I have included information that I had received after the experience for the purpose of making the flow of the story more fluid and to heighten the enjoyability of the reader. So I find myself somewhere remiss in knowing the best place to begin telling this story so I suppose I will start at the beginning. My name is Paul and I live in a small state on the Eastern Coast of the United States called Maryland. This particular event happened approximately Thirteen years ago, back in 2002. Myself and my closest friend (Whom shall be referred to as "Boof" for the sake of protecting my old friend's identity) would occasionally spend weekends at my Aunt's (Henceforth referred to as "Clo") house in Pasadena, Maryland for the sake of the small amounts of freedom we were given while there. Aunt Clo was much more laid back then my parents so I could enjoy a few drinks, be as loud and boisterous as I wished to be or just chain-smoke continuously as much as I wanted to. So it was an enjoyable atmosphere for a Seventeen year old Male. The particular portion of Pasadena where Aunt Clo lived wasn't exactly country because there were neighbors on each side of the property and a neighbor across the street, however the property was backed to a fairly dense forest and each of the properties were nearly an acre so the houses were spread out enough to garner something of a feeling of isolation. The house itself was (probably) built in the 1970's and was a standard two bedroom rancher with a basement (Which was fitted with another bedroom, artificially making the house seem larger than it actually was.) but it was generally just Boof and I in those events when we stayed there.

One of our many hobbies, and one of our main reasons for journeying down to Aunt Clo's house so frequently, was the solitude and space afforded to us so that we may make our short films. They were generally laughably bad yet highly enjoyable for the same reasons that people have some to love "The Room" or "Troll 2" over the years. We enjoyed it and we made them for ourselves so as long as it killed the monotony of suburban high school, we would continue to make them. This particular weekend, we devised the idea to film a movie about people moving into a house and forgotten toys of the previous occupants coming to life to drive the new boarder's out. So by using the relics of one of my cousin's old toy room, we set to our task in crafting our masterpiece. It was coming along quite nicely, terrible acting, nonexistent special effects, and no music. A typical production of ours.

As the night was winding down, we were running out of ideas to continue the progression of the movie so it was Boof's idea to call it a night and pick it back up the following day after a brainstorming session so he hunkered down on the couch in the living room to enjoy a movie and I departed for the main bedroom in the basement, aka: Aunt Clo's room. Once I was down there, I put a cd in and started to enjoy some music as I explored the bedroom as I tended to do because of a highly inquisitive mind. As I drifted through the closets in the room, and as the sounds of Marilyn Manson filled the room, I was given pause by an unexpected discovery. Underneath bundles of clothes, in the far back corner of the main closet in Aunt Clo's room I uncovered a small baby doll wearing a green dress and covered with a patina of decades. It seemed to be made of hardened plastic, had curly brown hair and what I perceived to be blue eyes (Now dulled to a flat gray with age) and the sight of it gave me an uneasy feeling. It had an extremely creepy aesthetic, unnerving just to view and shrouded in a mystery so thick that its mystique added a second layer of fear to the archaic toy. My second thought (After the shock of first viewing it) was that it would be a perfect addition to our film so before I realized it, I was off and up the stairs to share my finding with Boof. Once back into the living room, I see that Boof was asleep on the couch already with a "Friday the 13th" movie still playing on the television so I allowed myself the opportunity to test the Doll's ability to induce fright in an unsuspecting person so with the knowledge that I wanted to scare Boof, I stood the Doll up on the edge of the coffee table ear the couch so that it stood freely about six inches from Boof's face. I then called his name.

He stirred and rolled his head over to his right so as to look at me but instead of seeing me standing in the room, he was face to face with it. His blue eyes gaped open instantaneously and he was upon his feet in a few frantic seconds. I laughed, he clutched his chest and cursed me. The explanation of its finding followed and we soon devised a new scene for our movie and were setting it up within a half an hour. In short the scene happened as follows. Boof and I were in the midst of the Toy attack and we were doing all we could to fight back. So in that particular scene, Boof was knocked out on a couch by being hit in the head with a wiffle ball bat multiple times. He's roused from sleep by a sultry soft voice and awakens to the sight of the doll. He reacts with a fright, and jumps up to bring the same wiffle ball bat down on top of the Doll. The following scene is the Doll standing back up and trying to reason with Boof again, who then hits the Doll again which sends it flying out of the room.

