Kapitel 38: Chapter 39: Let Us End This

Her craving blinded her to everything but her need, so much it wasn't until she was running up her front walk she heard Peter yelling her name.

Alice didn't stop. Or enter the house. She had another goal in mind. The path to the kitchen door led her to the bare earth in the back yard, her heels puncturing the ground. Alice fell on her knees in the dirt, digging with her bare hands, sobbing again, this time in desperate want, the black, oozing soil staining her hands. She heard Peter pant to a halt next to her, felt him crouch, but ignored him. The strap of the purse slipped through her fingers as, coughing her relief in more tears, she jerked it free of the ground.

The zipper gaped open, the interior full of filth. And the doll...the doll was gone.

Alice stared at it a long moment, stunned, unable to comprehend the loss. She emptied the purse, letting the soil cascade over her lap, shook the bag.

No doll.