Living Doll, page 1
Living Doll
A Short Thriller
Vincent Zandri
Published by Vincent Zandri, 2023.
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Table of Contents
Title Page
Also By Vincent Zandri
Living Doll (A Short Thriller)
The Living Doll | A Short Thriller | Vincent Zandri
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THE END
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—Publishers Weekly
". . . OH, WHAT A STORY it is . . . Riveting . . . A terrific old school thriller."
—Booklist "Starred Review"
"ZANDRI DOES A FANTASTIC job with this story. Not only does he scare the reader, but the horror show he presents also scares the man who is the definition of the word "tough."
—Suspense Magazine
"I VERY HIGHLY RECOMMEND this book . . . It's a great crime drama that is full of action and intense suspense, along with some great twists . . . Vincent Zandri has become a huge name and just keeps pouring out one best seller after another."
—Life in Review
"(THE INNOCENT) IS A thriller that has depth and substance, wickedness and compassion."
—The Times-Union (Albany)
"THE ACTION NEVER WANES."
—Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel
"GRITTY, FAST-PACED, lyrical and haunting."
—Harlan Coben, New York Times bestselling author of Six Years
"TOUGH, STYLISH, HEARTBREAKING."
—Don Winslow, New York Times bestselling author of Savages and Cartel.
"A TIGHTLY CRAFTED, smart, disturbing, elegantly crafted complex thriller . . . I dare you to start it and not keep reading."
—MJ Rose, New York Times bestselling author of Halo Effect and Closure
"A CLASSIC SLICE OF raw pulp noir..."
—William Landay, New York Times bestselling author of Defending Jacob
"ZANDRI (IS) A VETERAN wordsmith who executes quality and quantity at superlative levels."
—Book Reporter
The Living Doll
A Short Thriller
Vincent Zandri
"Every night Julian would report that he would hear the cries of a young girl, and what's even creepier the footsteps of the lost soul." – The Creepy Island of the Dolls
1
Insanity
John Simpson finally found a way to carve out the precious time away from his work-in-progress to make a weekend-long trip with his wife, Gina, and their daughter, Chrissy, (their only daughter and child).
Chrissy was about to have her first baby.
Well, that's not exactly right. Chrissy was only nine years old. She was too young to be a real mother. But when she became obsessed with having her very own artificial intelligence enhanced "USA Baby Doll" (with lifelike feel, movements, and voice), along with a whole bunch of very expensive outfits and accessories, Simpson decided to drive his family to New York City and make a weekend of it.
After all, Chrissy and Gina, deserved it. You see, John Simpson hadn't been a pleasant person to be around as of late. He'd been hold up all alone in his upstate writing studio for far too long, griding gears on what was to be his newest novel. That said, he'd been more or less neglecting his family (Gina was his fourth wife and he was determined to get this one right, even if it killed him, as he so often reminded himself).
The three Simpsons drove from upstate where they owned a small farmhouse and accompanying barn on a dozen acres of pristine farmland which Simpson purchased for a song back on the early 2000s on a high five-figure advance his agent acquired for him at Wards and Van Rensselaer Publishing who were located in New York City's Bertelsmann Building in the middle of Times Square.
Since the writer had no intention of being a real farmer, he converted some of the barn into a writing studio. The renovated space housed not only his desk and laptop computer, but also a half dozen manual typewriters that he used throughout the years before laptops came into vogue, and maybe a thousand hardcover and paperback books stacked on floor-to ceiling shelves, along a pile of six or seven manuscripts that were presently in need of editing (like many mystery writers these days, Simpson also published several series "independently" under his own label, Bear Media).
John Simpson wasn't only thinking of himself when he had his writing studio built. He thought it would be a hoot if he had a playroom constructed for his daughter too. In fact, her spacious playroom was located right next door to his writing studio. It was constructed of wallboard, overlaid with sheet rock finished in happy shiny bright colors that really came alive when you turned on the overhead, ceiling-mounted track lighting.
The carpet was all-weather (in case of spills and muddy/snowy feet) and also colorful, while all sorts of cool, framed posters hung on the walls. Chrissy even got her own wall-mounted, flatscreen TV that streamed all sorts of old Disney movies and shows like The Muppets (no Teletubbies for Daddy's little girl). She also used it to play video games on her Nintendo 64.
While Chrissy loved and even cherished her playroom, she hadn't been using it a lot lately. That's because her daddy was beginning to scare her. He wasn't a nice dad when he was having trouble writing, and over the past few weeks she could hear him through the walls, shouting, screaming, throwing things, and even crying.
Once, when she snuck a look into his studio space, she saw him drinking from a big green bottle. She might have been a little girl, but she knew he was drinking alcohol. It frightened her because she overheard mommy on more than one occasion reminding daddy that he should never drink another drop of alcohol again. That it made him mean and even dangerous when he drank it.
