Apple Head
A short folk-horror story
My challenge this year is to write one short horror story based off of a different trope each month.
January was ghosts: Hot and Cold
February was abandoned towns: Holes
This month we have cursed objects. Based loosely—very—off of an actual scary object I saw as a kid and my mother decided to bring home. I use that same exact item in this story.
Enjoy this story brought to you via childhood trauma.
Apple Head
Jennifer Radley was sitting under an apple tree one bright afternoon in June. The foothills were hotter than her home up in the mountains. A humidity clung to her skin, making her feel like she was drowning on dry land, causing her to regret wearing jeans.
Still, Ryan wanted to come to Apple Hill for the day, and she wanted to get out of that town. Living at home with her invalid mother was a full time job in and of itself. Mom wanted all windows curtained during the day. Refused to let her vacuum the place. Went off on her if Jennifer so much as tried to throw away her junk.
Home was a dark and dust filled tomb. One she had become a permanent resident in.
So, she could suck it up and pretend that she was enjoying herself. It was a beautiful day and she was outside after all.
She could see Ryan across the grassy hill, walking back to her from some stalls that sat by a derelict barn. Dozens of people buzzed around the booths that sold, well, apples and apple related paraphernalia.
Regular old apples. Candied apples. Apple pie. Apple strudel. You name it, these bumpkins sold it.
Ryan had a basket in his right hand full of, oh joy of joys, apples. Jennifer could see the gleam of sunlight reflecting off of two candied apples atop several normal looking green ones.
In his left hand he was holding a small object wrapped in brown paper.
“Hey babe,” Ryan said, “enjoying the sunshine?”
He said that last word light sanshayne and danced a little jig. It irked Jennifer when he did this, trying to act cool and or cute. But like the humidity, she ignored it. Anything was better than being at home.
Right?
“Not as much as you’re enjoying all of,” she gestured at the orchard and nearby farm buildings, “this wonderful apple… ness.”
She let out a pathetic laugh.
Ryan, oblivious to her exasperation, set the basket by her feet on the grass.
“Dig in.”
Ryan sat and grabbed one of the candied apples by its stick and crunched down on it.
Jennifer watched as the sticky sugar coating smeared his beard and lips.
“I’m okay,” she said.
“Whubbeber ooh wan,” he said with a full mouth.
Jennifer looked away from her boyfriend and at the object in the brown paper he had set next to the basket.
“What’s that?” she asked.
Ryan swallowed. Grinned with flecks of red stuck in his teeth. Jennifer’s stomach quivered. He unwrapped the paper and held up a figurine.
It was in the shape of a person. The tiny body was made out of twigs and straw, covered in a blue blouse, with a white shawl over its head.
“Check this out,” Ryan said as he shoved the doll in her face. He removed the shawl and Jennifer recoiled at the sight.
Its head was a dried and shrunken apple. A leathery brown. Shriveled, looking uncomfortably like human skin. With two black beads for eyes, and a withered grimace carving as a smile. It looked like an old woman.
A hag, she thought.
“Why the hell did you buy that?”
Ryan shrugged his shoulders. Made the doll dance on his knees while he whistled. "I got from over there.” He pointed over at a stall on the right side of the barn. A desolate looking table with an older woman hunched over it. Nobody was looking at what she had at her table. Most of the foot traffic was happening at the stalls on the left side of the barn, the ones with colorful banners above their tables.
For a moment, Jennifer thought that the hideous doll looked just like that woman at the table.
Jennifer couldn’t look at the thing. It reminded her of a scary movie Dad showed her when she was six. Couldn’t remember what it was about; something with an African death doll chasing people and killing them in a house. The memory caused her skin to prickle and her body to shiver despite the heat.
The idea of something so tiny yet so horrifying skittering around her house in the dark. Hiding in the covers with her.
“It’s yours,” Ryan said with a grin.
A smile that was slowly wearing down her love for him.
“No fucking way,” she said.
Ryan’s smile faded and he cast his eyes down to the grass.
Her annoyance gave way to, not love, but pity in that moment.
“Fine,” she said, all while planning to dump the thing in the trash first chance she got.
Ryan beamed at her. Tried to wave the twig arm of the doll at her. Almost broke it off.
Jennifer couldn’t look away from its pinpoint black eyes.
Yeah, tossing you the second he’s not watching.
Ryan made the doll bow and it almost looked like it was nodding along with her thoughts.
By the time they wrapped up the Apple Hill adventure, complete with a horse ride and a visit to some spitting llamas, Jennifer had completely forgotten about the apple-headed doll.
Ryan drove them home up the winding roads in the dark, a journey that took three hours. She slept like a moss covered stone the whole way back. Felt like one too.
He dropped her off at home and kissed her on the cheek. She could feel the faint smear of sugar on her skin from his dried yet sticky lips. She shuddered and had to clench her jaw to keep it from showing. Then Ryan drove off and left her in her darkened driveway.
There were no streetlights on Blackbird Avenue. None of the homes on the quiet pine tree lined street had lights showing from their windows either. As a kid, Jennifer hated walking around late at night. Coyotes and sometimes even bears wandered through the neighborhood, looking for trash or house cats.