That's it.

It may have lasted two or three minutes in the film and afterwards, we pack it in for the night and settle down for slumber on the couch and loveseat which crowded the wood floors of the living room. We joked about the scene, and the Doll which had been retrieved before falling back into the resting positions. After a close inspection of the Doll, we found an inscription on the back which had been covered by the dress in a language which I believed was French. I don't speak French so I never did know what it read exactly but it was an indication that this Doll wasn't a yard sale purchase. That uneasy feeling began to sink in again as her and I met eye to eye, looking deep into her pupil less eyes made me realize that I needed to end this night. The Doll was stood up on the coffee table and I rolled over to get some sleep. Boof took that as an indication that I was tapping out and he pressed the power button on the remote to turn off the television. The television itself was a relic back in the 1980's and was positively ancient at this point in the world's history which meant that the image faded from the screen slowly, instead of the instantaneous evaporation of imagery of modern LED televisions. So as the picture was fading to black, an image was fading In. Two flat gray eyes took prominence, emblazoned onto the television screen and cajoling its gaze fervently around the room akin to someone regaining consciousness after being knocked out in an attempt to reorient themselves to their new surroundings. The Doll fell onto its back on the coffee table with its eyes now blackened over. The frantic ocular movement continued for nearly half a minute until they found me, boring into my back like a worm boring into a rotting corpse while I rest happily unaware. Boof saw though and the scuffling of his feet and the scraping of the coffee table feet on the hardwood floor were enough to arouse my attention but, knowing Boof to the degree that I did, made me believe that he had fallen prey to his abhorrent fear of spiders as the semi-seclusion of this property affording a safe haven for all the creepy crawlies of the woods.

I spun my head to look at the floor, looking for the spider to be scurrying across the floor to take sanctuary from the shuffling feet of Boof but was let down when the floor was empty of all abnormalities. I then shifted my gaze to Boof just in time to see his back nearly pressing against my face as he backed away from the television. He was just about sitting on me, causing me to sit up with a protest as mild as "What the hell ya doin?"

"The TV." Those two words were his only response, breathed through horrified gasping pants, and were the prelude of his jumping the couch and bolting out the front door which was located only a few feet passed the couch that I was laying on. Finally, I turned to look at the television screen and saw the malicious hatred in the eyes which burned there. Staring daggers through me. As the saying goes, "If looks could kill, I'd be a fucking dead man." It jolted me to my feet, the room seemed to seethe at my every motion but that didn't deter me from beginning to make my way to the foot of the couch so that I could generate my exit but my heart was stricken with paralysis when I noticed that the eyes followed me around the room. A picture fell from the wall, which sent the adrenaline through my system to a degree that nothing could stop my flight. It was an all-out sprint for freedom from the confines of this wretched place. The door was within reach, and as I made a final concerted effort to leap from the doorway it slammed closed in my face. It struck it hard but fought through the mild daze with a singular vision of survival. With an all-out effort, I ripped the door open and leapt outside only to hear the door slam violently behind me. Once outside, the house seemed to gyrate minutely. So minutely that the only indication of this movement were the constant groans from the structure. This caused Boof and I to back pedal from the house to a degree that we would be safe if it collapsed, which placed it squarely in the driveway with our eyes glued to the once happy home.

Time progressed as normally in a highly charged situation, and at some point that night Aunt Clo had returned home. It could have been 20 minutes or it could have been 3 hours but the important part to us was we weren't alone. Aunt Clo, our savior had returned to take care of it and hopefully dispel any malevolent energy which were swirling around her home. First, showing much concern, she asked us why we were sitting out in the driveway at 3am on an autumn night in t-shirts. We gave a brief explanation of the eyes on the TV screen which caused her to look at us puzzled but led us in through the front door and back into the living room. The entire atmosphere had changed in the intervening time. It was peaceful. The eyes were gone and the house stopped groaning its terrible cries. This immediately caused Boof and I to relax somewhat but as the three of us rounded the coach, Aunt Clo's eyes seemed to be subconsciously drawn to the Doll which still lay on its back atop the rectangular coffee table. She stopped in her tracks, tensing as she pointed to it.

