Sam definitely shouldn't have touched the doll. It’s just a doll, she had thought. What harm could it do? Apparently, a lot.

Sam Bracket was at a garage sale. She was only there because her father adored garage sales and went to them wherever they were, rain or shine. And the only thing he loved more was making his only daughter go with him. Poking through the musty rows of useless junk, she grumbled to herself about what a waste of a summer day this was. I could be roller skating with my friends, she thought. Or eating snacks, or watching a movie, or even reading a good book―

She stopped. There in front of her was a china doll, with long, thick black hair, big blue eyes with fluttering false eyelashes, red lips pursed tight, and a crack on her forehead. Sam wasn't a doll person, but she kind of liked this one. Sure, it had a yellowed old nightgown on, and the feet were bare and broken, but it had a sort of eccentric charm about it, a feeling someone had loved this doll very much. Sam fished out the ten dollars her father had given her out of her jeans pocket and paid for the doll.

Driving back home, listening to her father waffle on about all the good finds people just throw away for five bucks, Sam fingered the doll’s nightgown. It was old and fragile, almost as fragile as the doll itself. Its china skin was was smooth and white, shiny as if it had been polished. Away from the dim light of the person’s garage, it now looked clever, even pretty. Her father glanced back at his daughter.

“A doll? I thought you would get a ice cream machine or something.”

Sam shrugged and continued to look at her new doll.

That night, Sam went to bed early. She had shut her new doll in the coset and was just tucking herself in when she heard a saw. Diving under her blankets, she listened again. Sure enough, it sounded like something was sawing themselves out of the…

Closet.

Shivering, Sam tried to go to sleep, but woke up soon to a the closet door falling down with a clatter. She looked up just in time to see her doll calmly climb out of the closet. She screamed and reached for her bedside lamp, but it was too late. The doll jerkily ran for her bed and crawled up the bedpost, giggling maniacally. Sam instinctively kicked it away, taking a chip out of her cheek. The doll growled and brandished its weapon― a long, serrated knife stained with dried blood.

Sam leapt out of bed and opened her bedside table drawer, in which there was a Swiss army knife. She glanced at the doll’s massive weapon. She needed something bigger. She ran to the kitchen, the doll hot on her heels. Sam pulled open the tool drawer and selected a hammer. She turned around just as the doll leapt up with a snarl and cut open her cheek. The doll landed on the counter, hopped off, and turned around―

Sam smashed her with one swing. The doll’s head flew; Sam caught it and crushed it with another blow from the hammer.

A single china hand skittered like a spider to retrieve its knife, but Sam crushed that too. She crushed everything into a fine powder until she was surrounded by a mass of china dust, a cluster of thick black hair, and an old nightgown. Sam threw out the china and nightgown; she braided the hair and kept it in her night stand.

But after that night, try as she might, she could never remember what it was from.