The Talking Doll is a scary tale about an old woman who loves dolls and a young woman who hates them.

There was an old couple who had hired a new maid to help around their house. The wife had a huge doll collection, and the maid was expected to dust them once a week. So once a week the maid walked into the room where the dolls were stored and looked at them in disgust. She hated dolls. While she was dusting, she came across a particularly strange doll. It was a talking doll and it had a cord in the back. The maid was intrested and pulled the cord. The doll said, “Hello.” The maid pulled the cord again. “I love my momma”, said the doll. The maid put the doll back and continued cleaning.

A few weeks later, while dusting off the dolls, the maid accidently knocked a doll over. It shattered as soon as it hit the ground. The old woman heard the sound and went to investigate. When she walked into the room and saw her shattered doll, a very sad look came across her face. The maid saw this quickly and said, “I’m really sorry. I didn’t mean to break her. I won’t do it again.” The old woman looked down at her sad, broken doll and told the maid that she could only keep her job if she promised to be extra careful around the dolls. The maid agreed.

The next day, the old couple left the maid alone while they went out to run some errands. The maid was in such a bad mood that she neglected to do her job. While she was sitting in the kitchen enjoying some of the couple’s fancy chocolate, the maid thought of a vicious idea. She slowly made her way into the room where the dolls were kept. She thought for a moment about how sad the old woman was about her broken doll. The maid picked up a doll and said, “She must really love these dolls,” and threw the doll on the floor. It shattered and the maid smiled.

She loved the feeling of breaking dolls. Something about the shattering sound pleased her. She threw more and more dolls to the floor. She was still in her doll-killing rage when the old couple came through the door. The old woman ran to her broken dolls. She looked up at the maid with a baleful expression and asked, “What are you doing?” The husband, seeing his wife so upset, immediately told the maid she was fired.

The maid collected her things and left in an even worse mood before. She was so angry that later that night she snuck back into the old couple’s home. Knowing they would be sound asleep, she crept into the kitchen, found the biggest knife she could, and made her way to the bedroom.

The next morning, the maid returned to the house and acted like an innocent bystander and told the police that she worked for the couple. She played the sorry victim that had lost good friends. She told police that the old couple were loving, nice, caring people and she had no idea why anyone would want to kill them.

At that point, she slowly walked into the house, saying she wished to make sure no one had hurt the old woman’s precious doll colection. When she got to the talking doll she picked it up and pulled the cord. “Hello”, it said. She pulled the cord again, and it said “Why did you kill my momma?”

The maid looked horified. “What did you just say?”

“Why did you kill momma?” asked the doll. The maid stared in shock. She kept pulling the cord. “Why did you kill my momma? She was a nice momma. I loved her very much. Why did you kill my momma?” The maid stared at the doll. She could not believe this was happening. “YOU KILLED MY MOMMA!” the doll screamed. The maid threw it to the ground and ran from the house.

The next morning the maid was found dead in her bed. In her arms was the talking doll. When investigators pulled the cord on the dolls back it just kept repeating, “She killed my momma. She killed my momma. She killed my momma…”

The Antique Doll is a scary story about a young girl who receives a strange gift on her birthday.

On the morning of her birthday, Lucy’s mother woke her up and told her a package had arrived in the mail and it was addressed to her. The girl hurriedly unwrapped the gift and was horrified at what she found inside. It was the most disgusting old doll she had ever seen. It was completely bald and it’s skin was cracked and caked in dirt. The worst thing of all was it’s teeth. They were long, pointy, sharp and beastly. They looked like an animal’s fangs. With a shiver, she took the doll and threw it in a corner. Her mother scolded her, telling her that someone had gone to a lot of trouble to send her this antique doll. Her mother told her she had better appreciate it. Lucy tried to protest but her mother would not listen. She forced the young girl to keep the doll. So, to put her mind at rest Lucy stuffed the antique doll into the little cupboard under the stairs, behind a pile of shoes where she wouldn’t have to look at the ugly, evil little thing.

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.

By now Lucy was shaking in her bed with fear, unable to move. Then, she thought she heard a faint raspy voice whispering quietly from downstairs. Lucy always slept with the door open and the landing light on, as she was a little scared of the dark.

