I’m going to tell you a story.
It started with the rain.
Summer storms are something we’re used to in the Midwest. The day begins hot and dry, and you spend the whole afternoon looking for shade.
Or as it happens on that day, sitting in the front yard waiting for the ice cream truck to come rolling down the street. Anything to beat the heat.
Until, that is, the skies opened up and a deluge followed. We were chased into the house immediately. We barely had time to grab any of our things before we were soaked to the bone.
The rain fell furiously. Within minutes, the dry cracked dirt turned to mud and the front yard was already flooding.
At first, this meant no more playing outside.
However, the rain did have a silver lining. Our mom couldn’t make us go outside, and we’d recently been indoctrinated into the cult of Playstation.
So we then proceeded to spend the rest of the day playing Crash Team Racing.
Eventually, the rain stopped.
It was like any other day.
We ate dinner.
We played a few more video games.
Before long, it was time for bed.
I waited till the door was shut and quietly turned the television back on. It was summer, and I’d reached the age where staying up late was getting more enjoyable, even though there wasn’t really anything on but infomercials.
And that’s when it started.
I was sitting in my bed when I heard something.
It was faint at first.
It almost sounded like…like singing?
I tried to ignore it for as long as possible. But as the evening went on it kept happening. I tried to wake my little brother up, but he was out cold.
I decided that it had to be the television. So I turned it off. Without the ambient noise, the sound became clear, and all the more unsettling.
It was someone singing.
It was clearer now. It was definitely a little girl’s voice.
“Ring-around-the-rosie,
Pocketful of posies,
Ashes, ashes,
We all fall down.”
It repeated over and over again.
Now imagine you’re ten years old. You’re sitting in the dark, and then you hear some little girl singing Ring Around The Rosie. I was terrified.
I was convinced that I was being haunted.
I’d only seen a few horror movies at this point but I knew what was coming.
I tried to get my mom to come listen but she thought it was just me trying to get out of going to bed.
To be fair, I had a rather active imagination at this time and had a penchant for making up stories.
Thrice I was rejected in my pleas to have her come and listen because someone was singing outside my room.
I must have sounded insane.
Finally, she came to my room with me.
Sure enough, she could hear it too.
Ever the smug little rascal, I immediately quipped, “I told you.”
However, she was far too curious and downright worried why there was someone singing outside the house.
She was worried enough to call my father at work. He asked if the dog was barking or seemed to be worried.
At the time, we had a truly massive canine guardian who loved patrolling the house at night.
But she was sleeping soundly.
He assured my mom it had to be nothing.
He offered to come home and take a look, but she declined figuring there had to be an explanation.
We let the dog out. She wandered into the night, but we heard no commotion. If someone had physically been in our yard they would have been mincemeat. But the dog roamed around casually.
We joined her outside. I was holding the flashlight. This was well before the days of high powered LED lights that could brighten the whole yard. The only light source we had was a Maglight the size of a little league bat.
We could hear the singing clearer now.
Still going strong.
I cast the light around the yard.
Nothing.
The yard was empty, or so I thought.
So we wandered onto the grass.
This would be the point in the story where people would be screaming “No” at the screen in a horror movie.
We walked further into the black void, with just a small cone of light in front of us. The light chose that evening to start waning.
We went farther out.
The singing got louder.
Finally, I looked down, and found out what was making the noise.
This is where I interrupt the story to insert a critical detail.
You see, about six months prior, my sister got a doll for Christmas.
It was one that sang when you held both its hands. However, my sister grew tired of it rather quickly, and no one saw much of the doll after a week.
Until she happened to take that very doll outside during the day.
The same day we got the surprise summer storm and didn’t have time to pick everything up.
No one knew the doll was outside. Heck, everyone forgot the doll existed.
Guess what song the doll sang when you pressed the hands?
Now, the doll was laying out on the ground just singing away, but no one was holding it.
That’s when my mother figured the rain shorted something and as soon as she pulled the battery out the singing stopped.
I don’t know if I’d ever been that relieved.
My mom put on a brave face, but later she told me how freaked out she was hearing the singing.
After that we went back inside.
My mom let me play video games even though it was well past my bedtime, because I had so freaked out I don’t think she really wanted to say no.
And I went back to the bedroom and turned on the Playstation, excited that the only sound was coming from the television.
My mom kissed me on the forehead and told me to not get too loud so I wouldn’t wake my brother.
Now we laugh about it, but man that was a freaky night.
We were both so relieved that it was just a malfunctioning electronic toy.
It was kind of funny though. Even though it wasn’t singing, my mom still left the thing outside. It went out in the trash the next day.