All Dolled Up!

Charlie

Well, the weekend finally arrived. I didn’t know if Matt had spoken to Sam’s team or not, but Sam’s team showed up without Matt.

Sam’s team consisted of four people: Sam himself, his co-host Peter who was dressed in a business suit as if he were a bank manager, a redhead by the name of Cathy who was their researcher, and their cameraman James who was wearing shades even though it was cloudy outside.

“So, glad to see all of you are here,” I said.

“Right, well we’re glad to be here,” Sam said. He was dressed even more overtly oddly than before, likely for the camera. “So, I thought that we’d begin by interviewing you, just to get a bit of background about the house.”

For the interview, I just stood near the front door and tried to face the camera as James held it and Sam asked questions.

“So, if you could give us your name and occupation-”

“My name is Charlie-” I said before pausing. “Can I leave out giving my last name?”

“Sure thing,” Sam said. “We’ll just cut that bit out. So, what do you do for a living?”

“I work in a warehouse.”

“I see, and what made you want to come here?”

“I just wanted to get away from my old neighborhood, and this place seemed cheap enough to get a fresh start on things.”

“I see, but did you happen to know the history behind the house?”

“As a matter of fact, I did not,” I said.

“Well, Peter here’ll tell everyone all about it,” Sam said.

The camera then turned to Peter, who began explaining some things like when the house was first built, what had happened to most of the Evergreen family, and the names of some people who had lived there before me.

I already had an envelope filled with copies of all the research that Cathy had found on the house, and planned to read over it over the coming few days. Well that, or Charlotte could do it as well while I handled Sam and his crew.

“So, what do you think about all that?” Sam asked as the camera turned back to me.

“Honestly, if I’d known the history behind the house, I wouldn’t have bought it,” I said. This was definitely true if I had just known its history, but if I had also known beforehand how things would turn out with Charlotte, I wouldn’t have changed a single thing.

Well, maybe I’d have been a bit nicer to her in the beginning.

“Well, I guess it’s a bit too late to ask for a refund,” Sam said. “But, I wanted to know - what kind of spooky occurrences have you noticed since moving here?”

“Well, I haven’t really noticed much,” I told Sam. “There was this incident a few weeks ago where I had noticed some things that had gone missing or misplaced in my kitchen, so I installed some cameras around the house. I mean, we’re a bit out of the way of the road and other houses so it didn’t seem possible for someone to be stealing things from me after coming up to the house without me catching them, but I put the cameras up just as a security precaution, you know? Except, I later found the whole setup dumped in the bathtub, ruined.”

“And you couldn’t retrieve any footage from it?”

“No, I was going to link it with my phone but hadn’t gotten around to it, and the main console where the data was stored was heavily damaged, so I had no idea who did it. I called the police, but there were no signs of forced entry,” I said.

“Alright,” Sam said. “So, anything else out of the ordinary you may have noticed.?”

“Since then, no, not at all,” I said. “I honestly don’t know who it was that did it, but I’m writing it off as a one-off event that won’t happen again.”

“Well, I have to say that you’re braver than I am, staying in a house like that after going through what you’ve been through,” Sam said. “As a matter of fact, I think you’re the person who’s stayed the longest continuously in this house since… practically forever I think, isn’t that right Cathy?”

“Indeed it is as far as I can tell.”

“Well, I’m not sure if ‘forever’ is a valid measure of time scientifically speaking,” Peter said. Based on what I had seen of ‘Supernatural Sam’, Sam was the person who was more into things while Peter was supposed to be Devil’’ Advocate, in other words, a skeptic. “But that does sound scary.” Peter then went on to present another side of things, that maybe it was a squatter of some kind who occasionally used the house, with Sam presenting arguments against it.

After a few more reshoots, the interview was over and they began setting things up inside the house. For the first time, I felt glad that the house was this big given there was ample room for them to set up their equipment without them running near Charlotte’s room.

“This place looks a lot less spooky than in the photos I saw,” Cathy said.

“Yeah, I’ve been spending time trying to fix the place up, it’s really coming around by now,” I said. My attention then went elsewhere. “What’s that?” I asked James, who was holding this weird device in his hand which looked like it was supposed to measure something.

“Oh, this is an EMF detector,” James said.

“So… what does it do?”

“Oh, some people think that ghosts or abnormal things generate abnormal electromagnetic signatures and they use things like this to detect them,” James said.

I honestly couldn’t tell whether James believed in it or not. “Alright, but hey, with the camera off, can I talk to you all for a second?”

“Sure thing,” James said and called Sam over.

“So, there’s this thing I need to show you guys,” I said. I then led them to Charlotte’s room - it was still daytime for now, though that would change soon. “So, I keep some stuff in here which my sister asked me to keep safe, including that doll over there.”

“Whoa,” James said, seeing Charlotte. “That is… I’m not gonna lie, kind of spooky to keep in a house like this.”

His EMF detector didn’t go off, which told me that any rumors that it could track supernatural beings were complete hogwash.

“Yeah, kind of, I was asking her to take it away, but she hasn’t gotten around to it yet,” I said. “Um, so if you don’t mind, because there’s some other stuff in here I don’t want misplaced or broken, mainly just ‘cuz it isn’t mine, you know? If it was mine I wouldn’t have a problem with it, but it’s my sister’s and I couldn’t forgive myself if something happened so... I’m just going to lock this room. And I’m also going to ask that you not film anything inside of it.” I didn’t want Charlotte’s image broadcast for the world to see, even if she was just presented as a normal doll. I still shuddered whenever I remembered that message of someone asking if they could buy her, and my protective instincts went into overdrive whenever I was around her.

“Oh, sure,” Sam said. “I understand completely.”

I then locked the door.