She 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 was so scared that she 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 began to believe it might be the case.

Of course it wasn’t. Lucy begged her parents to let her throw the antique doll in the garbage, but they insisted that it was a present and she had to keep it. So Lucy reluctantly went back to bed, telling herself that it had only been a dream. She checked the cupboard under the stairs, but the doll was exactly where Lucy had left her.

That night, Lucy fought sleep but she eventually drifted off even though she had fought sleep. Presently, the deep disembodied voice woke Lucy again. She wondered if she could only hear it in her head.

“Luuuuccccyyyy! I’m on the fourth step…”, it said. Then came to 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 the doll 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.

Therefore Lucy agreed to just sleep without a light. 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 came, very clear this time. “Luuuuccccyyyy! I’m on the top step…”

In the darkness of her bedroom, Lucy heard a click and trembled with fear. She wasn’t sure, but she thought she could see her bedroom door opening very, very slowly.

The next morning, Lucy’s parents found her body at the bottom of the stairs. They guessed that she had been on her way to the toilet during the night and in the darkness, had slipped and fallen down the stairs, breaking her neck.

The antique doll was found beside her body, and was buried with Lucy. Everyone said what a tragedy it was. “She loved that doll”, said her mother. “Now they can be together forever”.

DEVIL INFANT DOLL

If a doll is known as a devil infant, you just know it’s going to be creepy, right? This evil doll tale starts in New Orleans, home of voodoo and witchcraft. The area is well known for creepy folklore and it’s little surprise that the story of this possessed doll takes place here. Marie Laveau supposedly cursed the bride of a Scotsman back in the 1800s and the bride died in childbirth. But the curse was’t over with. The bride birthed “the child of Satan”, and the father bought the child home.

Although the baby was looked after by her father until her death, residents feared the child greatly. She was said to walk in the shadows and terrify residents in the state, and they started to buy recreations of the baby in order to keep themselves safe and ward off evil. However, because these dolls were created in the baby’s image, they were said to be possessed. Remnants of these dolls can still be found today, and new dolls are created from them. Beware, though, as these are said to be haunted dolls, and the devil infant can still cause mayhem, with the eyes moving on their own and the dolls disappearing and reappearing at will.

Many people collect paranormal memorabilia and spooky, scary dolls and haunted toys are a horror fan’s favourite. Scary stories about dolls are a brilliant way to sell these artefacts and although we can take a lot of these tales with a rather large grain of salt, with some of the more famous stories, there is always an element of truth buried somewhere in the tale. Would you want to take that chance?

Robert the Doll

Robert the Doll is Key West’s most cursed object

Ostensibly a little boy in a sailor suit, his careworn face is only vaguely human. His nub of a nose looks like a pair of pinholes. He is covered in brown nicks, like scars. His eyes are beady and black. He wears a malevolent smirk. Clasped in his lap he’s holding his own toy, a dog with garish, popping eyes and a too-big tongue lolling crazily out of its mouth. Here are some other things that people also agree is true about Robert: That he’s haunted and that he has caused car accidents, broken bones, job loss, divorce and a cornucopia of other misfortunes.

Robert is now 117-years-old and lives at the Fort East Martello Museum in Key West, Florida, in a new display case which was recently donated by someone “who is a fan of Robert’s,” says Cori Convertito, curator of the museum. But the comfortable new digs—complete with humidity control and UV-filtering glass to preserve the artifact—do not seemed to have reformed Robert. The museum still gets regular reports of evils attributed to the doll.*

Before Robert came to the museum in 1994, he was the property of Robert Eugene Otto, an eccentric artist and member of a prominent Key West family. (Yes, the doll and the owner had the same name, but the boy answered to “Gene.”) Robert was a childhood birthday gift from Otto’s grandfather, who bought the doll during a trip to Germany. Otto’s relationship with the doll continued into adulthood.

The Steiff Company, which manufactured Robert, thinks he started life as part of a set of dolls fabricated for a window display of clowns or jesters. The Steiff Company, which manufactured Robert, thinks he started life as part of a set of dolls fabricated for a window display of clowns or jesters. COURTESY KEY WEST ART & HISTORICAL SOCIETY “What people really remember is what they would probably term as an unhealthy relationship with the doll,” says Convertito. “He brought it everywhere, he talked about it in the first person as if he weren’t a doll, he was Robert. As in he is a live entity.”

