.

He didn’t budge.

He kissed her mouth. His tongue and breath tasted like coffee. No, the aftertaste of stale coffee, so, not so nice. That wasn’t the point, he was not moving. Was it some backward old country thing to ignore women or did he really like the way she felt beneath him?

A nice sentiment if true, that she felt nice to be on top of, like a mountain maybe, or a pillow fort. A nicety that did not matter a lick right then. Too many had already gone on and she had to drop as many sperm off at the porcelain pool as she could before she gave them all a chance to swim upriver.

She wondered how long it really took. Time measured with microscopic tadpoles of trouble.

“Off, I said.” There was vehemence in her tone.

His hand rested on her throat, fingering her pulse. There was something professional in the way he measured her heartbeats.

“Patience,” he said, and she waited.

She didn’t know him and now, he seemed older than she’d thought. For one reason or another, deep within her psyche, she felt that a new threat. His tiny wrinkles told the story of a longer road than her last boyfriend and the boy before him.

This Alex was a man that knew more, much more than the boyish pioneers of Karen’s sexual frontier had. Much more than the one’s who first explored the landscape and planted the quickly plucked (or caught) seeds.

“Please, I…I don’t want to…” She huffed.

It was excessive to worry so much, the deed done, the sperm were lightning streaks flashing her insides, threatening to smother the final semester of her education.

His fingers still on her pulse, she waited more seconds, going over the warning she’d received and never took seriously. Her friend, Ruby, had talked her into it, after a long shift of table waiting. The pair had gone off to see Ruby’s psychic. Karen laughed at the idea but dropped a twenty onto the table and the so-called psychic shook her head.

Bad time coming, bad baby time, will be hard to forget, she had said.

Karen and Ruby laughed at the idea, neither of them had much time or use for the young men hanging around the resort. At the resort, it was mostly old money pricks with inflated senses of entitlement. Date rape smiles, date rape gazes, date rape polo shirts featuring fraternity insignia. Delta. Beta. Roofie.

Heeding the psychic’s warning was an embarrassing thought. Stupid to ignore, in hindsight. She did not connect dots from the two halves of her existence. Two parts, one the old home front and one the world away at school.

Alex’s fingers stroked Karen’s throat on and on as she wriggled for escape. He made it clear he had no plans of moving, not yet. The buyer’s remorse, she wished she had ignored him. Ignored the flutter his grin and handsome eyes created inside her.

He’d been at the airport drinking coffee across from her. She stood in the Starbucks line, batting sleepy lashes at the alluring man and his intriguing expression. She’d just dropped off Ruby and had a long drive back to her dorm. Said farewell to home early so as to acclimate to another world prior to semester’s start.

There’d been options, a night spent in a motel or better yet, free night spent with a cute man named Alex.

Free being the kissing cousin of fine print.

“Off, now!” she demanded.

He ignored her still, tapping along with her pulse, his penis soft, but still apparent at the doorway like a gooey worm. Ba-bump. Ba-bump. Ba-bump. Her pulse. His finger.

“There, good,” he said and after a dozen more seconds, he rolled off.

Karen ran naked, thighs squeezed, across the tiny barren apartment to the tiny barren bathroom. She pushed the door closed and hit the fan. Down on the seat and pushing. It was wet, too wet, and quick. Lonely urine of a common consistency passed through the gates. The primordial ooze refused its fall, shit!

Pushing harder. Wet, slappy, loud, embarrassing, oh god, and then a knock came at the door. She’d forgotten her fear for the moment. Her cheeks burned crimson. Vaginal flatulence in a stranger’s bathroom: a horror of mythical proportions.

“Oh God,” she muttered, her face to her palms.

Alex ignored the sound, he’d been around a long time, probably had heard every sound a body had to make.

“I’m preparing spaghetti. I trust you’re hungry, yeah? Mushrooms okay?”

She felt the urine rush slow to a trickle. There were some traces cleared, those lingering close to shore. Not the heavy payload of white magic that pulled rabbits from hats that she wanted expelled.

“What, no. I’ve got to go,” she said, finishing the sentence in her mind, get the Plan B pill and stop anything trying to ruin my life.

She wiped, flushed, and rinsed her hands. A secondary horror struck her. Not just babies, there were infections, viruses, and diseases. The washroom was untidy. A damp towel dwelled in a corner next to the cheap shower stall. A pair of boxer shorts peeking out beyond the edge of the towel.

Reality struck. The fear was back. She knew nothing of this man—what was I thinking?

Predator.

She opened the door and searched the small room for her clothes: shirt and pants on the floor, bra and underwear rolled up in the bedding. She slipped on her sandals after the rest of her disheveled items, things just that morning she slid on thinking they fit together nicely, that made her look and feel pretty.

“Okay, I’m going now.” She tugged on the door.

It was bolt locked and required a key. Behind her, she heard Alex step back into the main room of his studio bachelor. Everything came together all too easily. Basement apartment, barren, impersonal, nothing more than a bed in the living space and spaghetti in the kitchen. It suddenly felt very much like a bad place, a torture chamber, some homey place Emma Donoghue might conjure.