At least her house had motion activated floodlights which turned on as she walked to her front door. She had to shield her eyes from the glare with the bag of goods Ryan got her from Apple Hill.
Jennifer took out her keys from her jeans pocket and unlocked the front door and went inside.
None of the lights were on but she could hear the faint murmur of the television coming from Mom’s bedroom. She crept across the squeaking floorboards towards her room, hoping to go unnoticed, making it as far as the hallway just outside her door.
“That you Jen?”
Damn.
“Yeah Mama, sorry to bother you.”
“Come in here.”
Jennifer held her breath and opened her Mother’s bedroom door.
The smell of ammonia and mildew wafted into her face. Mixed with the aroma of unwashed flesh and rotting food.
Mom was lying in her bed, watching some dating show on the small box TV set up on top of a dresser. Its glow reflected off her glasses, making it look like she was wearing sunglasses. Her hair rioted against order and decency in at least ten different directions.
“Why you so late?” Mom asked, not looking at her, not as far as Jennifer could tell given the reflecting glasses.
“No reason, it just takes a while to drive back from—”
“Eh,” Mom cut her off. “Just be quiet.”
Mom shooed her away with a flick of a flabby wrist and Jennifer hurried out of that room, wishing she could hurry out of this life just as fast.
Jennifer went into her bedroom and shut the door. Turned on the lights.
Hers was the only room in that house that bore even a passing resemblance to cleanliness. Her pink curtains, fluffy pink carpet that no one was allowed to walk on with their shoes, her stuffed animals lining the walls as sentries against the outside world.
Jennifer took off her clothes, too tired for a shower—which would only have meant avoiding the slimy mold covered tiles and causing her more stress—and collapsed in her bed with the lights on.
She was twenty six years old. No job. No friends except for Ryan. She had all those things before, lived in Berkeley, worked at a law firm, went to parties. All that came crashing down when Dad died and Mom lost the plot. Mom didn’t even have a physical disability as far as Jennifer knew. Hers was a sickness of the mind. And Jennifer being the only child felt that pull of responsibility bringing her back to town to take care of her. Like a rabbit whose foot got snared in a trap and couldn’t run away.
Unless it gnawed off the foot.
As sleep gradually took her, she fantasized about what life could be when she could leave this place. Of course, guilt pierced her heart thinking about Mom’s eventual passing. But she’d be lying to say there wasn’t a tinge of joy threaded in with that guilt.
Her eyes grew heavy and soon all was black.
Scratching.
Like nails on leather.
Scuttling.
Like a squirrel running on hardwood.
Jennifer’s eyes shot open.
The room was dark. Vague animal shapes from her dolls along the walls. The dark outline of her Christmas lights strung across the ceiling.
I left the lights on, was all she could think in that moment.
Scratching.
From under her bed.
Her mind raced. They’d had mice and rats in the house before. Back when they had a cat, she’d wake up to pieces of their little bodies splayed out on her covers as an offering from Mr. Tibbitts.
A scream lodged itself in her throat and threatened to suffocate her in panic. She braced herself to get out of bed and flick on the lights.
She must have only thought she left them on. It was an exhausting day.
The pattering of little feet raced from under her bed to the bedroom door. She saw her stuffed bear fall to the side in front of the door.
Her throat squeezed itself shut. Her heart raged against her ribs.
I hate this fucking house.
She reached for her phone on the nightstand. Grabbed it. Turned on the flashlight. A silver beam of light cut through the darkness. Landed on the fallen bear. She swiped it across the room.
And stopped when it landed on the doll sitting on her bed by her feet.
The apple headed doll.
Face covered in that white shawl.
Hunched over as if at prayer.
Jennifer’s hands shook and she dropped the phone. She screamed and sat up straight in bed. Fumbled around her blankets until she found the phone. Flashed it back by the foot of her bed.
The doll was gone.
“Mama!”
Her own voice shook her. As if calling out into the darkness would somehow make her whereabouts more known.
Mom did not answer.
She swiped through phone and called Ryan.
“Yeah,” came his groggy voice.
“There’s somebody,” something, “in the house, I need you here, now!”
“Whoa babe, calm dow—”
She hung up. Stood on her feet. Swiping the light frantically around the room.
“Mama!”
The only response was that scratching sound.
From above her.
On the ceiling.
She almost threw her phone at the spot.
When the light landed on it, there was nothing there.
Am I losing my mind?
The light switch was by the door. She’d have to get off her bed and walk to it. All those childhood fears of keeping her feet hidden under the covers, to keep them safe from the monsters under the bed, seemed all too relevant right now.
It’s only a rat. Maybe a squirrel. You’re overreacting. You only think you saw the doll.
The skittering came to life from the corner by her window, on the opposite side of the room from the door.
She jumped off the bed and ran to the light and flipped it up so hard she thought she might break it.
The light revealed her room in all its pink glory.
On her nightstand was the doll.
Not moving.
Face hidden behind the shawl.