As luck would have it, coming up with a story wasn't all that difficult for John Simpson like it was for some other writers. Under normal circumstances, Simpson was a pulp-speed writer who had no trouble coming up with the words necessary to fill a page in less than ten minutes. But lately, something had been going wrong with the writing gears in his brain. Call it burnout, exhaustion, or just plain "hitting the fucking wall," but he could not write anymore.
Simply said, for the first time in his life, John Simpson couldn't come up with any words. It was not only making him crazy, it was making him insane.
2
A Happy Heart Breaks and a Doll Speaks
But that didn't mean John Simpson wasn't able to enjoy himself and his family for a couple of days and nights inside the Big Apple. That weekend they not only bought a brand new USA Baby Doll, and around one thousand dollars worth of accessories to go with her (Simpson loved to spoil his only daughter even if it meant he had to use plastic to pay for it), they went ice skating at Rockefeller Center, rode a horse and carriage in Central Park, ate a big lobster dinner at San Francisco de Vasco's down on 23rd Street across from the old Chelsea Hotel, walked the High Line, and slept like babies in their cozy Gramercy Park Hotel room.
The girls were happy, and it was the very thing Simpson needed for his soul. Maybe it would be the medicine he needed to break his stubborn writer's block. Of course, he wouldn't truly know until he got back home on Sunday afternoon and once more sat down in front of his laptop and faced the seemingly never-ending empty abyss of the blank page (screen).
If only he knew the source of his block. There had been a time when a simple jog along a country road would produce the idea for two or three stories which he would immediately begin on right when he got home. He might sit there in front of his laptop his sweaty clothes for hours until at least one of the stories was completed.
The next day, he'd begin on the other story. Perhaps the story would turn into something longer, like a novella, or a full novel. Simpson never knew since it wasn't he who was doing the writing. It was some other force of nature that was using his body as a conduit. That was how spooky his talent for being a prolific author was. He simply had no idea how the stories came to him, or how he wrote them. He only knew that they got written.
But now, like a water pump that no longer produced water, his well had run dry, and it was driving him crazy.
As they were packing their bags just moments before checkout, Gina turned to her husband of five years. She kissed his scruffy cheek, ran her hands over his copped head of salt and pepper hair, and squeezed his solid forearms.
"We've had a lovely time," she whispered, a sweet smile covering her beautiful, almost chiseled face. "For a while there, I was afraid I might have lost you. You've been not yourself lately, John."
Simpson stared into Gina's alluring blue eyes...the eyes that first drew him to her when he first met her at Lanie's Bar six years ago now. He gazed at her thick, dirty blonde hair and took in her athletic build, and the way her simple outfit of tight Levis jeans, pointed-toe cowboy boots and black turtleneck sweater made her look glamorous and sexy. When he met her, he'd finally found what the term true love was all about, and he'd be damned if this relationship was going to fail like the rest of them had.
Together, the two held one another's hands as they both shifted their focus to their happy daughter, Chrissy. She was seated on the big bed, her USA Baby Doll cradled in her arms. She'd already given the doll a name.
Debbie.
While cradling Debbie, Chrissy quietly sang a lullaby to her. It was the same lullaby Gina had sung to baby Chrissy over the course of so many nights when, as a newborn, she couldn't get to sleep.
"Rock a bye baby, on the treetop...when the tree blows, the cradle will drop...and down will come baby..."
For a long beat or two, John Simpson didn't think he'd ever seen his little girl so happy. It was as if she were a born mommy. As if sensing her parents were staring at her, Chrissy raised her head and locked eyes with them.
"I love my new baby, Debbie," she said.
At that moment in time, Simpson thought his heart would break from all the happiness that was bearing down upon it.
"And we love you, Chrissy," Gina said.
"When are we leaving?" Debbie said.
3
Big Mike Hassles an On-the-Edge Writer
John Simpson couldn't help but be entirely amazed at Debbie's question. How did she know the family was gearing up to leave the hotel? She was just a doll. An inanimate object made of plastic, paint, and springs.
But then, these were the 2020s. Nothing was as it seemed anymore. You could install an Alexa AI system in your home and ask it to do just about anything for you, except shine your shoes. But even then, it would suggest some shoe-shining services near your home.
Robots were all the rage. Simpson had even heard about robots whose AI was so sophisticated, they were able to show real emotion and even empathy for their human inventors. If they could show empathy, they could surely show hatred and anger. These days, a doll wasn't just plastic and springs at all. A doll was also filled with high-tech digital gadgetry that could make it come alive. Or, almost alive, anyway.