After some digging, the museum traced Robert’s origins to the Steiff Company, the same toy maker that first manufactured a Teddy bear in honor of Theodore Roosevelt. Robert was most likely never intended to be sold as a toy—a Steiff historian told the museum that Robert was probably part of a set fabricated for a window display of clowns or jesters.

“Which is kind of adorable,” says Convertito, “Especially with his impish behavior it kind of suits his personality really well.” Robert’s little sailor suit was not supplied by the company; it was probably an outfit that Otto himself wore as a child.

According to legend, young Otto began to blame mishaps on the doll. While this could have been laughed off as childish storytelling, adults also started noticing odd occurrences, especially as Otto and Robert grew older. As an adult, Otto lived in a stately home he called “The Artist House,” where Robert could be seen positioned at the upstairs window. Schoolchildren swore that he would appear and reappear, and they avoided the house. Myrtle Reuter purchased the Artist House after Otto’s death in 1974, and also became Robert’s new caretaker. Visitors swore they heard footsteps in the attic and giggling. Some claimed Robert’s expression changed when anyone badmouthed Otto in his presence. Rueter said Robert would move around the house on his own, and after twenty years of antics, she donated him to the museum.

Robert's sailor suit is not original to the doll. It may have first belonged to one of his former owners, Robert Eugene Otto. Robert’s sailor suit is not original to the doll. It may have first belonged to one of his former owners, Robert Eugene Otto. COURTESY KEY WEST ART & HISTORICAL SOCIETY But far from banishing Robert to obscurity, his arrival at the museum marked a turning point for the doll.Since Robert arrived, visitors have flocked to the museum to get a look at the mischievous toy. He has appeared on TV shows, he has had his aura photographed, he is a stop on a ghost tour, and he’s inspired a horror movie. He has a Wikipedia entry and social media accounts. Fans can buy Robert replicas, books, coasters and t-shirts, and the most adventurous can even volunteer to be locked in with Robert after dark.*

And they can—and do—write to him. “He gets probably one to three letters every day,” says Convertito. But they aren’t typical fan letters; they’re often apologies. Many visitors attribute post-visit misfortunes to failing to respect Robert (or even openly disrespecting him) and they write begging forgiveness. Others ask him for advice, or to hex those who have wronged them. Convertito says they have received more than a thousand letters, which they keep and catalog.

Robert also receives emails and homages. At some point, it became known that Robert had a sweet tooth so people leave and send him candy. Once he received a box containing eight bags of peppermints, a card, and no return address. (Exercising caution, the museum staff does not consume treats sent to Robert.) Guests leave him sweets, money and, occasionally, joints. “It’s completely inappropriate,” says Convertito. “We are still a museum.”

Convertito is Robert’s caretaker—once a year she administers a check-up, taking him out of the case and weighing him to assess whether the humid Florida weather has adversely affected his straw-filled body. She is also his proxy, receiving and reading all his emails and letters and running his social media feeds.

The Fort East Martello Museum in Key West has been Robert's home since 1994. The Fort East Martello Museum in Key West has been Robert’s home since 1994. COURTESY KEY WEST ART & HISTORICAL SOCIETY Several years ago she photoshopped Robert’s knobby face onto the now-famous picture of Kim Kardashian popping a bottle of champagne into a glass balanced on her behind. It was in order to attract attention to a campaign that would score the museum a grant if they garnered enough votes. Through the combined forces of Kardashian’s and Robert’s celebrity and the doll’s social media reach—he has almost 9,000 Facebook likes—the museum won by a “landslide.” Occasionally, Convertito corresponds on Robert’s behalf. She tries to send something to every child who writes him (“Gene always had that childlike temperament around him and we feel like Robert would want to be kind to children.”) and she has also responded to more poignant ones, such as an email from a girl who was being bullied at school. So, does Convertito think Robert is haunted? “I don’t know. I really don’t,” she says. “I’ve never had a bad experience with him. I’ve never felt uncomfortable. It’s always been a very basic relationship and I have a job to do and I go and do it. And whether there’s something to it or not, he just allows me to get on with my job.”