Trouble, real trouble.

Phone’s in the car, left it behind again, right? Stupid, stupid, so damned stupid. You’re in it now.

“I need to go,” she said firmly.

“No, not yet. I’m cooking and you need strength,” he said and grinned, still naked. Little eye peering out past the anteater’s cone of foreskin.

Karen watched him go and leapt to his blue jeans, which rested in a heap next to the bed. She found a wallet and two extra condoms. Alex had slid a condom over his penis. So slowly and carefully that she’d wondered if he’d ever used one before.

It wasn’t that at all.

It was something else altogether.

Predator and prey.

She held these unused condoms in her hand, both seemed deflated, like new peanut butter jars with the foil already lifted, Aspirin with the safety seal broken. Up to the light from the dangling ceiling lamp, pinhole rays shined through.

Careful so they hadn’t ripped too early. You’re in it now.

“Take seat, you need your rest. Okay?” he said, his voice seemed so happy.

Her world spun and she ran through every horrid kaleidoscope of possibility. “Umm, I need to leave now. Please can I have the key to the door?” The fear came out all over her words.

“Ah, come on, don’t be like that. You don’t have anywhere to be, and everybody has to eat, yeah?” He didn’t grin this time when he poked his head out of the kitchen.

“No, thank you, please, can I go…please, don’t hurt me,” she said, scanning the floor for hope but finding none.

Her phone was in the car. Maybe he had a phone. Maybe he wasn’t an elite predator. Maybe she was just paranoid. Nothing came to eye.

“I’d never hurt you. Sit, you need rest, things move quick, faster than you’d ever imagine. Yeah, okay?”

She sat on the edge of the bed, she felt unease and it swirled into a tornado. She ran to the washroom and puked. She felt so tired and hungry. Her survival instinct demanded she appease the man until he lowered his guard. Smash his face. Find a key. Run and never look back.

After rinsing her mouth, she joined Alex back on his bed. The only furniture. He’d donned pants and held two bowls of noodles in red sauce. Mechanically, she shoveled the food into her mouth. Starving, that meal exploited a momentary lapse in sensibility. She leaned back on the bed, the pasta was delicious, but now she wasn’t feeling right.

“Why don’t you sleep?”

“I need to go, go get…” Her eyes fluttered and she dozed. “I don’t…please…”

Gently, Alex positioned her on the bed and stroked her flat tummy.

—

Belly bulging, Karen wondered where the time went. It was so foggy a loss that it seemed absolutely impossible. Time spent and gone in that little room with the strange man.

He’d left. She considered screaming and banging on walls. Confusion and the weight in her belly demanded limitations on her motions. He’d drugged her, must’ve, she felt hours gone, a day at most, no more, and yet she was fat with pregnancy. Three trimesters of stupor, it gave reason to spill the tears running down her harried cheeks.

You’re in it now, forever.

The lock clicked and tumbled. Alex stepped back into the apartment. “My sleepy girl awake. You’ll be back to normal soon, okay? I know this is strange. Business is business, yeah?”

“Do people think I’m dead? Are my parents looking for me?” Karen asked, imagining herself as a grainy monochrome on a milk carton.

Did they still do that?

She stroked her bulge, disappointed that she didn’t feel the motherly attachment that people felt in books and on television. The thing inside was a thing, not her thing. A sperm conquered egg and was now morphing into a strange orphan.

“No, they think you’re at school, yeah? You said school. Won’t be long now.”

“What do you do with it?” she asked.

The thing inside her was a thing to worry about even if the connection never bloomed. Not only a thing, a child, forming in her gooey factory stew. Children needed considerations: shoes, guidelines, guiding hands, guiding light, opened doors, and love, so much love.

Alex did not answer her question.

She repeated, but did not wait, didn’t give Alex time to answer. Another thought had crossed her mind. It was a flash from her twelve-grade health class.

“It’s going to tear my vagina up. It’ll be hideous after.” She cried harder. Real tears, not hormonal baggage from the creature feeding on her like a tapeworm. Those tears were of real issue. “You have to get rid of this thing.”

“Hush, we, you and me, we in this together for little time,” he rubbed her leg. “Okay?”

“Why did you do it?” She sobbed, “Why me?”

“Business, okay? Shh, you hungry? You tired? Sleep some more?”

—

It had to be longer than it felt. She noticed new cracks in the walls all the time. She searched her body for new cracks as well. Found none. It was close to time, and she’d come to terms with losing nearly a year. It was a concession just to be rid of the thing inside her. Alex promised her release, but, but, but...

“Aren’t you worried I’ll tell the police?”

He shook his head.

“I should, this is imprisonment. I’ve done nothing wrong, and you’ve stolen my freedom, my life. You’re a monster!” She sobbed again. “I won’t tell. If you let me free, I won’t tell, never.”