Jennifer turned around and was about to run out of that room screaming.
Until a voice came from behind her.
“What will you give?'“
It was a hissing whisper of a voice.
Jennifer turned around. Hand still gripping her doorknob. The doll was still there. She stared at it. Thought she saw it move but it must have been a trick of the light mixed with her fear.
Then the head move upwards.
The shawl fell from its face.
Terror paralyzed Jennifer and brought her to her knees in tears.
The voice came again. Not from the doll’s shrunken mouth, which did not move. But from inside her own mind. Like a reverberating echo in an empty cavern.
“Give, and receive.”
Tears flushed down her cheeks and into her mouth. The taste of salt in the back of her throat made her cry even harder.
“W-what do you want?”
No answer.
No movement.
Just the face of the doll. The shriveled apple skin, bruised and browned with age. The uncanny facial features; the downward sloping grimace, the oversized bulbous nose, the chubby cheeks.
The black eyes. Shining in the dim light of the room.
Jennifer was sure, that should she get out of this, she’d be seeing that face every night for the rest of her life before she fell asleep. Even now, as she shut her eyes tight and prayed it would go away, she could see, burned on the inside of her eyelids.
She opened her eyes.
The doll was gone.
For a moment she thought it must have been a bad dream. Or a waking delusion. Brought on by the utter exhaustion and stress of the day.
Until she heard a bump from outside her room. Something hard hitting the wall. Not her bedroom’s wall, but from down the hall, from her Mother’s room.
A whimper.
Another bump.
The power went out.
Jennifer screamed and shot to her feet. Hit the light switch but nothing happened. Looked at her phone and was about to dial the police—fuck Ryan.
Another whimper. Clearly coming from her Mother.
What if she needs me now?
She did not dial the police.
Jennifer’s heart attacked her ribcage. Her breath couldn’t be found. She clenched her hands and threw the door open to a gaping and endless blackness in the hall.
She shined the flashlight forward.
Was terrified of something running out at her from the darkness the light didn’t touch.
She wanted to call out for Mom but couldn’t. On shaking legs she made her way down the hall.
Stood outside Mom’s door.
Pressed her ear against the door and listened.
No sound save for the rush of blood in her head. Like a savage river threatening to carry her downstream.
She opened the door with a sweaty hand.
In the near total darkness she could make out the vague shape of Mom’s bed.
“Mmma—” Was all she could get out.
Jennifer didn’t want to lift the phone and see.
She did so anyway.
Mom was gone.
Tussled blankets half on the bed and half on the floor.
Jennifer swayed and nearly fainted. The room spun. She couldn’t make sense of what she was seeing. Couldn’t even think of her own name.
That hissing voice came to her from somewhere in the dark room.
“I have given. Now you must give.”
Some of Mom’s blankets blocked off her view of the bed’s underside.
The voice was definitely coming from there.
That animal trap snare around her foot was tugging at Jennifer to go look. To lift that blanket and see if her Mother needed help.
Unless it gnawed off the foot.
Jennifer ran out of the room. Ran down the hall to the front door. Sprinted outside into the dark. Collided right into Ryan as he was walking up the drive.
They both fell over.
“Whoa Jen-ben what' the hell?” Ryan yelled at her as he pushed her off of him.
She scrambled to her feet, clutching at his shirt as he rose. “There’s… Mama… that fucking—”
“Calm down. You’re not making any sense.”
She put her hands on her knees and gulped in air. Breathed out one slow breath.
“That doll you got me, it’s alive. It got Mama—”
Ryan sighed. Looked up at the stars and then down at her with dead eyes and a frown. “Is this some fucking prank?”
“No!”
“You didn’t like the date huh?” He laughed mockingly. “And I try so fucking hard with you, I really do. I mean, look at where you live—”
“Shut up!”
Her anger surprised even her. Ryan’s mouth hung open in shock.
That hissing voice came back to her.
Give… Receive…
She understood.
In that moment it was as if gale force winds blew away the fog in her mind.
It had taken Mother as a gift. Jennifer thought guilt and shame would fill her heart at the thought but they didn’t.
If it had given to her, she was now obligated to give back.
Give what?
Ryan was talking, had been for maybe a minute now, Jennifer couldn’t hear him. He was smiling as if to look down at her. He still had bits of candied apple in his teeth.
Jennifer looked at her house, the floodlights having just shut off. She saw the tiny silhouette of the doll, sitting on the window sill. And even thought its eyes were black and there was no light, she saw them glittering like stars.
She smiled.
“You’re right,” she said. “This was a prank, well not a prank per se, I actually have a present for you.”
Ryan smiled that dumb smile again.
“Ah I knew it.” He punched at the air. “Knew you wouldn’t be such a bitch to me.”
Jennifer’s heart was nearly clawing out of her chest now. She forced that smile wide—years of practice baby.
“Go inside and see.”
Ryan winked and shot his fingers out at her like a gun.
He went into the house.
And then the screaming began.
Story so good I almost cried
It touched so many nerves and I was not ready. There is a dark joy in the ending that needs to be digested. But very good building up and character development.