Arabela

A little girl, named Lucy, was given a small doll by her parents. The doll was a gift from an ancient great aunt who had now passed away. Lucy was secretly unnerved by the doll which had nasty little black eyes that seemed to follow her around the room and a cross expression on it's face.

Nevertheless, Lucy had to accept the doll, as she was well brought up and didn't want to upset her parents by informing them of how uneasy she felt around the doll. Her parents told her the doll was called Arabella. Lucy was even more afraid now that the doll had a name. It seemed to make it more human.

Even so, Lucy never really believed on a conscious level that the doll could do anything to her. It was just a doll, after all, and only reached up to just above her knee. So, to put her mind at rest, she stuffed Arabella into the little cupboard under the stairs, behind a pile of shoes where her parents wouldn't see her.

It was not until a few nights later, when Lucy was lying in bed that she heard a noise...a shuffling sound, which went on for about five minutes. Then, a brief dragging noise and finally, a scuttling like light footsteps walking very fast. Lucy was pinned to the bed with fear, unable to move. Then, she heard a voice - like a very deep, almost masculine tone - but quiet enough not to wake her parents.

Lucy always slept with the door open and the landing light on, as she was a little scared of the dark. Therefore she could hear more through her open door. Lucy heard the voice say "Lucy, I'm on the first step"...And then loud scrabbling again as whatever was speaking apparently turned tail and returned to it's place of hiding.

Lucy didn't sleep a wink that night but laid in fear until the break of dawn when her mother got her up for school. Lucy tried to explain to her mother what had happened the night before, but was so tired that, when her mother passed it off as "just a dream" she didn't have the strength to argue.Lucy begged her parents to get rid of the doll, but they insisted that it had been the great aunts wish that Lucy would have her doll. She checked the cupboard under the stairs, but Arabella was exactly where Lucy had left her. She reluctantly went back to bed.That night, Lucy fought against sleeping but she eventually drifted off. Presently, the deep disembodied voice woke Lucy again.

She wondered if she could only hear it in her head. "Luuuuucccccccyyyyy....I'm on the fifth step.." it said. Then came the scuffling noise and the voice didn't reoccur that night. Lucy was crying by now, and again she didn't sleep that night. At school, Lucy told her friends about the doll, and of course they laughed at her. Lucy could only think that if Arabella was climbing four steps at a time then there was only one more night to go.That night Lucy decided to shut her bedroom door.

When her mother turned her light out she asked why Lucy was no longer scared of the dark. Lucy replied that she was and could she leave her light on instead of the hall light? But her mother pointed out that her bedroom light was so bright it would keep her awake, and said no. Lucy reluctantly agreed to sleep without her light on. She opened the bedroom curtains instead to light the room a little anyway.Just as she began to doze, she heard the noise. And then the voice "Luuucccyyyy... I'm on the top step..." Lucy knew her door was closed but was still terribly afraid.

Her heart pounding, she knew if she stayed in bed she wouldn't be safe. So she got up to investigate. She screamed!Lucy's parents found her body at the bottom of the stairs. They guessed she was on her way to the bathroom without switching on the hallway light and had fallen down the stairs breaking her neck.

Arabella, the favorite family doll, was found beside her body.

She was......smiling.