"Did you get that from me closet?" She asked us, frantically. I explained that I found it and we used it in a movie that night before explaining that the eyes on the television matched the faded shade of the Doll's eyes. She balled a fist and slammed it down onto the arm of the couch and spun around violently. "What the fuck are you two thinking?" She yelled, extremely contradictory from how Aunt Clo Always acted. This was followed by her bursting between Boof and I and heading back out the door. Without any explanation or any warning, she jumped back into her car and left. Again, that dire feeling drifted over me again, and I suggested we grab some hoodies and spend the remainder of the morning outside which is exactly what we did. We sat on a broken down car in the driveway and awaited the beauty and safety of the sunrise.

A few extra tidbits to go along with this story. My Aunt was and still is a woman of eccentricity who has spent a lifetime with a similar love of horror and the supernatural like myself. This extended to an extreme degree in the years preceding her Son's enlisting into the army. She spoke of "Charlie" daily. Not a neighbor or a lover or a family member. Charlie was the name she gave to the apparition which shared her domicile. She claimed he was friendly and I never had any experienced attributed to him but this was the atmosphere of the home. In fact, she had a photo hanging in her hallway of herself, her daughter and her Son the day he returned from boot camp. Aunt Clo rented her Son a limo to bring him from the airport o her home, and his fiancé and the family which lived local to that house met him in the driveway as the Limo was pulling in, myself included. A multitude of photos were taking that day but the one she decided to hang up from the day of its development to the moment Aunt Clo lost the house was one of her standing on her son's left, with her daughter at her son's right. They were embracing warmly, everyone happy and smiling and standing in front of the house. However, in the background, in a window attributed to a room used for storage so packed that it took an afternoon just to be able to enter, there stood the clear outline of a head and face in a pale tan. When I pointed the figure out to Aunt Clo, she smiled and replied "See, I told you Charlie was here." She ,also, used to have a roommate. A beautiful biker Lady from Louisiana who lived with her for several years and who became a really close friend of the family. Because of the fiery Cajon's influence, Aunt Clo was visiting Louisiana regularly and she never missed a Mardi Gras for several decades.

After the experience with the Doll, Aunt Clo sat Boof and I down and explained the following story to us in an attempt to apologize for her reaction that night. She was in New Orleans, wandering around and window shopping and what not until she saw that particular Doll in the window of a "Voodoo Shop". She entered, having her supernatural interest wetted by the sight of it, and requested information about the Doll in the Green Dress. Immediately the attendant of the shop gave her a warning that it may be unsafe to keep that Doll in her possession. This made the Doll a forbidden fruit, the thing that you aren't supposed to have which is the only reason you want it and before the attendant could go into detail Aunt Clo had drawn forth her check book. She purchased that Doll from that seedy back ally store and carried it back to Pasadena with her. That's when it started. Things went missing. Small things at first. Her pen from her office desk. Her watch from the dresser top. Her roommate's hair brush or a toothbrush. Things escalated by gradations. Windows were broken, pipes bursting suddenly. It came to a head when Aunt Clo was pushed by an unknown force as she was going down the stairs which caused her to tumble down into the basement, causing her to break her wrist. She blamed the Doll, so she grabbed it and sped to the dump to drop it off and be done with it. Instant relief washed over her as she felt the oppression from the object had been lifted. When she arrived back at her house, The Doll was standing on the kitchen table. Aunt Clo attempted to keep her cool when she saw the wretched thing and picked it up, got her Roommate whom collected some shovels and they trudged to the woods to bury it. It took several hours for them to dig a whole deep enough that Aunt Clo felt safe it couldn't return. She dropped it in, spat into the deep grave and refilled the hole before going back home to take a shower. They entered through the back door and the Doll was standing on the kitchen table. It was at that moment that the two woman decided that the Doll was cursed and was out for vengeance against those whom owned her. Aunt Clo and her roommate talked to some people she knew to try and dispel this curse and they recommended Sage to purify the environment so Aunt Clo hid the Doll in a small niche in her closet, placed a bundle of Sage on top of it and then covered it up to try and hide it. The activity ended almost immediately afterwards.

Luckily, it was an isolated incident and no more activity happened after Aunt Clo got the Doll back into its niche and we were all able to wash our hands of the situation about a year and a half later as Aunt Clo sold the house and made sure to leave the Doll in the closet. Maybe it was somewhat malevolent and inconsiderate of whoever bought the house afterwards but it wasn't our problem anymore.