URBAN LEGENDS

When I was in 3rd or 4th grade I would always stay the night with my friend Carrie White...I have no idea what has happened to her in life, but my most memorable moments at her house were telling scary stories, or now what people would call Urban Legends.

The one that stood out the most was The China Doll. She told this story so well b/c even as a 9-10 year old she had insanely long fingernails...for some reason I had this story in my head at work on Friday and googled it, and found it.

The funny thing is, this story never scared me. I never had nightmares b/c of it...and it didn't prevent me from getting rid of my own china dolls...and I had 4 growing up as a child. So I thought that I would share the story with you. I hope you enjoy it.

THE CHINA DOLL

A woman's husband had sent her a gift of a china doll while he was traveling in the Orient, which she put in a glass case in her bedroom. The doll had lovely black hair - real human hair - and was dressed in a real silk kimono, the folds of which concealed her graceful porcelain hands.

When the husband came home, the woman got pregnant, but she didn't love her husband and didn't want to have the baby (she only cared about his money). So she made herself have a miscarriage, and to hide the evidence, she put the aborted fetus into the hollow interior of the china doll.

The blood of the fetus, combined with the woman's malevolence and the china doll's human hair (and innate Eastern mystical properties), caused the china doll to come to "life." No one noticed that the china doll's hair was growing down the back of her silk kimono, that her cheeks were rosier, and that her nails were growing sharp and clawed behind the folds of her gown. No one noticed the way the doll's eyes followed the woman as she moved around the room, or how they glowed at night when the lights were turned off.

The woman did sense something out of the ordinary, however, and finally insisted that the china doll be moved downstairs, out of the bedroom. After a few weeks, the woman began to lose sleep, imagining that she heard scratching, rustling, whispering noises coming from downstairs, that seemed to be calling "Momma... momma!" She noticed scratches on the wooden stairs, which her husband said must be from mice, but the exterminator he called said there was no sign of rodents. The woman tried to lock the china doll in a closet, but the husband protested - it had been so expensive, was such a work of art, and he wanted it out on display.

Every day, there were a few more scratches on the stairs, and every day they got deeper.. and reached one step higher. One night as she tried to sleep, the woman imagined she heard scratching and rustling outside the bedroom door. She screamed for her husband to turn on the light, but by the time he fumbled out of bed, there was nothing there... except for some long shallow scratches at the bottom of the door and the faintest silken whisper from down the stairs.

The next night the woman took several strong sleeping pills and went to bed with the door shut tight, and locked for good measure. She finally got some sleep... and as she slept, the china doll stirred. Opening her glass case quietly, the china doll stole to the bottom of the stairs. Using her long sharp fingernails, she pulled herself up, one step at a time, until she was at the top of the landing. She whispered, "Momma, I'm coming!" and made her way to the door. She used her talon-like claws again to climb up the door, inserted one nail into the keyhole and jiggled the lock open, then slipped around to the woman's side of the bed.

The china doll used her nails like hooks to help her climb up onto the bed and then she slowly pulled the covers back to expose the sleeping woman's body. The doll's eyes glowed red as she raised her hands and then used her fingernails to claw open the woman's stomach. Near-paralyzed by drugs, pain, and terror, the woman screamed and screamed as the china doll climbed into her belly, whispering, "Momma, I'm home!"