“No matter. Life will continue for you and me. Business as always and you never tell the police. They won’t believe you, okay?”

“I hope it’s still-born!” Karen shouted and flopped to her side.

The thing inside her was just a half-monster. A half-Karen Anderson, half-monster. She listened with her face to the wall. The door open and closed. Her captor leaving. Her lids fluttered and she slept more. The drugs…must be drugged. It seemed as if there was pure lead in her eyelids.

—

Awake and in tremendous pain, she screamed out. Alex wasn’t there and he should’ve been there to take the stupid thing out of her. He was at work. She saw his airport ID card inside his wallet and knew where to find him later. If he truly meant to let her live that was.

He hadn’t been at the airport by chance. Like she had. It was his game, trolling for future mothers. He worked there and had done so long enough for time to wear the edges and dog-ear the corners of the card.

Bending was difficult. Her body wore pregnancy like a sandbag. And the pain, Oh shit, this pain!

She tore the light cotton pajamas Alex had made her wear. As they ripped, they clung to her waist like a skirt. She pushed, screaming, felt the baby moving on its own. It was wet and slimy. It was more pain than she’d ever known. It felt as if her hips wanted to dislocate and crack her pelvis like a bone puzzle, let a flooded fissure break through, a door to Hell where the half-monsters incubated.

She heard a key at the door, felt the pressure letting more and more by the second.

“Baby! Baby!” he screamed, fidgeting with keys.

Karen rolled from the bed, baby nearly freed and the pain lessening. The thing was half out of her, wet between her thighs. She grabbed her pants and purse and rushed toward the door. Best as a laboring woman could run, she ran.

The door opened.

“No!” Alex shouted.

Karen felt the wonderful relief like a personal miracle. There was a heavy thump after the slick weight dropped.

Alex sobbed. “Why, oh please. I need this one.”

The sobbing sounded almost infantile and the motherhood sense that should’ve existed stung her with guilt.

That thing is half you, Karen Anderson. You can’t let this man sell it. You can’t let him sell it to whatever horrid circumstance draws interested parties to the kiosk man with the agreeable face and babies for sale.

She stopped in the doorway, her lower half felt slippery and loose. The internal tension was gone. She was stronger than ever, mentally. She saw freedom no matter what happened, and that baby couldn’t stay, that wasn’t fair to it.

Uneasy in her stagger, she stared at the man and the bloody shape cradled to his chest. It didn’t make a sound, stillborn. The air hitched in her throat. She didn’t ask for any of it, but neither did that poor baby.

“Let me see,” she whispered, stooping.

He looked down at the gooey shape in his arms. “Cracked her skull, matryoshka, no good, or maybe. I don’t know, maybe?”

Matryoshka: a word that she knew but could not place.

“Please, let me see.”

Alex handed it over. It didn’t feel right. It was cool. It was stiff. It was smooth beneath the fluids.

“Oh, god. How?” she asked and stumbled back, falling on her ass.

In her startled hands was a large wooden nesting doll. The doll that looked like she looked, appeared as she appeared, bore her genetic stamp, but artistically simplified and flattened. Light green eyes, high cheekbones, slim pink lips, and blonde hair braided in pigtails. The image wore a funny white hat and a billowy blue dress, a wooden pail in her right hand. She let it slide from her grip, heavy and greasy, greasy.

“No! You already cracked her!” Alex shouted.

The doll bounced and rattled once and then a second time, breaking apart. Thump, a shell, another Karen Anderson face on the cartoonish milkmaid’s frame. Thump, a second. Thump, a third face, yet another and over and over and over again. The air was thick with impossibility, and she choked and coughed before letting go a wispy howl. Eight sets of eyes very much like her own stared at her as the dolls ceased bouncing and popping open. Heads and feet turned and shifted to face her. An army of wooden monsters gazed onto her with knowing eyes.

She screamed and crawled across the small room, scrambling to hold her purse and jeans as she moved. All the way to the landing, she thought she heard Alex hot on her heels. That was terror back there, he’d want to do it again, try for a clean set. Pushing forward. Staggering. She wheezed for air and a sense of safety.

Alex did not chase. She replaced the torn pants with the ones she’d worn upon meeting the man. For a long time, nobody else would see that show, that stressed and stretched area. That hijacked space where the monsters grew.

On the street, she waved a cab that took her to the airport. Operating on instinct, she sought her vehicle parked in the short-term area. Only four tickets beneath her wiper, somehow only four days lost. Conception to birth, only four days.

From her pocket, she retrieved her keys and opened the door. Her cellphone sat in the center console. She dialed 911 and let her thumb hover over SEND.

This was an empty threat.

Alex was right. The police wouldn’t believe her, and she couldn’t tell. After unlatching the trunk and fetching a set of shoes to wear, she drove out of town and toward her dorm. Class was only days away and she needed to be ready, because things happened fast, faster than she could ever imagine.

Ready or not.

She glanced in her mirror and looked into her eyes. For an instant, eight sets of Karen Anderson bulbs peered back at her.

XX